Leo couldn't understand Contini's business model and core logic, but there were people in Turin City, not far away, who were interested in Contini's strategy.

Giovanni Agnelli, the head of the Agnelli family and the current chairman of Fiat, put down the newspaper and asked his son Edoaldo Agnelli after the breakfast meeting: "I don't know what you think of the United Group and the Ziano family?" ”

"Dad suddenly became interested in motorcycles?" Edoaldo smiled slightly, "But also, the newspapers have been so full of news lately, it's impossible not to attract attention, I went to learn about the Fast and Furious X1 series of motorcycles, and managed to get a commemorative edition, and the engineers have reviewed it in its entirety." ”

"What did they conclude?"

"It's a good car, the design is bold and the styling is avant-garde, but it's not a first for the United Group." "Our designers and engineers have found a lot of traces of German industrial design that customers may not pay attention to, but the experts can see it. Then we contacted the German side and confirmed the judgment that the design was leaked from BMW, and they suffered a big loss. ”

"The United Group stole BMW's intellectual property?"

"No, they bought the patents." Edoaldo had a strange smile on his face, but he still said the matter as it was, "This design was originally completed by BWM, and it happened that on Christmas Eve last year, little Ziano went to Germany to investigate, and bought the patent right at a price of 100,000 US dollars, and at the same time agreed to pay an additional 20,000 marks for each production unit using this technology in the next 10 years, or a one-time payment of 1 billion marks within two years, you can directly buy out the follow-up technical fees." ”

"Hahahaha!" Old Agnelli couldn't help but laugh, "I let this little guy pick up a big bargain." ”

If you look at the price in November last year, this contract is very fair and commercial, but after the Ruhr crisis, the mark exchange rate has fallen into the abyss, and it is difficult to exchange 100,000 marks for 1 US dollar.

The reason why BWM agreed to transfer the patent was on the one hand to recover some costs, and on the other hand, it was believed that even if the United Group obtained the design, it would take at least half a year to re-adapt, produce and launch the design, which was enough time for them to launch it to the market and participate in the exhibition, but they obviously miscalculated. Contini poached people directly from BMW to speed up the pace of compliance, and at the same time, the outbreak of the Ruhr crisis caused BMW's own products to be postponed, and after a while, although BMW's original design of the R32 still participated in the international exhibition, BMW is still in the prototype stage, and the United Group has directly launched the finished product and achieved market sales.

What's more, the X1 series is upgraded and improved on the basis of the R32, and any unbiased person will admit that this improvement is not significant in terms of technical performance, but it has been comprehensively strengthened in the fields of playability, luxury, and sportiness, and the black paratrooper that fell from the sky has established the X1's market position. Now the economic collapse in Germany due to the Ruhr crisis has made it impossible for BMW to produce and promote the R32, and if it is to be exported, whether it is the UK or France, the first choice must be the X1 series rather than the R32 - BMW's market space is directly smothered by the United Group.

"I have to admit that the sales of this product are good, I heard that there have been nearly 4,000 orders, and another 1,000 government orders have actually been obtained, but the United Group has been holding the news and not announcing it." Edoaldo, "Father interested in expanding the motorcycle market share? ”

Old Agnelli shook his head slightly, of course, Fiat also produces motorcycles, but compared to cars that are in full swing, Fiat's motorcycles can only be said to be very ordinary.

"It wasn't difficult to scale up production, and I was advised to replicate the technology and then take advantage of the bottleneck in the production capacity of the United Group, which we expected to produce at a maximum of 500 units per month, and surpass it in one fell swoop."

"That's not right, if we infringe on the patent, this kid will definitely pounce on us and fight a lawsuit." The elder Agnelli vetoed the idea, "I just heard the news from Rome that this kid will soon be going to the Constitutional Court to sue the Socialists for unconstitutionality!" ”

Edoaldo originally wanted to say that Fiat was not afraid of lawsuits, but when he heard the news, he was also stunned: "Is he crazy, and what good is it for him to work with the Socialists?" ”

"Someone in Rome will give him an advantage, hasn't that man always wanted to take revenge on the Socialists? Little Chiano is nothing more than the one who rushes to the front, otherwise why would so many senior government officials attend the opening and launch ceremony of a mere joint motorcycle? Did so many people come when Fiat's new company opened? ”

Little Agnelli had no choice but to dispel the idea of copycating, it was indeed as his father said, this was a dangerous person, and it was better not to be caught by him, otherwise Contini would go crazy and even Fiat would dare to pounce and bite.

"However, I'm not just interested in United Motorcycles, I'm more interested in United Group, what do you think about that?"

As soon as he heard his father talk about the United Group, little Agnelli smiled: "I admit that the United Motorcycle is good, but it is limited to the product, and I think his business is a mess, and the business logic of the United Group is even more confusing." I'm not slandering him, you see that every time he enters an industry, he has not yet achieved the ultimate and achieved the lead, so he hurriedly opens up a new battlefield, from newspapers to radio, from motorcycles to aviation, from radio to express delivery, a lot of things are messed up, it is completely spontaneous, there is not too much organic connection, what kind of cooperation can be formed? What's more, every industry is losing money, especially that United Airlines, which uses a lot of planes to deliver newspapers and mail, I don't know how much it will lose! ”

"The United Group now has a lot of popularity."

"I admit that if I were willing to lose 100 million lira first, I could have built the same popularity."

Looking at his young and vigorous son (31 years old at this time), the elder Agnelli shook his head noncommittally, and did not directly agree with this sentence, but asked: "If you are going to do it, how should you start it?" ”

"We should slow down and diversify the industry cautiously, for example, when he first intervened in newspapers, then first make the newspaper the top ten or five in the country and make a profit, and then simultaneously open up the magazine market, and by the way, it is okay to do radio - but it should not be to produce radio, and then touch the media industry, such as advertising, film, and performing arts, so as to create a core multi-industry; If you want to enter the manufacturing industry, then first produce motorcycles, and then tinker with the engine, and after more than ten years of experience and market awareness, you can consider trying to enter the automobile industry or other fields, instead of rushing to the top like him, how much money does he have to squander like this? Even if United Motorcycle can make a profit, other loss-making industries will drag him to death, and eventually the entire group will collapse. "It was as if he were building a tall building on the beach, trying to build it quickly without laying a solid foundation, but he didn't know that if the foundation was not solid, the faster it would be built, the faster it would fall." ”

"Do you think his industry lacks coherence and unity?"

"I thought about where to do it, and I was so anxious that I wanted to build a big consortium all at once - it took Fiat more than 30 years to achieve what it is today, and it is basically impossible for him to replicate it in 5 or 10 years." Little Agnelli smiled, "I don't know what he's anxious about, he's only 20 years old, he hasn't even graduated from college, and he has at least 50 years of life in the future, and it is basically unrealistic to build a national consortium and establish a dominant position without the efforts of three generations." ”

Agnelli Sr. did not comment on this sentence, only said: "Then what are we trying to do with Juventus and make you the president of the club? Do football and cars complement each other? ”

Little Agnelli's face froze, and he felt that there was a lot of meaning behind his father's question.