Speaking of Fedmart or Solpiers, these two names will basically not be known in the future, but another company, Costco, that is, Costco, must be known by many people.

As the world's eighth-largest supermarket group, Costco's annual turnover exceeded $220 billion in 2021, and Walmart exceeded $500 billion in the same year, with a total amount of less than half of Walmart, but the number of stores in the latter exceeded 10,000, while the number of stores in the former was only 700+.

Costco is the absolute world's largest supermarket in terms of turnover, and the core factor that can do this is its business model: a warehouse supermarket chain.

In fact, warehouse supermarket chains have appeared in Europe and the United States as early as the 50s, but the initial model is not for everyone, but for specific groups, such as the most famous Fedco in the United States in the 50s, specializing in providing services to American civil servants, because the price is much cheaper than other supermarkets, many civil servants will buy a large cart of goods even if they drive hundreds of miles, which can be used by their families for several months.

This method of operation caused a man who went to shop at the time and was denied entry. After a year of investigation, in 1954, he returned to his hometown of San Diego to open his own warehouse supermarket, Fedmart, and then generated more than $3 million in revenue in its first year, far exceeding his estimate of 1 million.

In 1959, the company went public, when Fedmart owned five supermarkets, with an annual turnover of $26 million and a net profit of $470,000.

It's just that as it gets bigger and bigger, the price of similar goods in Fedmart is lower than that of other retail channels, and too many people's cakes have been moved, and even Pierce has set his sights on gasoline, which his family sells cheaper than gas stations, and after being refused to sell by local gasoline companies, he buys gasoline across the state.

As a result, the major brands cut off the supply of Fedmart and similar retail stores under the pressure of their own retail channels, as a crab eater, this business model was under too much pressure and did not have enough economic foundation, which led to the company's capital chain problems in 1964, in order to save the company, Pierce accepted the franchise system, laying the foundation for future business failure.

In the 60s, traditional department stores and supermarkets were also a time for rapid development, K-mart, as a giant retail group in the United States, coincidentally opened a lot of supermarkets around Fedmart, coupled with poor internal management of the group, Pierce had no way to monitor the operation of supermarkets in other cities, and in the 70s, most of fedmart's supermarkets were losing money, and only a few of them were still profitable.

Pierce was born in 1916 and was about to turn 60, so he had the idea of selling the company or merging with other supermarkets, but no one agreed, and then he went to Europe, hit it off with the owner of a European supermarket, and gave up a controlling stake in Fedmart.

It's just that he was deceived, and after the European supermarket acquired fedmart, he was directly kicked out of the board of directors, and Pierce was almost 60 years old and suffered a failure, so he set up a price club through bank loans and loans two years later, which is the predecessor of Costco, the most famous warehouse supermarket chain giant in later generations.

After Chen Zhiwen crossed over, he spent a lot of time looking for suitable investment objects, that is, only investing and not participating in the operation, and occasionally guiding the direction of operation.

Future tech giants don't really need his guidance, and according to the laws of Western countries, these tech giants are unlikely to participate in the operation, no matter how many shares outsiders control.

In other industries, the giants of later generations are basically century-old enterprises, and they have a history of several decades, and there are very few that were established in the 70s or can give him the opportunity to become a shareholder, Costco is one of them.

For the retail industry, Chen Zhiwen is also very interested, the influence of this industry is very large, the terminal can be a large number of jobs, the procurement side can control countless suppliers, the future opportunity, will definitely invest in Hong Kong and the future of the mainland retail industry, but overseas, he to operate is basically impossible to succeed.

The problem is that in the future, successful local retail giants in Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea and the mainland will go to other regions, and it can be said that there are very few successful ones.

Carrefour, Auchan, and Metro's investments in the Americas and Asia, and Wal-Mart's investments in Europe, Asia, although they are not failures, can only be said to be operating in general.

However, there are also relatively successful ones, Costco is one of them, but its success may also have a lot to do with the fact that there are very few stores and are easy to manage.

Supermarket giants with perfect channels can't make retail in other countries, Chen Zhiwen naturally won't have that confidence, he feels that he can imitate the original historical Costco in the United States and become a retail giant in later generations, so finding the former founder and investing in him when he hasn't started a second business is the best way, especially now that he is ready to sell his own company.

"I want to sell Fedmart, but not everyone can buy it." Pierce shook his head and said, "I would prefer to merge with other supermarkets and use the resources we have together to optimize the integration." ”

"I understand this, but is it really that easy to integrate resources after the merger?" Chen Zhiwen said: "Unless you can sell Fedmart to giants like Sears or Celtic, otherwise, two supermarkets of similar size will not be able to gain much advantage in procurement, and the so-called resource integration does not require the other party to spend millions of dollars on Fedmart?" ”

"Then Mr. Chen wants to invest in Fedmart?" Pierce asked rhetorically.

"Yes and no, I want to buy Fedmart, I want to invest in you, after the acquisition, Mr. Pierce, you will continue to serve as the president of the company, there will be no change in the position of everyone, I will also inject capital separately for operation, and at the same time, I will take out a part of the shares to reward the entire management, including Mr. Pierce." Chen Zhiwen smiled lightly and said his purpose.

"All acquisitions of Fedmart?" Pierce was shocked, he couldn't imagine that this young man in front of him was so ambitious, although Fedmart's stock has not been very good in recent years, and the stock market has plummeted due to the oil crisis, but no matter what, it is a supermarket chain with a turnover of more than 100 million US dollars, and if you want it to be delisted from the stock market, you can't get it without 10 million US dollars.