2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 404 How much money does Flashspeed have?

Mr. Tan's usual approach to cooperation is to first discuss the share distribution and confirm the equity and control.

In reality, there isn't that much trust involved in doing business and negotiating partnerships. All trust comes from the prospect of profit, and profit is the key to maintaining a balanced cooperative relationship between the two parties.

If there's no profit to be made, no amount of trust will be of any use.

Tan Jincheng and Zhang Xupeng trust each other, but if the trading company they started loses money, they should still break up.

Whether it's Yadi, Guoxuan, or the Luzhou Municipal Government which wants to hitch a ride, the reason they are willing to cooperate with Shanchi is that they are optimistic about the future of the power battery project, and also because Tan Jincheng has achieved good results in both self-operated and invested projects in the past.

These are the foundations of their trust in Tan Jincheng.

Working with Boss Tan can be profitable, and whether it's investing, acquiring shares, or making acquisitions, besides maintaining a firm grip on control, he treats his partners quite well.

In fact, at present, Tan Jincheng's acquisitions and investments are somewhat similar to Tencent's investment style.

The companies acquired and invested in are all in the industrial chain surrounding electric vehicles, serving the electric vehicle manufacturers. As the number of electric vehicles they sell increases, the corresponding procurement of parts also rises.

This is somewhat similar to how QQ and WeChat help drive traffic, so the performance of the invested and acquired companies naturally rises with the sales of electric vehicles, forming a positive cycle.

They would have continued operating without acquisitions and investments, but with acquisitions and investments, Flash Motors' electric vehicle orders have shifted towards them, allowing them to develop faster.

This is what is known as win-win cooperation.

For Zhongtai Investment, which has no connection with the main business, Tan Jincheng not only paid the price of a license, but also provided marketing plans and subsequent traffic generation. He even bought 100 cars for his employees and introduced some reliable parts suppliers to Zhongtai.

These are all real supports. The success of Zhongtai 2008 is partly due to its low price, and partly due to Tan Jincheng's marketing and traffic generation support.

It can be said that Tan Jincheng fulfilled his obligations as a shareholder no matter which company he invested in, rather than making money while lying down.

For these reasons, Tan Jincheng has a very good reputation in the real economy investment circle. Many small and medium-sized business owners who have the idea of ​​expanding and strengthening their businesses will even take the initiative to contact Tan Jincheng, hoping that he can invest in their businesses.

Especially for parts suppliers related to electric vehicles and the automotive industry, this is a huge asset.

With no core business to support its power battery project, FlashCar is unlikely to become profitable quickly. However, there is no need to worry about not getting orders even if it succeeds, not to mention that it has plans to manufacture its own cars later.

Currently, many domestic gasoline-powered car manufacturers are already developing electric vehicles. Even emerging car companies like Zhongtai have development plans in this area, and some state-owned enterprises have already rolled out some electric buses.

In fact, the development process of electric vehicles is not much shorter than that of gasoline vehicles.

There are many reasons why it has not been commercially available on a large scale. One is that the safety of batteries has always been difficult to solve. Another, in Tan Jincheng's view, is related to the oil strategy of foreign countries.

Our country's vigorous promotion of electric vehicles in the later period is actually related to the oil strategy. We can't compete with you in the existing market, so we won't play with you anymore, lest you hold us back.

It's not to say that electric vehicles are necessarily better than gasoline vehicles, but from a national strategic perspective, our electric vehicles must be better than gasoline vehicles.

Following the national strategy and developing power battery projects, will there be a lack of orders?

"We in Luzhou warmly welcome Flash and Yadi to invest here, and we also hope that Mr. Tan and Mr. Dong will return to their hometown to build. We would like to state our position first: if you need money, we can provide low-interest or even interest-free loans. If you need land, Mr. Tan, which piece of land you are interested in, we can discuss it."

In 2006, Luzhou City's GDP was 1271.84 billion yuan, ranking 42nd in the country. There are many prefecture-level cities in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces ahead of it, but I won't go into those. You can also find reasons to say that they have geographical advantages.

Inland cities like Linyi and Zibo in Shandong Province rank ahead of it. They are all part of the six provinces and one municipality in East China, and are provincial capitals. Their GDP is really not good enough. There is no way around it, as they have no industry to speak of.

The new energy battery factory project brought by Tan Jincheng has an initial investment of 6 million yuan and a total investment of 20 billion yuan. Once completed, its annual output value can exceed 100 billion yuan.

For Luzhou, whose GDP barely exceeds 100 billion yuan, such an investment project is a game-changer. They'd be willing to lick it up, even kneel down and fawn over it!
Loans can help solve the problem. As for land, it's really not worth much in Luzhou right now. You could give it away for free if there's a big project. Don't think that just because it's the provincial capital, it's a third-tier city that can barely be considered. It's not really worth pretending to be anything special.

This can be seen from the high level of the personnel sent to negotiate with Tan Jincheng and others, indicating that the importance attached to this matter is extremely high.

Beicang regretted it for this reason: it was a multi-billion dollar project, which city wouldn't be envious?

As for whether Flash has enough money and can complete the 20 billion investment project, is there any need to worry about that? The first phase of the project costs 6 million, which can be covered by everyone pooling their resources, and there are also bank loans if necessary.

Although Flashpoint is a private enterprise, it enjoys a high credit line from banks. This is understandable given its sound and sustainable financial situation. Furthermore, Tan Jincheng also controls Orange Technology, an internet company with a very high expectation of going public. Once listed, Tan Jincheng, holding 43.55% of Orange Technology's shares, could amass a fortune of billions from just one company.

Simply put, with the name Tan Jincheng, it would be easy to get a loan of over 100 million yuan from a bank.

Many people are curious about how much money Flash has right now. Flash has been investing very quickly in the past two years, spending a lot of money on the Tianjin factory and the Wangjiang Industrial Park. In addition, it has acquired Dexian Electronics and invested in several other companies.

Where their money comes from, whether it can support these investments, and whether the cash flow will break down one day are all topics of concern.

The public is unaware of how much Dexian Electronics was acquired, and the equity investment situation of ByteDance Engine is not disclosed to the public, but the total investment of the three major factories has been published in the media.

The Tianjin factory has a total investment of 3 million yuan, the Wangjiang Industrial Park has a total investment of 10 billion yuan, and now the battery factory in Luzhou has a total investment of 20 billion yuan.

The total investment in these three factories is 33 billion yuan.

These investment shares must be realized; it's not enough to just talk about them. FlashTech's revenue last year was only over 7 million, although the revenue of its two other profitable trading companies and Bafang Electric is unknown to the outside world.

However you calculate it, these revenues combined could not possibly amount to 33 billion, and this is just revenue, not profit.

Can Flash Group sustain the investment in just these three projects? Will the company's cash flow become strained due to excessive debt?

These are all things that the uninformed onlookers care about. Of course, the competitors haven't let these things go either. Don't be fooled by Dong Jinggui sitting in Tan Jincheng's row, laughing all the while.

He also planned to invest in the battery factory, but in reality, Yadi's marketing department also asked the media to write articles questioning Flash's financial situation.

After all, Flash Motors' expansion speed is just too fast. They are always ahead of others. They caught up with the explosion in electric vehicle production capacity and sales last year, and this year looks like it will be another year of explosion.

And this is exactly what happened to this kid!

We'd be doing him a disservice if we didn't try to put him in a bad mood.

Even some local media in Ningbo have expressed doubts. It's not that they want to screw over Tan Jincheng, but rather to see if they can scare off other local governments and keep the project. Do locals not know about Flash Motors' financial situation?
This is business competition. When cooperating, you are partners, but when competing, they will still stab you in the back. Tan Jincheng is the same; he will definitely not let go when it's time to stab you in the back.

Even the authorities in Luzhou have seen such articles. Are they worried? Of course they are. But the biggest difference between the Luzhou municipal government and other municipal governments is that they are bold and audacious.

In their previous life, Jingdongfang was almost bankrupt, but they dared to take over and bring it back to life, which also brought great benefits to Luzhou. The same is true for Future Auto; they dared to buy when no one else was willing to. Their characteristic of acting differently from other places in the investment field has always been their hallmark.

Regardless of how well they perform in the future, at least they made a fortune in terms of stock price, and they also attracted large car companies such as BYD to set up factories in Luzhou. Even if this company really goes bankrupt, Luzhou will not lose out.

This is truly audacious. Generally speaking, such audacious behavior is understandable if it is private investment, since the profits and losses are all theirs. But the fact that they dare to use one-third of the GDP to save a factory is something that few governments in the world would dare to do.

FlashDrive is short of money? That's easy, support him, get the project going, and take a stake in it as well.

Those with an investment perspective cannot be unaware of this national strategy. Investment is not about blindly buying at the bottom; they understand new energy as the future better than others.

Moreover, they had seen the financial statements submitted by Tan Jincheng, and Flash Speed ​​was not as exaggerated as the media described. The Luzhou side greatly admired this young man for this.

For a company to grow and become stronger, expansion is essential. However, maintaining a balance between cash and debt during expansion is a crucial aspect. Blind expansion will only lead to the company's rapid downfall.

"How much money do I have? I don't have a penny to my name."

After a day of talking, Tan Jincheng returned to his hotel and received a call from Tan Lihua. Recently, questions about Flash's financial situation have been constantly appearing in the media, and as an elderly father, he was naturally somewhat worried.

"Then why are you doing such a big thing, spending 10 billion or 20 billion every now and then? What are people in Luzhou saying about this?"

"Haha, don't worry, Dad, the talks went very well. I may not have any money, but they're not stupid, okay? If the company really has problems, do you think they'll care about me? Just watch the Anhui News in a few days."

How much money does Flash have? Actually, Flash doesn't have much money. Tan Jincheng dared to take the plunge because he dared to gamble—gamble on 2008!

I got scratched by a cat today, and it bled. I went to get it treated, so I'm updating late.

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(End of this chapter)