2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 599 My lord, times have changed.

During the recess, several leaders had some objections to Tan Jincheng's negotiation methods, to which Tan Jincheng patiently explained.

“We can’t be too weak. That’s just how they are. If you’re strong, they’ll be afraid of you. Otherwise, they’ll try to fool us with some outdated technology. It’s right to trade market access for technology, but the technology must be useful. Otherwise, we’ll lose the market and we won’t get the technology either.”

The leaders smiled wryly. Tan Jincheng was absolutely right, but the problem was that he hadn't taken the local culture into account.

"Mr. Tan, what you said is all correct, but I don't know if you know about Nagoya's history. It has been voted the most bizarre city in Japan."

A secretary accompanying the leader explained with a smile.

"What do you mean?" Tan Jincheng was taken aback. He only knew that this place was mostly inhabited by famous figures from the Warring States period, but he didn't really know much else about it.

"This city is voted by locals as having the most ugly women, but to be fair, the men are ugly too; so the locals are very particular about their image, and your approach of not giving them face from the start will probably make negotiations more difficult."

"Huh? There's such a saying?" Boss Tan was dumbfounded. Holy crap, this is an eye-opener.

"Yes, it's probably because he's not good-looking, so he's quite particular about his appearance and cares about his image. But Nagoya is the best place for shopping for us. Mr. Tan and Mr. Gu can go on a shopping spree and bring back lots of things for their families."

They're still too young and impatient.

"Yes, they have a term here, something like 'young lady,' or in your young people's terms, it's 'show-off.' If you're so arrogant in front of them, they'll definitely think you're even better at showing off than they are."

Tan Jincheng touched his nose somewhat awkwardly. This was the first time he had heard such a statement, so he could only awkwardly say, "It's okay. Mitsubishi is a conglomerate, but Mitsubishi Motors is not. They still have to consider their own interests."

The technology of these people is indeed impressive, and they like to keep everything to themselves. In Europe and America, when people eat together, they patent the dishes. But these people go even further, patenting even the tables, chairs, and chopsticks. If this continues, who will want to play with them?
A typical example is the DVDs from back in the day. They registered more than 2000 patents for such a small thing. You had to pay them for everything. Who would want to play with them?
In the automotive sector, Mitsubishi also tends to use less advanced technologies. Back then, the company was not in trouble and was unwilling to release outdated technologies.

However, their own domestic market is too small. If they want to grow, they have to play along with China, the US, and Europe. They are independent but lack market autonomy. No matter how advanced their technology is, they can only be forced to go astray.

"Alright, let's take it easy for now. We can rest too." Since Tan Jincheng had said so, there was nothing they could do.

After all, he held the reins in the negotiations, and he could only negotiate however he wanted.

"It's alright. We have the market dominance. Even if they're unhappy, they'll continue to cooperate. At most, they just won't cooperate with us anymore. As long as we work together, it'll be fine."

Leader Gu smiled and smoothed things over, saying that he knew Tan Jincheng's personality quite well; the young man had the spirit of youth, and it was impossible for him to back down.

Just like with hydrogen energy, the market is in our hands. So what if your technology is amazing? I'm not playing with you. If you play with hydrogen energy, we'll play with lithium batteries. It's the same with televisions; we'll play with LCD screens ourselves and not include you.

If Mitsubishi wants to expand its market share in China, it must find a partner, or it must leave.

If our own people don't engage in infighting, our cooperation with Mitsubishi can continue. In the past, when we made overseas acquisitions at high prices, a large part of the reason was due to infighting driving up prices.

The leaders from Hunan Province understood the implication in Gu's words, smiled, and remained silent.

Before October 8th, some companies might have jumped in to snatch the deal, but after the events of October 8th spread throughout the industry, which car company would dare to be so blind?
All I can say is that Boss Xiao Tan is lucky.

Just as Tan Jincheng thought, Mitsubishi is a conglomerate, but Mitsubishi Motors is not. They attach great importance to the domestic market, otherwise they wouldn't have gone through so much trouble and kept changing their business all these years. Seeing other local brands doing so well in China, how could they not be anxious?

Mitsubishi was indeed not used to Tan Jincheng's negotiation pace, which also overturned their understanding. When did their company become so powerful?
Negotiations stalled for a few days, and Mitsubishi conducted an emergency assessment. In addition, it tried to find new partners in China to put pressure on Tan Jincheng, but unfortunately, no capable manufacturers were willing to get involved.

During this period, several high-ranking leaders returned to China. They didn't have much time to spend abroad, and they could also help with lobbying once they returned.

"That's because having connections at higher levels makes things easier."

Tan Jincheng wasn't in a hurry. He had been genuinely curious these past few days, taking Gu Qingqing shopping every day and observing the pedestrians on the street. And to be honest, there weren't many pretty girls; the good-looking ones were mostly tourists.

As long as there are no major domestic manufacturers competing with him, he is not afraid of failing to reach an agreement; this is the advantage of having a market.

Times have changed; if you want to make money, you have to listen to us.

"What if they still aren't ready to talk?" Gu Qingqing asked with some concern.

"Let's go back then, let's treat it as our real honeymoon, and then we can talk about work while we're at it. We'll see if it works out then."

Negotiations don't always go through in one go, and if it had been a few days later, Tan Jincheng would have really had to go back. November's workload is quite heavy: the China Securities Regulatory Commission is coming for an inspection, there's the Guangzhou Auto Show, and then there's Orange Products' Singles' Day event. There's simply no time to waste with them; if we can't reach an agreement, we'll have to do it next time.

On Tuesday, October 28th, Microsoft released Windows 7, officially marking the start of the countdown to Windows 98.

On that very day, the Shanghai Composite Index fell to a low of 1664.93 points before the midday close. Several market interventions failed to revive market sentiment, but the market rebounded sharply in the afternoon.

"Start buying. Half of the funds in the trust institution will be used to buy stocks, consumer goods, alcohol, automobiles, and the internet."

"One-third of the funds in ByteDance's investment platform will be used for A-share investment, and the remaining funds will be used for Hong Kong and US stocks."

Tan Jincheng has returned, and there's no reason for him to stay in Xiao Rijia for too long. After the leaders left, there were several more negotiations with Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi's attitude was still somewhat ambiguous, but it was much better than before.

There's nothing they can do; they can't find anyone willing to take over their business in the country, so they've become much more docile.

As for Boss Tan's attitude, he remained arrogant, even more so than before. The leaders who could have suppressed him had all gone back, and he was truly unrestrained.

"Did you hear what the boss said? Get moving, everyone! Don't slack off!" Cheng Linfeng shouted at the traders.

He returned on the 18th and immediately began building positions in the secondary market. A large amount of capital entered the country, in US dollars, and the ByteDance engine also attracted some attention.

The story of making a fortune shorting US stocks has become widely known in the industry, though no one knows exactly how much.

The happiest people were the employees of ByteDance's advertising platform, which distributed a total of 5000 million yuan in bonuses across the company. This was during a bear market, which was unimaginable. However, Tan Jincheng strictly required them to keep a low profile and not to disclose it to the outside world.

Just keep quiet and make a fortune.

Tan Jincheng can only remember a limited number of stocks, such as Moutai, Wuliangye, Tencent, Tesla, and Apple. However, investments cannot be concentrated on just these; he must also buy some others.

Automakers like Shuguang Auto, JAC Motors, SAIC, and even Didi all offer this feature.

Shuguang Auto is really in a bad situation, with a total market value of only 8 million. In addition, there are also some cement and steel stocks. With the 4 trillion yuan plan and the start of the infrastructure boom, these two sectors will obviously benefit.

Tencent has had a tough time too. In just half a month, its stock price plummeted from around HK$70 to around HK$35, a drop of more than half.

Orange Technology wasn't faring much better, with its stock price falling to a low of $6.2. It was at this point that Orange Technology issued an announcement in order to stabilize its stock price and boost investor confidence.

The founding family will repurchase up to 3% of the company's shares on the secondary market for around $2000 million.

Everyone knows that Tan Jincheng had reduced his shareholding before, and everyone knows that buying at this time is just bottom fishing. All talk about stabilizing the stock price is just nonsense, but there is nothing that can be done.

"Cheer up, everyone, and save me some money too. Buying at the bottom is fine, but as always, we need to control costs," Tan Jincheng joked.

The turnover rate of employees in the financial industry is actually very high. If it weren't for the fact that they had jobs available this time, I estimate that another batch of traders at ByteDance would have wanted to resign. The lowest amount they received was 20 yuan, and the highest was 200 million yuan.

When you have money in your pocket, you're bound to want to spend it, and Tan Jincheng doesn't have a good solution for this, which is quite a headache for him.

It seems that the recruitment of traders for ByteDance's trading platform needs to be changed in the future. It would be more appropriate to cooperate with universities. College students are cheap, and it doesn't matter if they leave, since there are graduates every year anyway.

Ningbo University has a finance major; we can have Qingqing talk to them about it.

These graduates usually look down on small investment firms like ByteDance, but things will be different in a few years.

Times have really changed.

After assigning the tasks, Tan Jincheng gave Cheng Linfeng a wink, and the two walked out of the trading room. Tan Jincheng said, "On the 31st, you and General Manager Huang will go to FlashTech to keep an eye on things. My expertise in finance is not as good as yours."

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has completed the on-site review of Changfeng Group and will soon begin the on-site review of FlashChi Technology on the 31st of this month. If the on-site review is passed, there will be no problem with FlashChi Technology's listing.

If all goes well, it should be available for sale before New Year's Day.

(End of this chapter)