2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 769 The Unimaginable First City of New Energy

"Let's go back first, and we'll go to another place this afternoon."

Back in the car, Tan Jincheng took a while to calm down before speaking to Li Yaohui.

Zeng Jixiang was also on the bus. The boss seemed a little strange and actually changed the itinerary at the last minute. Originally, they were supposed to go directly to the next place after finishing here.

Has something happened? And it seems the boss's private meeting lasted much longer than originally scheduled?

"Don't overthink it, it's a good thing."

"Oh, all right."

At this moment, Tan Jincheng had calmed down. Seeing the worried look on Zeng Jixiang's face in the passenger seat, he spoke up to comfort him.

That seemingly casual question actually held a hidden meaning. It seems my answer satisfied the other party; otherwise, they wouldn't have said I could contact their secretary if I needed anything in the future.

That makes sense; it's better for such high-tech products to be launched domestically.

Tan Jincheng has indeed not planned for the overall listing of Weilai Group in recent years, and it will not be listed at least before 2014. Before the development of new energy vehicles, it is indeed difficult to obtain a high valuation, and raising funds would be more disadvantageous.

Like the Prince of Ning in his previous life, were they not qualified to go public before 2018? Or was there someone blocking their listing?
That's probably not the case.

The choice of where a company goes public is not entirely up to the founders; it also depends on the background of the investment institutions. Orange Technology is dominated by Wall Street investors who are mostly overseas returnees, so listing on Nasdaq is obviously the most ideal option.

For example, Ali, which is preparing to delist from Hong Kong and list on the US stock market, wants to list on the A-share market, but the capital in it does not allow it.

Whether before or after the restructuring, the equity structure of Weilai is very clear. Apart from Shen Nanpeng, who is a returnee from overseas, all of them are purely state-owned investment institutions.

Going public would actually be most advantageous in the A-share market. Besides, if possible, Tan Jincheng really doesn't want Wei to go public.

After all, having another listed company under his control is really no big deal to him; some things are no longer surprising once you've experienced them.

There's not even a need for any other action; the 25% public shareholding can simply be distributed.

From the very beginning, Tan Jincheng never intended to list Weilai Group in the United States. Therefore, when choosing investment institutions, he preferred those with state-owned characteristics rather than foreign venture capital funds.

Given the current performance and growth rate of Weilai Group, Tan Jincheng would have no shortage of investment institutions if he just asked.

Liu Su asked this question because he wanted to see if Weilai Auto could maintain its current capital structure. In this era, listing on the US stock market is a popular trend, especially among entrepreneurs born in the 80s.

They always talk about ringing the bell at Nasdaq, but some things are better left in the country.

Just as Tan Jincheng thought, Liu Su's sudden question was simply an attempt to determine whether Weilai Group could maintain its current capital structure. His hasty answer was closer to his true thoughts.

Liu Su didn't think Tan Jincheng would go back on his word, as that would be of no benefit to an entrepreneur.

Next, Tan Jincheng will visit the Ministry of Commerce, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and other departments. In fact, this is the first time he has had such a large-scale and concentrated meeting with so many high-ranking officials from various departments.

It can be considered a long experience.

Tan Jincheng's frequent appearances in various departments have attracted widespread attention. Lei Jun once again wanted to ask him what he was up to, and even Pony Ma called to inquire.

Looking at Tan Jincheng's activity history, products are basically released in the second half of the year, but if he wants to make a splash, he will definitely start from the beginning of the year. The year Orange Technology went public was Tan Jincheng's highlight moment.

Within a year, two of his companies were listed on the US stock market and the A-share market respectively. After that, as long as he kept a low profile, he mainly made some investments and did not make any major moves.

The collaboration with Tencent, which began at the beginning of this year, has caused a great stir in the e-commerce shopping system. Following that, there were numerous interviews during the Two Sessions, and now the company is traveling between various ministries.

It's hard not to speculate.

"Stop guessing. It's not convenient to say right now, and it has nothing to do with the internet. But if it really works out, it will be related to you."

Tan Jincheng was truly speechless. Lei Bus knew where he lived and came to his door again.

Actually, for people of their social class, it's not difficult to find out about something if they really want to. Tan Jincheng's activities are all traceable. In addition, Shen Nanpeng, representing the Red Shirts, also helped to contact Huang Renxun overseas.

Nvidia's development direction is somewhat different from that of mainstream companies like Intel, and for the time being, there isn't much hope in sight. Otherwise, Huang Renxun wouldn't be trying to curry favor with Xiaomi.

As far as I remember, the Xiaomi Mi 3 used an Nvidia chip, but its performance was terrible, so Xiaomi completely switched to Qualcomm.

Lei Jun became increasingly curious: "What does this have to do with us?"

"Haha, you'll find out when the time comes. Anyway, we'll announce whether it succeeds or not."

This acquisition of shares is similar to the cooperation model with Tesla, using Nvidia's technology to develop automotive-grade chips. In 2012, China's automotive-grade chip industry was basically still in the planning stage.

Based on their functions, automotive semiconductors can be broadly categorized into several types, including power semiconductors, computing and control chips, memory chips, sensor chips, and communication chips.

As the name suggests, automotive-grade chips are those whose technical standards meet automotive standards and can be used in automotive control. They are one of the specification standards for automotive electronic components.

Currently, the main domestic manufacturers of automotive-grade chips, besides BYD Semiconductor, include Unigroup Guoxin Microelectronics, SG Microelectronics, etc. Among them, SG Microelectronics is a company located in Beijing and was founded in 2007.

As for Huada Semiconductor, which he remembered, Tan Jincheng checked and found that it had not yet been registered.

In other words, the national team's plan has not yet officially started. However, Tan Jincheng has also gathered some information over the past few days, indicating that the policy level has begun to pay attention to the semiconductor industry.

Many things, especially those that are technically and strategically important, may not be known to the general public for several years or even more than a decade, but in fact, the planning has already begun long ago.

In fact, when it comes to high-tech technology, we are not inferior to foreigners. In the 1970s and 1980s, we were also very good at semiconductors.

Unfortunately, it fell behind later for various reasons.

Tan Jincheng is not qualified to discuss the grand strategy, but he can still get some benefits under the premise of the grand strategy. Tan Jincheng's equity acquisition of Nvidia at this time is in fact in line with the strategic intention.

"Okay, then let's not ask anymore; by the way, we've discussed it and plan to spin off MiTalk. Also, we've taken your advice and temporarily abandoned the acquisition of the MSNLite team. Let's use this money to stabilize the servers."

Beyond MiTalk, there are also businesses in gaming, video, and other sectors. Lei Jun decided to integrate these with MiTalk into a new subsidiary named Xiaomi Interactive Entertainment, with Huang Ji, the original head of MiTalk, still managing this business.

Every large internet company is diversified, meaning it has a presence in most of the major business categories on the market. Xiaomi is no exception; even if it doesn't have a gaming business now, it certainly will.

"Is that so? That's how it should be. Once your server is stable, everything else will be easier. If all else fails, just follow Tencent's lead and copy their new services immediately."

That's just how the internet works. You copy me, I copy you. Even if you don't copy, when business competition reaches a certain point, the other party will take legal action against you. Pony Ma is especially good at this.

"With your shameless behavior, it's a real shame that you're not wholeheartedly dedicated to the internet industry."

Lei Jun clicked his tongue twice, both of whom categorized Orange Technology as part of the Tencent group. It seems that the bosses of these two companies really have similar styles. They really won't do anything that requires any sense of decency.

"Haha, so it's sensible of you to define Xiaomi's strategy as hardware business, and it's also true that I'm unwilling to go all out on the internet."

The internet industry is one of the fastest in terms of both earning power and speed. Even those selling other things are not necessarily faster than them. Companies that have seized the market and achieved a monopoly have a continuous stream of cash flow every day.

Faced with such enormous wealth, it is easy to lose one's humanity.

Although Flash and Wei Lai's products have a large cash flow, these are all produced by workers working hard day and night, and he himself also has to invest a lot of money and take on more risks.

Lei Jun came here today mainly to discuss the business situation of MiTalk and to hear Tan Jincheng's opinion.

However, after thinking about it, Tan Jincheng didn't have any better suggestions. With executives from Fortune 500 companies, a professional technical team, and Lei Jun, a marketing expert, even if MiTalk's resources are not as good as WX's, he believed it could last for a long time.

He has done everything he could. After all, Xiaomi belongs to Lei Jun, and how it develops depends on Lei Jun, not on him, Tan Jincheng.

Seeing that Tan Jincheng was unwilling to say more, Lei Bus didn't think much of it, assuming that he was just tired from dealing with the ministries recently, and got up and left.

"Oh, by the way, the ByteDance you invested in, their beta product is out, it's quite interesting."

Located on the same Zhichun Road, Lei Jun had been paying close attention to this company and had been keeping track of when their product would be developed. He wanted to see what kind of investment company Tan Jincheng had personally approached them for.

In the investment world, it's considered a remarkable story to buy the house a company is renting in order to invest in it.

"Haha, I've heard Mr. Zhang mention it, but I haven't had time to try it out yet. I'll give it a try once I'm done with this busy period."

Tan Jincheng provided ample funding, relieved us of the pressure of rent, and allowed us to use his name to recruit people. As a result, the development of a certain app progressed much faster. The 1.0 version of the app, originally scheduled to launch in August of this year, had already been developed into an internal beta version in March.

As a recommendation engine product based on data mining, a certain website cannot be simply defined as a news website.

In fact, Zhang's article is fundamentally different from traditional news websites. Apart from recommending articles that users prefer based on algorithms, they are more like "content aggregators".

Traditional portal websites typically have their own editorial and journalist teams, employing a large number of people to obtain firsthand information through various interviews. In practice, their operational model is simply the digitization of print media.

One of these items had none of these features, and even the human review team was part-time, which is truly outrageous.

To put it bluntly, Zhang built his own platform and then used a unique algorithm to distribute content to interested users. Subsequent apps, including Douyin (TikTok), basically followed this approach. This kind of thinking is truly a unique innovation in today's world. Wang Xin is another innovator like Zhang; his food delivery business has already launched and is currently undergoing a ground-level promotion plan.

"Give it a try when you have time, it's really interesting. Also, tell him to include me in the funding if he's raising funds again."

He genuinely wanted to invest in the company and had even spoken with Zhang Yiming, but unfortunately, the guy said he wasn't short of money. He hadn't even spent the $400 million Tan Jincheng had given him yet, and according to Zhang Yiming's plan, this funding should last until at least next year.

In addition, Zhang Yiming also wants to accumulate more users after the software is officially launched before raising funds, so that the valuation will be higher.

"Sure, I'll let you know when Mr. Zhang needs financing."

Tan Jincheng was too lazy to pay attention to him and just wanted him to get lost. Tomorrow he had to visit one last State Administration of Foreign Exchange, which was also the most difficult one.

$10 billion! If that had come in, it would have been a significant amount of foreign exchange reserves. But now it's gone just like that. Clearly, dealing with the State Administration of Foreign Exchange is much more difficult than dealing with the other agencies.

It's quite interesting. The people Tan Jincheng has met these past few days are all key figures from various departments, but none of them are the top or second-in-command. They are generally between 45 and 50 years old.

In terms of their place of origin and work experience, most of them are from Longyou, Zhejiang Province, and Fujian Province.

Although it seems like it will be next year, the actual handover has already been completed.

This is a good thing for Tan Jincheng, at least he doesn't have to find too many people to build relationships with.

According to the recently agreed plan, Tan Jincheng will set up an offshore company to jointly invest in and hold a controlling stake with the Electronic Information Industry Group, with Tan Jincheng holding 80% of the shares and CEC holding 20%.

But this can only be done covertly. On the surface, Tan Jincheng still needs to hold 100% of the shares. If CEC gets involved, the deal will probably fall through.

This involves layers of equity ownership, which requires careful design.

This will be handled by a professional equity design agency. On the surface, Tan Jincheng will invest 10 billion US dollars, but in reality, Tan Jincheng only needs to invest 8 million US dollars.

The holding company's business is quite simple: it holds shares in Nvidia's companies and facilitates technology transfer.

Tan Jincheng wasn't greedy; he just wanted to acquire as much technology as possible during the honeymoon period of their relationship. Once someone came to power, he estimated that he would be forced to sell off these shares.

"Sigh, we still need to set up a semiconductor company in China, otherwise there won't be a main body to accept it."

Following the Hanxin No. 1 incident, China's domestic semiconductor industry suffered a major blow, with many companies engaged in research and development being severely affected, and the industry even falling into serious stagnation.

The domestic semiconductor industry, which encountered a major crisis of confidence, has gradually fallen behind since then.

It now seems that this matter is not as simple as it appears on the surface, and it is only in recent years that our semiconductor industry has been able to pick it up again.

That's why it's really difficult for Tan Jincheng to find a suitable semiconductor company to acquire. Regular companies are beyond his reach in terms of both scale and strategy, while private companies are also hard to find.

Huang Ming has been investigating for a long time, but so far he has not found a particularly suitable one. The main reason is that companies like Hanxin that commit subsidy fraud have not been completely eliminated.

If you end up buying into a scam company, that would be truly ridiculous.

Unfortunately, he knew very little about this area, unlike those in the automotive industry who knew a little bit about it. At this moment, Tan Jincheng began to envy technical experts like Brother Boatman.

Having your own expertise makes starting a business much easier; if you can't buy it, you can simply do it yourself.

Negotiations with the State Administration of Foreign Exchange were somewhat difficult, but they were eventually reached. Tan Jincheng secured the State Administration of Foreign Exchange's support by promising Jinpeng and Jinyi that they would exchange as many US dollars as possible for RMB with the central bank in foreign trade.

This has some impact on Flash's profits. In 2013, the RMB exchange rate against the US dollar had fallen below 6.2 yuan. However, there was nothing that could be done. Unlike a local government trying to attract investment, Tan Jincheng didn't have much room for negotiation.

It's definitely not acceptable without offering some form of exchange.

After finally negotiating with the last foreign exchange bureau, Tan Jincheng finally breathed a sigh of relief. His experience in the capital for the past two weeks had been a transformative one for him. Unlike his business dealings, although he had been given prior notice, Tan Jincheng still felt immense pressure during their interactions.

Each department has its own interests and demands. Just because a project looks good doesn't mean it can be done, nor does it mean you can just take the money.

A balance needs to be struck from multiple perspectives.

3 month 24 day.

Tan Jincheng briefly returned home after his trip to Beijing, and today he updated his WeChat Moments with his first post.

An admission letter from the School of Finance.

About two hours later, the screenshot of the post on WeChat Moments was circulated on the Internet, bringing huge traffic and popularity to WeChat.

There were many hot topics in March, but Tan Jincheng, who frequently appeared in Beijing, was definitely one of the most talked-about figures, generating a great deal of discussion.

"This kid is a real scoundrel, betting on both sides. It's such a waste that he's not in the internet industry."

Lei Jun is speechless. When he was in Beijing, Lei Jun gave him ideas to attack WX, but when he returned, he promoted WX.

He also has WeChat. Just like how Wei Lai buys competing products, Lei Jun and Pony Ma also register for competitors' applications to study them.

As the biggest competitor at present, Tencent has been paying close attention to MiTalk's movements. As soon as Xiaomi Interactive Entertainment, with MiTalk as its core, was established, Pony Ma (Ma Huateng, founder of Tencent) sensed something was amiss.

In addition, Pony Ma has noticed some differences in his recent experience with MiTalk. It is much smoother than before, and the issue of lost voice messages is much less frequent, indicating a significant improvement in stability.

Needless to say, Xiaomi has increased its resource allocation to MiTalk.

He didn't know if it was related to Tan Jincheng, but Lei Jun met with Tan Jincheng several times when he was in the capital, and they were even photographed by the media on a few occasions.

Considering some rumors circulating within Xiaomi at the time, Tan Jincheng offered a lot of suggestions on the early development of MiTalk. With the idea that even if something is not there, it should still be there, Pony Ma (Xiaomi's CEO) was bound to squeeze some money out of Tan Jincheng.

This free publicity was secured by Pony Ma.

As Lei Jun complained, promoting WX was nothing to Tan Jincheng, since he was cooperating with the two companies as an investor, a situation that is very common in the internet industry.

Lei Jun himself invests in the same way; he invests in several companies in the same sector, and it is beneficial to him whichever of them succeeds.

"Has Mr. Li sent over the report?"

Although it was the weekend, Tan Jincheng had a lot of work to do. He wouldn't be in Ningbo for a month, and he would have to go to the capital again at the end of the month.

Ignoring the online discussions, Tan Jincheng called Zeng Jixiang.

Zeng Jixiang remained in the capital, temporarily acting as his eyes and ears, to relay any news promptly.

"I've got it. I'll send it to you right away. Please wait a moment."

The "Li" mentioned by Tan Jincheng is Li Bing. As one of the top three professional automotive websites in China, Yiche is quite professional. At the beginning of the year, Tan Jincheng asked Li Bing to help collect some reports on new energy vehicle consumption data.

Although the second-generation Yuechi A1 is the main model promoted this year, and the marketing focus will be on it after its launch, in Tan Jincheng's mind, the most important thing is still the first-generation ES6, a new energy vehicle that was destined to have average sales, which carries the future of Weilai Auto.

In 2011, approximately 5.5 new energy vehicles were sold globally, with the United States remaining the world's largest consumer market for new energy vehicles, accounting for about one-third of those 5.5 vehicles.

Everyone says hybrids are good, but actually pure electric vehicles sell better, which is the opposite of what's happening in China.

"Haha, guess which city has the highest market share of new energy vehicles in China?"

The report sent by Zeng Jixiang was very detailed. Old Li had done his best to get some money, and the demands of the top sponsor were clearly arranged.

"where?"

The weather was nice today, and Tan Jincheng was home, so Gu Qingqing didn't go to the company. The family spent the day in the yard enjoying the sun and playing with the children.

"Haha, it's Luzhou. Luzhou has about 3000 new energy vehicles now."

As for the second and third places, that would be Shenzhen and Ningbo. It seems that the tram isn't selling very well in Shenzhen. Originally, Tan Jincheng thought that Shenzhen would be the city with the highest tram ownership rate.

Luzhou lives up to its reputation as a city that dares to go all in. Not only did it purchase a large number of Aion S vehicles, it also purchased Aion electric vehicles from JAC Motors. Like the Aion S, these were targeted purchases for official use and taxis.

With over 5000 orders, the Aion S has been gradually being delivered since the beginning of the year.

"Huh? How come it's Luzhou?"

Gu Qingqing was also somewhat surprised. In 2011, only more than 8000 vehicles were sold nationwide. If we include the Aion S, then the number of new energy vehicles in Luzhou already accounts for almost half of the national share!
This data was indeed a bit unexpected for Tan Jincheng; the all-in style overlord that he remembered still showed up.

As one of the first cities to participate in the "Ten Cities, Thousand Vehicles" project, Luzhou is taking really big steps.

Considering that Li Bing couldn't possibly produce such detailed data to fool him, it seems that some adjustments need to be made to the city's strategy.

New energy vehicles - semiconductors - Luzhou?

(End of this chapter)