What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 390 Cooperation
Silicon Carbon Group and Proton Group have been in intermittent contact for more than half a year.

From Yu Xing's initial expression of interest to Shenyang Mitsubishi's board of directors to Liu Jiankai's trip to Malaysia, both sides were trying their best to get what they needed, and finally settled on a compromise of 20% + 15% totaling US$3300 million for the transaction.

The 20% stake in Lotus Group was valued at US$2000 million, and the 15% stake in Lotus Engineering was valued at US$1300 million.

When Proton acquired a majority stake in Lotus, it valued the company at $1 million. It still breaks even at that figure now. Considering inflation, it looks like a huge loss. However, the valuation of the Lotus project itself is $8666 million, which makes it more acceptable.

Of course, the details of the 17 years of operation and investment in between cannot be examined in detail.

For Yu Xing, the Lotus brand has the potential to revive in the world's largest automobile market, and Lotus Engineering can station a team to focus on tuning the electric vehicles of Silicon Carbon Group. The 20%+15% stake he holds can also be injected into Silicon Carbon Group as an asset to increase his shareholding when necessary, which is not bad.

At the same time, the two sides agreed on a small performance-based clause: if Yu Xing fails to acquire at least 20% of Lotus Group's shares within 5 years, Baoteng Group will have to repurchase 15% of the shares sold by Lotus Engineering this time.

Therefore, Proton really wants to sell Lotus Group, but also really doesn't want to sell Lotus Engineering.

Regardless, Proton now has the opportunity to further divest itself of financial black holes and maintain a certain degree of flexibility over the next five years. Although it took them 17 years to get the Lotus sports car sorted out, what if they can make a comeback in this final stretch...?

Yu Xing smiled and introduced the progress of Silicon Carbon Group's electric vehicle project to Harriet, the vice president of Proton Group.

This transaction was actually conducted in his personal capacity, but the other party was also aware that the development of the Silicon Carbon Group was the key to the next step of the transaction.

Harriet looked at the white body, which didn't seem particularly special but was clearly an SUV frame, and then asked sincerely, "Mr. Yu, do you really think electric vehicles can achieve great success in your market?"

Yu Xing glanced at the vice president and smiled, "Give it a try. I think it has a good chance. If it really doesn't work out, I'll sell the shares back to you. Look how reluctant you are to part with Lotus."

Harriet choked on her breath, then shook her head and said, "The valuation of the Lotus Project is still too low, but President Liu has shown some basic sincerity this time."

“You guys didn’t disclose information about the Lotus Project, and you didn’t mention this aspect when Proton went public either, so it’s no wonder we misjudged it.” Yu Xing said with a laugh, then glanced at the Lotus Project team next to him and asked, “Aren’t these two too young? I need experienced partners here, don’t try to fool me.”

Harriet was accompanied by about 20 members of the technical team who would be working for Silicon Carbon Group.

Before Harriet could speak, the young man next to her, who had been looked down upon, said in Chinese, "Mr. Yu, aren't you young yourself?"

Yu Xing was surprised that this person could understand Chinese and speak fluent Mandarin. He looked at the other person with some surprise.

“Moanna, our Deputy Technical Director,” Harriet introduced. “Her professional competence is beyond question. She will be in charge of suspension tuning, and her abilities have been proven in collaborations with Opel and Hyundai.”

Yu Xing nodded slightly, and seeing that Mo Anna was still looking at him, seemingly waiting for his answer, he smiled and said, "Precisely because I am young, I have also suffered a lot of doubts. Mo Anna, this is what you deserve."

Moanna: "..."

This kind of empathy seems to make some sense.

Moanna pursed her lips and said, "My Chinese name is Ma Nana, Mr. Yu. I hope we can work together smoothly."

Yu Xing may or may not know if it's a coincidence, but this Malaysian also has the surname Ma, just like the previous Shenyang Mitsubishi employee.

He smiled at the rather exotic-looking deputy director and continued leading the group forward.

Ma Nana then asked, "Mr. Yu, how far is the Shanghai racetrack from here?"

She is someone who loves cars and racing.

Yu Xing thought for a moment: "There are two racetracks in Shanghai. One is the Tianma Circuit in Sheshan, and the other is the International Circuit in Jiading. The one in Jiading can run F1 races. Both are quite far away, about 100 kilometers each."

Ma Nana nodded, planning to go and have some fun during her break.

Yu Xing wasn't surprised that the Lotus people mentioned racing, but her words reminded him of something else. He smiled and said, "Mr. Ma... we ordered a Tesla Model S, which should arrive next month. You can take some people to the track to check out its tuning."

Ma Nana's eyes lit up. The Model S can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 4 seconds, which is indeed a very fun car to drive.

Thinking of this, she thanked the young CEO, Mr. Yu.

Yu Xing smiled at her and continued to chat with the vice president of Proton Group about their cooperation and future opportunities.

Proton's situation looks pretty bad, but maybe there will be other opportunities besides the Lotus collaboration.

However, both sides wanted to handle the transaction discreetly. One side was selling assets, and the financial black hole still had a reputation. The other side needed Silicon Carbon Group to continue focusing on the development of its first model and did not want news of capital operations to trigger too many speculations.

Yu Xing hosted the group from Baoteng Group and asked the company to arrange accommodations and other benefits for the Lotus Project. Then, he began to coordinate the specific work.

In addition to Lotus Engineering's expertise in chassis tuning, its lightweighting experience is a valuable addition to the Silicon Carbon Group, directly impacting the electric vehicle's range and benefiting its overall handling and safety.

After all, due to the large component of the battery, electric vehicles are generally heavier than gasoline vehicles of the same class, and this extra weight requires more effort to be put into the vehicle body structure.

On the last day of October, with Mitsubishi Motors' renewed suspension of trading, the acquisition deal between Nissan and Mitsubishi got back on track; however, it remains to be seen when it will end.

Liu Wanying sighed at the setback: "If Mitsubishi's money had come through earlier, you could have gotten more shares in Lotus this time. What a pity, what a pity."

Yu Xing didn't expect Xiao Ying to be thinking about this, and smiled and said, "It's already pretty good. Anyway, we need its technical services. This time, the money from pledging stocks has almost been used up. Hey, I don't know if they can actually make the millimeter-wave radar. We did get the batteries from CATL, but they have a contract to enter BMW's supply chain, so they can't use their technology. We still need to work together to circumvent this."

Liu Wanying nodded slightly: "I've noticed you've been quite interested in the development of silicon carbon data lately. It seems your project has reached a certain stage and is on the right track."

She had witnessed Yu Xing's state of mind. When the Silicon Carbon Group was first established, he was incredibly busy, handling everything personally, from internal and external matters, financing and valuation, supply chain management, and project team building.

Yu Xing hesitated slightly, but also said with some pride, "Yes, we're on the right track. Now we need to see the progress of different teams. Cui Zhiyu, Hu Zhengnan, and Thomas are all very capable. As for the changes in this company, I think I could tell from Zhang Chaoyang and Ding Lei's expressions how our project is running. Hmm, it's not bad."

Liu Wanying rested her chin on her hand, observing Boss Yu's vivid expression.

"Hey, I plan to announce the release of a batch of patents around New Year's Day next year, some of which are related to our research on battery safety." Yu Xing thought about the company's development and suddenly mentioned something.

Liu Wanying was taken aback: "Is it really open for free? I thought you were just letting the media build your image."

"The media plays its role. If the industry can develop faster, that would be great too. This is only part of the patent, and we will set some conditions later," Yu Xing said with a smile. "The market for gasoline cars is so big. Now we still need to expand the electric car market and increase consumers' choices."

He counted on his fingers and said, "The Highlander with a markup of 3, the Sienna with a markup of 7, the Lexus with a markup of 4, and all sorts of BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) decoration packages—once we can compete, these will have to be discontinued."

After thinking for a moment, Liu Wanying said, "I think this widespread price increase should be addressed by higher authorities."

Yu Xing shrugged. "Sometimes I'm involved, sometimes I am not. Who knows?" He shook his head and said, "The Silicon Carbon Group should also differentiate itself from traditional 4S stores in terms of sales. A unified pricing system would save people a lot of trouble."

Liu Wanying asked, "Will I be able to sit in your prototype car and go for a drive along the beach next June?"

Yu Xing smiled and said, "Almost. It can run now with the battery installed, but it's still quite a distance from being a 'prototype vehicle'."

Liu Wanying joked, "I can't wait."

Yu Xing let out a long sigh of relief. He was truly impatient, but cars are different from other products; not a single detail can be overlooked.

He held Xiao Ying's hand: "Fortunately, we had a mountain peak, otherwise, the silicon carbon group would have faced too much pressure."

Liu Wanying scratched Yu Xing's palm with her other hand: "I don't think President Xiong and President Xu put any pressure on you."

Yu Xing thought about the financial situation of the Silicon Carbon Group and remained silent. There was no pressure from the money that came in; the pressure was how to get new money in.

As November arrived, not only Liu Wanying noticed Yu Xing's condition, but also the staff within the Silicon Carbon Group took notice of his allocation of time and work.

Once, while eating in the cafeteria, Cui Zhiyu casually inquired about the situation.

Yu Xing retorted, "Isn't it you we have? We give you money so you can work, right?"

“Uh, boss, you’re the backbone. I’m not so determined if I can’t see you in person,” Cui Zhiyu said.

“Just like the other side of the road, from cold start to large-scale operation, our tram is the same,” Yu Xing laughed. “I can help you raise an extra $100 million more than I have to read three more documents in the office. Besides, I’m just taking a normal weekend off.”

Cui Zhiyu thought about it and realized that it made sense. The boss couldn't write code or work with alloys, so it would be best if he could make more money from outside.

He joked, "Mr. Yu, then you should also hand over the supply chain work to me."

Yu Xing glanced at Cui Zhiyu indifferently, making his stance clear with his eyes: he still needed to keep the supply chain under his control.

He put down his chopsticks and said, "President Cui, we can't let you work yourself to death. We're working on a sustainable basis. If you don't have time to rest now, you'll have to rest in the hospital later."

Cui Zhiyu clicked his tongue in amazement. Previously, the boss had always been the most hardworking, but upon further reflection, the company had indeed reached a new stage, and calling it "large-scale operation" was not a problem.

On November 13, Yu Xing was pondering the necessity of a new round of financing for the Silicon Carbon Group and considering setting the timeframe for launching the prototype car in the middle of next year when he suddenly saw his phone light up on the table.

A new piece of news concerning short sellers – Citron Research has shorted Chinese concept stock Del Group, alleging that it is suspected of stock price manipulation and financial fraud.

Yu Xing glanced at the contents and then went over Citron Research's short-selling report. He nodded inwardly and subconsciously gave it a rating: the report was very well-organized.

However, with its share price hovering on the verge of delisting, Del Group doesn't offer much value for short selling.

This Chinese concept stock was also a short-selling target of Over Peak, but the research process for it was not smooth and the data was not accurate enough. If it had relied on Over Peak's reputation, it might have worked, but with more suitable targets and Del's own stock price decline, it was eventually removed from Over Peak's shortlist.

However, Guoshanfeng lost interest, and there were other short sellers in the market.

After thinking for a moment, Yu Xing forwarded the news to Xiao Ying and then put the matter aside.

However, in the evening, he received a WeChat message from Xu Xin.

Xu Xin: Del Group has been shorted.

Yu Xing: Hmm? What's wrong?
Xu Xin didn't send a second WeChat message. Instead, she called directly and reminded him, "President Yu, you forgot, Del Group is a company that President Xiong has been paying attention to for a long time."

Yu Xing: "...President Xu, you...you're still being paranoid?"

He once discussed with Xu Xin who might be behind the mountain peak. At that time, Xu Xin suspected Liu Jiankai, who was so obsessed with cryptocurrency trading that he was in a daze, and then frantically pointed the finger at investor Xiong Xiaoge. This mentality of shooting the arrow first and then drawing the target makes it easy to see the more similar the more you look at it.

After all, Xiong Xiaoge mentioned the Del Group, which might be involved in fraud, several years ago, but at that time no one was aware of the situation of such companies.

"You don't think he's the type?" Xu Xin asked. "You know he shorted Mitsubishi Motors before the mountain peak, right? Boss Xiong invested in your Silicon Carbon Group!"

Yu Xing was both amused and exasperated: "President Xu, what are you babbling about? You should use that time to give me $1 million to build cars! What reason could he possibly have for investing in me? Why don't you just say I'm a 'mountain peak'?"

Xu Xin said seriously, "You don't know, besides investing in your silicon carbon group, he's also recently shown a lot of interest in investing in upstream and downstream companies in the electric vehicle industry. How come Mitsubishi gets shorted as soon as he shows interest? Don't you find that strange?"

“I think, Mr. Xu, you should stop with all this. I don’t care at all who Guoshanfeng is.” Yu Xing was equally serious. “Whether it’s Mr. Xiong or not, I’d rather it were you, Mr. Xu. That way, you could get a lot of money to invest in my car manufacturing, wouldn’t that be better?”

Xu Xin remained silent.

Yu Xing offered a final word of advice: "Searching for the mountain peak is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I think Mr. Xiong is innocent."

After ending the call, Xu Xin thought about President Yu's affirmative tone and realized that she might have overreacted.

However, she quickly fell into thought again, "I'd love for you, Mr. Xu."

Xu Xin has been paying close attention to short selling recently, not only to Guo Shanfeng, who is suspected of being a short seller in China, but also to those internationally renowned short sellers. With this attention and thought, short selling doesn't seem so difficult. It's just a matter of targeting listed companies.

After thinking for a long time, her husband Li Song, leisurely drinking tea, came into view.

Li Song noticed his wife's gaze and asked, "What's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Xu Xin said, "You, a finance PhD, spend all your time talking about blind dates, and yet Zhenai.com has developed into this."

She shook her head and sighed, "What do you mean by that?"

Li Song wasn't angry at all. He laughed and said, "What? Is President Xu going to point me in the right direction? Or how about investing some money in me, and I'll start building cars too?"

Xu Xin slowly said, "I can actually invest some money in you, but you don't need to follow Yu Xing's example. What do you think of Guoshanfeng?"

Li Song's heart skipped a beat, and she frowned as she looked at the well-known investor in front of her. "Girl, bulls and bears are mortal enemies."

(End of this chapter)