50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 613 The Weak Pinkerton Detective Agency
Sun Zhiwei has always wanted to establish his own security company, as his own security business alone could support a large security enterprise.

Moreover, this would save him a lot of money on security costs. It's good to keep the benefits within the family, isn't it?

However, the availability of a large number of professional security personnel has always been a major problem.

However, by next year, there will be a million professional positions available, many of whom are outstanding soldiers.

If I had a security company that could absorb a large number of veterans, it would not only solve my problem but also reduce the burden of resettlement for my family, which would be a win-win situation.

However, he still needed to ask Xu Yimin to inquire about the process to see if it would be easy.

Moreover, the company cannot be established in America, as they would never allow thousands of veterans to cross the ocean to their homeland.

In addition, well-known security companies today all have a long history and heritage, and the accumulation of various technologies involved in security is no easy feat.

Security is not war. If you want to build a security company from scratch, you need at least a leader as good as Pinkerton, but he doesn't have that kind of talent.

So he was left with only one option: to acquire a small, long-established security company and then go public through a reverse takeover.

He had his eye on Pinkerton Detective Agency, which he had hired some time ago. The agency has a history of over 130 years.

Historically, the Pinkerton Detective Agency once had a formal detective force of 3 people, with a reserve force of hundreds of thousands.

They often acted as private companies, doing things for the National Defense Force, which at one point led many states to ban them from entering for fear of attack.

In the 19th century, Pinkerton was synonymous with safety, and all police departments in the early western region were derived from the Pinkerton Western Police Company.

Protecting the White House occupant was one of their main businesses at the time, and the establishment of organizations like the FBI, CIA, and NSA was closely linked to Pinkerton.

However, with the continuous development of public policing forces such as America's Federal Bureau of Investigation, agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA have gradually replaced Pinkerton Detective Agency's position.

In 1967, Robert Pinkerton II, the third-generation descendant of Pinkerton, passed away due to illness, and the Pinkerton family lost its leadership position in the Pinkerton Company.

At the same time, Pinkerton's influence within America's government also declined sharply.

Because it lost two major businesses—security for political figures and intelligence gathering—and was also restricted by the American federal government, Pinkerton's size has shrunk considerably.

Pinkerton's core business has now shifted to enterprise security and risk assessment services.

Its number of branches in America has been reduced to six, and the number of core detectives has been reduced to only a hundred, with a total size of less than a thousand people.

If Sun Zhiwei hadn't intervened, Pinkerton would have been acquired by a Swedish multinational security company a few years later and would have received financial support to rise again.

Now is its weakest moment, and it is also Sun Zhiwei's ideal acquisition target.

If you don't take advantage of someone so soft, it doesn't fit his persona.

Sun Zhiwei entrusted the security of his house to Dong Haoyang and his team, while he obtained information about the current shareholding of Pinkerton from various sources.

To his surprise, Pinkerton now has more than 40 shareholders.

The Pinkerton family's stake had dwindled to only 15%, with the majority of the remaining shares scattered among numerous small shareholders. This was quite encouraging, and Sun Zhiwei immediately tasked Huang Mingyu with assembling an acquisition team to launch a full-scale takeover of the Pinkerton Detective Agency.

Although Pinkerton Detective Agency is not a large company now, its historical influence means that Sun Zhiwei must use the most reasonable and legal means to gain control of Pinkerton.

The acquisition team still needed time to be assembled, so Sun Zhiwei turned his attention back to the airport issue.

Before he left some time ago, he hired a design team to design a renovation and expansion plan for LaGuardia Airport based on the existing buildings.

The first draft has been completed, but Sun Zhiwei sent it back for them to redo, which made him angry.

"What I need is reconstruction and expansion. What have you done? Renovation? Do I need your help with renovations?"

He's planning to make money with a new project; how much money can a design team make with this kind of patchwork project?

Unable to wait for them to figure it out themselves, Sun Zhiwei simply rushed back to New York, moved directly into the design team's office, and began to directly guide their work.

"First, we need to divide all the plans into three phases, with the ultimate goal of building it into New York's first airport."

"The first phase of the project is to expand all three existing terminals, increase parking positions, extend the runway, and upgrade airport equipment. The goal is to handle 2500 million passengers annually."

"The second phase of the project will add two terminals and one runway, with a target of 3500 million passengers per year."

"The third phase of the project will incorporate Rikers Island into the airport network, open international flight services, increase the number of terminals to 7, and increase the number of runways to 5, making it the largest airport in New York City. The goal is to handle 5000 million passengers annually."

“Just design it according to the scale I’ve described, don’t worry about the high budget.”

"In the first phase of the project, how can we make these old buildings more fashionable and attractive without altering their existing structures? Don't be afraid to spend money, since you won't have to pay for it."

Goodness, with Sun Zhiwei in charge, the design patterns no longer care about the actual situation. They put all their skills into the interior and exterior design of the building, and they really came up with a lot of new ideas.

What Sun Zhiwei was most satisfied with was a fully glass-based design.

A young designer had a wild idea: first, knock down all the non-load-bearing walls of the old building, leaving only the skeleton.

Installing a steel exoskeleton on the building frame can increase the structural strength of old buildings and allow tempered glass to be installed on the steel frame structure.

Finally, all the buildings in the entire airport will be encased in a shimmering glass dome.

One can imagine that if this were actually implemented, the airport would be visible reflecting sunlight from hundreds of miles away during the day.

This design, when the lights are turned on at night, allows the entire airport to present a transparent visual effect.

It has to be said that design requires talent. This kind of revolutionary design, if you disregard the cost and just look at the appearance, is truly beautiful.

As for the construction costs, the young designer had no idea, so he simply didn't write them down.

(End of this chapter)