50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 743 The opportunity has come
As Sun Zhiwei lay in bed, he thought about how LeEco was able to manage the company on its own back then, even without a boss.

Those employees didn't work from 8 am to 6 pm, didn't clock in late, and could even slack off freely during work hours.

Because they have almost no other work besides basic software maintenance, they can be considered a retirement-level company.

Now, comparing his work with "West Point Recycling Company," he realizes that a recycling company doesn't necessarily need a CEO.

Because the recycling company's business is very simple, it's just dismantling and demolishing. Once one factory is demolished, they move on to the next. It's foreseeable that the company will not lack business for the next three to five years.

Sun Zhiwei didn't impose any KPI requirements on them, and he didn't require them to sell the scrap steel that was dismantled; they were just piled up.

The company's operating expenses only require him to allocate funds on time each month.

Thinking it through this lens, he immediately felt a sense of relief and stopped worrying about the management issues of the recycling company.

The next day, he gathered the management teams from several departments of the company and shared his idea, leaving the department managers stunned.

But after they thought about it carefully, hey, it doesn't seem like a big deal that this recycling company doesn't have a CEO.

They manage their own subordinates, so what good would a direct supervisor do?
Once they had figured it out, Sun Zhiwei had the heads of several departments form a company management committee.

From now on, the normal operation of the recycling company will be handled by their management committee.

Each month, all you need to do is submit the budget to the group company, and the group company will allocate the funds.

As for the accounts, the group company's finance department can handle the accounting once a year.

Thus, West Point Recycling Company entered a self-management model without a CEO.

Sun Zhiwei found this management model very interesting and instructed them to keep good work logs and meeting minutes.

In the future, he might gain some unexpected benefits from this unique management and operation model.

After sorting things out with the recycling company, he remembered the subsequent transportation issues.

The Port of Cleveland is an inland river port with a limited capacity for berthing ships.

To transport the scrap steel collected by recycling companies quickly and efficiently, they can only use inland waterway vessels to transfer it to seaports, and then from the seaports they can use bulk carriers to transport it by sea.

Located on the southern shore of Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes, Cleveland offers two shipping routes to the Atlantic Ocean.

One route goes north across Lake Ontario, through the St. Lawrence River into Canada, and then through Quebec into the North Atlantic.

Another route is westward through Chicago, via the Erie Canal into the Mississippi River, and then southward through Louisiana into the Gulf of Mexico.

From a shipping route perspective, the Mississippi Passage is more cost-effective.

Unfortunately, the Erie Canal, a crucial waterway to the Mississippi River, has limited carrying capacity.

The Erie Canal is only a little over 1 meter deep, and can only accommodate flat-bottomed barges of a few dozen tons at most.

Using barges to transport tens of thousands of tons of scrap steel produced by recycling companies is really asking too much of a question.

So, although there are two routes, he can only choose the northward route.

The St. Lawrence River is a large river with abundant water, and its shallowest depth is more than 8 meters, allowing large ships of 3 to 5 tons to pass through.

This load capacity is sufficient to meet the transportation requirements for scrap steel.

Considering the need to transport recycled scrap metal on the St. Lawrence River for many years to come, establishing a shipping company has become an urgent necessity. Purchasing new ships is too late; the fastest way is to acquire a shipping company and leverage its resources to quickly gain independent shipping capabilities.

This shipping company needs not only medium-sized vessels capable of navigating the St. Lawrence River, but also ultra-large tonnage bulk carriers.

Sun Zhiwei was unaware of this information, so he could only return to New York and hand the matter over to Huang Mingyu for investigation.

Since Huang Mingyu took over the Robert Group, Sun Zhiwei has placed his complete trust in him, delegating all power to him.

In the subsequent operations, Huang Mingyu lived up to expectations, perfectly executing Sun Zhiwei's various plans each time.

Now that the group's acquisition of CBS is basically complete, it's time to give him a new task.

A week later, Huang Mingyu reported to him that he had found the information Sun Zhiwei wanted.

Sun Zhiwei rushed from his home to the company headquarters to listen to Huang Mingyu's report.

This time he was preparing to acquire a shipping company, which happened to be the site of a massive shipping company that went bankrupt and was undergoing debt restructuring in recent years.

This bankrupt company was Sanko Steamship, a small-time business.

Sam Kwang Shipping was founded in 1934. It started with only a few small boats and expanded several times over by taking advantage of the first oil crisis in 1973, when it successfully bought ships at low prices.

By 1976, Samkwang Shipping had acquired a total tonnage of 2463 million tons, making it the largest shipping company in the country.

Unfortunately, Samkwang Kisen was also unlucky. Just as it reached its peak, it encountered an insurmountable obstacle: the second oil crisis.

Having learned from the experience of the last oil crisis, Samkwang Shipping once again took a big gamble and started a rapid expansion mode again.

Unfortunately, he underestimated the duration of the second oil crisis.

No one expected that the second oil crisis would last from 1978 to 1981.

This resulted in a large number of Samkwang Shipbuilding's ships becoming unprofitable, forcing a significant portion of Samkwang Shipbuilding's capital to be poured into the bottomless pit of its fleet.

Until 1981, Samkwang Steamship became the company with the biggest losses in the company.

After persisting for another three years, in 1985, Sanko Kisen was burdened with 5200 billion yen in debt and had no choice but to file for bankruptcy reorganization.

Currently, Samkwang Shipping is in the early stages of bankruptcy reorganization and is looking for buyers worldwide to sell off a large number of ships at low prices.

When Huang Mingyu saw the information about Samkwang Shipping, he immediately realized that this was a good opportunity for the group to establish a shipping company.

This is indeed a good opportunity. Samkwang Shipping now owns hundreds of cargo ships, half of which are less than 10 years old and were purchased during the second oil crisis.

Subsequently, the Robert Group sent a telegram to Sam Kwang Steamship Company requesting a price list for the vessels.

Sankwang Shipping is now searching for buyers everywhere and is responding to telegrams extremely quickly.

In less than 48 hours, the group headquarters received a quote faxed by Samkwang Kisen.

Since the purpose of this shipping fleet is to transport scrap steel, they need medium-sized bulk carriers with a tonnage of 3 to 5 tons that can navigate the St. Lawrence River.

Sun Zhiwei received the price list immediately and saw that the selling price was indeed very cheap.

(End of this chapter)