Journey 1995:Non-Stop

Chapter 384 Tile Factory

The atmosphere in the room changed instantly after Yan Hui said those words.

No one doubted that Yan Hui was exaggerating; everyone was just shocked, as if the 2000 million was really just 200 million.

However, 200 million is already a huge sum of money!

Realizing he had overreacted, Mr. Zhou wiped his mouth with a tissue and looked at Yan Hui again: "Mr. Yan, are you trying to kick me out?"

"Whether it's tiles or other building materials, they don't really have strong product competitiveness. We in the steel industry never dare to say that the steel mills we represent have better products than others; we only dare to say that our products are up to standard. I suppose it's the same in the tile industry. At best, this factory can only produce up to standard products. It's unrealistic to expect them to be technologically leading in the industry. Am I right?" Yan Hui asked.

"That's true," President Zhou nodded.

"So, there's no question of me kicking you out. If I were to enter this industry, I would definitely choose a good company to operate directly, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the one Mr. Zhou mentioned. I was just mentioning a possibility; I need to investigate it carefully later. Moreover, even if I buy a factory, I will definitely continue to invest and upgrade the production line; 2000 million is definitely not enough." Yan Hui made things clear first.

He simply felt that if he was going to do it, he might as well do it alone; it wasn't like he couldn't afford the funds. Having a bunch of people involved would only make things less efficient.

Even though Yan Hui owns an 80% stake in his own chemical company, he still needs to consider the issue of dividends for others. The reason he's not in a hurry to distribute dividends is because dividends are subject to taxes. For Yan Hui, keeping the money in his own account and still investing it in places like steel companies is not very meaningful. In short, Yan Hui treats the company as his own, not someone else's, and naturally devotes himself fully to it.

Therefore, if you are investing abroad, unless you are investing in a well-managed large company, it is better to keep it under your own control.

Upon hearing Yan Hui's words, only President Zhou remained silent. President Zhou's initial reaction was that Yan Hui wanted to buy the company because he saw an opportunity for profit. However, after hearing this, he completely realized that money could buy any company; what was truly scarce was money, not this kind of production line! He had actually thought Yan Hui was trying to steal his shares.
"President Yan, it's my fault. I misunderstood at first. Yes, if you buy this company yourself and are willing to pay more for my shares, I would be extremely grateful!" President Zhou immediately realized his mistake.

At that moment, Mr. Zhou suddenly felt the cruelty of the capital market.

However, no matter what, knowing such a big shot is also beneficial to oneself.

"Mr. Zhou, I told you it was just a prediction." Yan Hui didn't expect that his simple words would cause such a seasoned veteran like Mr. Zhou to become emotionally confused.

Leaving aside the performances of Yan Hui and President Zhou, the gap between Zhou Ping and Wang Bo was even wider.

Zhou Ping had followed Yan Hui for so long, and had been in the steel business for quite some time now, so he could completely understand Yan Hui's words. If it were really only a matter of three or four million, Yan Hui wouldn't be that interested. He'd be better off using that energy to expand the plywood company's market and see if he could achieve a monopoly in a larger urban area.

Zhou Ping was analyzing the feasibility without saying a word, while Wang Bo was even more shocked than President Zhou.

For any company, liquid funds and "cash readily available" are two different concepts. Yan Hui clearly hadn't prepared for this beforehand, yet he dared to ask for 2000 million? And judging from President Zhou's demeanor, he didn't seem to question it at all?

Wang Bo looked at Zhou Ping again, and only he knew what he was thinking.

"Mr. Yan, how about this, this afternoon, or whenever you're free, I'll take you to see the factory," said Mr. Zhou.

"I'll be free this afternoon. Let's see." Yan Hui picked up his wine glass. "Mr. Zhou, let's skip the alcohol at noon and have water instead. Here you go."

"No problem, no problem." After lunch, Yan Hui took a car and followed President Zhou's car for more than 40 kilometers to a small town under the county seat.

Because of the year-round production of various building bricks, the roadsides of the town are full of all kinds of slag and brick rubble, and a group of children run around in the street, their clothes covered in dirt.

As the car continued onward, Yan Hui encountered several trucks carrying goods, all laden with bricks, limping along the road—the road's condition was indeed worrying.

Rebuilding this kind of road would be very expensive, but with so much slag and brick rubble, it wouldn't cost much if someone contributed some money to fill the potholes. The fact that no one is doing a simple road repair under these circumstances shows that the people here are indeed not united.

If this were Yan Hui's hometown, he would have already gotten everyone together to repair the road.

The driver spent nearly half an hour on the last four kilometers before finally reaching the destination. The road wasn't actually that bad; the main problem was that they encountered a car stuck on the road, and everyone helped out.

Mr. Zhou had contacted his friends in advance, and when he arrived, four or five people came to greet him, including two shareholders who had a good relationship with him.

These two are brothers; the older brother is named Pang Shaowen, and the younger brother is named Pang Shaowu. They have both been brick factory owners for almost ten years.

A group of about ten people went into the factory shed together and toured the equipment.

Simply put, this place is village collective land, which has been rented by everyone. In Yan Hui's eyes, the so-called factory buildings are just factory sheds. There are two of them, each about 100 meters long.

A production line about 100 meters long stretched out in a straight line without any bends. Yan Hui judged that this was probably to reduce construction costs, as such a narrow and long factory shed was indeed cheaper.

On either side of the production line, there is a building, about 60 or 70 square meters in size. One side is responsible for feeding materials, and the other side is responsible for cleaning up the finished products.

In the material feeding area, the workers screened minerals such as kaolin and feldspar and fed them in. Everyone in the room wore cotton masks, but there was still dust everywhere. Yan Hui went in and took a look, and remembered the days when he used to clean sawdust for his fourth uncle.

After this step, many of the subsequent steps are automated by machines, from ball milling and pulping to spray drying and pressing. These steps are all automated and look very advanced.

Each production line has a large automatic brick press, which automates the feeding and output of bricks.

After the bricks are produced, several workers will inspect the finished material and then send it to the drying kiln. After that, the dried bricks will be sent to the glazing line.

Next to the glazing line, there is a small production line that supplies materials to the glazing line.

The glazing process here doesn't use high-end technology like inkjet printing; it uses common roller printing, which is more stable.

Afterward, the workers sent the decorated brick blanks to the roller kiln for high-temperature firing, which lasted for more than half an hour. Yan Hui looked at it and noticed that the kiln lacked CNC equipment and had poor temperature control capabilities, making it quite dependent on the operator's skills.

(End of this chapter)