America's No. 1 financial conglomerate

Chapter 281 Ai Technology

Wall Street is indeed troubled because they can't figure out what's going on in Ernst's head, or what he's trying to do.

This astute Newp Capital genius suddenly turned his attention to the struggling Samsung Group, a move that left Wall Street completely bewildered.

In their eyes, Samsung at this moment is like a cake covered in mud; it looks somewhat valuable, but no one dares to take a bite.

What exactly is it about Samsung that he's eyeing? Is it the potential of its semiconductor business, or the strength of its home appliance division?

In the skyscrapers of Manhattan, executives held Samsung's financial reports, their brows furrowed so deeply they could trap a fly.

What they're up to is truly unfathomable.

However, this matter is easy to resolve. A little rational analysis reveals that Samsung's current situation is far from hopeless.

Despite being affected by the Asian financial crisis, Samsung's market value plummeted, its stock price continued to decline, and its debt soared.

But anyone with a discerning eye knows that this is more of a misjudgment caused by market panic; South Korea would never allow a company like Samsung to go bankrupt.

The mud on this cake will have to be scraped off sooner or later.

If we can weather this difficult period and wait for the market to recover, it will definitely be a high-quality investment that brings returns.

So there's no need to worry about what Ernst is trying to do; just follow him in.

As a result, acquisition offers and letters of intent from Wall Street flooded into Lee Kun-hee's office at Samsung headquarters.

The way they acted made it seem as if Samsung wasn't a company on the verge of crisis, but rather a highly sought-after commodity.

When Lee Kun-hee saw these invitations, he almost burst out laughing on the spot.

As the iron-fisted leader of Samsung, he has experienced many ups and downs in his life, but this is the first time he has ever been so collectively sought after by Wall Street giants.

The more institutions vying for the project, the stronger the bargaining power, and the higher the final financing price will naturally be.

But that wasn't what excited him the most; his main gains came from the stock market.

So when his deputy, Lee Hak-joo, walked into the office with a thick stack of price quotes, Lee Kun-hee didn't even look at the numbers. He simply waved his hand and said, "Spread this news. Not only should the domestic media in South Korea report on it, but the foreign media should also know that several Wall Street giants are vying to invest in Samsung."

Lee Hak-joo paused for a moment, then quickly realized, "You're trying to use the competitive heat on Wall Street to boost Samsung's stock price, and incidentally, get banks to continue lending?"

Lee Kun-hee smiled and nodded, his expression seeming to say, "You're the one who understands me best."

He stood up, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window of his office, and looked down at the bustling traffic of Seoul. "Several Wall Street giants are vying to invest, which is a huge boon for Samsung right now."

"The stock market reaction will be immediate. Those international financial institutions that don't understand the situation, seeing this, won't they quickly buy some Samsung stock to hoard?"

"Wouldn't those South Koreans who still have some spare cash think that since even Wall Street is bullish on Samsung, maybe if I buy some stock, I can also help it make a comeback?"

The answer is yes!

Lee Hak-joo couldn't help but add, "As long as the stock price recovers and Samsung's market value increases, the debt ratio will naturally decrease."

When the banks see signs of recovery at Samsung, they'll definitely be willing to take a gamble and continue lending to us. This way, while we won't be completely out of trouble, at least we'll have hope of turning the crisis around.

After the initial excitement, Lee Hak-joo calmed down and frowned, reminding him, "However, doing this is quite risky. The overall economic environment in South Korea is not good right now. If we fool Wall Street and offend those giants, it will be difficult to deal with them in the future. If they unite to suppress Samsung, we can't withstand it."

Lee Kun-hee waved his hand dismissively, his tone laced with arrogance, "What's there to offend? It's not like we're not raising funds; we just want to raise the price and keep the power in our own hands."

"At that time, we will give 10% to 15% of the shares to those investment institutions, which will be a way of giving them an explanation."

After all, nobody turns down a business that makes money.

Lee Kun-hee's plan was indeed shrewd. He wanted to use this battle for control of Wall Street to turn Samsung from a passive and defensive position into one that took the initiative and controlled the overall situation.

Samsung wants to both increase its valuation during financing to avoid being taken advantage of, and also wants to firmly grasp the power of financing to prevent outsiders from interfering too much in Samsung's operations.

But he forgot one thing: he didn't even understand why Wall Street was suddenly interested in Samsung, yet he dared to do this, which was simply playing with fire.

When Lee Hak-joo mentioned the representatives sent by Ernst Asset Management, Lee Kun-hee showed a disdainful smile and said dismissively, "Let him go back to where he came from. Not just any Tom, Dick, or Harry company is qualified to become a shareholder of Samsung."

Although Lee Hak-joo felt that treating Ernst's representative in this way was inappropriate, she did not dare to object to Lee Kun-hee's decision and could only hurriedly carry out the order.

What he didn't know was that his trip not only completely disrupted Ernst's plans, but also pushed Samsung into an even more dangerous situation.

Ernst received news of Samsung's refusal to cooperate two days later.

After receiving the call from Jane Fraser, he listened quietly to the report on the other end of the line, his face expressionless. But after hanging up, a meaningful smile appeared on his lips.

"They really know how to court death!" Ernst leaned back on the sofa, a hint of sarcasm in his eyes. "They didn't even figure out why Wall Street suddenly became interested in Samsung, yet they dared to extinguish this fuse."

Hearing this, Cook, sitting opposite him, roughly guessed what the phone call was about.

He put down the documents in his hand and asked cautiously, "So, should we continue with the plan we formulated earlier?"

Should we switch to other suppliers for the chips and flash memory chips?

AiTech is a company specifically established by Ernst to enter the consumer electronics market. Their first product is the soon-to-be-released MP3 player.

And the CEO of this company is Tim Cook, whom everyone knows.

Ernst's trip to Compaq was simply to find someone knowledgeable about Compaq's supply chain system to serve as the CEO of iTech.

He genuinely didn't know Cook worked for this company, but once he saw it, how could he not try to poach him?

It can only be said that Ernst's name is still quite effective in America, and with the CEO position and salary increase, it was easy to bring him under their wing.

According to Cook's previous plan, the supply chain of key components for iTech's MP3 player has been basically finalized, with the micro hard disk provided by GenTek and the ARM chip and flash memory chip supplied by Samsung.

Philips of the Netherlands provides I2C bus interface DC-DC converters and power management units. Portapreor of the United States provides decoders, Broadcom provides video decoder processors, and Wolfson Technology of the United Kingdom provides audio multimedia digital signal codecs.

But now Samsung has rejected Ernst's investment and plans to cooperate with other Wall Street giants. Cook is wondering if he should cooperate with Ernst, which is why he proposed to change suppliers and give the order to other manufacturers.

Ernst shook his head and said confidently, "No, we'll still use Samsung, but the delivery time for this order will be postponed by a few days."

"Fortunately, Samsung currently has a large inventory in its warehouses and is not under much production pressure. Even if they place an emergency order, there will definitely be no problem with supply. Even if they want to find other buyers, they won't be able to find a customer like us who can handle a large number of orders in the short term."

Cook was still a little worried, but seeing Ernst's confident demeanor, he didn't ask any more questions. Instead, he said, "So, regarding the product name, do we really have to use iPod? I just feel like it's a bit inappropriate."

iTech is headquartered in Cupertino, just one kilometer from Apple's headquarters. The company is called iTech, and its product is called iPod.

After Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the next generation of computers he was developing was temporarily named iMac, which was no secret in the industry.

This series of coincidences left Cook little room for further thought.

Ernst, however, showed no intention of explaining. He changed the subject and said seriously, "The name is settled. You don't need to worry about it anymore. What you need to do next is to quickly prepare for your trip to China. This time in China, choosing a supplier is one aspect, but finding a suitable OEM manufacturer is even more important."

"9

Apart from key components, Ernst and Cook were in complete agreement on the selection of suppliers for non-key components, both believing that China should be the supplier.

For components such as chargers, earphones, and casings, China's manufacturing industry not only has low costs but also sufficient production capacity, which can fully meet AiTech's needs.

Cook's trip to China was primarily aimed at resolving the issue of contract manufacturers, in addition to finalizing suppliers for these non-critical components.

Rodrigo's contract manufacturer can only produce around 100,000 units per month, which is a drop in the ocean compared to Ernst and Cook's ambitions.

They planned to make the iPod a hit during the Christmas season, but now there are only two weeks left until Christmas.

Furthermore, with changes in the partnership with Samsung and the need for further evaluation of other suppliers, increasing production capacity in such a short period of time is virtually an impossible task.

But Cook has his own way: find enough contract manufacturers to instantly boost production capacity.

He didn't work for Compaq for nothing. Whenever he showed up, the contract manufacturers that Compaq used to work with would give him some face and squeeze out some production capacity.

Hearing Ernst's instructions, Cook nodded and said confidently, "Don't worry, I have experience in this area. There are so many contract manufacturers in Taiwan, such as Quanta Computer, Inventec, Foxconn, and ASUS. They are all industry leaders. As long as we offer the right terms, they will definitely be willing to give me the face and cooperate with us."