"Actually, I have a question!" After Beger left, Li Guoqing suddenly said with some confusion, "I've looked into eBay's acquisition strategy. They usually acquire the largest e-commerce websites in a country directly, which allows them to immediately dominate the local market without needing to compete. So why are they willing to acquire these three companies this time?"
"Do you think Beger didn't try to approach Jiangnan Mall?" Shao Yibo scoffed. "In fact, the day before yesterday, eBay's CEO Meg Whitman spoke with Huang He. She seemed to have offered to acquire Jiangnan Mall for $500 million, but Huang He rejected it without hesitation."
"$500 million!" Even Li Guoqing couldn't help but gasp. That was $500 million, which was nearly 4 billion yuan in RMB. Huang He would instantly become China's richest man... well, the richest man in terms of cash.
Of course, Li Guoqing didn't know that Huang He had once held a staggering $1 billion, otherwise, he wouldn't be so shocked.
"Yes, he acquired your Dangdang for $150 million, and my EachNet for only $80 million. Add the $20 million for 8848, and the total for our three companies is less than half of what they offered for Jiangnan Mall!" Shao Yibo sighed, his expression slightly dejected, although he was also very unhappy with such a price.
Historically, eBay acquired EachNet for $150 million. However, history in this world had changed, and EachNet was faring much worse than in his previous life, so the acquisition price naturally decreased.
Nevertheless, the international e-commerce giant eBay had entered the game. It seemed that the future of Jiangnan Mall was still not secure. However, Boss Huang was not bothered by these issues. At this time, he had returned to Wenzhou.
His main purposes for returning to Wenzhou this time were twofold: first, to visit Liushang Qu Shui Cai Wei Shi and have a chat with Qu Wei to make some important decisions.
"Wow, you've changed so much!" Boss Huang exclaimed with a smile upon arriving at the factory of Liushang Qu Shui Cai Wei Shi.
Originally, there was only one office building and a two-story factory with the first floor as a warehouse and the second floor as a workshop. Now, they had leased the surrounding three factories, and these had all become the production base for Liushang Qu Shui Cai Wei Shi, occupying almost two-thirds of the entire industrial area.
Yes, this was originally the territory of the Wenzhou Powder Metallurgy Factory. Later, after state-owned enterprises went bankrupt and reformed, the factories and workshops were all leased to private enterprises.
Originally, four companies were co-renting this place. A year ago, Liushang Qu Shui Cai Wei Shi was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Who would have thought that in just three to four months, Liushang Qu Shui Cai Wei Shi wouldn't be finished, but two neighboring companies would go bankrupt one after another, and their factories would be leased by Liushang Qu Shui Cai Wei Shi to expand production.
"This is still not enough!" Qu Wei said helplessly, shaking her head. "Your orders for this month have doubled again, and the current factory space cannot handle such a large workload. I want to lease the remaining factory, but they absolutely refuse. They insist on crowding with me in this small place, making it impossible for me to expand production!"
"Yes, the people next door are too unreasonable!" Huang He said with a slight smile.
"He's not unreasonable, he's very smart. He leased his factory for only 16,000 yuan a month, and now he's asking me for 30,000 yuan in rent, saying that since I've earned tens of millions, I shouldn't be bothered by such a small amount. Don't let this small amount of money delay my expansion. I'm so angry I want to kick him in the head with a high-heeled shoe!" Qu Wei said indignantly.
"I see!" Huang He nodded. So, the remaining company in the state-owned factory planned to take advantage of the situation. Knowing that Qu Wei had made money and that the factory urgently needed space to expand production, they wanted to sublease the remaining two factory buildings to Qu Wei at a high price.
After all, they had signed a three-year contract with the Powder Metallurgy Factory at once, and there were still over two years left on the contract. If the other party refused to budge, Qu Wei would have no choice but to find a new factory in a location far from the old one. This would result in the factories being separated into two locations, making it impossible for Qu Wei to manage everything effectively, which would inevitably have a negative impact.
So, how much money had Qu Wei made now for them to dare to double the rental price?
It wasn't actually that much. According to the data Huang He had, since Liushang Qu Shui Cai Wei Shi started cooperating with Jiangnan Group, Jiangnan Group had paid out 25 million yuan in procurement payments to them.
Although he didn't know the cost of this 25 million yuan, Qu Wei's factory had returned 4 million yuan in dividends to Huang He last year.
Yes, in fact, Huang He was now the largest shareholder of Liushang Qu Shui Cai Wei Shi, and it was natural for him to receive dividends based on his shares each year.
In fact, the Jiangnan Council had a financial department directly under Huang He, responsible for inspecting and organizing the finances of the various subordinate enterprises and then preparing reports for Boss Huang. After all, Huang He was the major shareholder of all enterprises under the Jiangnan Council.
However, such inspections and organization were not very pleasant for the actual managers of the enterprises, so these reviews only took place at the end of each year. Huang He didn't know how much money Liushang Qu Shui Cai Wei Shi had actually made in the first half of this year.
"Boss, you didn't come here specifically to visit my factory, did you?" Qu Wei asked with a smile. She was very happy now, completely different from the first time they met.
"The first matter is actually to solve your urgent problem. You don't need to argue with the owner of that place about the factory issue anymore. I have prepared a new factory for you. You can send people over to prepare, and you can move directly in the second half of this year!!" Huang He said with a smile.
"New factory?" Qu Wei was stunned. "How have I never heard of this?"
"Well, this is my fault for not telling you in advance!" Huang He said. "You all know that last year, Jiangnan Group acquired a large piece of land near Yongjia County to build a network center and a logistics center!"
"In fact, this piece of land is even larger than you think, so after building these two centers, there was still more than enough space. Therefore, I decided to build a Jiangnan Industrial Park and move all the enterprises under the Jiangnan Council there!"
"This has two benefits. Everyone will be together, able to help each other, and it will be more convenient to communicate with the head office, as the head office can also secure more policy benefits for you."
"Secondly, it will be located with our logistics center, which will make shipping more convenient and further reduce logistics costs!" Huang He said indifferently.
"Are all enterprises moving? Can we refuse?" Qu Wei asked curiously.
"All enterprises under the Jiangnan Council must move! You can refuse, but your reason for refusal must be convincing to me, and it can only delay the move by about 2 years at most. After 2 years, all members of the Jiangnan Council must be settled in the Jiangnan Industrial Zone!" Huang He said without question.
"What about the costs? Will we be responsible for them?" Qu Wei asked again.
"All costs incurred by the relocation will be borne by the Jiangnan Council, and there will be no rent for the factory buildings. These will all be covered by Jiangnan Group. I've saved you a lot of expenses, you should be satisfied!" Huang He said with a smile.
"Okay, as long as the factory is fine, I can move next month!" Qu Wei agreed very readily. With such good terms, only a fool wouldn't move.
Not to mention that this was a request made by Huang He, and they had no room to refuse.
Huang He gave such favorable terms naturally had his own reasons.
This was because Huang He had discovered that there was some instability within the Jiangnan Council recently. Some factories were experiencing product quality issues, some people seemed to have other ideas, and some were even attempting to covet Boss Huang's shares.
Therefore, Boss Huang wanted to gather all enterprises in one place, monitored by his own people, so he wouldn't have to worry about the issue of "the emperor being too far away."
"Okay, there's one more thing. Our Jiangnan Blind Box is planning to launch its first blind box priced at 98 yuan per box, and your Liushang Qu Shui Cai Wei Shi will be leading the charge. So, I hope you can be prepared and produce products that meet my requirements!" Huang He suddenly said, revealing an incredibly explosive piece of news.
"What? A blind box priced at 98 yuan per box, Boss, have you really decided?" Qu Wei was stunned by Huang He's words. You know, up until now, no matter what it was, Jiangnan Group's blind boxes had always been priced at 10 yuan per box, unchanged, because this was a price that the public felt was acceptable.
Once the price exceeded this, many people might be unwilling to buy blind boxes, and this was also the consensus among many in the market.
Currently, there were hundreds of companies across the country producing and selling various blind boxes, and almost all of them followed Jiangnan Group's pricing, which was 10 yuan per box.
They were all very tacitly keeping the prices at the same level for a simple reason: Jiangnan Group's development history had proven to everyone that the strategy of pricing blind boxes at 10 yuan each, with the internal product value aligning with this price, was the most market-adaptive strategy. Selling for more would result in unsold inventory, and selling for less would result in no profit.
Except for a very small number of companies, 98% of blind boxes on the market were priced at 10 yuan each.
With Jiangnan Group suddenly planning to launch a blind box priced at 98 yuan, this would undoubtedly be a super earthquake for the entire industry. Qu Wei was somewhat worried, wondering if Huang He's decision was too radical.
After all, this was an era where 100 yuan could last for 10 days of saving, and the monthly salary of a cleaner was only 380 yuan. A blind box priced at 98 yuan was simply beyond the purchasing power of users.