Chapter 538: Mutual Speculation and Merger Suspicion

"Check the details of that woman. She doesn't look like a person who just appeared out of nowhere." Fan Wubing instructed his subordinates just after Pei Xuede and others left.

"We don't have any information about this person. We have to ask the United States to check it." Fan Wubing's subordinates immediately replied.

Most of the influential people have information available in Fan Wubing's headquarters. This is also a secret that he can deal with most people in the first time. Study the opponent, summarize their working rules, preferences and preferences, which is very helpful for negotiations.

The efficiency of the American branch in investigation is very high. Sometimes, Fan Wubing joked that they have already formed a joint venture with A, so they can do it so easily.

Soon, the American branch sent the detailed information of the woman.

Fan Wubing picked up the fax and flipped through it. It turned out that this person was Ye Ying, who had just joined Kodak for less than a year.

Ye Ying was born in Beijing, grew up in Taiwan, and lived in Hong Kong. She has a bachelor's degree in international relations and English literature from National Taiwan University.

During her university studies, she was a famous radio and television reporter in Taiwan and Japan. In the early 1970s, she became a U.S. citizen and served as an official in the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar and the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong. In the late 1970s, she returned to the news industry and worked for the Straits Times Group in Singapore and the National Broadcasting Company in New York. In 1979, as a reporter, she interviewed Deng Xiaoping on his first visit to the United States with a TV host, becoming a woman who witnessed a special moment in history.

In 1982, Ye Ying joined the U.S. Department of Commerce and served as a commercial consul in Guangzhou and Hong Kong, and as the head of the business group of the American Institute in Taiwan in Taipei. Later, she served as the Minister-Commissioner of the U.S. Embassy in China.

Last year, Ye Ying joined Kodak at the invitation of Kodak's president and served as Vice President of Greater China and General Manager of External Affairs. She was also one of the three core members of the Kodak project.

"This woman is very powerful. It is estimated that Pei Xuede deliberately inserted a wedge into China's mainland to pry open the currently stagnant Chinese film industry and clear the obstacles for Kodak's acquisition plan." Fan Wubing said to his subordinates after reading the information.

"The boss's evaluation of her is a bit too high, isn't it?" Fan Wubing's subordinates were a little skeptical.

"Don't underestimate anyone, especially a woman who can easily move between reporters, diplomats and senior executives of multinational companies, a woman who dares to wear any color combination without any problem, a woman who dares to wear a short skirt and high shoes to let the focus focus on her at any time, even though she is a little older." Fan Wubing waved his hand and said, "But we should also note that

Such a woman's mind is much richer than that of a girl in her twenties, and she needs to face basically those real bosses who are famous and old, and this advantage is not possessed by young girls."

Admittedly, getting some pretty girls to support the company's facade will look more pleasing to the eye, and in general, it can also play a positive role in promoting it, but when it comes to deciding the rise and fall of an industry and needing to play with both officials and businessmen, young girls are not good enough.

Or some people don't believe it, thinking that beautiful women can get by wherever they go, but at a certain level, what kind of beautiful women can't these people get? Especially those who are older don't care about women's appearance. For them, solving problems is the most important thing. Therefore, in many large companies abroad, capable old women are more likely to be valued than those young girls who can only play the role of vases.

Thinking of this, Fan Wubing couldn't help but say a few more words, "Don't think that they are old because they are old. In fact, these people may contribute much more to the company. You should not judge people by appearance at work."

One of his subordinates immediately asked, "Mr. Fan's meaning is not to say that once an older person comes to the company for a job, you should not reject them all, but first see if the other party's ability can be used by our company, and is it very useful? Such talents cannot be easily let go?"

Fan Wubing was stunned for a moment, and then he thought of the company's previous recruitment process. The age requirements were relatively strict, often requiring everyone to be under 30 years old. Occasionally, there would be some special talents over 35 years old, and they were also approved by the senior management to dig them out. As for the problem of older job seekers coming to apply for jobs, Fan Wubing had never paid attention to it. I think they were probably rejected directly, right?

Of course, it is not very realistic to expect to find any great talents at the job fair, especially for the current Fan Investment Group, which already has a complete management team and trained middle-level leaders. What is lacking is just ordinary employees who can implement the plan. Therefore, general recruitment plus targeted mining of special talents are enough to handle various tasks.

Just like Ye Ying, a person with strong communication skills, has gone beyond the general public relations handling direction and reached the level of senior professional managers. This is of course the talent that Fan Investment Group lacks.

"Ahem -" Fan Wubing touched his chin and said, "We still have to appoint special talents according to their ability, especially for senior managers who are familiar with domestic conditions and good at interpersonal communication, which are currently lacking in the company. It can be enlarged to fifty years old, and it won’t be interesting any older.”

When Fan Wubing mentioned this matter, he seemed to remember that a deputy minister went to the talent market to apply for a public relations position in order to experience the public sentiment. As a result, the other party actually told him that he did not want anyone who was too old, and bluntly stated that this position Only for young women.

After learning about this later, everyone burst into laughter, and some even pointed out clearly that if the other party really had to recruit the deputy minister, no matter what, even if it was impossible for the deputy minister to work for the company, he could still The role of establishing a good personal relationship cannot be replaced by many young and beautiful girls. In the end, the boss of the company felt a little regretful.

In the worst case, you can also take the opportunity to hype up your company and increase its reputation. It can set up a banner that the company appoints talented people in an eclectic way. It is a good thing that can gather centripetal force. It is really a bit Pity.

While Fan Wubing and the others were discussing Ye Ying here, Pei Xuede and Ye Ying were also discussing Fan Wubing there.

"Originally we had a good plan, but now such a Fan Investment Group suddenly appeared, which suddenly disrupted the previous preparations." Ye Ying said to Pei Xuede with some worry.

On the third day when Ye Ying came to work at Kodak, she flew from Hong Kong to Shantou as the vice president and general manager of the external affairs department of Greater China. As one of the three core figures of Kodak's negotiation team, she appeared in the entire photosensitive relationship between Kodak and China. Industry cooperation negotiations are ongoing.

Ye Ying, who has many years of experience as a diplomat, is good at communication and negotiation. Before she participated, the entire process between China and Kodak was in a very anxious state, and communication with each other was very poor. Everyone did not understand what the needs of both parties were, and there was no trust.

After Ye Ying joined, she conveyed the Chinese government's big investment stance on encouraging Kodak to enter China. It also made Chinese companies understand that Kodak's strategic investment was real and was really going to go ahead, which smoothed the entire negotiation. .

The early plan is for the Chinese government to implement different policies for the six domestic photosensitive companies except Lucky. Xiamen Fuda, Shantou A.D., Wuxi Alme and Kodak are joint ventures. The three companies in Shanghai, Tianjin and Liaoyang have three years of infrastructure construction in the joint venture. During the period, Kodak will not cooperate with any other foreign joint ventures. For this purpose, Kodak will pay the Chinese party US$400 million in asset transfer and economic compensation.

In addition, based on this agreement, Kodak was allowed to invest US$1.2 billion in establishing a photosensitive material production base in China.

However, Fan's Investment Group suddenly said that it wanted to join in, and it seemed that it was going to provide a package solution, which made Kodak feel a little incomprehensible. However, the conditions proposed by Fan's Investment Group were something that Kodak could not refuse.

Just as they learned about Fan Wubing's background, they sensitively believed that Fan's investment group's joining was probably for deep-seated reasons. Otherwise, it would be impossible for the son of a Politburo member to manage such a large investment. Group and intervened in such a sensitive joint venture case.

"Government officials in mainland China are generally very taboo about being related to business, but Fan Heng and Fan Wubing and his son are a special case." Ye Ying had spent a long time in the capital before, although Fan Wubing and others did not She is familiar with her, but she still knows the Fan family and his son relatively well. After all, diplomats are, in a sense, actually the chief responsible for intelligence collection in the country.

Regarding Fan Heng who was qualified to serve as a member of the Politburo, the Americans had to conduct many and detailed investigations.

"You mean there's a conspiracy here?" Pei Xuede asked hesitantly.

Ye Ying said to Pei Xuede, "If it is a joint venture between three companies, many secrets will not become secrets. I am worried that some details will have an indeterminate impact on Kodak's corporate image, making the entire process impossible to fully control."

After hearing this, Pei Xuede nodded and frowned.

After a long time, Pei Xuede said, "So, can you figure out as soon as possible the original intention of Fan's Investment Jitu to participate in this joint venture? I think understanding this situation will allow us to take some initiative."

"It's a bit difficult. After all, for the old guys, I can understand what they are thinking, but for a 22-year-old young man, it is difficult to figure out. I haven't even found his breakthrough yet." Ye Ying is a little bit Er replied helplessly, "This is the first time I have encountered this in my decades of foreign affairs. It's really tricky!"

Fan Wubing also got the details of the Kodak acquisition from the senior management at this time, but after reading it, he frowned a little. It is estimated that if he was not involved, it would be difficult to see such documents.

The purpose of the government's preferential treatment for Kodak is to allow the market, exchange technology, and remove burdens. However, the result of the merger is not that Kodak transfers technology to Chinese companies, but that Chinese companies are fully integrated into the Kodak system. It is not that Kodak accepts the burden of state-owned enterprises, but that state-owned enterprises On the premise of transferring its main operating assets to Kodak on the premise of shouldering the original debts, the burden will still be on the government, such as environmental protection and other issues.

For example, in the Shantou Gongyuan project, Kodak only promised to acquire the Gongyuan color film production line and take away nearly 100 English-speaking technical workers. On the surface, Gongyuan retained the black-and-white film production line, about 300 employees, the Gongyuan brand, and the only Chinese film brand other than Lucky.

However, Kodak did not want Gongyuan's black-and-white film part, and Kodak would not pay Gongyuan more money for acquiring Gongyuan's black-and-white film part at the same time, because Kodak has never produced civilian black-and-white film worldwide.

What was retained at the same time as the Gongyuan brand was Gongyuan's still heavy debt burden. As of this year, Shantou Gongyuan has accumulated a loss of 300 million and a debt of 4.8 billion, making it the company with the most debt among all the acquired companies. Kodak promised to leave 1.8 billion to fill the debt hole, but it did not even fill half of it.

In other words, even if the joint venture is successful, Gongyuan will still be burdened with more than 2 billion in debt, and what it gets is to maintain its place in the civilian black-and-white film industry. But Gongyuan's land is not theirs, and the factory is not theirs. They don't even know who they are.

In the final analysis, the actual significance of this joint venture proposal is not that Kodak has acquired all Chinese photosensitive material companies except Lucky, but that it has given Kodak the opportunity to develop independently in the Chinese market for three years. Kodak did not make China's photosensitive industry go global as they said, but wanted to make China's photosensitive industry a Kodak-owned one.

Therefore, when Fan Wubing saw the various doubts in this, he felt even more depressed. It was hard to imagine how this matter came out? If it is just to show that an example of industry-wide mergers and acquisitions can be successful, Kodak can indeed make a big change in China's film industry.

However, it should also be noted that this change is not a huge change in the Chinese film industry itself, but a change in the owner of the Chinese film industry, which has become Kodak.

It is better not to pass this proposal, Fan Wubing thought after closing the file.