Snyder, the CEO of Nice Semiconductor Company in the UK, was an aristocrat with a title. Although the title was not passed down to him, he inherited the aristocratic style meticulously. Even though the Nice company was declining,
Even though his CEO's salary had to be reduced again and again, he still maintained a proud face like a black swan, showing off his aristocratic appearance to the two yellow-skinned guests sitting in his office.
"Boy, please drink coffee. This is hand-ground using coffee beans produced in Sandos. I'm not used to drinking machine-ground coffee. I think it has a...coal taste." Snyder
He greeted the guests with a strong hint of pretentiousness in his tone.
"Thank you." Xiao Weihao from China's national security department nodded politely to Snyder, not minding the other's showing off.
"I very much agree with Mr. Snyder's point of view." This is what Qin Hai, who always disdains other people's pretentiousness, is saying. He picks up the coffee with a smile, sips it, and says: "Coffee ground by a machine is indeed not as good as coffee.
Hand-grinded coffee has a more natural feel, especially if it is powered by thermal power, the taste of the coffee will be even worse. However, if you use water and electricity, you can barely drink it..."
"Pfft!" Xiao Weihao almost spit out the coffee in his mouth. You are awesome. I just drank the coal flavor from the coffee ground by the machine. You can even smell the coal, electricity, water and electricity. You are really superior.
.
∴ "Fire and electricity..." Snyder was also choked by Qin Hai. He wanted to express a little anger at Qin Hai's teasing, but he had no way of talking about it. After all, he was the one who initiated this topic.
I just followed his routine.
"The two of you said on the phone that you are interested in investing in Nice Company. Can you tell us in detail?"
After taking a few breaths, Snyder decided to put aside the coffee issue and go directly to the topic of today's meeting.
Qin Hai and Xiao Weihao flew from Beijing to Birmingham, an old industrial city in the UK, a week ago. After having some peripheral understanding of the current situation of Nice Company, Qin Hai directly called Snyder and expressed his intention to participate in the stock.
Nice Company. Snyder was worrying about the business prospects of Nice Company. He couldn't help but be overjoyed when he heard that someone was brave enough to take over. However, out of the reserve of a nobleman, he did not immediately agree to Qin Hai's request, but only invited Qin Hai and
Xiao Weihao went to his office for an interview.
Qin Hai's trip to the UK this time was originally for Nice Company. Through his huge network of relationships abroad, he had long heard about the fact that Nice Company was in business difficulties. Nice Company is a powerful semiconductor company in the UK.
Although the manufacturer can only be regarded as a second-rate enterprise compared with its international counterparts, its technology is definitely far ahead of Chinese enterprises. If such an enterprise can be acquired, it will be able to comprehensively improve China's overall
Semiconductor manufacturing level.
In many fields, you can see that a little-known foreign company has more advanced technology than the entire country of China. This is not actually because these companies themselves are so great, but because they have the support of the entire Western world.
Take Nice for example. Its high-purity single crystal silicon growth furnaces, photolithography machines, ion implanters and other advanced equipment come from more than a dozen countries including the United States, Germany, Italy, Britain, France, and Sweden.
If Chinese companies want to purchase equipment, they will never be able to do so. Western countries will use various excuses to obstruct it.
In the dictionary of Chinese industrialists, we often see a word called "being controlled by others", which is a word formed from countless painful lessons. In order to avoid being controlled by others, China's equipment manufacturing industry often has to use a certain method to avoid being controlled by others.
With the strength of the country, it singled out its peers around the world, and made up for its own shortcomings one by one, until it became the only country in the world that has all the industrial categories in the United Nations industrial classification.
Qin Hai came to Nice Company this time. The most direct purpose was to obtain the igbt manufacturing process and related equipment mastered by Nice Company, and the indirect purpose was to open a gap to the Western semiconductor industry system through Nice Company.
Of course, Qin Hai also knows that trying to eat up Nice Company is tantamount to seeking the skin of a tiger, which is a very difficult thing.
"Mr. Snyder, I heard that Nice Company has had some operating difficulties in the past three years. We would like to see if we can do anything for Nice Company." Qin Hai said in a tactful tone.
Snyder said arrogantly: "Indeed, as rumored by the outside world, our company has experienced some temporary difficulties. However, these difficulties are nothing. We are currently making adjustments. I believe we will get out of the predicament soon.
To restore the glory of Nice Company."
"Really?" Qin Hai asked, "Is this your personal view, or is it the unanimous view of your company's board of directors?"
"Mr. Qin, what do you mean?" Snyder looked at Qin Hai with his small eyes and asked.
Qin Hai smiled and said: "In the past few days, Mr. Xiao and I have also visited a few friends in Birmingham, including the directors of your company. According to them, the board of directors is not optimistic about the prospects of your company."
"This is just an individual's opinion." Snyder replied with some embarrassment, "The difficulty our company is currently encountering is that the speed of technology development is lagging behind. As long as we can introduce a small amount of funds, we can bring in several of the things we are currently developing.
Once the technology is completed, our difficulties will be resolved soon."
"Oh, really?" Qin Hai said calmly. He knew that Snyder's purpose of saying this was just to add more weight to himself in the negotiation. The problems that Nice Company is facing now are completely unlike Snyder's.
As simple as it sounds, bringing this company back to life cannot be achieved by just bringing in a little bit of capital.
The problem of Nice Company is actually a common problem faced by all small and medium-sized semiconductor manufacturing companies in the world. With the development of semiconductor technology, the scale effect has an increasing impact on the competitiveness of semiconductor products. Semiconductor companies must either continue to expand their scale
, in order to reduce costs, or they can only survive in some market segments, waiting to be squeezed out or merged by large enterprises.
Nice Company used to have some technical strength, relying on several advanced technologies, and it was indeed very prosperous. However, due to the lack of foresight of market changes and failure to keep up with the pace of technological changes in time, Nice Company's market began to shrink, and eventually there was
Continuous losses. Under this situation, if Nice Company wants to revive, it must find a big investor, inject no less than 200 million U.S. dollars, comprehensively update equipment, and improve technology. Otherwise, any small thing will make a big difference.
All the investment I made was just in vain.
Using the contacts accumulated at the Global Materials Annual Conference, Qin Hai learned about the current situation of Nice Company from several semiconductor experts. He also knew that it was almost impossible for a company like this to find hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in the capital market.
In Qin Hai's eyes, Nice Company is a treasure; and for Western investors, there are many semiconductor companies with greater investment value than Nice Company. Who is willing to throw money into this pit?
A few days ago, Qin Hai specifically visited several major shareholders of Nice Company to understand their attitudes towards Nice Company. The answers from these major shareholders were almost the same, that is, they had completely lost confidence in Nice Company and hoped to sell it as soon as possible.
, in order to recover some equity capital.
With such information, Qin Hai is naturally not afraid of Snyder's tricks. The other party's pretentiousness is due to his character. Qin Hai doesn't care. He knows that it is not these tricks that determine the outcome of the final negotiation, but the real facts.
of real money.
"Mr. Snyder, do you estimate how much additional investment your company will need to get out of its current difficulties?" Qin Hai asked.
"This..." Snyder was at a loss for words. He just boasted that he could get out of trouble by injecting a little money. Now facing Qin Hai's question, he didn't know how to answer.
Let's talk about a small amount. In fact, it is not enough to solve the problem. In the end, an opportunity to attract investment will be missed.
To say a real number is equivalent to a slap in the face, which will make the two customers despise you. More importantly, in this way, the company's predicament will be obvious. In the subsequent negotiations,
will be passive.
"I think... we need about $20 million..., of course, if it's more, maybe it would be better." Snyder replied hesitantly.
"20 million US dollars?" Qin Hai sneered, "The igbt chips currently produced by your company use 400 micron thick silicon wafer technology, and today's mainstream trend is thin silicon wafer technology below 100 microns. To carry out thin silicon wafer processing
For production, your company needs to update all the monocrystalline silicon growth equipment. Can these equipment be purchased for a mere US$20 million?”
"This..." Snyder was dumbfounded. He originally thought that the Chinese people didn't know much about igbt technology and would just say what they said. Who would have expected that the young man in front of him could see the technology trends clearly and even the company's equipment status had been analyzed.
I figured out that my pretentious behavior was just acting like a monkey in the eyes of others.
"Mr. Qin is right. We are indeed considering introducing thin silicon wafer technology. If we can have enough funds to introduce corresponding equipment, it will of course be the best. What I just said is based on our current situation.
We hope to carry out some technical development on thick silicon wafers." Snyder said. He is not entirely lying, because due to the company's financial constraints, Nice's technology department is currently developing thick silicon wafers.
The development of technology, although this can only be regarded as a patching of outdated technology.
Qin Hai said unceremoniously: "Thick-layer silicon wafers are expensive and the process is complicated. Currently, Siemens, Toshiba, IR, SGS and other companies have made it clear that they will abandon this technology. Your company continues to make a fuss about thick silicon wafers.
, it’s just a waste of money.” (To be continued, please search Piaotian Literature, the novel is better and updated faster!