The amount of money Gu Kun spent on "grabbing the world's number one luxury yacht" far exceeded that of other wealthy people of his generation.
Abramovich, the boss of Lucia State Gas Company, spent just over 700 million.
Although Oracle boss Larry Ellison spent 800 million, which was nominally more than Abramovich, he actually did not pay the full amount at once, nor could he afford it. It can only be said that the Oracle boss is now a bit bloated and swollen.
The one with a fat face——
Because from 1999 to the beginning of 2000, it was the peak of the Internet craze. Today, the market value of Internet companies is extremely frothy. At its peak, Microsoft's market value even approached one trillion US dollars!
You must know that after the bubble recedes, it will take Microsoft nearly 20 years to briefly return to such a high level, which shows how exaggerated the bubble was at its peak.
Oracle is just an Internet software company, so Ellison's net worth has temporarily increased many times, and he can get a lot of money for luxury consumption by relying on equity pledges. And he is unwilling to actually sell some companies.
When buying a yacht with shares, you have to pay a small deposit in advance and then pay the balance after the completion of the project.
Historically, by the time Ellison came to settle the balance, the Millennium Internet Bubble had already collapsed, and he had to spend much more to sell stocks and arbitrage the current price to settle the balance. So that from then on, Larry Ellison quit
A luxury war for the rich that only a handful of the world's top rich can grab.
In comparison, he is still an oil tycoon like Abramovich. Although he is not the second largest contributor of money, he is the most durable and can last longer in the field.
Gu Kun spent 1 billion euros at a time. The pursuit of crushing was naturally all-round, and he had many more far-reaching plans. Not only was the yacht bigger, heavier, more luxurious and more expensive than others, he also used a trimaran design.
It will satisfy you.
The ship Gu Kun wants to order is full of science fiction and must be enough to become an enduring urban legend among the world.
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Seeing that there is only the last week left before the Spring Festival, the people at Lusen Shipyard have finally sorted out all the final needs of Party A and guarantee that they must achieve the following for Party A:
"Mr. Gu, please finalize the requirements for these additional designs: the hull mainly uses titanium alloy and magnesium-aluminum alloy shells, important cabins are required to be titanium alloy shells, and non-critical cabins are required to use part of magnesium-aluminum alloy.
The propulsion system of the hull is a newly developed water jet propulsion system, and sufficient pool testing will be conducted for the trimaran hull design to ensure efficiency/fitness. The total power of the main engine is 150,000 horsepower, ensuring a 24,000-ton hull.
It can also sail at a high speed of 37 knots, and the short-term top speed under extreme overload can even reach 39 knots..."
Speed is also an indicator that Gu Kun is very concerned about. After all, flexibility is quite important. For a normal ship, it is almost impossible for a hull of more than 20,000 tons to reach 39 knots.
For example, the domestically produced 055 destroyer in later generations has a single power of about 40,000 horsepower. A destroyer is equipped with 4 main engines, with a total power of 170,000 to 180,000 horsepower, but the top speed is only 34 knots, but the 055 destroyer is only about 14,000 tons.
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However, warships do not pursue extreme speed, and they are single-hull ships with a very wide water plane, so it is normal to drive slowly.
Gu Kun's trimaran sacrificed some other properties and used a small waterline cross-sectional area/underwater bulbous bow in exchange for greatly reduced resistance. While it drove fast, the price paid was that the steering was extremely inflexible. Because
There are three hulls in the transverse direction, one main and two auxiliary. The horizontal axis resistance is extremely high, especially when sailing at high speed, the turning radius is at least several nautical miles.
Warships cannot sacrifice steering flexibility in exchange for high top speed, so it is normal for each to have its own strengths.
At the same time, the motor-waterjet propulsion system required by Gu Kun is much more efficient in high-speed environments than the traditional gas turbine structure with propellers. What the yacht sacrifices in this regard is fuel efficiency and low power economy. In other words, Gu Kun
Kun's ship has much higher energy consumption per mile and is very unenvironmentally friendly.
Moreover, it also burns a lot of fuel when driving slowly, and cannot move very fuel-efficiently at "economic cruising speed" like a warship.
It can only be said that economics is not a factor that Gu Kun considers. The range is almost the same. If he brings more supply ships, he does not expect to cross the Pacific. He only needs to be able to drive from Southeast Asia to Australia. And the gas money is not even a factor.
Gu Kun was concerned, he wished he could burn more oil to show off his wealth.
Although it is a bit crude, in real life, those coal bosses often compare themselves to the fuel consumption of their own luxury cars, and are proud of their high fuel consumption: So and so, their family car has 17 fuel consumption per 100 kilometers! Don’t think it is a Volkswagen, in fact, it is called
Phaeton!
If you can't show off the fuel gauge, how can you "inadvertently" let a layman know that this is not a Passat?
After showing off the speed, power, fuel consumption and materials, Gu Kun of course had other requirements. After all, even modern warships cannot withstand much damage just by relying on armor. Everyone has long been in the thin-skinned and big-stuffing school.
The chief engineer of Lusen Shipyard continued to report:
"In addition, we will find a way to get you the French Ziyuan anti-aircraft missile. According to the minimum package configuration, it is equipped with 4 launch units, plus two rounds of ammunition preparation, for a total of 3 rounds of salvos and 12 anti-aircraft missiles. Not only can it attack incoming
It also has a certain ability to intercept cruise missiles when attacking enemy aircraft.
The bow and stern of the ship also reserve a redundant space for the installation of a proximity defense system according to your requirements. Proximity defense systems of various countries with a diameter of less than 30 mm can be installed. You can find a supplier to make up for it yourself.
For all air search radars and anti-submarine sonar, we can only use them to standards slightly higher than the highest civilian standards, which means that the capabilities of theater air release and multi-target continuous tracking are deleted...the price of these equipment cannot be included in the cost of the yacht.
That adds up to an additional €200 million."
Anti-aircraft missiles sound a bit prohibited, and it would definitely be more troublesome if it were a private buyer. But Gu Kun bought it in the name of the Lanfang royal family, so there is no ban on such a purely defensive thing with no offensive capabilities.
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To put it bluntly, Lan Fang wants to buy a frigate for his own national defense so that the royal family can escape and relocate in case of an accident.
I bought it, because it’s not a luxury product, so I don’t need to be fancy, just buy cheap stuff from China.)
Therefore, the so-called "better than the best civilian radars" mentioned by the designers of Lusen Shipyard are actually the current military air defense radars currently in use by the Germans/French.
It's just that some functions have been deleted, and the theater air defense capability has been completely blocked and simplified.
Readers who are not military fans may not understand this point very well.
Translated in human terms, it is equivalent to Oceania's Aegis and Japan's Kongo class. The early warning radar systems used by these so-called "Aegis ships" all have theater air defense capabilities. In other words, they do not protect the ship, but
It is to provide an air defense umbrella for the entire friendly fleet within a radius of 200 nautical miles.
Not only will enemy missiles that attack the Aegis ship itself be intercepted, but missiles that attack other ships more than 100 nautical miles away from the Aegis ship will also be tracked and locked by the Aegis ship's radar for fire control in an attempt to intercept them.
And as long as you remove the theater air defense-related modules that are so outrageous, and the remaining single point is empty, no matter how outrageous it is, the international community will not sanction and restrict your exports, because that thing has no strategic threat and is purely for self-protection.
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If all these equipment are taken into account, the cost is estimated to be less than 100 million euros. However, Lusen Shipyard dared to ask Gu Kun to charge 200 million. On the one hand, construction and installation require money, and on the other hand, it also needs to be managed up and down, but these are all
It doesn't matter anymore.
The only final disagreement between the two parties was that the construction schedule seemed too late for such a complicated construction project.
Even if we start construction immediately, Gu Kun will use it in 18 months, which is a bit too hasty.
Regarding this difficulty, the two parties could not reach an agreement many times, so Gu Kun had to give a new suggestion for the other party's reference:
"I am willing to invest another 1 billion euros, at least 1 billion. If it is not enough, I can still build a home. I hope that your company will build a world-class yacht decoration factory based on the existing shipyard/ship repair yard in the Lanfang Islands.
I do not require a dry dock for building the hull, as long as there is an outfitting berth for wet operations. When you deliver it in the future, you can first drive the undecorated semi-finished ship to Lanfang and put it into use. Then slowly decorate it in Lanfang.
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In exchange for this 1 billion euro investment in the decoration branch, I only need 15% of the equity of the Lusen Shipyard Main Factory - your current company valuation is definitely not 5 billion euros. If I increase the capital by more than 1 billion euros, I only need 15%.
The equity below the line will not interfere with your business decisions and designs. As long as you pay corresponding dividends, this should be a good deal.
You can go out and ask around. Sooner or later, I will be a "barbarian at the gate" of the top luxury industry. And in the maritime field, a top luxury yacht shipyard has an additional shareholder who is as legendary as Poseidon. This powerful combination will have a great impact on the company.
Isn’t the publicity image and brand positioning bad? If you insist on not letting me buy shares, I will buy your competitors, but I won’t do it.”
By spending more than one billion euros to do this, Gu Kun would definitely lose money financially.
The reason why he did this was just a publicity stunt, just like when he spent 1.5 to 2 billion US dollars to build the tallest building in the world, it was an absolute loss financially.
But the most expensive and largest yachts, as well as the shipyards that build the most expensive and largest yachts, can help grab Dubai's positioning just like the tallest building in the world. So the accounts cannot be calculated only from a financial perspective.
Gu Kun believed that no other investor in the world dared to bid like him, with both courage and threat.
Lusen Shipyard held repeated discussions, and finally chairman Eric Hansen replied to Gu Kun with an additional condition: "If it is just a financial investment, we can consider it, but you can never try to sell the shares. If one day you don't want to
When you become a shareholder, you can only resell your shares to us, and the price must be agreed upon. The price you bid when you increase capital today is the upper limit, and the price cannot be increased.
But if the company suffers losses in the future and the equity corresponding to the net assets is insufficient, we will repurchase it at a discount based on the net asset assessment - of course you can never sell it and never ask us to repurchase it."
To put it bluntly, it means that Gu Kun is not allowed to resell these shares to cash out and make profits.
No other financial investor would agree to such harsh conditions, because everyone else wants to be promoted and run away with their next employer.