As 1997 was coming to an end and New Year's Day of 1998 was about to come, Wang Xueqin, who had been busy in Western Europe for several months, finally sent back some pretty good news to Li Yuhang.
Lamborghini's two major shareholders, V'Power and Tom Suharto, are finally willing to have further communication on Stonebridge Fund's acquisition of Lamborghini.
At present, Li Yuhang's biggest opponent is Germany's Volkswagen Group, which is also interested in acquiring this group, and the initial negotiated purchase price has exceeded US$2 billion. This has to be said that Lamborghini's brand and technology are quite valuable.
In order to win over this company, especially Lamborghini's technology, Li Yuhang personally went to Italy with his assistant Yue Wanrou just after Christmas. He planned to personally communicate with the two major shareholders and even the Italian government to reduce the pressure on his side.
The difficulty of the acquisition is to at least prevent the company from being too disadvantaged by the Italian government.
In order to successfully acquire Lamborghini, Li Yuhang also spent a lot of effort. First of all, Stone Bridge Fund is registered in the Cayman Islands. In addition, he promised that after acquiring Lamborghini, the company's production base and engine R&D base will continue to stay in Italy. At the same time,
The transfer and export of relevant technology engines strictly comply with the regulations of the Italian government and even the European Union.
The reason why V'Power and Tommy Suharto are willing to further talk to Li Yuhang this time is mainly because of these promises made by Wang Xueqin.
Italy still has its own pride, and they will not be willing to sell their well-known car company to the Volkswagen Group as a last resort.
Fiat originally had the strength to take over Lamborghini, but it's a pity that Fiat already owns Ferrari and Maserati, and Lamborghini's products are too overlapping. In addition, most of the current luxury cars are money-losing products, whether it's Lamborghini, McLaren, Ferrari, or Bentley.
, Rolls-Royce, etc., are now in the red.
Fiat already has two losers, and it really doesn't have the energy to raise another one.
V'Power and Tommy Suharto had some financial problems themselves and were unwilling to continue to keep Lamborghini, so they started looking for a home for Lamborghini at the beginning of this year.
After all, only Volkswagen is more interested. BMW is thinking of selling off Luofu Automobile Company. It owns Land Rover, Luofu and other brands, so how can it be interested in Lamborghini.
Mercedes-Benz also doesn't have much interest. Ford in the United States has Jaguar and is currently eyeing BMW for the Luftwaffe, Chrysler is eyeing Volvo, and General Motors is not interested in Lamborghini either.
As a result, they negotiated many times for more than half a year, but never got a satisfactory price.
Fortunately, in August, Wang Xueqin suddenly came to Europe, and the name of Stone Bridge Fund spread all over the Western European automobile manufacturing circle for a while, whether it was Luofu Automobile Company in the hands of BMW, Lamborghini Automobile Company here, or Sweden's
Volvo has received an acquisition invitation from Stonebridge Fund.
This has also caused chaos among the auto group giants who are interested in acquisitions. The acquisitions that were once a sure bet have now become uncertain.
In particular, Stonebridge Fund behaved very arrogantly. It was not a money-loser at all, and it suppressed its opponents on the purchase price.
Even if Wang Xueqin’s nationality is in the Mainland, because of the place where Stone Bridge Fund is registered, these companies still can’t use something to argue.
Because of Wang Xueqin, the status of buyers and sellers has also reversed. Those who are preparing to sell are no longer in a hurry. Instead, buyers hope to get what they want as soon as possible.
However, the sellers also know that Wang Xueqin's purpose this time is quite clear, that is, to acquire one of them, so they are also very concerned about Wang Xueqin's actions, and negotiations with Wang Xueqin are also quite frequent.
On the one hand, I want to see if I can get a good price for Wang Xueqin, who is like a nouveau riche. On the other hand, I want to put pressure on other buyers to increase the purchase price.
Compared to the BMW Group and the Swedish government, Lamborghini's shareholders are undoubtedly more sincere, which is why Wang Xueqin was the first to engage in in-depth acquisition negotiations with them.
Now that the BMW family has a big business, they are not in a hurry to sell it in a short period of time. They can afford to wait.
The same is true for Volvo. You must know that Volvo is a large group. It not only manufactures cars but also aircrafts. This sale is just Volvo Cars.
Wang Xueqin was originally very interested in cars from England, but it was a pity that this prodigal son had sold out almost all the good brands in the past twenty years. There were a few that were not sold for the time being. The business was not bad, so there were no sales for the time being.
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As for France, let’s not mention it. The other side’s policies have been somewhat erratic in the past two decades. Its automobile industry is basically in the hands of the French government, and the other side has no intention of selling it.
The best places for Western European car companies to acquire are currently mainly in England, Italy and Northern Europe. There is no car company in these places that cannot sell.
Even Fiat Italy specifically contacted Wang Xueqin to see if he was interested in Maserati, and the other party was willing to negotiate on this product.
It's a pity that Wang Xueqin's main focus in acquiring a car company this time is car engines. Although Maserati is also good, the engine technology has now been relegated to Fiat's engine department. Even the Maserati manufacturing plant is shared with Ferrari. It's hard to buy only one brand.
Used for hair.
Wang Xueqin directly rejected Fiat's proposal. Although many car companies in Western Europe currently view her as a bully, if they really want to regard her as a bully, it can only be said that these people are really stupid.
At present, whether it is Luofu or Volvo, why are the shareholders behind them becoming anxious? It is because they know exactly what Wang Xueqin is here for this time. Once Wang Xueqin wins a company, he will no longer be interested in other companies.
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Because these companies have their own engine departments and have their own independent engine technologies and products, even if there is a gap between them in terms of performance, the gap is not big.
Needless to say, Lamborghini's engine technology. The engine department of Luofu was once a department jointly established by Land Rover and Cheetah. Volvo's department is also not bad. Although the other party's car engine technology and aircraft engine technology are not the same department, the technology is definitely the same.
It will not be worse than the technology of Lamborghini and Rover engine departments.
Elites in the automotive industry are very aware of the impact of a good engine on a car manufacturing company. It is no exaggeration to say that if you take over one of its companies, as long as you are willing to spend money, a large automotive group can be formed, from top to bottom.
Low-end, all types of cars can be manufactured.
It is very easy to develop mid- to low-end brands for luxury cars, but it is quite difficult to turn low-end products into luxury brands, mainly in terms of engine performance.
Brands like Lamborghini are actually very famous, but they don't actually make much money at all. They often lose money. An automobile group that really makes money definitely does not rely on top luxury cars like Lamborghini, Bentley, and Rolls-Royce.
Take Volkswagen, for example, which mainly makes money from mid- to low-end cars. Some of its luxury car brands are basically unprofitable.
Why is BMW so eager to sell off the Luofu Company? It’s because less than five years after the acquisition, it suffered losses of more than 2 billion U.S. dollars, and it really can’t afford to support these money-losing products.
However, after mainland China joined the WTO, car tariffs were gradually reduced, and the domestic regard of cars was saved, and the world's luxury car brands were saved, allowing many of these luxury car brand companies that were originally hovering on the edge of life and death to shine brightly again.