National Tide 1980.

Chapter 1298 Like-minded

It was also a French fashion company, and they were also negotiating for investment and shareholding, and they also encountered cold eyes and contempt from the other party when they first met.

However, the feelings and results these two negotiations brought to Ning Weimin were completely different, and there were essential differences.

If for no other reason, it’s because the decision makers of the two companies have completely different personalities.

Henri Lacamier, the head of LV, is a stubborn, arrogant, very emotional person who acts entirely based on his personal preferences.

He even lacked the most basic courtesy towards those who came to help him.

Although as the head of LV he does have extraordinary artistic style and a high social status.

But it is unreasonable to talk to such a person who acts in an extremely selfish way and doesn't care about other people's feelings at all.

It's simply impossible to analyze the problem rationally with him and make a unanimous decision together.

Moreover, this person is very suspicious, and he doesn't even fully trust the person he seeks help from - Master Pierre Cardon.

It was as if after suffering a loss, he had a psychological trauma towards people and found it difficult to trust anyone again.

  With such teammates, you can imagine how likely it is to succeed? And how painful it will be?

To put it bluntly, from Ning Weimin's point of view, it is impossible to cooperate with such a person.

The so-called alliance was actually just a form of acquiescence for him to comfort the master.

In fact, it has no binding force on him, and he won't have too high hopes for it.

If his plan goes smoothly and God blesses him, and everyone's interests are taken into account in the end, everyone will be happy.

But if not, he would abandon the LV president without hesitation and only consider his own and the master's interests.

But the two decision makers of Yves Saint Laurent are different.

No matter which one of them, Ning Weimin truly admires them and believes that they are partners with whom he can work closely together.

First of all, Yves Saint Laurent himself is a contemporary fashion master and design genius who can be compared with Pierre Cardin and Karl Lagerfeld of Chanel.

In addition to this, he is also a descendant of a baron and a second-generation rich man.

But he himself was by no means arrogant or conceited.

On the contrary, he is a humble, polite, graceful, kind person who looks soft, shy and introverted.

In particular, Ning Weimin learned that the founder of Yves Saint Laurent was also deeply troubled by drugs and mental illness.

Judging from his behavior, he has some interpersonal fear.

He felt extremely sorry and sympathetic towards such a person.

He also suddenly understood why Pierre Bergé was so suspicious and wary of him.

To be honest, he didn't expect that the master designer would be able to attend today's negotiations in person in such a state.

Although Catherine's role in this cannot be ignored, this itself is actually a kind of respect, which makes him feel gratified and satisfied.

In addition, although Pierre Bergé was very critical of Ning Weimin, in addition to having his reasons, he also showed that he was serious, responsible, capable and had good business ethics.

Ning Weimin is actually grateful for Saint Laurent having such a business manager.

He and Keiko Matsumoto were busy enough with their own affairs, and he was too lazy to even get involved in Pierre Cardin's main clothing business. How could he be willing to waste his time and energy in faraway France and unfamiliar Europe?

How nice it would be to be able to earn money without doing anything else and be a freeloader?

The best thing is undoubtedly to do nothing and just wait for listing and dividends.

If Yves Saint Laurent's business managers lack such qualities and still need him to worry about the specific operations, it would be a headache for him.

Therefore, it is based on such feelings and cooperation foundation that both parties can be said to have the same goal and reach the same destination through different paths.

Although at the beginning, there were some misunderstandings in the words because we didn't know each other.

But once they had fully and openly communicated with each other, things started to go surprisingly smoothly.

In the end, both parties reached the following agreement quickly on the same day in a mutually pleasant mood.

1. Ning Weimin and Matsumoto Keiko should complete the acquisition of 25% of the shares of the French Yves Saint Laurent Company by remitting 100 million francs, 200 million francs, and 200 million francs respectively in the first week of each month in the next three months, otherwise the acquisition agreement will be invalidated.

Second, after the acquisition is completed, all transaction equity will be recorded under the personal name of Keiko Matsumoto.

Keiko Matsumoto did not seek a seat on the board of directors, did not actively interfere in the company's operations, and agreed to maintain the company's existing management structure.

Keiko Misatsumoto has temporarily entrusted Catherine Deneuve with full authority to represent her personal shareholder interests.

In other words, Keiko Matsumoto's shares will be bound to Catherine's personal shares, and they will make voting decisions on major resolutions of the board of directors in the form of joint voting.

4. Agreement on the midway exit mechanism.

In order to ensure the orderly progress of the listing, the shares under the name of Matsumoto Keiko are prohibited from being transferred or withdrawn within three years.

If the company fails to go public, three years later, the person to whom Keiko Matsumoto transfers her equity will need to be approved by the board of directors.

5. Whether before or after the listing, if Keiko Matsumoto continues to increase her shareholding.

Its shareholding cannot exceed thirty-three percent of Yves Saint Laurent.

This is to comply with the relevant laws of the French government and is also a necessary restriction to prevent a veto.

All in all, this agreement is signed.

Keiko Matsumoto is about to become the third largest individual shareholder of French Yves Saint Laurent.

Of course, it is also the only foreign shareholder.

His shareholding ratio will be second only to Yves Saint Laurent himself, who owns 33 percent, and general manager Pierre Bergé, who owns 27 percent, and is far higher than Catherine Deneuve's 6 percent personal shareholding.

  There is no doubt that once this deal is completed, it will not only help Matsumoto Keiko improve her personal status in the international film industry,

It will also allow Yves Saint Laurent to get capital injection without any worries and develop its ready-to-wear business, which is a win-win situation for everyone.

And that’s not all, because the social status of the young couple Ning Weimin and Matsumoto Keiko is somewhat special.

One of them is a major shareholder of E-Road and the inventor of the trolley suitcase.

The other, besides being a Japanese film star, is also the owner of Mist Studios.

Therefore, there are still many directions in which they can cooperate with Yves Saint Laurent in other areas.

For example, in order to help Yves Saint Laurent improve its operating income as quickly as possible, Ning Weimin took the initiative to propose cooperation with Yves Saint Laurent on the trolley suitcase business.

Taking into account Yves Saint Laurent's current financial constraints, Ning Weimin even proposed licensing conditions in which patent fees are calculated based on actual product sales.

In principle, Yves Saint Laurent could develop the product immediately by paying a deposit of 5 million francs.

Ning Weimin is even willing to provide mature production drawings for free, or domestic OEM services to help them produce accessories.

The fees that Yves Saint Laurent needs to pay are calculated annually based on the sales volume of related products.

The more you sell, the more you pay, the less you sell, the less you pay, and you will make a profit. In other words, if a suitcase is priced at around 8,000 or 9,000 francs based on Yves Saint Laurent's fame, for every product sold, Yves Saint Laurent only needs to pay 500 francs to E-Lad.

If the parts are manufactured domestically, plus the total cost of shipping and tariffs, Ning Weimin estimates that the cost will only increase by about 700 francs.

This means that Yves Saint Laurent makes at least 80% profit on every bag sold.

This proposal naturally surprised Pierre Bergé.

He never expected that such a big pie would fall from the sky and hit him on the head.

You should know that all of Pierre Catton’s trolley cases are made in Hong Kong and are manufactured by Zeng Xianzhi of Goldlion.

Currently, there is not enough supply even to the Southeast Asian market, and Pierre Catton's trolley suitcases cannot be sold to Europe at all.

When it comes to the European market, Pierre Catton is currently mainly signing patent licenses for Elad and collecting licensing fees.

Currently, the only things of this kind that can be seen in France are those bought from Japan or Singapore by some avant-garde people who like to travel, and those gifts received from the master by some celebrities who have a relationship with Pierre Cardin.

The same goes for Catherine Deneuve and Alain Delon, because they are spokespeople for Pierre Cardin China, they also received several trolley suitcases from the master.

But even so, this new thing has already caused a sensation in the French upper class and made many people marvel at it. This is enough to prove that this still blank market has great prospects.

In fact, after Pierre Bergé saw this thing at Catherine Deneuve's home not long ago, he thought it was convenient and beautiful, and had great market prospects.

But because it is a product of Pierre Catton, I can't do anything about it.

I am also a little jealous, thinking that with such a product in hand, Pierre Catton will definitely have a place in the suitcase industry in the future.

Who would have thought that today Catherine would bring the funds and the founder of this suitcase to his door.

Moreover, they have taken the initiative to relax patent authorization conditions for cooperation between the two parties and provided considerable convenience.

  Where can I find such a good thing?

So it is both for profit and out of respect.

Not only did he agree to the matter without hesitation, he also fundamentally changed his attitude towards Ning Weimin, no longer showing any contempt or suspicion.

After all, being able to invent something that can significantly change life is more worthy of respect than wealth.

Pierre lived with the master designer Yves Saint Laurent for half his life. He certainly knew how to appreciate true genius and was never stingy with his praise.

In addition, the second major work of Fog Studios - "Crazy Rich Asians" is about to start shooting.

Ning Weimin suddenly had a brilliant idea.

That is, he hopes that Yves Saint Laurent will follow the model of supporting Catherine Dephner during the filming of "Belle de Jour" and provide costumes for several important characters in their film.

In fact, Ning Weimin's original idea was to let Pierre Catton take over this business.

He even wanted the master to design a few sets of costumes himself.

After all, good things should be kept in the family.

But then he considered that the film was aimed at the whole of Asia and might even be screened in Europe.

Mainland China, which has made Pierre Cardin famous, is not the main box office market.

Therefore, if a brand like Pierre Cardin, which is positioned as a mass-market ready-to-wear brand, relies solely on it, it might turn the wealthy family in this movie into a joke.

He didn't dare mention it later.

But now it’s better. Today I met Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre, and we had a great conversation and successfully established a cooperative relationship.

Ning Weimin immediately thought that with the high style of the Yves Saint Laurent brand, it would be very high-end and completely appropriate to dress up wealthy families.

This can not only help Saint Laurent expand its business and increase its overseas popularity, but also reduce the cost of filming the film, and even obtain additional advertising sponsorship fees for Keiko. Why not do it?

Needless to say, related transactions like this that can benefit both parties are naturally welcome.

Not only did Pierre and Saint Laurent express great interest, they also quickly nodded in agreement.

In order to repay Ning Weimin's favor, Catherine Deneuve even offered to make a cameo appearance in the film for free if necessary.

Ning Weimin and Matsumoto Keiko were naturally overjoyed and agreed without hesitation.

But of course they can't do things like ordering people around for free, they still have to pay them.

Anyway, no matter what, both Alain Delon and Catherine Deneuve will appear in this movie.

This will undoubtedly raise the influence of this film to a higher level. It is destined to become a star-studded film, and the gimmick alone is enough to attract countless people to buy tickets to the cinema.

It must be said that this was another unexpected gain that no one expected.

But is this all that their friendship has achieved?

No, of course not.

The biggest surprise was that Ning Weimin and Yves Saint Laurent hit it off right away when they first met, and even discovered their common hobbies and interests during their casual conversation.

It turns out that Yves Saint Laurent was not only a great designer, but also a collector known as the "King of Paris" because of his aristocratic background and the bonus of being a second-generation rich man.

Although he was burdened with enormous design pressure throughout his life and had not been to many places, China and Japan were the only two places he had been to.

As early as the 1960s, Saint Laurent visited Kyoto, Japan, and was deeply fascinated by the Japanese Zen temples.

Although he had not visited China that time, after meeting Ye Zhiqiu, Saint Laurent was particularly interested in Chinese culture.

Yves Saint Laurent, who often visited China in his imagination, began to collect Chinese porcelain and other antiques to decorate his home on Avenue de Babylon in Paris.

Good at finding inspiration from works of art, he launched a series of clothing inspired by China in 1977, even before he arrived in China, incorporating his understanding of Chinese style into the design.

From silk fabrics to Chinese elements such as the front lapels, stand-up collars, buttons, embroidery, to highly saturated colors such as red, gold, purple, and emerald green, and to the use of patterns on traditional Chinese costumes and porcelain.

All of these demonstrate his obsession with Chinese culture, and also show the oriental aesthetic awareness and cultural appreciation that Saint Laurent gradually developed in the process of collecting Chinese artifacts.

In 1985, Diana Vreeland, then head of the fashion department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (who also worked for Harper's BAZAAR for a long time), held a solo exhibition for Saint Laurent. This was the first time that the Metropolitan Museum of Art held an exhibition for a living designer.

The exhibition then traveled to the China Art Museum in Beijing, which also facilitated Yves Saint Laurent’s first trip to China.

In fact, not long after Ning Weimin arrived in Japan, Yves Saint Laurent also visited Beijing, came to Tiananmen Square, appreciated the Chinese quintessence - Peking Opera, and had cordial exchanges with Chinese students studying fashion design.

Through this trip to China, Yves Saint Laurent not only gave back to his dream China in his own way, and like Pierre Cardin, continued to influence and inspire a new generation of fashion designers in the Republic, but he also completely became a fan of traditional Chinese aesthetics.

While Ning Weimin was shopping on Taobao in Japan, Yves Saint Laurent also raided Ning Weimin's lair. He bought a large number of antiques and handicrafts in China, even including lacquerware and silk figurines purchased in the Temple of Heaven Park. After returning to France, his collecting interests have never shifted away from oriental antiques. To date, he has accumulated a number of personal collections that he is very proud of.

Then an unexpected situation occurred again. Saint Laurent, a "socially phobic" who kept strangers away, became closer and closer to Ning Weimin as they talked more and more about China. He actually took the initiative to invite Ning Weimin and Matsumoto Keiko to visit his house.

Who can become friends with a stranger on the first day of meeting?

It is clear that Saint Laurent expressed his friendship through practical actions.

The bond that connects friendship is the shared cultural interests.