American Peanuts

Chapter 208 Rust Belt, Auction
"Complete the acquisition first. Don't forget, in addition to Ratan Tata, there are many companies interested in these three British car brands." Victoria hung up the phone.

At the same time, in the conference room of the MGM Grand Detroit Hotel in downtown Detroit, Ravi Kant was conducting the final pre-bid evaluation with his colleagues.

"Last year, Land Rover's global sales were estimated at 20 units, with sales totaling 40 billion pounds. The main model was the Range Rover Sport, with global sales of 66900 units. Jaguar's full-year sales were 15 billion pounds, with approximately 7 units sold. Cars. Rover sold [-] cars last year, and [-]% of its customers were from the UK..."

"Okay Mr. Tata, with the help of this fund, I promise to complete the bid for Land Rover Jaguar Rover." Ravikant heard the good news from his boss on the phone and immediately made a promise.

He put down the phone and said to everyone present: "Mr. Tata decided to reduce his holdings in some telecommunications branch stocks in exchange for a large amount of liquid cash. This time we have sufficient confidence to bid."

Compared with the joyful and high-spirited Indian team, the bidding team from another Asian company seemed less confident.

"Head, this time there are several major international giants coming fiercely, and there are even young capital outside the industry like Charlie Rossi. It is difficult for us to grasp it."

"Then let's put it another way. Considering that we just acquired London Taxi Co., Ltd. not long ago, our first priority is to open up the British market. The other two can be given up at our discretion..." the middle-aged man said meaningfully.

On the other side, in a Central Asian city tens of thousands of miles away, the young His Highness received an encrypted satellite phone call.

"He is a movie investor, but he is also interested in car brands?" His Highness laughed.

"But I believed in his vision, and I decided to double the original budget."

·
Kayla got up and got out of bed, stepped on the soft carpet with her bare feet, stood on tiptoes, and walked around the clothes of the two scattered on the floor.

She came to the window naked and opened the heavy curtains with a swish.

The bright sunlight of late winter shines in, shining on Keira's graceful body and illuminating the fine dust in the air.

She turned her head and looked at Charlie, who was still lying on the bed, and couldn't help but laugh: "It's time to work."

She came to Charlie's room last night, originally planning to report to him the specific organizations participating in this bidding meeting, but Charlie was obviously not interested in these, so that halfway through the report, the two of them fell out on the bed.

In a daze, Charlie was pulled up by her and looking at the clear sky outside the window, Charlie realized that it was already the next morning.

"Since the weather is so nice, why don't we go out for a walk?"

"The deposit has been sent to Ford. Since we have confirmed to participate in the bidding, we have to be ready." Kayla picked up Charlie's clothes and threw them on the bed, then sat at the end of the bed, straightened her toes, raised her long and plump legs, Wear small panties.

"Ford has cut off most of its foreign brands. It is obvious that after two years of huge losses, it has decided to survive and terminate all global strategies. They only care about money, and whoever pays the highest price will win." Charlie said.

Kayla turned around and looked at Charlie, who looked like he had a winning chance, and said with some concern: "Companies in emerging markets in Asia, tycoons in Central Asia, private equity funds in Europe, and the Renault-Nissan Alliance are all preparing to participate in this bidding. "

"Yes, but the amount of funds of these institutions does not have an advantage. We have only one real opponent, Ratan Tata from India. Yesterday local time, Ratan Tata Telecom sold a large number of stocks. I guess they finally My budget should be around $30 billion. My budget is $50 billion." Charlie said while getting dressed.

Keira laughed angrily: "Did you peek at me last night while I was asleep?"

"You can understand that."

Kayla crawled from the end of the bed to the head of the bed on her hands and knees, and took the initiative to button up Charlie.

Now that Charlie had figured out the details of the other party, Kayla felt relieved and followed Charlie to the downstairs hall.

"We came down a little early, and we still need to wait for a while." Charlie pointed to the sofa in the hall for people to rest.

"Are we going to wait for Musk?"

Charlie shook his head.

"Who are you waiting for?"

Charlie shook his head again and said with a smile: "You will know later."

About ten minutes later, Kayla saw through the huge floor-to-ceiling glass a dark red SUV with a streamlined body parked in front of the hotel. It was the X6 she met at the auto show yesterday.

"Wow, there are already buyers for the newly launched car?" she said in surprise.

Immediately afterwards, I saw a man getting out of the car, walking into the hall with small steps, and looking around.

Charlie raised his hand, and the man immediately came over and handed the car keys to him.

Charlie winked at Kayla next to him, and the man immediately understood and handed the key to Kayla.

"Dear lady, welcome to become the world's first X6 owner."

Kayla opened her mouth wide, looked at the car keys, then looked at Charlie, and then realized that the car was actually for her.

"I know you like it, so I bought it for you as a small gift."

Facing a high-net-worth customer like Charlie, the other party readily agreed to Charlie's special delivery request.Charlie did this just to surprise Kayla.

Kayla took the car keys, pulled Charlie and trotted out, touching and looking at her own X6, the world's first, with uncontrollable joy on her face.

"It's so beautiful. Thank you, honey, today is the happiest day of my life." She gave Charlie a big kiss.

Seeing Keira's heartfelt expression of joy, Charlie understood to some extent the true meaning of the ancient emperor's "it's hard to buy a beautiful smile".

Kayla drove Charlie around downtown Detroit in her brand new car.

"How about you drive, and I'll check out what fun places there are in the city center?" Kayla said suddenly while waiting at the red light.

So after crossing the intersection, the two changed seats.

"Going all the way north to the Ford Log Factory, we can visit the production line of the Model T, which is the world's first assembly line manufacturing vehicle. But we have to find a place to have breakfast on the way. I'm a little hungry. ." Keira came over and tried to say.

Charlie glanced at her, and Keira immediately realized what he wanted to do. After rolling her eyes at Charlie, she leaned over and lowered her head.

On the way back from Rogge Factory, Charlie chose to walk on a relatively remote road, and soon noticed a large number of women standing on the street outside the car window, wearing exaggerated clothes and heavy makeup, almost every few dozen meters.

"Let me tell you a little secret, the larger the opening of the fishnet stockings, the more intense the taste can be played with." Keira revealed.

In addition to these women standing on the street, there are also homeless people who can be seen everywhere. They are homeless and push the metal trolleys used in supermarkets. The "garbage" placed in them is all these people's belongings.

"Speaking of which, the Model T has just celebrated its [-]th anniversary, but the busy industrial center in the past has now become decayed and rusty." Kayla recalled the production line she just visited and was filled with emotion.

"Since the financial crisis, the national average unemployment rate has been close to [-] percent, and I think it's even higher here."

"Be lucky." Charlie turned the steering wheel and left this dirty road.

“Looking back, this year was the worst year in ten years, but looking back, this year is actually the best year.”

Driving back to the wide asphalt road again, what you see is a different scene, the office buildings with bright and clean windows, the pleasant green park, the idle pedestrians walking their dogs, the endless traffic whizzing by, as if you are in the on another planet.

·
"How was your day yesterday?" Musk asked Charlie sitting next to him on the way to Ford's global headquarters.

Early this morning, Ford sent an MPV to receive several potential buyers to Ford's global headquarters to participate in a bidding meeting.

Considering the venue, only four people are allowed to participate in each team, and there are only four people on Charlie's side, so Kayla and Musk's female companion are also honored to participate in this bidding meeting worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

"Driving around casually, how about you?"

"I made a day-long call yesterday and found that there was another problem at the factory. Some parts were in short supply, while others were over-purchased and piled up in the warehouse. The forklift also hit a worker. He was sent to the hospital last night. In addition, I have to pay a lot of extra hush money." Musk fiddled with some messy hair, it can be seen that he was exhausted by these things.

"I really hope you can complete the acquisition quickly. The factory urgently needs reasonable production planning and experienced workers." Musk even showed anxiety.

He had no intention of accepting external help at first, but it was like opening Pandora's box. When he knew that Charlie could help him solve these problems, his thoughts changed subtly, and he even gradually regarded Charlie as the only one. life-saving straw.

"I saw that X6 in the parking lot..."

"Yes, that's my gift to Keira."

Musk said "Oh" and didn't know how to answer for a while.

There were several media organizations outside the gate of Ford. After a brief welcome from CEO Alan Mulally, the closed-door bidding meeting began immediately. In order to eliminate outside interference, no one was allowed in or out, and each team would only be equipped with a mobile phone to follow up. The telephone number for external communication is to eliminate additional interference and ensure the smoothness and fairness of the bidding.

This is also the first time Charlie has participated in a corporate bidding, and it looks like a special auction.

"Relevant reports have been distributed to everyone. According to the evaluation and impartiality of a third-party accounting agency, the base price is one billion U.S. dollars, and each bid will be no less than 5000 million U.S. dollars."

"13 billion." One Equity Partners, a private equity fund from Europe, was the first to raise a placard.This is a private equity investment company headquartered in New York, focusing on investments in the middle market, mainly involving industrial, medical, technology and media fields. The leader behind it is JPMorgan.

"15 billion." The Renault-Nissan alliance followed suit and increased the price.

Several other interested buyers also bid, and the Ada Foundation directly raised the price to US$20 billion. Subsequently, many companies chose to withdraw.

ADA Funds is one of the world's leading national funds, investing in publicly listed equities, fixed income instruments, real estate and private equity.

Ravikant, the representative of the Ratan-Tata Group, whispered a few words to the assistant beside him, and then the assistant raised his placard.

"21 billion!"

"22 billion."

"22 million."

The two parties took turns bidding, but each time the price increase began to shrink, it could be seen that the price was approaching the upper limit of each company's budget.

Kayla looked at Charlie aside, and he had no intention of raising his hand.

On the other side, the head of ADIA's North American Investment Office also looked at the young man sitting diagonally in front of him and reported in a low voice.

"Charlie Rossi didn't make any moves. Maybe he just had an intention and didn't decide to actually buy it."

As soon as he finished speaking, he saw the beautiful young girl next to Charlie holding up a sign.

"25 billion." Keira's arms even trembled a little when she gestured. After all, this amount of money was an astronomical figure to her.

Ravikant turned his head and glanced at Charlie who was not far away. The two of them even looked at each other for a brief moment, and Charlie nodded slowly.

Ravikant did not greet Charlie, but turned his head and raised his hand himself.

"28 billion." He shouted out the price directly.

Keira immediately followed suit and added another $[-] million to that amount.

"Yes, Charlie Rossi has made a bid. The current bid has reached 30 billion US dollars. Sir, this is the top of my authority. If the bid exceeds this price, I must submit to... Sorry, Your Highness."

In the conference room, Ravikant slowly raised his hand. After hesitating for a few seconds, he slowly opened his mouth and raised the price to US$35 billion.

Kayla immediately followed up again, and the final transaction volume approached US$40 billion.

"The first round of bidding is over. There is a 15-minute break for everyone to discuss." The host of the meeting announced the end of the first round of bidding.

"I don't think Ratan Tata will bid in the next round." Charlie looked at Ravikant next to him who was taking out a tissue to wipe his sweat.

After a brief discussion, the bidding resumed.

"Four billion dollars." A voice came from behind Charlie.

Everyone looked back together.It was actually a customer from Central Asia who gave an astonishing US$40 billion to the three brands of Jaguar, Land Rover and Rover.

Even Charlie was disrupted.

$40 billion?We must know that Ratan Tata once completed the transaction, but it only cost 23 billion, which has nearly doubled now.

Obviously, this was for himself.

After thinking for a while, Charlie silently raised his hand.

"A billion dollars."

Seeing Charlie's bid, the representative of Ada Fund breathed a sigh of relief and almost slumped on a chair.

"You are right, Charlie chose to accept the price."

He couldn't help but feel afraid. If Charlie didn't respond to the price, he might end up...

Of course, if it wasn't for the order from the other end of the phone, he wouldn't have dared to do so if he had ten guts.

"Very well, say hello to Charlie Rossi for me." The other party hung up the phone.

After repeated inquiries and confirming that no one responded, the meeting host gave another 15 minutes of discussion time.

The third round of bidding has lost its suspense.

"Congratulations, Mr. Charlie Rossi, there will be a short live broadcast of the press conference later." Alan Mullally found Charlie, and the smile on his face was about to overflow.

The final transaction price was as high as US$41 billion, which far exceeded Ford's internal assessment.

Of course, this is also related to the method of selection. Rather than an independent bid, it is more appropriate to call it an "auction." The reason why Ford chose to do this is naturally to gain more revenue.

Looking at Allen with a smile on his face, Charlie reminded him in particular: "Don't forget the promise you made before. I will not pay the entire amount before the acquisition is officially completed."

"Of course, these commitments have legal effect. We will remit part of the transaction proceeds to the pension fund account of the Land Rover Jaguar brand. In addition, it also includes legal assistance on the acquisition to ensure that the acquisition is completed within three months..."

(End of this chapter)