Soviet Godfather

It has been a long time since Sergei asked Tonya to go to Italy to set up a shipping company. Tonya has not returned to the Soviet Union for a long time. She now lives in Switzerland with her mother. Although I can't see Sergei Sha often, the relationship between the two has not changed. After all, the things experienced over the years are definitely not what an ordinary woman can imagine.

　　Mediterranean Shipping Company, currently run by Tonia, was previously founded by the Italian Mafia family. In the beginning, the Italian Mafia had reached out to the shipping industry in order to launder money. It is said that the first few Suez-class freighters of Mediterranean Shipping Company were paid in cash. But later, as the world, especially Europe, the economy fell into a downturn. The Mediterranean Shipping Company suddenly became a black hole of funds, and the Italian Mafia gave up the company when it had to. Sergei took over the company and let his wife take the helm.

　　 After several years of development, Mediterranean Shipping has become the second largest shipping company in the world, and the gap with the largest shipping company Maersk is gradually narrowing. However, Mediterranean Shipping is the shipping company that placed the most orders to shipyards in the world this year. In the first half of the year alone, nearly 30 giant tankers were ordered for 5 billion U.S. dollars. This is simply an order that shocked the global shipbuilding market.

　　 The shipping business is different from the high-tech industry in that it focuses on stable profits and long-term customers. Therefore, Tonya has always been the lowest-profile among Sergei's lovers. However, Dong Niya, who has been deeply involved in the shipping industry, has also realized that now the global shipping market is gradually shrinking. Although it is not impossible to surpass Maersk, the profits and the efforts obtained are simply not proportional. So Tonya turned her attention to a new business area, which is the air transportation industry.

　　 Dongnia now owns an air cargo company, which operates the air cargo business between Warsaw and Italy, which is now basically used internally by the Gorky Brotherhood. Tonya used to be a flight attendant when she was in the Soviet Union. Later, she became a key training target for her organization. She once worked in a management position for a period of time and also studied at the Aviation Management Institute in the Soviet Union. The enthusiasm for the civil aviation industry has made Tonya always want to enter this field.

Tonya has been looking for a suitable investment target for these years. Just a few months ago, Tonya met with Schwarzman, a partner of the Blackstone Group, in New York. Schwarzman introduced Pan Am to her. Major shareholders of airlines. So Tonya got the idea of ​​acquiring this iconic American airline.

　　 But when Tonya got the financial report about Pan American Airlines, she couldn't help but retreat. The operating conditions of this world-renowned intercontinental luxury travel airline have been much worse than before. It has been at a loss for several years in a row, and even the Pan American Airlines headquarters building in Manhattan, New York, has been sold off to Metropolitan Life Insurance. At present, Pan Am is probably the most valuable thing in the company’s large-scale technology with a large number of Jumbo jets with more than 400 seats, and the right to operate airports in New York and other places.

　　Schwarzman advised Tonya to wait for a few days and not rush to decide on investment. Because Pan American Airlines is already heavily in debt, and because it is an iconic American airline that operates business all over the world, Pan American Airlines' aircraft are often targeted by terrorists. Moreover, the U.S. economy is still sluggish, and the market for luxury intercontinental air travel is not as good as before. The operating conditions of Pan American Airlines are indeed very bad, but the operating conditions of his old rival Delta Air Lines and United Airlines are not much better.

　　 In the final analysis, this phenomenon is because there are too many factors restricting the aviation industry, including international oil prices, political situation, economic prosperity and other factors. This is not an easy business. So after careful consideration, Tonya decisively gave up the plan to acquire the world's No. 1 Pan American Airlines, and decided to acquire a smaller airline in the United States, just like operating a shipping business, steadily and steadily.

　　 So under the matchmaking bridge of the Blackstone Group, Tonya visited a small airline headquartered in Dallas, Texas-Southwest Airlines. The Blackstone Group introduced this company to Tonya because the company's financial structure is simple, the scale of assets is small, and the management difficulty is very low, making it easy for new entrants with no experience in the market to start. Southwest Airlines has more than one hundred planes, but these more than one hundred planes are all unified Boeing 737 planes. Because there is only one type of aircraft, the pilot cost problem caused by multiple types of aircraft is avoided.

Tonya’s team is in the cruel shipping industry. Naturally, she knows how to evaluate the competitiveness of a company. That is cost. Compared with the large multi-model luxury fleet of anti-American airlines, this single-model aircraft The airlines have more appetite for Tonya.

After initial contact, Tonya brought an irresistible proposal to the current shareholders of Southwest Airlines. First, Tonya could merge her European routes into the assets of Southwest Airlines. ~www.readwn.com~Secondly, Enron Energy and Occidental Petroleum under the Gorky Brotherhood will provide this company with more preferential jet fuel. Coupled with these two conditions and the abundant funds that Dongnia brought, Southwest Airlines had no idea of ​​rejecting it at all, and happily agreed to the request of Dongnia Holding this company.

　　 So after completing the acquisition and privatization, Tonya spent a month to reform Southwest Airlines' management. Under the leadership of Tonya's team, some shipping companies' operating methods have been used in the aviation industry, which is to do everything possible to save expenses and reduce costs.

　　The first step after Dong Niya took office was to take down all the business class seats on all the company's planes and replace them with regular class seats. In this way, a plane can carry a few more passengers. Although business class and first class can bring more benefits, Tonia thinks that Southwest Airlines will not be able to match Pan American Airlines no matter how hard it is in this regard, so she gave up happily. Focus on what Southwest Airlines can do.

The years of stagnation in the shipping industry have made Tonya accustomed to the cost-cutting business method. No one in the aviation industry has done this. After all, the history of airlines is only a few decades, and it has always been a luxury travel in the past. Lifestyle to promote. Therefore, Dongnia’s reforms made it difficult for Southwest Airlines employees to adapt. In order to stabilize the military's mind, Dongnia generously launched an employee stock ownership plan, so that most of Southwest Airlines’ incomes began to be linked to the company’s income. Tonya wants Southwest Airlines to be called a spoiler in the international aviation market. ...