That's right, as the boss, Jia Hongjian must consider everything, not just about saving money, but also about whether he can make money early! For example, Volvo, if Jia Hongjian remembers correctly, around 2012, its sales in the Chinese market were almost 70,000 units a year! At the same time, its global sales volume was just over 400,000 units, so the Chinese market provided almost one-fifth of Volvo's market! If our Saab can achieve this level, then the domestic sales of 80,000 units per year, plus the 80,000 Saab sales in Europe, will reach a record high sales volume of 160,000 units! What is this concept? We may not be able to turn a profit in the first year of business, but we have already set a new sales high! As we slowly expand our channels, we can make money no matter what!
And in terms of price, we also have an advantage. The Saab cars we sell in the Chinese market can be imported from Sweden in the form of parts. If you import a complete vehicle, you will have to pay a lot of taxes. First of all, when a complete vehicle is imported, it has to pay a 25% tariff, then a 17% value-added tax and a maximum consumption tax of 40%. After that, depending on the displacement, there is also a "displacement tax"! But if you import parts as parts, the tariff is only 10%. Even if you assemble it into a car, you still have to pay value-added tax, consumption tax and even displacement tax, but at least the tariff is reduced by 15%! According to the ex-factory price of about 400,000 yuan, the 15% tariff is 60,000 yuan!
In other words, as a BMW 7 Series with the same ex-factory price, after paying taxes and fees, the price is about 800,000 RMB, and here it is 740,000 RMB! This has a price advantage! And besides, when auto parts are imported, it will definitely take more space to ship than shipping cars by sea! By then, all our parts can be packed in containers. There are a lot of things packed tightly in a container. The import of complete vehicles is different. When importing complete vehicles, in order to ensure that the vehicle is not scratched, etc., for example, more expensive cars are transported by special transport ships, and the cars are driven directly to the deck in the belly of the ship and fixed. of. As for generally less expensive cars, they are driven into containers and fixed, one car per container! This definitely takes up much more space than the spare parts! This means that a BMW 7 Series car costs RMB 400,000 to leave the factory. It costs 500,000 to ship to China, and we also leave the factory for 400,000. The price of shipping to China and reassembling may only be 430,000!
What about the difference in taxes and fees? In the end, the BMW 7 Series reached an after-tax price of 800,000 yuan, and ours was about 670,000 yuan! After all this time, the price has come out to 130,000! And this doesn¡¯t even count the BMW 7 Series sales companies and car manufacturers that can drive up the price! Obviously the same car, ours sells for 670,000, and someone else's sells for 1.2 million. Is this price difference revealed? Although these cars are aimed at the wealthy class, it seems that in the eyes of ordinary people, rich people buy expensive cars to show their status, but the problem is that rich people are not fools! If they find out BMW will treat them like idiots. What will happen? Their money is not brought by strong winds, so they can tolerate BMW treating them like this? Can they endure it when outsiders see them driving a BMW 7 Series and laugh at them for being idiots for actually spending hundreds of thousands more to buy a car?
Don¡¯t forget that we still have the right to speak! We still have media! We can take the initiative to blow up such a shady secret! Historically, our Chinese companies have not made any luxury cars themselves, so there is no direct competition with these car companies that are doing bad things to deceive consumers. And these companies are united one by one to defraud consumers of their money. How can they? Will he expose his own inside story? But we are different. It will definitely be good for us to expose such an inside story!
So after thinking about it again and again. Jia Hongjian finally decided to buy Saab now! After Jia Hongjian made the decision, China Automobile and General Motors soon began to negotiate various details of the contract. As expected, GM still proposed that although Saab's more than 10,000 patents and the intellectual property rights of various models, engines and even gearboxes could be transferred to Huaxia Automobile, after all, these intellectual property rights were still developed with GM funds. Apart from anything else, after GM bought 50% of the shares in the 1990s, didn't it mean that GM's money was included in the development money? Aren¡¯t the results of development half as universal? Therefore, GM wants to avoid adding competitors in the future. Therefore, restrictions must be added to the contract. If Huaxia Automobile wants to transfer Saab Automobile's brand or intellectual property rights and patent usage rights in the future, it must obtain GM's approval! Otherwise, the transfer contract signed by Huaxia Automobile will be invalid!
Jia Hongjian doesn¡¯t care about such a clause. He is not prepared to regard Saab as Motorola. After Google acquired Motorola, it was for the patents on Motorola¡¯s many mobile phones. And after the acquisition, Google was not prepared to properly run the Motorola brand, and was planning to sell it in two years! To put it bluntly, Google acquired Morgan Stanley?Rolla, actually just for the patent, nothing else! Of course, this is not the case for Huaxia Automobile. To be honest, as far as the patents on Saab cars are concerned, it is really hard to say that Huaxia Automobile has spent so much effort!
Soon China Automobile signed an agreement with General Motors in the United States to trade the Saab automobile brand and related intellectual property rights for US$450 million. For such an acquisition, it really does not mean that everything will be fine once the contract is signed, because this brand is really not small, so this kind of transaction must be approved by the governments of the three countries! First of all, this is a transaction between a Chinese company and an American company, trading brands, so Huaxia Automobile must report relevant matters to the government of our country and seek approval. Then GM has to report it to the US government for approval. In the end, such a company is still in Sweden, and Sweden is in the EU, so such an acquisition agreement has to be approved by the EU agencies.
If nothing else happens, the three countries will successively approve such a transaction in about half a year, and then the transaction will be considered completed. At the same time, within half a year, Huaxia Automobile will also transfer US$450 million in cash to GM's account in batches. This will be considered as the two parties will not owe each other anything in the future. GM is quite confident about the possibility of this transaction being approved. After all, such a brand is just a loss-making product with low sales volume. If it is a company or brand with relatively good sales volume and advanced patents, Then the U.S. Congress may not approve the sale! Just like in China, didn't Coca-Cola once want to acquire a well-known domestic juice brand, but after the contract was signed, it was submitted to the country but was rejected? This is the same thing in any country. If you buy something that is too good, you will be stopped. As for the trade of a brand like Saab, it will not be stuck in Europe. Not to mention anything else. Historically, let alone Saab, even when Volvo was being traded, the relevant EU agencies did not call for a halt!
So in such a situation, GM simply handed over the control of Saab to China Automobile after signing the contract. This is equivalent to allowing China Automobile to start rectifying the company about half a year early! Such a small favor can be said to be quite a face-saving gift. Of course, the reason why people give face is because Jia Hongjian and the others are happy to give money. If someone else comes to buy a Saab, they may not be able to pay all in cash! Maybe they should also give some shares, equity, etc., and also have this and that thing to offset the cash. But Huaxia Automobile has money, and if it comes directly with real money, GM will of course welcome it the most! Nowadays, when the Mud Bodhisattva crosses the river and it is difficult to protect himself, they are most welcome to real money and silver of all kinds of hard currency! Seeing that Huaxia Automobile was so interesting and willing to give all the money in cash, and within a few days, it transferred 100 million US dollars in cash to GM's account. Of course, GM was also willing to lend flowers to Buddha!
After Huaxia Automobile took over Saab, they did not hold a grand press conference to announce that they, as a Chinese private enterprise, had launched a wave of global acquisitions because in Jia Hongjian's view, the announcement now was Quite inappropriate! Maybe when other private enterprises come, they will be eager to promote it immediately. They may even give money to various domestic media and ask the media to help them say good things. They make it seem that the significance of such an overseas merger is like a counterattack to the past. It looks like the headquarters of the Eight-Nation Allied Forces. But in Jia Hongjian's opinion, when it comes to publicity, you have to pay attention to rhythm! What rhythm? It¡¯s about attracting consumers¡¯ attention in a relay manner! If we launch the publicity right now, it will attract the attention of consumers all at once and shock domestic consumers. What next? Then it will take half a year to legally transfer the ownership, so the Saab car will really have to wait until half a year before it is launched in China, right? Didn¡¯t consumers almost forget about the news about the acquisition in the past six months?
In fact, it is better for us to promote it after half a year, and then attract the attention of consumers every ten days and a month. It is best not long after attracting the attention of consumers for the first time, the new car will be on the market! Only in this way can the attention economy be maximized! (To be continued.)