Digital Kingdom

When the attention of the outside world was attracted by the news of "Norman" abnormal intelligence and brilliant company listing.

As the protagonist, Zhao Ziming hid it instead and stayed at home. No news came out throughout May.

Even when the Digital Group and the Catalonia Autonomous Region government of Spain reached an export agreement worth tens of billions of dollars, Zhao Ziming, the chairman of the group's board of directors, did not appear at the signing site.

During the whole process, the general manager Wang Tianbao represented the digital company and signed the export contract of the "Sky Eye Project" with Gerardo Pisarello, the first deputy mayor of Barcelona.

Only at this moment did everyone realize that Zhao Ziming had been missing for almost a month.

As the richest man in the new generation, and even the richest man in Asia, he is born with a halo and is the focus of attention of countless people.

Occasionally not showing up, you can still talk about the past.

Missing for a long time makes people suspicious.

Is it a health cause or is it a power struggle involving the company?

Or it involves a deeper inside story!

The official reply given by the Digital Group is that in order to build a more standardized corporate governance structure and reduce personal impact on the company, the chairman has plans to fade out specific affairs management and has recently been on vacation abroad.

For a time, rumors arose from the outside world.

In the 18th neighborhood of Pingliang Street, Shanghai, in the Poly Filijiadi, a two-storey duplex mansion, Shen Yiyi sits with a few people.

Since the Black Widow incident, in order to be cautious, Zhao Ziming specially purchased a new house for Wang Zhengjun in the same community as a shelter.

A trap was set up in the original place to wait for the rabbit.

"Mr. Zhao, this is the situation," Hu Xinxin, Manager of the Overseas Investment Department of Digital Group, reported on his recent work, and finally concluded.

Zhao Ziming played with the jade pieces of tortoise and crane in his hand, without speaking.

With a layout of about 450 square meters, naturally there is no specially designed reception room, and a crowd of people gather in the living room to discuss matters.

After Wang Zhengjun gave the fruit plate and greeted everyone briefly, he consciously went to the study to be busy.

This is the second meeting here.

Almost all of you present here are the confidants of Zhao Ziming, and you don't know anything about his love affairs, and you are not surprised, naturally, there is no need to hide anything.

And when Hu Xinxin entered the private field of leadership for the first time, it was when she was excited, she didn't even care about the boss's woman.

"5%, do you have a good idea?" Zhao Ziming broke the silence.

In order to lay out the chip industry, he not only spent a huge amount of money to build a domestic manufacturing plant, but also raised 20 billion US dollars to prepare to secretly acquire the British chip company ARM (AdvancedRISCMachines).

In the past month, the purpose is to mobilize resources, build a team, and act in the stock market.

After everyone's efforts, Zhao Ziming now has nearly 4.9% of ARM's shares (about 68 million shares) at a cost of 800 million pounds (nearly 1.1 billion US dollars).

The results are not bad, it can be considered a victory in the first battle.

However, the first stumbling block has appeared.

According to the British Stock Exchange regulations, the purchase of a company’s shares must be disclosed to the public when a certain amount is purchased.

Of course, this is not a special case, no matter which stock exchange in which country, there are similar regulations.

If you buy a company’s shares and buy 1%-2%, you don’t need to tell anyone that you bought these stocks, but once you go online, for example, if you buy 5%, you must publicly announce that you bought the company’s stock. The information, which is also the principle of stock transparency, prevents sudden attacks.

However, Zhao Ziming was unwilling to announce the acquisition information at this moment due to many considerations.

According to the information he has collected, Japan's Softbank is also in contact with ARM and intends to acquire.

Since the acquisition of Vodafone’s Japanese division at a cost of US$15 billion in 2006 and becoming Japan’s third largest telecommunications operator, Sun Zhengyi’s ambitions in this area have gradually begun to appear.

In 2013, spent 20 billion U.S. dollars to acquire US mobile operator Sprint.

Now I am looking at ARM again, and the heroes really see the same.

Compared with Sun Zhengyi, Zhao Ziming's chances of winning are not great, whether it is contacts or resources.

In this case, it is very important to enter the game first.

ARM, headquartered in Cambridge, is currently the world's largest mobile chip design and manufacturer, and is known as the most precious gem in the British technology crown.

In June 2010, Apple had expressed its intention to acquire ARM for USD 8 billion, but was rejected.

ARM CEO WarrenEast said that ARM is more valuable as an independent company, and the only reason for buyers to make acquisitions is to eliminate competitors.

It does not produce chips by itself, but only studies the core of microcontroller chips.

As a leading mobile device chip designer, ARM uses a transfer license system to authorize chip design solutions to other companies and collect patent fees.

At present, more than 1,300 mobile chip manufacturers around the world, including Qualcomm, Samsung, and MediaTek, use the ARM chip architecture.More than 85% of smart phones and tablet computers and more than 70% of smart TV chips in the world use ARM architecture processors.

Its value can be imagined!

Although ARM's own revenue is not high, the total turnover in 2015 was only 1.5 billion US dollars.But the technical barriers it has established in the smartphone and mobile fields are unique.

Of course, the more precious, the more difficult it is to acquire.

The company's current market value is approximately $22 billion.If you want a wholly-owned acquisition, the premium may exceed 50%.

This is just a matter of money.

When it comes to the transfer of advanced technology, factors other than money are more important.

However, Zhao Ziming did not want to let go of this opportunity, even though the chance of success is slim, he still has to fight hard.

A few strokes in life!

Today, no matter from the perspective of personal wealth or the scale of the company, it can be said that Zhao Ziming has almost reached the peak of his life.

The rest is just the pursuit of value and the realization of ideals.

Ordinary people succumb to fate and cannot see the future;

Smart people dare to challenge fate and want to see the future;

The elite try to grasp fate and want to control the future;

But what Zhao Ziming wants is: to cross fate and create the future.

If you want to get to this point, you must dare to challenge all difficulties and dare to climb any extreme.

ARM, as a chip design company, can be said to coincide with Zhao Ziming's next plan (foundry) and is a perfect match.

Both parties to the merger and acquisition have complementary relationships in technology and products. Once the merger is successful, it means the birth of a larger and more competitive company.

On the other hand, the competitiveness of the semiconductor industry comes from the research and development of advanced chips.For now, the cost of developing advanced chips has reached about US$100 million.

This cost is a big challenge even for industry giants like Intel.Therefore, through this acquisition, the company can expand its business scope, thereby reducing the risk of chip research and development.

It can be said that it is imperative.

Since receiving the news from Sun Zhengyi, Zhao Ziming has given up almost all his work and devoted all his energy to this.

Collect public or semi-public information, select elites to form M&A teams, formulate overall plans and emergency plans...

Even in the early stages of the plan, for the sake of confidentiality, he lived in turns among the residences of multiple women.

At each meeting, the venue is temporarily notified, and participants are required to close all communication facilities without leaving any text or video materials.

After all, the amount involved is too large, and the matters involved are also very sensitive. If you don't pay attention, you will easily die.

Last year, Tsinghua Unigroup bid $23 billion to acquire US chip giant Micron Technology Inc., but was rejected by the US government on security grounds.

In recent years, most of the efforts of domestic companies in the chip field have fallen into shame, and political factors are the key.

Although the target of this acquisition is a British enterprise, the United Kingdom and the United States are integrated, and under the "long-arm jurisdiction" of the United States, the risks are also high.

Especially at the beginning of the operation, although the investment is small, failure is easy.

Zhao Ziming was careless, walking on thin ice.

However, none of the great things in the world can be achieved easily.

Nothing is risk-free. The reason why great successful entrepreneurs are great lies in the control of risk.

Entrepreneurship is difficult, and if you want to be great, you must have the courage to face difficulties and the tenacity.

The solution is always more difficult than the difficulty. For Zhao Ziming, even if the sword is in front of him, he has to break through.

Hearing the leader's question, everyone looked at each other and didn't know what to say.

The 5% red line is a national regulation, it is almost impossible to bypass it!

For today's plan, only forced acquisition.

However, this has not only increased costs, but also increased risks.

Zhao Ziming looked at everyone's reaction and was not disappointed.

Shen Yiyi watched his lover take a sip of tea, his expression calm, not irritable or impatient, he couldn't admire him.

As the maker and executor of the merger plan, she naturally knows the key.

The boldness of this plan is beyond imagination, and the difficulties faced are numerous. The astronomical amount of resources invested in the early stage has not seen any light until today.

However, Zhao Ziming was well-informed, his performance was consistent, he was very confident, and he was a great encouragement to everyone.

"Mr. Zhao, I have an idea," Hu Xinxin's assistant Liang Junchao suddenly said, breaking the silence.

"Oh, tell me," Zhao Ziming was not surprised, and motioned for him to continue.

Liang Junchao used to work at investment bank Goldman Sachs and private equity fund Baring Asia. When Digital Group established its overseas investment department, he was hired by a headhunter with high salaries, and Hu Xinxin is an old partner.

Together, the two are a typical combination of handsome men and ugly women. Hu Xinxin looks average and looks particularly inconspicuous in front of Liang Junchao.

"I have studied the UK Securities Law and found a loophole",

Liang Jun calmed down.

Although I have seen countless big scenes, in front of Zhao Ziming, it is impossible to say that he is not nervous.

"If we buy ARM's stock directly, it will be announced to the public if it exceeds 5%, but we can use a financial trick-'equity swap', in this way, we can easily avoid this rule."

When Liang Junchao talked about his professional field, he began to show his energy.

“There are now three investment banks holding 17.1% of ARM’s shares, with a total value of no more than 4 billion U.S. dollars. We can sign a bet agreement with them. The object of the agreement is the investment bank’s ARM stock, which is based on future price changes. .

"If the ARM stock price reaches a fixed price when the gambling contract expires, we will buy the stock in the hands of the investment bank. If it doesn't reach this price, we won't buy it, just pay a handling fee."

Zhao Ziming understood it immediately.

Simply put, I spend a small amount of money, that is, a handling fee, to buy a right from you. This right can ensure that I can buy the stock I want to buy at a certain price agreed in advance someday in the future.

It sounds like a good way.

However, as a professional, it is impossible for Hu Xinxin to think of this. What is the inside story?

Zhao Ziming: "Xiao Hu, what do you think."

Although he was younger than the other, everyone took it for granted that he called Xiao Hu.

Hu Xinxin was annoyed by Liang Junchao's behavior, but knew that this was not the time to tear down the platform.

I sorted out my thoughts a bit, and said:

"I discussed with Junchao about the possibility of adopting an equity swap agreement, but considering the greater risk, I did not propose it. The English name of'equity swap' is'equityswap', which can also be translated as equity rights. In this way, it is very Easily found by the court as a hostile takeover.

"There have been similar cases before. In 2010, after the hostile takeover of the LVMH Group's'equity swap' by the Hermès Group, it filed a complaint with the Paris Prosecutor's Office, accusing LVMH of "insider trading", "collusion", and "stock price manipulation". Unconventional means to increase the shareholding of Hermès eventually won a certain degree of support from the court. If we adopt this method to acquire ARM's stock, it is impossible to guarantee that we will not repeat the same mistakes."

The few people present can understand the reason.

"Equity swaps" do have some shortcomings. Although they can hit the enemy by surprise, they are easy to leave behind.

Hu Xinxin felt that the risk was too great. It was very likely that the bamboo basket was empty, but Liang Junchao was high-spirited and wanted to take the sword.

This is because the two people have different personalities, and it is also determined by their location.

As the manager of the investment department, Hu Xinxin wants to be upright and upright.

And Liang Junchao, as his deputy, wants to achieve some results, he must be flexible and surprisingly winning.

There is no right or wrong between these two people, just look at what the leader needs.

"Yiyi, what do you think?" Zhao Ziming turned to his deputy,

Shen Yiyi grasped the man's mind almost immediately. Since he asked this, it showed that he had made up his mind.

The acquisition of ARM is not a simple matter. It is impossible to make a fair and good-faith acquisition.

In this case, all means must be used. As for the risk, it is no longer within the man's consideration.

What Zhao Ziming identified must be realized by every possible means.

"I agree with Xiao Liang's proposal," Shen Yiyi said directly without hesitation.

Adhering to the man's style of dealing with things, simple and clear, less nonsense.

"There are three reasons, one is..."