"What, you've already finalized the deal?" Hao Jianguo, who had been lying in an ICU bed alone for almost a month and had finally pulled through the brink of death, recovering about half of his strength, received this astonishing news from Jin Mao, whom he was seeing for the first time in a month.
"That's right!" Jin Mao said, beaming. Clearly, in Hao Jianguo's absence, Jin Mao had been the highest responsible person for the entire negotiation team, leading the entire negotiation process. This would be a significant achievement for him.
"Manager Hao, actually, we have to thank you for this. When we handed over your medical evaluation report of severe injuries to the top management of Jiangnan Group, those people were stunned."
"Especially when we stated that we would use this medical evaluation report to sue in the US court, accusing Jiangnan Group of intentional assault, and demanding the seizure of all Jiangnan Group's assets in the US. Jiangnan Group people were completely unable to sit still. Their so-called CEO, Leng Zhiruo, had to personally come out to negotiate with us and appease us with kind words. The negotiations began that very day!" Jin Mao said proudly, while Hao Jianguo wore a furious expression.
He knew that these achievements were all bought with his life, which was almost beaten to death.
"That's not right. With Jiangnan Group's strength in China, they couldn't possibly fail to find out that you were the ones who beat me!" Hao Jianguo tried to find loopholes in the negotiation process, then said with a frown.
"They found out. The next day, they produced the invoices for our purchase of wrenches at the hardware store, as well as photos from traffic surveillance videos on the road, and reports of the wounds, proving that they were attacked with weapons similar to wrenches, and so on. In short, the evidence was quite comprehensive, and even I couldn't refute it."
"But I told them that I would not sue in Chinese courts, but in US courts. As for whether the US courts would believe this evidence, that remains to be seen after the lawsuit!" Jin Mao said smugly. "With just this sentence, I completely subdued Jiangnan Group. They no longer dared to talk about whether the assault incident was true or false, and just kept saying things like 'please be merciful'!"
"Merciful?" Hao Jianguo's blood rushed to his head. Who else could they be referring to as merciful, if not himself.
"And that's not all!" Jin Mao continued. "When they were negotiating, they also tried to be tough with me, saying that they had completely mastered the vacuum maglev train technology and would therefore never sell it to us. Then I pointed out all the fabricated parts in their videos, which immediately rendered them speechless. The negotiation was stalled for three days before it resumed, and they never mentioned anything about completely mastering vacuum high-speed train technology again!"
"After these two blows from me, Jiangnan Group essentially lost their bargaining chips. Then, under my continuous onslaught, Jiangnan Group had no choice but to accept the reality and sell us both the PT technology and the vacuum maglev train technology!"
"Look, this is the draft contract we signed yesterday. Take a look, and if there are no issues, sign it and we'll send it to the headquarters together for the boss to review!" Jin Mao said cheerfully.
So, the reason he had so rarely visited Hao Jianguo today was to get Hao Jianguo's signature. After all, Hao Jianguo was the manager and head of the delegation. Without his signature, it could not be reported upwards... at least, that was the apparent procedure.
"Let me see it!" Hao Jianguo sat up from the hospital bed and took the draft contract, carefully examining the entire draft.
This cooperation draft contract was a full 500 pages long. However, the truly core parts were in the last few pages, which detailed the specific contents of the cooperation.
First, for the PT department, Jiangnan Group would sell all its equity in Android Company to Goldman Sachs Group for a total price of 2 billion US dollars. At the same time, Jiangnan Group must provide PT equipment and parts production and contract manufacturing services to Goldman Sachs. The specific prices must not be higher than the market price, nor should they refuse to supply goods or slow down the supply for any reason.
PT was the simplest. The cooperation on vacuum high-speed dual-track maglev trains was more complex. Firstly, Pacific United Rail Company, under Goldman Sachs Group, must grant the maglev train technology it held to Jiangnan Group for free use. In addition, it would give Jiangnan Group a one-time lump sum payment of 60 billion RMB for the permanent buyout of the agency rights for vacuum high-speed dual-track maglev trains in all countries and regions worldwide, excluding mainland China.
This sounded relatively simple, but the content related to vacuum high-speed dual-track maglev trains occupied 65% of the entire report, with over three hundred pages dedicated to this cooperation.
To be meticulous and to perfectly constrain this cooperation, the report contained a considerable number of technical clauses and lists, virtually listing all technical names, structures, research and development, etc., of the vacuum high-speed dual-track maglev trains, striving to include every piece of technology in the contract to protect the security of these technologies.
After reading this cooperation report, Hao Jianguo fell into deep thought for a while before saying, "Sir, this contract draft has some issues. I hope you can provide me with an explanation."
"Why do you have so many questions?" Jin Mao said impatiently, but since he needed Hao Jianguo's signature, he had to say, "Ask away."
"Alright, first of all, regarding this 2 billion issue. Clearly, all the important technologies and patents held by Android Company are in our hands now, and Jiangnan Group has almost no important patents left. Why do we have to spend 2 billion to buy the entire Android Company? You know, Jiangnan Group's total investment in Android was only 500 million US dollars. This is equivalent to buying the company at four times the price!" Hao Jianguo questioned.
"What do you know? Do you know that Jiangnan Group initially asked for 10 billion US dollars, and I brought it down to 2 billion US dollars step by step?" Jin Mao immediately exploded. "Yes, I know Jiangnan Group only spent 500 million US dollars on Android, and most of the technology is also in our hands, but Jiangnan Group holds the production capacity!"
"We at Goldman Sachs haven't been idle either. We've been looking for other contract manufacturers all over the world, hoping they could produce Android. But the results were all unsatisfactory. There are many designs here that only Jiangnan Group's technology can solve."
"So, this 2 billion US dollars is not for buying Android Company, but for the production support of Android behind Jiangnan Group. Although 2 billion US dollars seems like a lot now, this 2 billion US dollars completely buys out all of Jiangnan Group's involvement and potential in Android and PT. It's equivalent to completely buying out PT."
"Moreover, according to our actuaries' calculations, PT will be a vast market worth 500 billion US dollars in the future, and it even has the potential to create a company with a trillion-dollar market value. For only 2 billion US dollars to acquire Android, we are actually getting a great deal!"
"The most crucial point is that Jiangnan Group has also agreed that we can deliver to Apple at the final deadline of the contract. This will allow Apple's mobile phone launch to be postponed by another two months, ensuring that our PT can be released first. These are the reasons why we decided to spend 2 billion US dollars to acquire Android."
"Who told you that Jiangnan refused to budge at 2 billion US dollars? We painstakingly negotiated for more than ten days, and it was only then that we had to agree. And this price has been approved by the headquarters after I reported to them. What are you fussing about here? Do you know how much effort we put into the negotiations!" Jin Mao's string of words silenced Hao Jianguo.
Fine, since the headquarters had agreed, what else could Hao Jianguo say.
So he shifted his gaze to the contract for the vacuum high-speed dual-track maglev trains and hesitated for a moment before saying, "Why are there two additional words, 'dual-track,' in the name of this maglev train? I remember there weren't these two words before!"
"Is that so?" Jin Mao was stunned. It was also the first time he noticed this issue. After recalling, he said, "The name is written like this in all the technical data that Jiangnan Group provided us. This should be the official name for this maglev train given by Jiangnan Group. Why are you questioning it?"
"It's just that there were never the words 'dual-track' before, and now suddenly there are, which makes me feel something is not right!" Hao Jianguo said.
"People like you, at a glance, haven't dealt with technology and don't know what a scientific name is!" Jin Mao snorted. "You probably don't know that in scientific reports, humans are written as Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata, Subphylum Vertebrata, Class Mammalia, Infraclass Eutheria, Order Primates, Suborder Haplorhini, Family Hominidae, Subfamily Homininae, Genus Homo, Species sapiens."
"We humans are like this ourselves, so when naming something like a vacuum high-speed train, it is natural to be extremely cautious. Adding the words 'dual-track' to standardize the name of the entire train, what problem could there be?"
"Moreover, knowing that this thing is actually not important, in this contract, over six thousand technical details are standardized, completely locking down all aspects of the vacuum high-speed dual-track maglev trains. A name cannot change anything!"
"This is also what I want to talk about next!" Hao Jianguo said, looking at the string of technical names. "You've standardized the technical names so meticulously. What if some technologies are not included in these technical lists? Could Jiangnan Group then refuse to license those technologies to us in the future? Could this be a word game by Jiangnan Group?"
"Hmph, how could we not have considered this question!" Jin Mao snorted. "In fact, the real key to this contract is not these technologies, but the global agency rights for the vacuum dual-track high-speed maglev trains. Even if they hold those technologies, what does it matter? According to this contract, their technologies can only be used domestically, and they are not allowed to construct or sell any vacuum dual-track high-speed maglev trains abroad. As long as this rule is in place, then everything is ours. It is meaningless for them to hide their technology."