Return to 88: Starting from Marrying My Sister-in-law

Chapter 653 Capture
If there's no other choice!
Even if they were aware of these foreign conspiracies, whether they harbored wishful thinking, sought to ally with a tiger, or colluded with foreign capital, they would still be swallowed up by foreign capital one by one.

There will be no accidents.

Because it's determined by strength; we can't win, and no one stands up to resist.

Everyone is waiting for the person who dares to step forward.

Now, finally someone has stepped forward, and it's a leading figure among private enterprises. The name Mu Qizhong was absolutely legendary in China in the 90s. The name Lu Yang is also not to be underestimated today. Many people even believe that his name should be ranked before Mu Qizhong's, and the number one person in private enterprises should have been replaced long ago.

Now, the two of them have joined forces and somehow acquired a large sum of foreign exchange, daring to compete with Fortune 500 giants in the domestic beverage industry for established Chinese brands...

Isn't this the second option they've been waiting for?
Starting in the late 80s, with the opening of China's doors and the large-scale influx of foreign capital into the mainland...

Pepsi and Coca-Cola, two world-class beverage giants, have launched a series of acquisitions of mainland Chinese beverage manufacturers.

Their wolfish ambitions are blatantly obvious.

No, that's not right. In fact, they never intended to hide anything. They were just being honest and straightforward, using capital to force their way into China's beverage market.

It's more about money. Even if you knew that, what could you do?

Revolt?

The consequence of resistance is crushing defeat.

That's why more and more established domestic beverage brands are seeing their products selling less and less, leading to a rapid decline and a collapse in market share...

Yes.

That's why they immediately accept the olive branch when someone offers it to them!

Otherwise, do you think these old domestic brands are stupid?

Can't beat it!

That's why they had no choice but to accept the fate of a slow death. They took other people's money and accepted being controlled by them. Isn't that the same as accepting the fate of a slow death?

Lu Yang was waiting for Mu Qizhong to call him. He believed that this second opportunity, whether it was within the Tianfu Cola Group or its superiors in Sichuan, meant that as long as their brains weren't rusty and they didn't truly want to become traitors and be remembered as infamous for eternity, they would be there when Lu Yang and Mu Qizhong, the richest man in Sichuan, extended an olive branch together...

One should make choices that are beneficial to one's reputation.

Both are foreign exchange investments, both involve real money in US dollars. One is made by our own people, the other by a foreign giant with wolfish ambitions. Forget about acting for the people or the country; they're just thinking about their own reputations, about avoiding future criticism, about how the public, whenever they mention Tianfu Cola, will say it's all the fault of so-and-so, so-and-so, these few people... They could have sold it to our own people, but instead, they handed it over to foreigners...

They should be more careful.

Of course, this is just Lu Yang's speculation. Perhaps some people just like to acknowledge foreign masters and believe that only when foreign masters take over Tianfu Cola and implement a controlling stake in Tianfu Cola, introducing their advanced management experience and strong capital support, will Tianfu Cola develop better than it is now!
...There was nothing Lu Yang could do!

So, they are still anxiously waiting. Even though Lu Yang is a reborn person, after doing what he should do, he can't get involved at this point.

After all, it's beyond our reach.

Keep in mind that the distance between Shenzhen and Chengdu is a full 1950 kilometers (based on the shortest road distance between the two cities in 1994, not data from later times, so please don't criticize me if you're a stickler for historical accuracy), just kidding.

Two flowers bloom, one branch each.

Leaving aside Lu Yang's anxious wait, as dawn broke over Rongcheng, Mu Qizhong stubbed out his last cigarette and slammed the gold-embossed acquisition agreement heavily onto the hotel's coffee table.

The shouts of early morning market vendors drifted in from outside the window, while his phone screen displayed a secret message he had received in the early hours of the morning.

The Beijing negotiating team arrived at Shuangliu Airport this morning.

“The Pepsi people arrived faster than expected!” He squinted at the brightening sky outside the window, tapping his knuckles on the “1300 million US dollars... 55% controlling stake” clause on the title page of the agreement.

The promise made by Director Lin of Tianfu Cola last night still smelled of alcohol, but the private plane of foreign representative Christo is now approaching Chengdu's airspace.

This is, in fact, the third revised version of the contract, the third concession made after several phone calls with Lu Yang, who is far away in Shenzhen.

If all else fails...

There's no other way. We can only acquire another old domestic brand with a slightly lower market share and use more funds to fight these bastards to the death.

That's right, he's already gotten angry. He didn't expect that Mu Qizhong's face wouldn't work so well.

Even though they knew that cooperating with him was the best solution, these bastards were still talking to him while secretly contacting foreign devils in Beijing.

What do you want to do?
They just want to drive up the price, seeing who can offer more benefits. They completely disregard national conditions and ethnic sentiments, only thinking about money. These bastards...

Mu Qizhong is just a private business owner, yet he knows that everyone should point their guns outwards. But these bastards don't even understand these simple principles.

Do you think he has any grievances?
“These bastards… they’re all parasites, not a single one of them is any good… don’t give me a chance… once I take over Tianfu Cola Group… I’ll fire you all one by one, and nobody’s opinion will matter, damn it…”

He was smoking one cigarette after another. The fact that he could still be so angry under these circumstances shows that these people had really pushed Mu Qizhong to the limit.

If you keep giving in, anyone would get angry.

After all, he had all the original negotiation records between Pepsi and Tianfu. The initial agreement between Pepsi and Tianfu had been reached. According to the original agreement, Pepsi, the foreign giant, only needed to put up US$1070 million to take a 60% stake in the new company after financing, while Tianfu Group contributed its factory, equipment and brand, and only took a 40% stake in the new company.

Then Mu Qizhong found Tianfu Group to negotiate.

To show his sincerity, he was willing to offer an extra $200 million from the start.

But $200 million still couldn't sway these people. They said that if Mu Qizhong's brand wanted to compete with a world-class Fortune 500 beverage giant like Pepsi, $200 million wouldn't be enough.

Okay, let's add another $100 million to make it a round number, $1300 million. Converted to RMB, the extra $300 million is roughly equivalent to RMB2000 million. It's like getting it for free. Who wouldn't be tempted?

But then they said that since you are just a private enterprise, you want to hold a controlling stake, and even want 60% of the shares, that's too high. No, you have to lower it.

This time, Mu Qizhong also had a rebuttal, because he and Lu Yang had already discussed it back in Pengcheng. This time, when investing in Tianfu Cola, they would not use either his Nande Group or Lu Yang's Century Group as the investment entity, but would register another shell company overseas.

So who says we're a private enterprise? We're also a foreign-invested enterprise.

The truth is this.

But they were confident that they had Mu Qizhong figured out. This time, they didn't even bother to pretend anymore. They stammered and couldn't explain themselves clearly, but they still refused to sign the contract in the end.

Every day that is delayed increases the number of variables that may arise, especially since Pepsi Asia President Christophe is about to fly from Beijing to Chengdu.

Left with no other option, Mu Qizhong had to take the contract back and revise it overnight.

But that's not the most important thing. The most important thing is that the other party actually demanded on-the-spot verification of funds, which clearly showed that they did not trust Mu Qizhong. It was a slap in the face to Mu Qizhong!
Mu Qizhong was, after all, once the richest man in China.

In particular, he considered Sichuan Province to be his territory and his stronghold.

To be suspected of being a scammer in your own home—how can you tolerate that? Absolutely not!

It's just a mere 1000 million US dollars, who do you think you are?

But you know what, this guy really hit his weak spot.

The shell company located overseas doesn't have enough money in its accounts!

There's too much time to spare.

Lu Yang readily agreed to invest whatever amount was offered, and a significant portion of the funds was transferred to the shell company's account.

But when it came to him, Mu Qizhong was a bit out of the question. He had been promised three days to raise 1000 million US dollars, and he had even made a solemn promise to Lu Yang...

The result was, of course, that they didn't collect them all.

Foreign exchange is not the same as RMB. These days, even a few million US dollars is not a small amount for a company.

Later, Lu Yang kept lowering the price for him, saying that ten million was just a joke and he wouldn't need that much. He told his brother that if he was a little short on cash, he could just take out three to five million US dollars to play around with, and that they shouldn't take it too seriously.

But how could he not take it seriously?
Is this a question of how much money is invested?

This raises the question of whether I will have a say in this new overseas company and what percentage of shares I will hold.

Surely you can't expect to get more than you paid, can you?

That bastard surnamed Lu is also a particularly filthy-hearted person, comparable to Mu Qizhong. They usually call each other "brother" and seem to have an incredibly close relationship, but when it comes to the real deal, if you still want to take advantage of him, then sorry, he's a good person if he doesn't take advantage of you.

So Mu Qizhong gritted his teeth and scraped together what he could, but he only managed to raise a little over 200 million US dollars, less than 300 million US dollars.

The timeframe is still too tight. If he had a month, he would be absolutely confident that he could raise more than 500 million US dollars.

Just like yesterday, when faced with the difficulties from Tianfu Cola, he repeatedly assured them that the company was not short of money and there was no need to verify capital on the spot when signing the contract. Besides, his Nande Group is a local enterprise in Sichuan Province. Everyone knows that he pays tens of millions of dollars in taxes every year. A mere 1000 million US dollars is nothing.

But they told him directly that the leaders had instructed that his assets in China were no longer valid, and only foreign exchange would be considered this time. If he hadn't interfered, Chengdu would have been guaranteed a foreign exchange investment of over 10 million US dollars. But because he insisted on interfering, this sure thing has slipped away. Do you know how many people will lose sleep without this foreign exchange?
If you don't fill in the blank, then this investment agreement is void.

Driven to desperation, Mu Qizhong scratched his head, slammed his fist on the table, and cursed, "Damn it! Aren't my money in the mainland money too? Why do you all assume it belongs to the local area... And I even lost your 1000 million in foreign exchange! If you push me too far... I'll invest all my money elsewhere, and... Believe me or not, I'll move my entire Nande Group out of the country..."

This threat is quite powerful. It doesn't affect Tianfu Group itself, but its leaders certainly don't want to see this happen. If such a thing were to occur, someone would definitely have to take the blame.

So both sides compromised, and the other party said that they could temporarily not consider cooperating with the foreign-funded PepsiCo Group, but you, Mu Qizhong, can't fool them. You said you would use foreign exchange for investment, so you have to take out real money from the foreign exchange!
In short: Here's your time, go back and raise the money!
However, from Mu Qizhong's perspective, he had lost face and was determined to regain it. Moreover, after speaking with Lu Yang on the phone, Lu Yang also indicated that they absolutely could not allow Pepsi's Asia President, Christo, to fly to Chengdu so casually and have too much contact with Tianfu Cola before they finalized the acquisition cooperation.

Especially at such critical moments, we must be extra vigilant to prevent accidents from happening.

then what should we do?

He really made a big boast. If there's no verification of the funds, then nobody will know how much money they actually have in their overseas investment company accounts.

But the fraud was exposed as soon as the funds were verified!

You can't even say you're acquiring 55% of Tianfu Cola's shares for $1300 million. If that's exactly the amount of money you have in your account, then naturally the more money you have, the better. It proves your strength, and the other party can feel more at ease following you to fight against giants like Pepsi.

Fortunately, at this time, that kid surnamed Lu suggested that they could bring in another shareholder.

Moreover, it's better to go for someone you know than someone you don't. Xiao Jun was a pretty good guy to begin with, but unfortunately he's penniless now. However, his sister is rich. Why don't we try asking his sister?

Mu Qizhong was so happy that he immediately agreed.

I didn’t think much about it.

They even assigned this arduous task to the young man surnamed Lu on the other side.

That guy surnamed Lu actually said he wasn't good enough, and he was afraid his wife would mind. He's currently trying to avoid too much contact with that girl from the Qian family, lest his wife suspect he has an improper relationship with her, causing trouble at home.

Mu Qizhong laughed immediately, "You little rascal, are you henpecked? So afraid of your wife? Let me tell you, a grown man like me has nothing to worry about when it comes to wives. Don't let women control you. If things really get out of hand, just get a divorce. Learn from me, I've already married four wives. Life is short, only a few decades. What you want is to have a good time. Alright, that's settled then. It's up to you. Don't say you can't do it. If you really can't, I'll have to look down on you, hahahaha..."

The more he laughed heartily on the phone, the more pain he felt after learning the truth.

Of course, these are all for later.

He is currently waiting for good news from Lu Yang.

Sudden……

The newly arrived, beautiful female secretary rushed in: "Mr. Mou, it's here! It's here! Miss Qian from the Xiao family's overseas funds have arrived!"

Mu Qizhong suddenly burst out laughing, grabbed his suit jacket and strode toward the door: "Let's go! Let's get our first victory before our international friends get off the plane, and then meet them again... This battle is just the warm-up, there's still more to come."

the other side.

In Pengcheng, Lu Yang had just received a call from Qian Youyou.

"Thank you very much this time."

"Thank me for what?"

"Without your help, our Qian family wouldn't have been able to come up with so much foreign exchange."

"It's a small matter, just don't make a fuss about it, otherwise our busy old brother from Sichuan will be so angry he'll vomit blood."

"Um, so...about us?"

"Didn't I already say? Let's talk about it after your sister-in-law gives birth. What's the rush? I'm not going anywhere. I'll get you pregnant sooner or later."

"What? In broad daylight! Ugh! How disgusting! Aren't you ashamed?"

"Didn't you start this?"

"I'm ignoring you, hanging up."

"Hey, wait a minute, your brother probably doesn't know about our deal, right? Be careful he doesn't tell on us, then we'll both be in trouble."

"Don't worry, if he dares to snitch, I'll beat him up, beep beep... beep beep beep..."

Lu Yang lay on the swing under the grape trellis in the villa's yard, holding the cell phone that kept making beeping noises, and couldn't help but shake his head.

Actually, it's nothing serious. It's just that Qian Youyou doesn't have enough foreign currency, so he privately exchanged some for her. Anyway, she'll spend it all, so exchanging US dollars for RMB won't change anything.

(End of this chapter)