Rebirth Tokyo 1986

Chapter 191 Lithography Machine

After dinner, we talked about "Snowman Doctor", which was designed with reference to "Dr. Mario".

Masato Takeshita suddenly changed the subject and asked, "Have you been paying attention to American pop culture recently?"

Rogers responded as a matter of course: "Of course, Michael Jackson and Madonna are my favorites."

"No, I'm talking about a cartoon that's very popular recently."

Rogers thought about it and asked uncertainly: "Well, are you talking about "Ninja Turtles"? "

"Yes, it's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was originally a comic book created by the American Phantom Studios. After being made into an animated film last year, it immediately became popular all over the United States.

It is said that many countries are preparing to introduce and broadcast it this year, and it is estimated that its influence will soon spread across the globe.

"President, do you mean to acquire this company?"

"Yes, I am very optimistic about the development of this brand and want to fully acquire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Even if a full acquisition cannot be achieved, the minimum requirement is to obtain the game copyright of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is one of the few super IPs that can flourish in multiple fields including movies, television, and games.

Masato Takeshita wants to acquire this IP as soon as possible, especially the game copyright of the IP.

Because the longer you delay, the higher the price of the IP will be.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of this right away."

"Yes, it has to be fast. Our market for horizontal RPG games needs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to be realized."

The previous game "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1" was poorly made and had many bugs in the levels.

But even so, global sales exceeded 400 million copies.

If you don't have a realistic sense of this sales volume, then you will understand when I tell you the sales volume of a game.

"Contra", a classic work on Nintendo's red and white console, which laid the foundation for the design of many shooting games, has only sold 400 million copies worldwide.

If Star Ocean Games can get the rights to produce the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" game, even if the game is mediocre, it will be able to sell millions of copies with the power of IP.

Naturally, the young man wanted to accomplish such a promising thing as quickly as possible to avoid any further complications.

"Yes, President! I will inform the secretary to buy a direct flight to the United States later."

Rogers realized the importance of the matter and prepared to go to the United States early tomorrow morning.

If our president attaches importance to it, then I must also attach importance to it.

"Ah That's good."

After talking about "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", Masato Takeshita did not add any more tasks to Rogers.

He planned to wait for his president to return from the United States before discussing domestic IP issues.

Young people also don’t want to miss out on “Dragon Ball”, a money-making machine in the future gaming field.

But there is no need to rush about Dragon Ball.

Because "Dragon Ball" is only popular in East Asia now, it will have to wait until the 21st century before it becomes popular in Europe and the United States.

There's no way around it. Who said that the Dragon Ball animation would only be broadcast in the United States in the 21st century?

After inspecting Xinghai Semiconductor, Matsumoto Manufacturing, and Xinghai Games, he naturally could not leave out the most profitable Xinghai Investment Company.

"How is the stock market going?"

“Whether in the domestic market or the Taiwan market, the growth rate of stock prices is very fast.

So far, the minimum yields of several funds are all above 35%. "

Jia Benlong was familiar with all the data of Xinghai Investment, and quickly talked about the principal, rate of return, and purchase status of each fund.

"Well, each fund sold a quarter of its domestic stocks, and then bought all of the Nikkei 4 stock index futures on the Singapore Exchange."

Simply trading stocks doesn’t make money fast enough.

Masato Takeshita is ready to try something more exciting - the stock index. He is obsessed with this and has wanted to play with it since he first crossed over.

The Japanese stock market is currently not in danger of a large-scale decline and there is still sufficient margin.

Playing stock indexes can not only satisfy your inner desires, but also make more money.

"Hi!"

Yoshimoto Takamasa was a very good executor and never questioned the ideas of young people.

He immediately prepared to leave the president's office and go to direct employees to buy and sell.

"Wait, be careful to be secretive. The trading volume of the Singapore Nikkei 225 stock index is still relatively small. We must be careful to spread out our purchases to avoid being discovered by other big players."

"Please rest assured, President, we will not allow other companies to track us."

With such a large transaction volume, leakage is inevitable.

As long as you don’t let other players know that it is Xinghai Investment, everything will be OK.

“Well, I still believe this.”

Every employee of Xinghai Investment is an industry elite and has very strong covert operation capabilities.

Not to mention the 80s when information was not very transparent, even in the 21st century when information was flying everywhere, it was difficult for competitors to capture relevant information on buying and selling.

After a brief farewell to Xinghai Investment, Masato Takeshita came to his family’s main cooperative bank, Industrial Bank.

After a polite greeting, Akio Toyoshima, the executive director of Industrial Bank, jokingly asked, "Why do you have time to come here today? Are you going to talk to me about the IPO?"

Industrial Bank is already a little impatient and doesn't want to wait at all.

Always looking forward to Matsumoto Manufacturing going public and making more money.

The annual dividends are just a few dollars, which is not as cost-effective as selling stocks.

The price-to-earnings ratio of the Japanese stock market has reached more than 80 times. Matsumoto Manufacturing is a manufacturing company, and a traditional manufacturing company at that. Its price-to-earnings ratio may not be that high, but it can easily reach 40 times.

If the hype is good enough, it is very likely to reach 50 times.

Compared with the speed at which money is made in the stock market, the annual dividends are simply not enough.

"Matsumoto Manufacturing does plan to go public this year, but the listing plan will take some time to start."

"I'm not here today to discuss the listing, but to borrow a loan from your bank."

If possible, Masato Takeshita would like to delay the company's listing until next year.

Because if the company goes public next year, its market value will be higher and it will make more money.

Unfortunately, when a company goes public, major shareholders will have a certain period of stock lock-up.

That is to say, within a certain period of time, the shares of major shareholders cannot be bought or sold.

If Masato Takeshita does not want to offend Industrial Bank, he must complete the listing this year.

Because the company will be listed next year and the ban on its shares ends, the Japanese stock market is expected to collapse.

Although it is most beneficial to Matsumoto Manufacturing, which can raise more money, it is indeed greatly disadvantageous to Masato Takeshita and Industrial Bank.

"Loan, tell me how much it is, we can satisfy you."

Xinghai Investment is so profitable that Industrial Bank has positioned Masato Takeshita as its highest-end customer.

Industrial Bank can meet any needs within US$200 billion.

"Senior Toyoshima, I am going to use the shares of Matsumoto Manufacturing to borrow 500 billion yen."

"so little?"

Toyoshima Akio was a little disappointed. He didn't expect that his junior fellow student had only this much courage.

"Uh, is that too little? Then let's borrow 1000 billion."

Masato Takeshita thought about it and doubled the number.

"That's absolutely fine. When will the contract be signed? With Takeshita-san's reputation, there's no need for collateral for this money."

Industrial Bank has a very high authorization limit for Masato Takeshita, and is willing to provide unsecured loans at any time as long as the amount of funds does not exceed 2000 billion.

This is also a characteristic of the bubble economy era.

Major banks are generally indifferent to the issue of whether there is collateral or not.

Even many ordinary people can borrow hundreds of millions of yuan without collateral to invest in stocks or buy houses. Although he has completed a loan exceeding his expectations at Industrial Bank, Masato Takeshita still did not change the plan he made a few days ago.

He also borrowed 300 billion yen and 700 billion yen from Nagashino Bank and Citibank, respectively.

Changxin Bank also provided an unsecured loan, but Citibank was much more cautious and required Matsumoto Manufacturing shares as collateral.

A three-year loan with an interest rate of 3% is considered relatively generous terms.

After completing the loan, Masato Takeshita immediately established an investment fund called Ding Fengbo.

Yes, young people take out loans mainly to set up investment funds.

The main project he is targeting is the semiconductor manufacturing industry.

This naturally includes the photolithography machine, which will be very critical in the semiconductor manufacturing field in the future.

This is also the best time to enter this industry.

Because the lithography machine project in 1988 was still a niche product and the technical requirements were relatively low.

Nikon, a Japanese giant in the optical field, easily defeated its American counterparts and dominated the lithography machine market by using only some scrap technology.

In addition to the two giants of the United States and Japan, China also has impressive strength in the field of lithography machine manufacturing.

In 1985, Institute 45 of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a distributed lithography machine.

Its performance was close to that of the 4800DSW lithography machine produced by GCA of the United States, which was at the peak of the lithography machine field at that time.

The technological gap between our technology and the world's most advanced lithography machines is no more than 7 years.

Unfortunately, this lithography machine eventually became the swan song of China's lithography machine industry.

In the 80s, China began to introduce foreign investment on a large scale.

Exchange market for technology and space for time.

The route of trade, industry and technology has squeezed the growth of independent technology.

Many state-owned enterprises have undergone transformation, and many technological projects have stagnated or even been cancelled.

The idea that it is better to buy than to build, and it is better to rent than to buy has gradually become the mainstream of society.

The lithography machine project team of the 45th Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was disbanded directly.

The gap between China's lithography industry and foreign countries is becoming increasingly larger.

Of course, you can't say that China's choice at that time was wrong.

China had no money at the time, and the domestic semiconductor industry had very little demand for lithography machines.

Even if the country grits its teeth and perseveres, the results won't be much better.

Because there is no market for the product, it is difficult to get enough returns even if you persist.

However, the failure of China's lithography machine project objectively gave Masato Takeshita the opportunity to develop lithography machine technology.

There are two giants in Japan, Nikon and Canon. Even if Masato Takeshita wants to enter, it will be difficult to obtain relevant talents.

Therefore, young people are ready to cooperate with China in the field of lithography machines.

We provide the money and equipment, while China provides the personnel.

The cooperation between the two parties will definitely make a difference in the semiconductor industry.

It may not be able to beat Nikon and Canon in the 20th century, but it can definitely compete with ASML in the low- and mid-end markets.

That is, it was a competition with ASML, which became very popular in the future.

In fact, ASML, which was only founded in 1984, initially had technical strength inferior to that of China.

Because ASML is completely the product of Philips' attempt to deceive its investors.

In 1984, Philips developed a distributed lithography machine, but it was a completely semi-finished product with many defects in use.

At that time, the lithography machine market was very small, so Philips was prepared to stop losses in time and sell the lithography machine project.

As a result, after traveling around the United States, I couldn't find any buyers.

This is normal. At that time, the market for the lithography machine industry was small, but the competition was extremely fierce.

Naturally, no one will buy your half-finished technology.

Just when Philips was about to admit its bad luck and abolish this department, a small domestic company called ASM suddenly emerged and prepared to take over.

At first Philips was not prepared to agree.

Although the investment in a lithography machine is not large, it still requires millions or even tens of millions of dollars in expenses, which is not a project that a small company can handle.

Later, unable to resist the ASM boss's constant persuasion, he finally reluctantly agreed.

The two established a joint venture.

It was agreed that each would hold half of the shares and invest US$210 million each.

As a result, Philips played a trick and only paid $30.

The rest will be realized with their own semi-finished technology.

It's so deceptive that it can't be further deceptive.

This resulted in the newly established ASML facing a serious shortage of funds.

There are no offices.

They had to build a wooden house in the vacant space in front of the Philips Building to use as their office.

It can be said that no one thought ASML could succeed at that time.

Even ASML staff are waiting for the company to go bankrupt and then return to Philips.

But history is sometimes so interesting.

A company that everyone except the boss hoped would go bankrupt, eventually became the strongest in the world.

The lithography machine industry has become a pain for the Chinese people in the 21st century.

Therefore, Masato Takeshita has some understanding of key technologies and key figures.

Young people are ready to follow ASML's development path.

It doesn’t matter if we can’t beat Nikon in the 20th century. We can just wait until the 21st century to find the key people and realize the key technologies.

It will be able to surpass Nikon and dominate the field of lithography machines.

As for the distribution of shares.

Since Masato Takeshita provided money and equipment, he would naturally take the lion's share of the joint venture.

Although he loved his motherland in his previous life very much, he had no idea of selfless dedication.

Masato Takeshita really needs the intellectual support of high-end Chinese talents, but being too compromising will only make people think that you are easy to bully.

Of course, these thoughts are just his wishful thinking now.

He still doesn't know what China is thinking.

However, given the wisdom of a great man, he would probably choose to agree.

Because China can own part of the shares of a lithography machine company, it means that even if something unexpected happens in the future, it will not be unable to buy equipment.

In addition, this is also a way of using other people's money to train one's own talents.

After being away from an industry for a long time, it will become very difficult to pick it up again in the future.

In addition to the lithography machine project, the manufacturing of other semiconductor equipment.

Masato Takeshita is also preparing to carry out relevant cooperation with China.

Only by closely connecting China's semiconductor technology with the world can Huawei's moment in the past be avoided.

He doesn't like the sweater war and hopes that the world can move freely.

"Well, I hope you can agree."

Masato Takeshita looked at his production plan for semiconductor equipment such as lithography machines with anticipation in his eyes.

I look forward to the development of Xinghai Group in the semiconductor industry, I hope China can rise again, and I hope that technology companies around the world will not be affected by external blows.

(End of this chapter)