Those Years When I Was Forced to Top the Forbes List

Chapter 268 This is not a fantasy

The following day, Chen Xuebing was observing and testing in the "mobile phone assembly and testing laboratory" converted from two large conference rooms on the 57th floor of SEG Plaza when he suddenly received a phone call.

It was a call from Boss Huang.

"Why didn't you tell me about this big operation?"

"What action?" Chen Xuebing asked knowingly.

"Editor-in-Chief Ai called me to confirm the technological progress of Spreadtrum and Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications. He mentioned your new mobile phone. They praised it so highly that I couldn't believe it."

Chen Xuebing paused for a moment, but didn't continue the conversation: "It's just writing a report, why would I need to ask you about the situation? You don't need to be so cautious, do you?"

"They're preparing to give you a good compliment. Editor-in-Chief Ai also wants to schedule an exclusive interview with you after the phone launch event. He contacted me in advance, and the editor-in-chief of the technology section of the Economic Daily will call you later."

"Oh," Chen Xuebing raised his eyebrows.

They're treating themselves like one of Boss Huang's people.

"Also, Kan Zhidong went to Beijing to find the social security fund, saying that the government-guided fund plans in Chongqing and Hefei were operated by your Changzheng Capital, and that he needed 1 billion yuan from the social security fund. The council even called Chongqing to ask me about it... You want to set up a 3G industry fund?"

These words surprised Chen Xuebing.

Old Kan went back to Chongqing in mid-July to handle this matter, but he didn't expect things to move so quickly.

He originally thought that contacting entities like the social security fund and Central Huijin Investment Ltd. would take at least six months to make any progress.

"Uh..." Chen Xuebing put his hands on his hips and said, "Boss, this isn't bragging, is it? You know better than me how that 800 million in Chongqing came about... You're not saying anything bad about us, are you?"

Leader Huang didn't answer, but instead asked himself, "How big of a project are you planning? What are you investing in?"

“This money is going to be used for a big purpose; it’s going to be invested in Shanghai.” Chen Xuebing immediately dashed their hopes: “If you want to participate in the investment, I can guarantee that you will definitely make money.”

He had already decided how to operate the money: half would be invested in chips, and the other half would be put into the stock market to ensure a return on investment.

This is the national team's money, so we definitely can't lose it. Besides, it's his first time working with the national team, and he can't ruin his reputation with this.

Once the bull market is over, withdraw the large sums of money from the stock market and reinvest them in the chip industry.

He also has a plan for which company to invest in first and which to invest in later.

Leader Huang paused for a moment: "Shanghai... Spreadtrum?"

"No, it's a foreign-invested chip-related company that is related to the technological foundation of the entire 3G industry."

After he said that, Leader Huang gave up.

Ultimately, Gu'an is a Chongqing-based company with numerous collaborations. Chen Xuebing's investment in technology is growing increasingly aggressive, and he is now venturing into the basic chip industry, serving as an outlet for Chongqing's relatively closed high-tech industrial environment to connect with the outside world.

"So when are you going to let me take a look at your phone?"

Chen Xuebing readily agreed: "We're still working on the final plan. Once it's settled, I'll send you a few units!"

"Yes, the reputation of the Pang Donglai supermarket you introduced is quite good. I heard that several factories have recently improved and have started paying wages. As for the trust license, I'll help you with that when you're done and back in Chongqing."

"Thank you so much, boss! How much money should I prepare for this?"

While Chen Xuebing was happy, he was also a little worried about the price of the license plate. After all, since taking over Spreadtrum, he had no idea how many other companies were following behind him.

The joint venture with Huawei is about to begin negotiations. If the industry fund is secured, we will also need to invest a large sum of money. Singularity will also need to spend a lot of money, with advertising expenses alone requiring tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan.

"If you want to take control, you'll need at least 100 million. Xinhua Trust owes several hundred million in debt. The municipal government and the court have discussed it and plan to spend 200 million to separate this license and have Yufu establish a new company to take it over. Xinhua Trust was originally state-owned, so it's best if the new company also has state-owned capital involved. You need to leave Yufu at least 20% of the shares, and you can participate in as much of the rest as you want. Other companies are interested in taking over the portion that you can't handle."

Upon hearing this, Chen Xuebing pondered for a moment.

The idea that state-owned capital must be involved is somewhat absurd. In the past, many trust licenses were bought by private companies. Leader Huang probably saw that I was in a hurry to get a license but couldn't figure out what I wanted to do, so he wanted to leave a back door so that Yufu could make some money with me.

This year, the total national trust assets are only over 300 billion yuan. If divided equally among 68 companies, that's only about 5 billion yuan. With a license worth 200 million yuan, what can you do with the right to use 5 billion yuan of funds? Leader Huang certainly can't imagine.

However, this market size will expand at a rate of two to three times per year starting next year, exceeding 10 trillion yuan in five years, and peaking at over 26 trillion yuan in 17, becoming the biggest player in the real estate industry.

Given the investment returns of Long March Capital, having a license in hand would allow them to capture a market share of at least trillions of yuan at its peak.

One trillion, how much money can that make every year?
He earns the lion's share of the profits through the trust investment model, which involves a small amount of fixed dividends.

Although most of the loans were used to develop their own companies, the profits were still made by their own companies.

However, there will still be some management fees and direct investments.

He was really reluctant to let Yufu take 20%.

“Let Yufu take 10%.” Chen Xuebing felt that it was a good thing for Yufu to participate in a small amount and have the backing of state-owned assets. “Yufu can’t work for nothing. Ask them to help me get this brand. I’ll cover the 200 million yuan investment. Yufu’s 10% is just a service fee.”

When Leader Huang heard Chen Xuebing ask for 200 million to cover everything, he laughed and said, "I think you're even richer than Yin Mingshan and Luo Shaoyu. Will we be able to see you on the Forbes list this year, writing a legendary story of a young tycoon and bringing glory to Chongqing?"

Yin Mingshan and Chen Xuebing knew that Yin Mingshan was the chairman of Lifan Motorcycle and a native of Chongqing.

He really didn't know Luo Shaoyu, but he was probably a wealthy man from Chongqing.

Chen Xuebing simply laughed it off when asked about the topic.

Based on the stock market situation in the past two years, the top of the list are basically major shareholders of listed companies. The stock market has created too high a bubble, and due to the establishment of major and minor shareholders in the share reform, they cannot reduce their holdings in large quantities.

In financial terms, this is called unrealized profit.

Next year, just before the Forbes and Hurun rich lists, the stock market will reach its peak. Yang Huiyan, the successor of Country Garden, who will top the list, is also a post-80s generation, only a few years older than him. With assets of 1300 billion yuan, she has become a legendary figure with hundreds of billions of yuan that no one can surpass in the following years.

In 97, Hu Zhibiao, the founder of Aido VCD, won the CCTV advertising bid with a bid of 2.1 million yuan. At the time, he was 27 years old and his net worth was 27 billion yuan.

Are these young millionaires?
But what good does it bring? When the tide recedes, few people will remember it.

He knew all too well the feeling of reaching the pinnacle of life and then constantly falling back down – it was an endless nightmare and a loneliness that made him want to avoid everyone.

Therefore, he still lives a simple life. Without work, he doesn't deliberately socialize with anyone, and he hasn't entered those circles of the wealthy filled with lavish banquets and revelry. In terms of qualifications, he's long been qualified.

It's not that I don't like it.

A few friends from different social classes get together, play golf, and watch as outsiders scramble to get in. They can look down on the most authentic ugliness of the world, offer their opinions, and casually manipulate other people's fates. Every day is filled with new people and events, and hormones are ignited to the extreme. That feeling is so wonderful, who wouldn't like it?
He liked it so much.

Therefore, he became even more cautious.

Thinking about this, Chen Xuebing felt that he had done quite well in the past two years, and a smile appeared on his lips as he said:
“I work in finance. It’s too easy for me to package myself as a paper tycoon and get on the list. What’s the point? When I don’t want to be on it but have to be one, then I can go and bring glory to Chongqing.”

The other person laughed loudly: "Hahaha, you're so young, yet you've already figured things out. Keep this mindset, and I think you can still climb higher and surpass Huang Guangyu before you turn 30."

Chen Xuebing chuckled dryly, sensing that this wasn't a compliment.

Perhaps they discovered his greater potential, because they exchanged a few more pleasantries before hanging up.

After pondering for a while and clearing his mind of some happy thoughts, he called Kan Zhidong to inquire about the situation of the industrial fund.

"It went quite smoothly!" Kan Zhidong replied.
"Both Chongqing and Hefei praised you!"

"Your fund's returns are evident to all. Half of it is invested in the stock market to secure short-term gains, and the other half is invested in the chip industry for long-term development. This model is also quite acceptable to the social security fund."

"If the social security system can provide 10 billion, then Central Huijin can easily provide 10 billion as well!"

"However, we can't get too high a return! Only 30%! And we need to attract equivalent capital from the private sector! In addition, we need 15% of our own funds!"

Chen Xuebing calculated that with 2 billion yuan from social security and Central Huijin, and if the requirements were the same, his own funds would need to be 300 million yuan.

We still need to find banks and securities firms to issue 20 billion yuan worth of products, which will cost tens of millions of yuan in channel fees. We don't even know how many investors will buy into it.

"How about this, you find out what the highest interest rate is offered by those bank wealth management products with a threshold of one million yuan. We can offer a higher rate and see if we can draw some funds from the bank's savings pool. The bank's wealth management products can also take over and give them a few percentage points of interest spread directly to us."

After he finished speaking, he tentatively asked, "Is it okay to do this?"

Kan Zhidong laughed heartily: "What's the problem! With our two major national financial institutions behind us, we have plenty of credibility, what are you afraid of! But the money can't be spent recklessly. This time, the social security fund will directly supervise the account, and there are requirements for investing in stocks. Companies with a scale of less than 3 billion yuan cannot be invested in, and primary market investments related to 30G cannot be invested in early-stage companies. There must be a certain technological foundation... Don't think it's harsh. With the social security fund's supervision, you don't need to waste too much breath on Central Huijin and other investors. Even if the investment fails, you will only be responsible for the portion of your own funds. This is a good thing."

Kan Zhidong also wanted to explain to Chen Xuebing that such large sums of money need to be subject to strong regulation to avoid unlimited liability.

Chen Xuebing grinned and said, "Of course we'll invest in big companies! We'll invest in small companies ourselves. Why would we take the government's money? I also have ways to manage stocks. We'll invest in large companies, which is easy to enter and exit!"

"Hehe, that makes sense. You're going to invest in BOE's sixth-generation line, right? Is the money enough?" Kan Zhidong asked, knowing about this.

"We can't spend it all," Chen Xuebing said. "Once the smartphone era arrives, BOE will make a fortune. A massive number of pre-orders will flood the 4.5-generation line, expanding their bank credit lines. For the 6th-generation line investment, 10 billion yuan will be enough for us."

He didn't tell Wang Dongsheng about this, nor was it appropriate for him to know too early.

Once he integrates the resources of Huaqiangbei, he will use them as leverage in his next investment negotiations.

This is a huge chain, and he has to solve each link one by one, moving on to the next link only after gaining absolute advantage.

"So, where are you planning to invest the rest? I'll definitely need to submit an investment plan before the review process begins, so you need to give me some idea of ​​what to do."

Chen Xuebing pondered for a moment and said, "ARM is a foreign company listed on both the London Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, with a market value of 20 billion US dollars. Their China headquarters is in Shanghai. I plan to invest in Arm China. Their instruction set is the foundation for designing mobile phone chips. You can tell the National Social Security Fund Council that this investment will not lose money. First of all, the dividends are huge. After two or three years, I can take over at least double the price. But during the negotiations, the National Social Security Fund Council must support me."

The ARM instruction set is an indispensable part of his efforts to develop independent chips.

Instruction sets are like Lego; they can help designers package functional modules for direct use, eliminating the need to assemble individual circuits into small functions, thus completely changing the microscopic multiplier of chip design.

Without this, the advancement of nanoscale chip design would be almost precipitous, and even if it were designed, it would be meaningless because chip generations would have already been updated several times over.

It is also the basic rule for the operation of EDA drawing software, and it is particularly expensive, even more expensive than EDA itself.

When we bought the software, ARM didn't have a Chinese company yet, so we went through a distributor. EDA was sold based on the number of terminals, while the ARMv6 architecture was licensed from the company. We bought the lowest IP core version. The licensing fee was negotiated for a long time in the early stages and was eventually settled at 400 million.

Moreover, the 400 million yuan was for an initial license to the IP core, which only allows development based on Arm's standard coetex-M core and the design of peripheral modules.

If a mature chip is designed and mass-produced, ARM will have to pay a 2% royalty for each chip.

To design an independent kernel, one must purchase an ALA (Architecture License Agreement), which, at current prices, would require a one-time payment of around $800 million.

If a new architecture is introduced and upgrades are desired, the full cost must be paid again for the replacement.

As for licenses that grant complete autonomy in modification, those come at an astronomical price. In 2019, Huawei acquired a perpetual license for ARMv8, which was speculated to have cost $10 billion.

Therefore, given that there are currently no mature smartphone chip design teams in China or even the world, Chen Xuebing set the following framework for the IP department: first design a chip based on the ARM core, then see how it performs after the first chip is released, and if it doesn't work, eliminate the next generation to hone the team before moving towards an independent core.

Once the team has developed a sense of purpose and has sufficient personnel, then we can consider developing an independent instruction set.

He was prepared to support the IC division for a long time, so he had previously listed the IC division's expenses separately and not included them in Singularity's performance.

All of this demonstrates just how important and profitable the ARM instruction set is.

However, it's not yet time for ARM to really start making money. Most mobile phone CPU chips currently use the OMAP series chips developed by Texas Instruments for multimedia phones. Most small and medium-sized mobile phone manufacturers don't even have chip design departments, let alone software.

The switch for ARM to make money is still in the hands of Singularity and Apple.

The advent of the smartphone era marked the beginning of the design era, the starting line for ARM's rise.

Chen Xuebing has always been mindful of potential dangers even in times of peace. If a technological blockade were to occur and ARM were no longer available, he would have to wait a few years for the RISC-V open-source instruction set to be released, and then develop the instruction set ecosystem almost from scratch.

To be honest, even if RISC-V were right in front of him, he wouldn't really want to use it.

Since there's something readily available, why make things difficult for your own team?

This 40 billion yuan is the start-up capital, which will help him get through the entire process from independent chip design to production.

This is not a fantasy; it is the power of the market.

(I'll try to resume normal updates tonight.)
(End of this chapter)