My Age of Investment

Remember [new] in one second! As a Korean-Japanese who travels in the world under the name of his grandson, Masayoshi Son is supposed to be well-off in the three East Asian countries.

However, in Japan, where xenophobia is serious and blood is important, even if Masayoshi Son becomes the richest man in the country, his evaluation among ordinary Japanese people is still not as good as that of Konosuke Matsushita and Akio Morita.

The same goes for Tadashi Yanai, the founder of Uniqlo and Japan's richest man just this year.

Although both of them possess wealth that is beyond the reach of ordinary people, it is always the six major conglomerates that are stirring up Japan's economic turmoil.

What Xia Jingxing asked Sun Zhengyi to do was to let Sun Zhengyi connect. Fuxing Semiconductor and New Core Semiconductor planned to discuss several cooperation with three of the six major consortiums.

For example, the memory chip manufacturer Elpida has three major shareholders: Mitsubishi, Hitachi, and Nippon Electric Nec, which correspond to the three major consortiums behind it: Mitsubishi, Fuji, and Sumitomo.

The next day.

Under the recommendation of Sun Zhengyi, Xia Jingxing met with the contemporary heads of the three major consortiums and informed them of Xinxin Semiconductor Group's intention to acquire Elpida.

The three of them did not refuse directly, but they also did not agree readily. They just said that they needed to hold a manager meeting to study it.

Unlike Samsung, the Japanese consortium experienced the process of splitting and reorganization during World War II. The control of the member companies of the consortium became less strict, and it no longer used the blood relationship of family members as a link to expand and manage, but evolved into In the interest alliance, companies participate in each other's shares, but do not pursue control.

The companies under the consortium can be said to be brother companies and relatives, but the "father" above them is no longer the general manager or leader.

Since there is no such subordinate relationship as "father and son", there are naturally no administrative agencies such as "group company" and "headquarters", and the organizational form of "consortium" is no longer available.

Today's Japanese consortium is like a community of interests under a "brand".

It is characterized by a circular shareholding between member companies, which is a horizontal alliance with capital as a link. This alliance is mainly to promote each other's business, so it is only a loose association.

Although the consortium is still centered on large banks and financial institutions, and the highest authority is the "Managers Association," the consortium does not have a unified management organization, and the consortium itself does not have an independent legal person status.

On the surface, the Japanese consortium seems to be somewhat unworthy of its name.

But in fact, it still has strong control and influence on the Japanese economy and all walks of life.

If the power of the consortium is used to allocate the resources of each member company, and why the outside world still regards them as a consortium, the core key lies in the "managers' meeting".

For example, the club where the top leaders of the member companies of the Mitsubishi Foundation gather together to socialize is called the Jin Yao Club. Because this group of people gather on the second Friday of every month, Friday is also called "Jin Yao Day" in Japanese, so it is called this name.

The fraternity among Sumitomo presidents is called "Baishui Society". It is said that Baishui is the name of a Chinese in the late Ming Dynasty who brought advanced copper smelting technology to Sumitomo. This name was given to commemorate international friends; It is said that the word "spring" in the Sumitomo family's business name "Izumiya" was split into the two characters "white water".

Although the managers' meeting is said to be just a social gathering, it would be a mistake to believe that they are just for eating and drinking and visiting high-end custom shops.

To take the most vivid example, senior executives of member companies of the Japanese consortium often transfer to each other, such as from Toshiba to Toyota, from Panasonic to nec, and often send their generals to support the development of brother companies that are in difficulty.

Domestic Ali and Penguin, where executives switch jobs among themselves and can go to court, are far from having such a stable and stable environment as the Japanese consortium.

The Japanese consortium can maintain such a harmonious relationship among its member companies, which is inseparable from the secret deliberations and decisions of the managers' meeting, not the group's board of directors, but it's not much different.

In addition, the manager association is very private and traditional. If a new president wants to join the association, he must first sign a blood letter stating that he will abide by the rules of the consortium.

In his previous life, the new president of Sumitomo Metal Industries either feared the pain of biting his finger or felt that the consortium's operation was a bit counter-intellectual. In short, he refused to sign a bloody letter and was almost expelled from the Sumitomo Consortium.

When things got serious, the Japanese people and people all over the world realized that the Japanese consortium still retained this ancient operation, and also learned that the Japanese consortium was not as harmless as it seemed on the surface. What kind of national enterprises, Publicly held companies are all disguises.

The Japanese consortium has just changed to a lower-key and more secretive organizational form to continue its operations.

Now that Xinxin Semiconductor wants to acquire Elpida, the biggest impact on the three major consortiums is not at the capital level, but at the operational level.

The absence of Elpida's internal chip supply means that member companies of the three major consortiums will need to purchase storage chips from external companies.

It's like a car that is driving normally on the road and its tire suddenly goes out of air. Not only will the car be destroyed, but no one will be killed, but it will inevitably lead to a period of confusion.

Moreover, Elpida is the last face of Japan Semiconductor. If this position is lost, the last fig leaf of the three consortiums will be lost, and they will inevitably be criticized by the public.

However, all this is nothing compared to the relief brought by getting rid of the big baggage.

Three consortiums jointly established Elpida in 1999 and began operating in 2000. It has been operating for ten years now. Except for a profit in 2006, the remaining nine years have been losses.

If it hadn't been for the Japanese government's rescue of Elpida this year, most of the three consortiums would have just let it go bankrupt. They really have no confidence in continuing to operate.

Now a Chinese tycoon came forward to acquire Elpida on behalf of a Singaporean company. The heads of the three consortiums were so happy that they almost agreed. In order to appear more reserved, they coyly said they would consider it.

Xia Jingxing didn't take it seriously. After the head of the Sumitomo Consortium left, he proposed a second cooperation plan to the two remaining people.

"The joint consortium formed by Fuxing Industrial, Xinxin Semiconductor, Vision Capital, and Daxia Capital hopes to acquire the photolithography machine business of Nikon and Canon."

As soon as Xia Jingxing finished speaking, the faces of the heads of Mitsubishi and Fujifilm Group suddenly changed.

"Canon's photolithography machine business is not for sale to us."

The person who spoke was Fumiya Kokubunya, the president of Furongkai and president of Marubeni Corporation.

Soon Hideaki Ohmiya, chairman of Jin Yaohui and president of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, continued to express his position: "Natsu-san, Nikon's photolithography machine business is also important to Mitsubishi."

Xia Jingxing spread his hands and said, "That's a shame. Originally, I wanted to cooperate with you all to build a business alliance against Asmail, Samsung, Gulf Power, and Intel."

This sentence made Kunifunya and Omiya Hideaki interested. They looked at each other and asked: "Why?"

“Because if you want to break the old order, you have to establish a new order.”

Kokubu Fumiya and Omiya Hideaki are respectively responsible for the core companies of the Fuji Consortium and Mitsubishi Consortium. They have nothing to do with semiconductors, but they both understand the whole story of the decline of Japan's semiconductor industry.

At present, Japan Semiconductor has basically announced that it will withdraw from the chip product field, and the semiconductor-related businesses it still retains are mainly semiconductor materials and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

Take semiconductor materials as an example, how strong are they? It monopolizes about 70% of the world's semiconductor materials, such as photoresist, silicon wafers, special gases, targets, etc.

Don't look at the stick shaking in front of them now, with a rampant appearance of the poor suddenly becoming rich. As long as they cut off the supply of materials, no matter how much market share Samsung and Hynix occupy, or how badly they beat Elpida, they will be Caught in a state of shutdown.

In comparison, semiconductor manufacturing equipment is barely interesting, especially in the area of ​​lithography machines. The products of Nikon and Canon have lagged far behind Asmail, and their market share has been shrinking. The machine market has barely resisted the crazy attack by the lithography machine giant from the Netherlands.

But before 2000, Nikon and Canon were also prosperous. They once occupied the first and second places in the global lithography machine market relying on Japan's strong semiconductor industry.

As for Asmail, it had just merged with a division spun off from Philips. It was small and inconspicuous, and its life had been hanging by a thread several times. It was not yet in full swing, and had just defeated Nikon and Canon, the American lithography giant GCA. In the eyes.

The semiconductor industry pays attention to supporting facilities. In the 1980s and 1990s, Japanese semiconductors surpassed the United States in every field such as finished chips, manufacturing equipment, and materials, so it eventually attracted a thunderous blow.

"How do you want to create a new order?"

Omiya Hideaki looked at Xia Jingxing with a smile. If the person sitting opposite him was not the richest man in Asia, he might not be so polite.

“You should have studied the history of Asmail’s rise, and reviewed the reasons for the failure of Canon and Nikon.

So I won’t go into details here and will just extract a few points.

First, in terms of innovation in R\u0026D model, Asmail is superior to Nikon and Canon. "

Having said this, Xia Jingxing took a look at the expressions of the two of them. Their expressions were as usual, quite calm.

So he continued: "Looking at it in detail, Japanese companies have a very distinctive feature. The organization and operation between upstream and downstream companies are very strict. When it comes to precision processing machinery, they can maintain the stability of product quality very well. .

However, in the research and development of top technology projects such as the chip industry that require "extreme research and development", Japanese companies' internal integrated innovation models often lack focus.

For example, there are more than 100,000 parts for high-end photolithography machines. Asmail only masters 10% of the core technologies, and the rest mainly relies on more than 5,000 suppliers, mainly in Europe and the United States, to provide support.

The quantity of spare parts of this magnitude is no longer affordable by the original internal vertically integrated R\u0026D model of a single Japanese company or a few consortium member companies. It requires a more open and professional R\u0026D platform with division of labor. "

Omiya Hideaki and Kuni didn't say anything at all. This was the shortcoming of the Japanese consortium. In any purchase, priority was given to the member companies of their own consortium.

Asmail took advantage of this and gathered the scientific research wisdom of the world to beat Nikon and Canon, which had gathered the power of the whole country.

Now the Japanese have woken up to this, but it's too late. Asmail's momentum has been established, and it's not easy to shake his position.

"The second point is the establishment of a business ecosystem. Asmail invites major customers such as Samsung, Gulf Power, and Intel to take shares and jointly bear the research and development costs. In return, they will give these companies the right of first refusal to purchase lithography machines.

And when the technology is used and participated by more customers, its advantageous position will be further strengthened.

In contrast, in Japan, the main suppliers and customers are from local semiconductor manufacturers.

As Japan's finished chip market has shrunk in the past two decades, more focus has been placed on breakthroughs in the field of semiconductor raw materials, resulting in the gradual loss of lithography machine customer groups.

This means that it is difficult for companies to get immediate and sufficient market feedback, and its impact will be transmitted to the research and development level, which will slow down their own technological progress. "

Xia Jingxing didn't say anything yet. Lin Benjian's invention of immersion lithography technology made a major contribution to Asmail's rise.

Originally, Gulf Power originally wanted to cooperate with old customers Nikon and Canon, but because the two Japanese companies had already invested countless manpower and material resources in the direction of dry lithography machines, Gulf Power came out and said that they wanted to change their technical route. Changing the track is simply rebellious!

The two Japanese lithography machine giants not only did not support Gulf Electric's technical ideas, but also used their status as industry hegemons to ask Gulf Electric to hide Lin Benjian, the person who was causing trouble.

Gulf Electric was unwilling to give in and wanted to use new technology to overtake in corners, so it went to cooperate with Asmail.

Asmail was not as stubborn as Japanese companies, and quickly adopted the technical idea proposed by Lin Benjian, using water as the medium of light, and reducing the then most advanced wavelength of 193 nanometers to 132 nanometers through refraction, overtaking Nikon and Canon in one fell swoop.

It was not until many years later that Nikon built a 157-nanometer lithography machine, but by then it could no longer catch up with Asmail, which had already skyrocketed.

This is also the epitome of the technological isolation of the Japanese. They like to close the door and play by themselves, always feeling that they are the smartest. For example, Japan's hydrogen energy technology, which has been painstakingly developed for many years, has suffered from changes in the technological track of China and the United States.

Including Japanese smartphones being compromised by foreign manufacturers, there are also reasons for this.

Kokubumi also said: "Natsu-san, you have reviewed and summarized the reasons for the failure of Nikon and Canon in the field of photolithography machines, but what does this have to do with the establishment of a new order?"

"Of course it does matter, and it does matter a lot."

The two Japanese in front of Xia Jingxing analyzed: "To catch up with or even defeat Asmail, Nikon and Canon must make changes."

"How to change? Purchase parts from around the world like Asmail does? Or form alliances like it does?"

Xia Jingxing nodded towards Omiya Hideaki who was speaking, "Yes, only in this way can the photolithography machine business of Nikon and Canon avoid extinction in the future."

"Perish?"

The two Japanese finally lost their temper. Xia Jingxing's words were too unpleasant. How could he curse someone to death like this?

Before the two could retort, Xia Jingxing continued to ask questions like a barrage of questions: "Currently, Asmail already occupies 70% of the lithography machine market share. Can Nikon and Canon regain the lost share? Can they build EUV lithography machines?" ?

Oh, the Americans do not allow you to join the EUVLLC alliance on the grounds that it threatens national security. "

Hearing Xia Jingxing's ridicule, the two Japanese consortium bosses gritted their teeth, but they couldn't find anything to say to refute.

In order to suppress their Japanese industries, the Americans have spared no effort in the past two decades to introduce various plans, then encircle them and form alliances, but exclude their Japanese companies from the alliance.

When Xia Jingxing saw that the two of them didn't say a word, he knew that the two of them still had a sense of shame and were not completely willing to be dogs.

"Now there is only one way out for Japanese semiconductors, which is to form an alliance with Chinese semiconductor companies."

Facing the surprised looks in their eyes, Xia Jingxing said: "China has a market and you have the technology. If we cooperate, we will both benefit. If we divide, we will be suppressed by European and American manufacturers and then harvest."

Now that Japan’s market share of finished chips is about to be suppressed, and there are no semiconductor companies, who will buy your lithography machines?

China is different. The demand for finished chips is increasing year by year. Chip manufacturing factories are rising one after another. There is not much demand for high-end photolithography machines for the time being. It is the training ground for Nikon and Canon.

With the booming demand in the Chinese market, Nikon and Canon were able to complete their revenge on Asmail.

At the worst, it can still maintain a certain market share and avoid being swallowed up by Asmail. "

The two of them thought carefully about Xia Jingxing's words, weighing and weighing them carefully in their hearts.

"What are the benefits to our two companies by doing this?"

Kokubunbun also looked at Xia Jingxing with burning eyes, and Hideaki Omiya who was sitting next to him also looked at Xia Jingxing with a burning gaze.

No matter how extravagant Xia Jingxing's words were, if their two companies couldn't get half a dime of benefit, then why would they still participate?

Moreover, doing this requires taking quite a lot of risks. The Toshiba incident of that year is still vivid in our minds, like a sharp sword hanging over the heads of Japanese entrepreneurs, reminding them all the time that they are just like dogs with the United States. Well, you can't resist.

"Of course there are benefits. The plan I proposed is a win-win plan, and the Japanese company can also make profits."

－－－－－－Digression－－－－－

It’s two in one. I haven’t finished writing yet. I’ll continue tomorrow. Don’t stay up late. Take good care of your body and mind before you miss any updates.