Chapter 501 The First One to Commit the Sin of Arrogance (Two in One)

Chapter 501 First of all, I am guilty of arrogance... (two in one)

On the eve of Bingxin seeking to pass the review of the US Department of Energy, Fang Zhuo, Goldman Sachs, PH Company, and Bingxin Equipment Procurement Group held a meeting to check for deficiencies and try not to make any low-level mistakes the next day.

The review materials required by the four major departments are the same, including development plans, commercial commitments, shareholder status, equipment details, etc.

Fang Zhuo has nothing to hide on this. The transparent Bingxin has nothing to keep secret at the current stage. On the contrary, he hopes that these administrative departments will see more of Bingxin's shareholder structure, including international capital.

Whether it is the Cayman Islands where it is registered, or the global shareholders of Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and DCM, these all prove that Bingxin CSMC is an international company, but it just chose China for its factory production line.

This is the successful experience learned from SMIC, and it is also the failure lesson of Huahong and Huajing in China, the latter of which has too obvious state-owned components.

The approval right for equipment procurement is in the hands of the other party, and the minimum surface work must be done.

Every recognition and progress has to pay a price, and it takes a lot of cost to break the illusion.

The meeting that night did not last too long. Everything was checked repeatedly, and the three members had separate pre-audits.

At ten o'clock in the evening, Fang Zhuoshu was sleepless and called Director Xiao Yu again.

During this call, the two did not talk about Bingxin's audit the next day, nor did they talk about nervous emotions. They tacitly talked about the small movements in China.

Yu Hong asked about the situation of Changhong in China. She saw Mr. Fang reading the email sent by Changhong's head Ni Runfeng yesterday.

It's amazing that the head of Changhong sent a company weekly report to his boss.

"Changhong entered Lu, took control of Meiling, and wanted to transform its LCD technology. This was protested by the color tube companies they had always cooperated with." Fang Zhuo knew everything about Changhong before and after, and was very relaxed when talking about this. "From the perspective of the color tube companies, this was undoubtedly Changhong's betrayal, so there were some twists and turns."

Yu Hong asked: "Mr. Ni sought advice from you?"

"He actually has a lot of pressure, including administration, internal business, partners, warehouse inventory, and various factors." Fang Zhuo said, "But I still think that Mr. Ni needs to be tough and give up."

"Changhong's main contradiction is the future technology route bet. Grasp this point, and other attempts to disrupt this direction must be suppressed."

Fang Zhuo First, he gave a conclusion, and then said: "Inventory can be sold at a loss, color tube cooperative enterprises can reduce purchases by leaps and bounds, and technical personnel can be transferred to Luzhou in batches."

"Old Ni is not tough now. When my overseas channels are normalized, people may still have ideas, which is also very important."

"The current opportunity is the time when I can provide the strongest support. After this village, it will be difficult for Old Ni to be tough."

Yu Hong sighed: "Can Changhong Meiling produce LCD TVs this year?"

"According to Old Ni's plan, Luzhou should be able to do it by the end of the year. Our Bingxin's production capacity cannot keep up with this batch, but we can consider pulling Changhong to talk to upstream manufacturers at the end of the year." Fang Zhuo couldn't help but talk about Bingxin's next plan.

Then, he immediately stopped the topic and said, "Let's see what tomorrow is like."

Yu Hong felt a little heavy in her heart, and smiled on the phone: "Okay, let's contact each other tomorrow night, and go to bed early. The rich man has come to this point, and he has also dealt with the administration of the superpower of the United States."

"Hey, I just want to be an honest businessman." Fang Zhuo expressed his heart and ended the call.

It was quite late, and he did not review the mood of facing this critical approval. He fell asleep and conserved his energy for the meeting tomorrow morning.

The US Department of Energy is located in the James Forrestal Building in southwest Washington.

Fang Zhuo and his five people will visit the Hearing and Appeal Office in the morning.

To be precise, they are going to attend an equipment procurement hearing of the Department of Energy today, and the main content is the equipment procurement and technology introduction qualifications of Bingxin CSMC's factory located in China.

Fang Zhuo actually doesn't understand what the semiconductor manufacturing equipment has to do with the Department of Energy. Other defense, state affairs, and commerce are quite related, but the Department of Energy has to stamp something.

But the process is like this, everything must be compliant.

The hearing and appeal office is on the 6th floor.

At 8:50, a group of five people arrived at the office ten minutes early.

"Oh, the application for the curling company, right? Wait a minute."

There were only two people in the office, one of whom had a hooked nose and flipped through the submitted application form, took a look, and confirmed that it was not time yet.

The English name of Bingxin's company is Curling Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, where Curling means "curling sport".

The person in front of him did not seem to read the application form carefully, or he was not specifically responsible for this item, and he only glanced at it and understood what he thought it meant.

Fang Zhuo watched the hooked nose slowly return to his seat with coffee, and then picked up the newspaper on the table, and suddenly felt a little more confident in his heart.

We are a curling company, why can't we buy equipment!

With this cup of coffee and a newspaper, the atmosphere quickly changed to a level that he could understand!

Or a gossip newspaper!

Ten minutes seemed slow but actually fast.

As soon as nine o'clock arrived, he put down the newspaper with an aquiline nose, pressed the intercom number again, waited for his two colleagues, and then politely asked Bing Xin and the other five people to move to the small conference room next door.

Fang Zhuo arrived at the conference room and watched helplessly as the hook-nosed man sat in the review position.

Then, he learned this person's name - Wilson.

"What we submitted was Bingxin's application for equipment procurement and technology introduction for global semiconductor factories." Smith, Bingxin's current senior vice president, naturally introduced the situation and handed over a thick sheet of materials.

Fang Zhuo could clearly see that Wilson, who had a hooked nose, was stunned for a moment. Then he lowered his head to check the application form, and then looked through the materials, probably to confirm the equipment of the curling company.

Smith talked endlessly about the situation of the ice core factory, and mentioned his personal job change. He was once a vice president of Goldman Sachs.

From Goldman Sachs to Ice Core, I participated in the hearing today as one of the representatives. This is the advice given by PH Company, which is responsible for the procurement plan, in order to provide trust and endorsement.

If Fang Zhuo were to introduce the situation, even if his speaking was very comfortable, yellow skin would still not be as convincing as white skin.

Does this little trick work?

From Fang Zhuo's perspective, it seemed to be working. The hook-nosed Wilson nodded when he heard Smith's post.

Smith introduced it for a full ten minutes. The three white men in charge of the preliminary review occasionally interrupted to ask questions, and then they just wrote and drew.

When Smith came to an end, Wilson suddenly looked at Fang Zhuo with sharp eyes.

Fang Zhuo's heart tightened, his expression remained unchanged, and he was ready, all kinds of thoughts and preset answers were swirling in his mind.

"Is this Japanese?" Wilson asked a question.

Fang Zhuo's heart suddenly felt empty, and there seemed to be a surge of anger rushing to his forehead. On the first page of the application materials, there was an introduction to the company's shareholders, and his nationality was clearly written on it.

Why did the other party ask such a question?

Didn't you listen in the past ten minutes?

Or are you deliberately embarrassing yourself?

Fang Zhuo hesitated for two seconds.

Wilson looked at Smith, gestured with his eyes, and asked, "Can this Japanese communicate in English?"

Fang Zhuo was stunned and said in English: "Okay, okay, I'm from China and I'm also the chairman of Bingxin."

Wilson raised his eyebrows and asked, "Why do you want to build a factory in China?"

"Because the labor there is cheap." Fang Zhuo answered first, ready to change his tone and continue talking about reasonable reasons.

However, Wilson nodded, looked directly at Smith, and said, "Wait a minute, I'll submit these first."

After saying this, the hook-nosed man walked out of the conference room with a complete set of materials and application forms. The other two reviewers were busy writing, not sure whether they were recording or analyzing.

Fang Zhuo felt like he was holding his breath in his throat again. He still had a lot of business model analysis and reasons for building a factory for the development of the semiconductor market. Why did Wilson leave?

What are the next steps for a preliminary review?

Wilson seemed careless, a little more careless than Fangzhuo expected.

The two reviewers finished their writing and asked Smith a few questions.

None of them asked Fang Zhuo, nor the other three members.

Fang Zhuo suddenly felt so lonely while sitting in the conference room.

He, the chairman of a company who is dedicated to revitalizing China Semiconductor, has not received any attention at all. This is not an imaginary picture at all!

About half an hour later, Wilson with the hooked nose came back. He slapped the documents in his hand on the table and said politely: "Okay, it's over. I hope you all have a nice day."

Smith stood up with a smile, shook hands with Wilson and the two auditors, and took the document: "This review is very fast. I thought it would be tomorrow at the earliest."

Wilson shrugged: "Mr. Lawson happens to be in the office."

He corrected proudly: "It won't be tomorrow. We can get it done in the afternoon at the latest."

At this time, Wilson looked at Fang Zhuo, the Oriental boss whom he mistakenly thought was Japanese, and added some personal suggestions: "I don't think it is a good idea to open the factory to China. I wish you good luck, sir."

Fang Zhuo forced a smile, still a little unbelievable for a moment.

At 10:20 a.m., it took only an hour and twenty minutes for the five people who attended the hearing to leave the James Forest Tower.

Fang Zhuo got into the car as usual, making sure that no one would see him. He almost grabbed the review document with the official seal of the US Department of Energy from Smith's hand.

He looked at the red seal on it and murmured: "Why...why?"

Smith answered: "Deputy Chief Lawson happened to be in the office."

"No, no, I mean, this review seems too easy." Fang Zhuo raised his voice and looked over the documents in his hand, always feeling like they were fake.

"A factory in the far east wants to buy some equipment. Why does the Department of Energy want to obstruct it?" Smith laughed. "I have never thought that the Department of Energy is a problem. The real obstacle may be national defense. They are relatively more sensitive."

He continued: "Wilson also said that he doesn't think it is a good choice to build a factory in China."

Fang Zhuo felt his throat was a little dry and said with difficulty: "But Wilson is just the deputy director of the office. Can his opinion have such a big impact?"

Smith said seriously: "Fang, China is very backward."

He said calmly: "I also think that building a factory there is not a good choice. It is not a good business to pursue semiconductors in a backward place. If I were to make the investment business, Bingxin would not get it." Goldman Sachs Investments.”

Fang Zhuo was silent.

After experiencing that era of fierce competition that stretched the bottom line, he suddenly realized that the United States' views and attitudes towards China at this moment were quite different from what he had imagined.

Although I also know that the United States’ attention is focused on global counterattack, this cognitive feeling is particularly real when I actually come into contact with the administrative staff of the Department of Energy.

Fang Zhuo took a breath and said in Chinese: "The first is the Ministry of Energy, which committed the crime of arrogance."

Smith didn't understand and asked, "What?"

"I said, it's not uncommon for a business that doesn't look good to be packaged and listed on the market. I'm confident." Fang Zhuo smiled and handed the documents in his hands to the two people in the ice core purchasing team. Their expressions were already worried. The itching is unbearable.

Smith laughed and nodded repeatedly.

The review by the Ministry of Energy went surprisingly smoothly, which Fang Zhuo really didn't expect. He even expected that the next three departments would be like this.

He originally set aside a month for the review, which was signed by the four major departments. Who would have thought that a quarter of the progress would be completed in just half a morning.

In a 3+5 small hearing, a deputy director of the office reviews and submits the opinion, and the deputy head of the department accepts the opinion and makes the final decision to pass it.

Fang Zhuo suddenly felt as if all the power he had accumulated for a long time was empty.

At least mention his identity as the owner of the Rockets, at least talk about the New York Yankees schedule, at least talk about the actress scandal that just surfaced a few days ago.

There was nothing, and people probably didn’t even look at the application form carefully. They thought it was a curling-related company at first.

Why is this all happening...

Just because people don’t think Eastern countries are a threat, just because they think a start-up company can’t change the situation.

The sealed and signed document from the Ministry of Energy returned to Fang Zhuo's hands.

He carefully put it away and asked Smith as if there was grass growing in his heart: "Then let's go to business in the afternoon?"

Smith shook his head and said: "According to the plan, we will go to the Hoover Building at the same time tomorrow morning. The Department of Energy does not manage this type of applications, but business is different. This is what they come into contact with on a daily basis."

The senior vice president of Bingxin said seriously: "You should be more mentally prepared for a business hearing. I think you can talk about the trend of globalization."

Fang Zhuo nodded deeply. He had prepared these for a long time. Today's eagerness was useless. The business affairs department responsible for international trade, import and export control, trade measures and other responsibilities...

Presumably they will be more serious about their sensitivity to semiconductor equipment and technology.

Fang Zhuo is mentally prepared for this.

only……

When facing the business hearing the next day, Fang Zhuo really didn't expect that the first question he heard was from his competitor.

"Fang, what do you think of the dispute between SMIC and TSMC?"