Chapter 251: Shirakawa-san, are you interested in Aihua?
An hour later, the office that had previously welcomed Nakajima Heitaro welcomed Shirakawa Kaede again.
"Ohga-san," Shirakawa Kaede, who had just arrived here, saw that Ohga Norio had already prepared coffee in the reception area.
"Mr. Shirakawa, I apologize for the hassle of inviting you here." Ohga Norio stood up, put on a smile and shook hands with him.
"I am very happy to have a conversation with Mr. Ohga." This was not the first time he met him, so Baichuan Feng became much more casual.
Ohga Norio couldn't help but laugh out loud at Shirakawa Kaede's slightly teasing compliment.
"Mr. Shirakawa always has something surprising to say, and Shirakawa Electric's creativity is also always surprising."
After both parties sat down, Norio Ohga was the first to praise Shirakawa Electric's recent moves.
"Shirakawa Electric is just trying to keep up with Sony. Your R&D capabilities are far beyond Shirakawa's reach."
Although he didn't know why Ohga Norio was looking for him in such a hurry, Baichuan Feng was not in a hurry to ask.
"Shirakawa-san is too modest," Ohga Norio waved his hand. "Shirakawa Electric has given Sony a lot of inspiration in terms of creativity."
This was not a deliberate compliment from Norio Ohga, but Shirakawa Electric had indeed attracted Sony's attention in some aspects.
Take some practical little functions on a walkman for example. The implementation seems easy, but the difficult part is the idea.
“Your company is not only amazing in terms of creativity, but also in terms of cost control.”
Baichuan Feng concentrated a little, he knew that the sex scene was about to begin.
"In the final analysis, Shirakawa Electric is too small, so we can only go to lower-tier markets to capture people with weaker spending power."
Shirakawa Electric and Sony currently do not have much competition in the low-end market, so Shirakawa Kaede does not mind discussing this topic with Ohga Norio.
However, after hearing Shirakawa Kaede's sigh, Ohga Norio also sighed.
"I can understand a little bit of what Mr. Baichuan said.
After all, Aihua is also involved in the low-end market, but it is facing many difficulties now. "
Here it comes, Baichuan Feng was cheered up.
"Mr. Da He, you asked me to come here today, is it...?"
Since the topic has come to this point, Baichuan Feng simply gets straight to the point and states the main point.
Ohga Norio nodded to confirm Shirakawa Kaede's guess, "I'm sure Shirakawa-san has heard about Aihua's affairs, right?"
"I know a thing or two." Baichuan Feng nodded calmly.
Nonsense, before this in the North American market, Shirakawa Kaede had prepared a big gift for Aiwa.
He knew very well what the final outcome of Aihua would be.
It is said that in the last batch, Aiwa stocked millions of Walkmans, but in the end, it is estimated that less than one-tenth of them were actually sold.
Shirakawa Electric has made internal calculations and found that there is a backlog of goods of hundreds of thousands of units.
Even without taking into account operating costs, Aiwa would have suffered a loss of at least 5 billion yen just from material consumption.
In the domestic market, Aiwa's Walkman was also targeted by Shirakawa Electric.
Although the products are not unsalable, their market share is pitifully small nowadays.
It can be said that the second attempt of Aiwa's Walkman business was once again suppressed by Shirakawa Electric.
Although the thing was done, Baichuan Feng still looked like an outsider.
In that operation in North America, Shirakawa Electric has been hiding behind the scenes.
All of this was done through unconventional means to contact local bosses to ensure the step-by-step implementation of the plan.
In addition, Aiwa does not have a mature operating system in North America. Although it is known that it is related to racial conflicts, it has not yet figured out the details.
As for Shirakawa Electric, it is of course innocent now.
When Ohga Norio and Shirakawa Kaede mentioned Aihua, it was certainly not without purpose.
“Aiwa made some mistakes in its judgment on the Walkman business.
The business situation is a bit of a setback now, I wonder..." Ohga Norio leaned forward slightly, "I wonder if Shirakawa Electric is interested in Aiwa?"
Huh?! Bai Chuanfeng blinked, wondering if he had heard it wrongly.
Is Shirakawa interested in Aiwa? This...
"Oga-san, what do you mean...?" Shirakawa Kaede's pair of shining eyes were full of curiosity.
Are you interested? Well, I am still a little interested.
“I’m sure Shirakawa-san is aware of Aihua’s recent performance in the stock market.
Some shareholders on the board have lost patience with Aihua."
Aiwa is a listed company in Japan, and the performance of its operations is sometimes directly reflected in the stock market.
Last year, the stock price plummeted once because of the plagiarism of Shirakawa Electric.
Although Aiwa's reputation was not very good at that time, it only paid Shirakawa Electric about 500 million yen in compensation.
Because the foundation is still there, the shareholders behind the scenes have no plans to sell on a large scale.
However, Aiwa suffered another setback in its Walkman business this year, resulting in losses of several billion yen.
This is totally unacceptable to shareholders. Having a bad reputation is okay, but losing money is not okay.
So this time when Aiwa's stock price fell again, some members of the shareholders' meeting lost their patience.
Baichuan Feng understood what Ohga Norio meant. He wanted to take over from him.
“Excuse me, Ohga-san, but Aiwa and Shirakawa Electric have a lot of overlap in business.
Strictly speaking, they are competitors, so is it inappropriate for Shirakawa Electric to hold shares in Aiwa? "
Both are audio equipment manufacturers. In addition to Walkman, Shirakawa Electric will soon launch audio products.
This part is also within Aiwa's business scope, so the two are indeed out-and-out competitors.
It seems strange that competitors hold shares in each other. Is this a love-hate relationship?
"Shirakawa-san is worrying too much." Ohga Norio has a different view on this, "Sony and Aiwa are competitors, but Sony also holds shares in Aiwa.
This is a healthy competitive relationship that will not affect each other’s business or cause any undue interference.”
Baichuan Feng curled his lips secretly. Sony is the absolute controlling shareholder of Aiwa, so of course it is not afraid of competition from Aiwa.
Even if Sony is willing, if Aiwa has any black technology, it can be seen on Sony's products immediately.
But after Shirakawa Electric took over, could Shirakawa Feng do this? Needless to say, Sony was the first to disagree.
Baichuan Feng's eyes turned, and he thought for a few seconds before asking, "How many shares are left in Aihua?"
Ohga Norio cheered up, "5.3%, if Shirakawa-san is willing, you can transfer all of it to Shirakawa Electric."
5.3%. Based on Aiwa's current market value of around 30 billion yen, this is an investment of 1.6 billion yen.
Aiwa's market value was initially close to 40 billion last year, but after more than a year of turmoil, it is currently barely maintained at around 30 billion.
Shirakawa Feng knew who was responsible for the evaporated 10 billion yen, but he didn't say it.
Seeing that Baichuan Feng was still hesitating, Ohga Norio tempted him again.
"This transaction was completed directly within the shareholders' meeting, and there will not be any dissenting votes. Mr. Shirakawa can rest assured about this."
To be honest, Ohga Norio's own opinion of Aihua is like chicken ribs, tasteless to eat and a pity to throw away.
Having lost the market for portable players, Aiwa no longer has any noteworthy bright spots financially.
After all, the market size of tape recorders, radios, microphones, audio equipment, etc. is limited, and some are still sunset industries.
Moreover, Sony has all these businesses and does them better than Aiwa.
Therefore, he himself is not very interested in Aiwa's shares.
However, Sony cannot allow shareholders to sell their shares at will. If a selling wave occurs at such a juncture, Sony itself will suffer the most losses.
If you are not interested and you cannot allow the stock price to continue to plummet, then the best approach is to find someone to take over.
Who should I look for to take over? Of course, it would be that Baichuan Feng-san.
First of all, Shirakawa Electric has a good reputation, as long as the other party formally invests in it.
Then, once Aiwa releases the announcement, I believe investors will regain their confidence in Aiwa.
Secondly, the scale of Shirakawa Electric is just within Sony's reach. If it were Panasonic or Hitachi, Ohga Norio would not dare to let the other party join.
So after thinking about it, I think Baichuan Feng in front of me is more harmless.
The harmless Baichuan Feng's mind was working rapidly, and he began to calculate the gains and losses of investing in Aihua.
His judgment on Aiwa's future is similar to that of Norio Ohga. If Shirakawa Electric had not emerged, Aiwa might still have achieved something.
But now, its future is almost visible.
"Ohga-san, Shirakawa Electric can take over the 5.3% stake, but I also have a request."
Although Baichuan Feng is not optimistic about Aihua's future, he has his own ideas.
"Mr. Shirakawa, please speak." Seeing that Shirakawa Kaede was willing to make an offer, Ohga Norio immediately expressed his welcome.
It’s okay to talk about it, but the worst case scenario is to refuse it outright.
"Shirakawa Electric will take over this part of the shares, but at the same time Aiwa must sell the sound effects team to Shirakawa Electric."
Hearing the conditions offered by Shirakawa Kaede, Ohga Norio looked at him meaningfully.
Why did Shirakawa Feng only ask for a sound effects team? Because Shirakawa Electric lacked this foundation.
Shirakawa Feng often heard his own sound engineer, Oki, complaining that they needed more talent in audio technology.
Things like Dolby sound effects and stereo noise reduction technology were what Ohki often mentioned to him, and they were also relatively weak technical aspects of Shirakawa Electric.
Da Mu was also familiar with the sound technology of various companies. Among them, Aiwa's Dolby B and Dolby C noise reduction systems, dynamic super linear bass system (DSL), and five-band EQ (equalizer) tuning technology all made Da Mu envious.
Now that there is an opportunity, Baichuan Feng will of course ask for a high price and get it in one fell swoop.
Although these technologies cannot be said to be monopolized, everyone has their own unique skills.
Shirakawa Electric needs these technologies to improve itself, as the development of portable player hardware will definitely encounter bottlenecks in the next few years.
Then what each company will compete on at that time is their internal strength, that is, their attainments in audio technology.
Therefore, Shirakawa Kaede is also preparing for a rainy day. In the short term, Shirakawa Electric may be able to take the lead with its creativity, but this may not be the case in the future.
Moreover, these technologies can also be applied to future CDs and audio equipment, which can be said to be the real best efforts.
So does Norio Ohga understand this truth?
