Rebirth of the Military Industrial Overlord

Flying from Chicago to Hong Kong, and then entering Shenchuan from the Luohu port, the entire journey takes more than 15 hours, and due to aircraft safety management, there is at least 10 hours of air flight time in which the mobile phone must be turned off.

It is only 10 hours, and it is so short as to be almost negligible in a person's life.

Chris Galvin sat in his reserved first-class seat, ordered a glass of red wine from the beautiful stewardess, took a sip, then put on the headphones, closed his eyes, and began to enjoy it with ease. Duan Yun on the journey.

But he could not foresee that in these 10 hours, something will happen that will change Motorola’s future fate, rewrite the global communications market, and even change the final outcome of a war, and will have a profound impact on the future historical trend of the entire Blue Star. A major event affecting!

The origin of all this needs to go back to 1986 when Tan Zhenhua took the initiative to visit Schaumburg, Chicago, to visit the two generations of Motorola President Galvin and his son. (Students who have forgotten can re-read the fifth volume of this book, "Chaos", Chapter 1095~1106)

It was during that meeting that Motorola and Tan Zhenhua reached a series of cooperation agreements, including the cooperation between the two parties to develop wireless communication services in China, and the admission of Tan Zhenhua as one of the founding shareholders of the "Iridium Star" plan.

Tan Zhenhua invested 100 million U.S. dollars to invest in the plan, in exchange for a board seat. Of course, his purpose of investing in this Motorola-led "Iridium" company is not simple. According to his original words: "I saw someone digging Keng, I went up to help him with a few shovels very enthusiastically, can this be harmful? This is obviously a pleasure to help others!" So Guo Zhaode, who was cruel and black, gave him a very dark idea.

Now, these two guys who are darker than coal are finally about to do it!

And with one hand, it is a lore!

On the morning of August 13, 1999, just as Chris Galvin’s flight had just left the ground and the stock market sounded the opening gong, a major news broke out in the US capital market: it had just been listed. Several board members of the "Iridium" company jointly filed an application in the Federal Court of New York, requesting bankruptcy protection for the "Iridium" company!

The breaking of this news undoubtedly dropped a blockbuster on the Nasdaq stock exchange market that day. Affected by it, the stock market plummeted by more than a hundred points when it opened that day, which is equivalent to a drop compared to the previous trading day. 4%!

In fact, there have been various rumors about the bankruptcy of the "Iridium" company, and the reason is simple. The company has been plagued by serious debt problems for a long time, and it is described in the prospectus. The scene that is sought after by countless users around the world, it seems that it will never be realized.

In terms of technical principles, the "Iridium" plan is possible, and with the unremitting efforts of Motorola's technical department, this possibility has gradually become a reality-but the problem is that the global communications satellite plan was originally developed. At that time, Motorola seriously underestimated the engineering difficulty of the project from theory to reality. It was originally expected that it would only take 5 years of research and development time. As a result, it was not until 1996, that is, ten years after the plan officially started, that the first test satellite was launched. Time has doubled!

What's more terrifying than doubling the time is that the budget of the project has also been overrun by a factor of two... Originally, the planned investment of 2.3 billion US dollars, not more than 3 billion US dollars, but by November 1998, all 66 satellites were launched. After the launch and deployment, the project has actually cost nearly 7 billion US dollars!

It is important to note that because the project uses low-orbit satellites, the lifespan of the satellites is limited and relatively short. Under normal circumstances, the lifespan of each satellite is 5 years, not more than 8 years. This also means that starting from 2001, a certain number of satellites need to be supplemented for this system every year to make up for the loss of longevity satellites.

In other words, this will be a maintenance fund that must be spent in order to maintain the normal operation of the system, plus the cost of maintaining other parts of the entire system. If the "Iridium" system wants to work normally, the annual maintenance cost alone will be as high as several. One hundred million U.S. dollars!

This is a bottomless pit!

In order to diversify investment risks and to promote the "Iridium" business globally, Motorola has implemented a global shareholder recruitment plan. It is precisely because of this that Tan Zhenhua has become one of the company's shareholders. Motorola hopes to pull him After joining, not only can we get 100 million U.S. dollars in investment, we can also take the opportunity to open the China mainland market, and even Vivian has mixed in it. The "hyperbolic" and several other Wall Street funds have formed a joint investment team. , Jointly owns the voting right of one vote in the board of directors, but later this right was fiddled with by Tan Zhenhua and handed over to Guo Zhaode for his behalf.

Tan Zhenhua is just one of many investors who have invested in the "Iridium" project. Thanks to Motorola's tireless efforts in marketing, and finally bought a ticket of 100 million US dollars, he became a shareholder of the "Iridium" company. There are 28 investors. So much!

The 28 directors originally worked in various industries, including landlords in Argentina, oil tyrants in the Middle East, mining tycoons in Basie, and warlord dictators in Africa...they have different skin tones, copycats With all kinds of languages, a board meeting requires simultaneous translation in at least 5 languages. The appearance of attending the meeting with headphones is like a small UN meeting...

The efficiency of decision-making for such a board can be imagined.

However, although the board of directors is inefficient in decision-making, it is easy to reach a consensus in a certain aspect-all the shareholders who contributed funds believe that they do not agree to further invest in this project!

Think about it and know that 28 shareholders from all over the world were all fooled by Motorola on the "Iridium Star" thief ship, but the big guys only discovered the prospect of the project that had been blown up before. It's an illusory mirage. The ship has too many faults. It is a broken ship that may sink at any time. At this time, it would be good to get off the ship without requesting a refund. Do you still expect him to add money to upgrade the cabin?

In fact, there are a lot of shareholders who want to refund their votes. If it weren't for the hope that a product would finally sell out, the ship would have fallen apart long ago.

As the initiator of the project and the largest shareholder, Motorola, of course, placed the best hope for the final result, and at the same time made extraordinary efforts. This effort is not only embodied in overcoming the endless technical problems. The arduous scientific research is also reflected in the financial support provided to ensure that the "Iridium Star" company can continue to operate without failing midway.

These supports include borrowing from "Iridium" company, providing additional guarantees for "Iridium" company borrowing from third parties, and so on.

Finally, after Motorola paid such a huge effort and price, the first satellite was successfully launched in mid-1996, and the project finally entered the substantive construction phase. By November 1, 1998, all 66 satellites After launching and deploying, the system is in place and ready for commercial use.

By the way, according to Tan Zhenhua’s original agreement with Motorola, 20 of these 66 communication satellites were launched by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. China has also become a global player with this order. The third largest supplier of commercial aerospace launch services.

Relieved Motorola finally breathed a sigh of relief, and then announced in a high-profile manner that the system was open to global users, and took advantage of the heat to list the "Iridium" company, hoping to fight a turnaround.

However, it was too late.

The military overlord who likes rebirth, please collect it: (readwn.com) The rebirth military overlord has the fastest literary update.