Rebirth of the Military Industrial Overlord

Tan Zhenhua's rhetorical question immediately silenced Donald Douglas Jr. again.

This is really an embarrassing and regrettable fact.

MacDonald and Douglas, the two companies that have been merged into one, are actually extremely different in size.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, in the face of rapidly expanding orders, the two companies adopted different business strategies. Douglas designed and manufactured a series of successful models, such as the miracle in the history of world transport aircraft mentioned above, production and Sales of more than 10,000 DC-3/C-47, SBD "Dreadnought" dive bombers, etc., just statistics from 1942 to 1945, Douglas has manufactured more than 30,000 aircraft!

In order to meet such a huge demand, Donald Douglas Sr. opened six factories in one go, located in Santa Monica, Long Beach and El Segundo, California; located in Chicago and Oklahoma, Oklahoma Macheng and Tulsa; the number of employees in the company has increased from a small number of workers at the beginning to more than 160,000. It is like the largest aviation manufacturing company in the United States, despising the crowd!

What about MacDonald? In addition to producing aircraft under the licenses of other companies, it can be said to be useless in terms of design.

However, its prosperity and its death were also sudden. With the end of World War II, the orders received by the two companies shrank in a collapsed manner. Douglas had to sell many affiliated companies, closed three factories, and laid off 100,000 employees. In response to this change, among the companies that were sold, there was the RAND Corporation, a well-known American Air Force think tank.

Moreover, the old Douglas also discovered a cruel fact. His good friend, the Boeing company founded by William Edward Boeing, also took advantage of the golden opportunity of World War II to grow into a behemoth, and achieved success in the manufacturing of large civil airliners. Brilliant results and a powerful challenge to Douglas' dominance!

Old Douglas was of course not reconciled. He raised a huge amount of money and invested it in the development of the DC-4 passenger aircraft and achieved remarkable success. The DC-4, this 4-engine large propeller transport aircraft was used in the famous "Berlin "Airlift" made the limelight and strengthened the determination of old Douglas to go further and further on this road.

Unfortunately, that was only the last glory of an era that was about to end.

Soon, the jet airliner began to gradually replace the propeller airliner with its various advantages, and this time in the front, of course, the future air supremacy-Boeing.

Boeing’s 4-engine long-range jetliner "Boeing 707" began its test flight in 1954, while the similar Douglas DC-8 only announced its development a year later...

This planted the seeds of Douglas' decline.

Although DC-8 was successfully developed in the end, the huge amount of money invested for it became Douglas’s nightmare. The subsequent DC-9 research and development work aggravated this problem, and Douglas lost the first-mover advantage. The passenger plane was far behind in the market performance by Boeing. Douglas, who was heavily in debt, finally had to accept a tragic fate-bankruptcy, and was acquired by a small McDonald who had never seen him but held a large amount of cash.

So all this can be summed up as: the industry leader and second child had a cruel competition, but a humble lucky kid picked a peach.

However, although the lucky boy took advantage of the giant's momentary mistake to pick the peach, it is not easy to eat the peach and digest it smoothly.

Although Douglas was forced to sell himself, he was once the boss of the industry after all. From the company culture to the employee mentality, he was full of domineering, and the technical strength is second to none in the industry. How can you see MacDonald, you lucky hillbilly?

Since then, the good show was staged. McDonald’s attempts to integrate Douglas failed time and time again, and finally formed a strange company structure-except for a "McDonald Douglas" when necessary. In addition to the company name going out to yell and sell goods, Douglas and McDonald have their own wells and have a complete corporate structure. From the CEO, the financial director, engineers to ordinary employees, everyone calculates their own accounts and plays. Each one is simply the best explanation of the Chinese idiom "same bed with different dreams".

"So, your plan turned out to be to split McDonnell Douglas into two companies again?"

Little Donald Douglas wanted to understand the cues in Tan Zhenhua’s words, and couldn’t help feeling horrified. He raised his head and asked in surprise, “It’s incredible. Tan, although I don't want to hit you, this idea of ​​yours is a bit too whimsical."

Tan Zhenhua replied with a smile: "Mr. Douglas, is this a whimsical idea? It’s too early to say, after all, we haven’t actually done anything, right? You just need to tell me your decision, which is when you look at it. When this plan becomes possible, will you join it?"

Donald de Douglas Jr. hesitated for a moment before slowly saying: "Tan, I can only say that your goal is very exciting to me, but you haven't told me what I can get when your plan is successful. What can you get."

Tan Zhenhua shrugged his shoulders and said, "Mr. Douglas, I appreciate your caution. As you can see, I am a Chinese and I have never thought of changing my nationality. Then, there is one that I cannot avoid. For a company such as Douglas that is involved in the defense industry in the United States, my investment may not be approved by the Ministry of Commerce of your country, and CFIUS will definitely investigate my investment and even set up obstacles."

CFIUS, the U.S. Foreign Investment Committee, originated in the 1970s. At that time, the depreciation of the U.S. dollar caused a large influx of foreign capital, which aroused the concerns of the U.S. government. Congress passed the Foreign Investment Research Act of 1974 and established CFIUS on the basis of the Act.

The initial function of the committee was simply to count and monitor foreign investment information including direct investment and securities investment, predict trends, and coordinate relevant policies.

However, just like any other government department, once the committee was established, it had its own logic-expansion, and soon included the review of all foreign investment into its scope of work, and in the blacklist of this committee, Of course, investments from the Soviet Union, Russia and the Middle East, including China Xia’s investment, are the first priority review objects.

Donald de Douglas Jr. nodded slightly to express his understanding, and Tan Zhenhua went on to say: "And I am very optimistic about the prospects of McDonnell Douglas or Douglas, and I am eager to get it, so I have only one way."

"So, I guess you need an agent?"