Olympus Corporation.

There were only three people in the huge conference room, namely Olympus Chairman Takeshi Kikukawa, Vice President in charge of finance Dai Jiuzhi, and Li Weidong.

Although this is the home stadium of Olympus, Kikukawa Tsuyoshi and Dai Jiuzhi both looked reserved, while Li Weidong, the guest, looked calm and relaxed.

"Mr. Li, the rumors about our Olympus are all false rumors. Our finances are not a problem. Not only do we have huge assets, but our cash flow is also abundant." Kikukawa said calmly.

"Since there are no financial problems, your company shouldn't have to worry about the next financial audit, right? President Kikukawa, I, Li Weidong, am not an unknown person. You don't think that I don't have any information, so I just came to visit you rashly, right?"

Li Weidong lowered his voice and continued, "After all, such a huge figure as US$1.8 billion cannot be covered. Any firm can audit it, let alone a national-level audit agency."

Hearing the figure "1.8 billion U.S. dollars," Kikukawa's heart tightened and his mind became much clearer.

As Li Weidong said, if a rich man of his level dares to come to the door in person, he must have some information. The fact that he can accurately say the number "1.8 billion" shows this.

At this time, Kikukawa Tsuyoshi was extremely guilty, but he did not dare to show it on his face.

Li Weidong continued: "President Kikukawa, I am not here to blackmail Olympus, but I hope to discuss cooperation. What I want is not too much. I just hope to get a share of the optical lens business.

This does not affect your company's core camera business and endoscope business, which has grown rapidly in recent years.

The market for optical lenses is big enough that even Olympus cannot capture it. Moreover, I am mainly engaged in the mobile phone camera business, which does not overlap with Olympus's business scope. If we cooperate, Olympus will not lose anything.

, but you can make a profit.”

"Mr. Li, investors around the world are optimistic about the future of smartphones, and we at Olympus will also enter the mobile phone camera business." Vice President Dai Jiuzhi said.

"But you must first pass the audit! If you cannot pass this level, neither President Kikukawa nor Vice President Dai Jiu will be able to stay in your current position."

Li Weidong stretched out two fingers and continued: "I can offer 200 million U.S. dollars. Although it cannot fill the 1.8 billion U.S. dollars hole, using some financial leverage means will be enough for you to cope with this audit."

Hearing that there were 200 million US dollars, Go Kukawa couldn't help but feel a little excited.

Li Weidong continued to persuade: "President Kikukawa, please forgive me, there is not much time left for you. The audit work of your company has only been suspended because of the Fukushima nuclear accident, but it has not been canceled until the authorities handle it."

After the nuclear accident, the audit will still be restarted. If you can't make up for the shortfall before then, haha..."

Kikukawa hesitated for a moment, then sighed helplessly, and then said, "Two hundred million U.S. dollars is not enough, at least three hundred million U.S. dollars are needed!"

"Two hundred and twenty million!" Li Weidong immediately started bargaining.

"Two hundred and ninety million!" Kikukawa Tsuyoshi also quoted.

"Two hundred and fifty million, not through patent licensing fees, but through asset mergers and acquisitions. I will purchase an Olympus affiliate to complete this deal. Then you will need to license the patented technology to this affiliate."

!" Li Weidong continued.

Kikukawa Gang and Dai Jiuzhi looked at each other. The transaction model Li Weidong mentioned belongs to capital operation. It is highly maneuverable and easier to bypass audit supervision. Then it will be more convenient for Olympus to use this money.

Money to fill the hole.

After hesitating for a moment, Kikukawa Tsuyoshi still quoted a price of 270 million US dollars. The two parties argued again and finally set the transaction price at 265 million US dollars.

…

Rebus first observed Li Weidong's face, and then asked: "Is the negotiation done?"

"It's done!" Li Weidong nodded.

"How much?" Rebus asked next.

"Two hundred and sixty-five million US dollars." Li Weidong replied.

"Although it is quite expensive, it is still worth it to enter the optical lens market with this money." Rebus showed a hint of joy on his face, and then continued: "At least as for mobile phone cameras, we will not need them in the future.

Relying on foreign suppliers!”

Li Weidong said: "I like Olympus, and it's not just the optical lens business. Olympus's objective lens system is also a good thing, not inferior to Nikon, Canon and Zeiss."

"Objective lens system? It's mainly used in industry, right? Do you have business in this area?" Rebus asked.

"Not yet, but there will be in the future!" Li Weidong sighed lightly and continued, "The current layout is so that ten years from now, we won't have to rely on others!"

…

If it's just for Sharp's panels, Li Weidong doesn't have to come to Japan in person, it's enough to let Rebus talk alone.

The real purpose of Li Weidong's trip is actually Olympus's optical lens business.

Olympus was founded in 1919 and started out as a microscope. The first commercial microscope in Japan was produced by Olympus. The rapid development of Japanese medicine in the 20th century is absolutely indispensable to Olympus.

Most Chinese people know the Olympus brand because it produced first-class cameras. In the era of successive films, Olympus was indeed able to punch Nikon and kick Canon.

In the 1980s, Olympus cameras were the highest-end imported goods, and only young people from high-level cadres could afford Olympus cameras. Even in the 1990s, Olympus cameras were of the highest quality.

It is still higher than Nikon and Canon. Of course, the price of products of the same level is also higher than Nikon and Canon.

But after entering the era of digital cameras, Olympus gradually fell behind and was overtaken by Canon and Nikon. Mainly because Olympus products were too expensive, and the performance of digital cameras was almost the same, and the performance gap was not big.

In most cases, consumers still prefer cheaper products.

Olympus has also gradually shifted its business focus to medical devices, such as various endoscopes, which Olympus is good at. In addition, various imaging equipment are also Olympus's specialty products.

In 2011, there were still many consumers buying Olympus cameras, but 40% of Olympus's revenue came from medical products, and selling cameras was purely based on capital gains.

Ten years later, the SLR market has been occupied by Canon, Sony and Nikon. Olympus only has a small market in the mirrorless field, and its customers are mainly fans.

Although Olympus still has very good profitability relying on medical equipment, it is undeniable that Olympus has declined for a century, and the decline began with the financial fraud incident that broke out in 2011.

It’s no longer news that Japanese companies commit fraud. The more time-honored and large companies are, the easier it is for them to commit fraud. On the contrary, many small companies have always maintained the “craftsman spirit”.

It’s not that small businesses are more conscientious, but that small businesses have fewer customers. If they don’t make products carefully, the few customers will run away. Therefore, small businesses must have the spirit of craftsmanship.

We usually see news about Japanese companies' fraud, which basically involves falsifying product data. Olympus's fraud is financial fraud, and it is also the largest financial fraud case in Japanese history.

Things still have to start with the Japanese real estate bubble in the 1990s. At that time, Olympus, like other Japanese companies, invested a large amount of securities. The Japanese real estate bubble caused Olympus to lose tens of billions of yen.

of losses.

After all, it was the most glorious era for Japanese companies. A top Japanese company like Olympus could completely bear losses of tens of billions of yen.

However, in order to make up for these losses, the head of Olympus chose another wrong path, which was to bet on higher-risk financial derivatives.

As mentioned before, at that time, Japan invested heavily in Southeast Asia. The so-called high-yield financial derivatives were actually going to Southeast Asian countries to earn interest rate differences.

Then the Asian financial crisis broke out, and Olympus lost all its investment. The original loss of tens of billions of yen snowballed into a loss of hundreds of billions of yen.

At this time, Olympus began the first round of aggressive operations, using the deposits and treasury bonds in the account as collateral to obtain loans from banks, invest in overseas funds, and then use overseas funds to acquire loss-making financial products.

In this way, financial products that were originally losing money have become assets. Although the assets are still losing money, the losses on the books have been wiped out.

This is like a supermarket worth 10 million, but it lost 2 million this year. Zhang San bought the supermarket for 10 million. When calculating assets, Zhang San has assets of 10 million, but in fact Zhang San only has 800 million.

Ten thousand.

This only looks good on the books, but the losses are still real. If you want to really balance the accounts, you need to transfer the losses out of the books in a reasonable way.

Everyone, please go and try it soon.]

So Olympus carried out a second round of aggressive operations, which was to restart some dormant or covert companies that had done business with Olympus, and then purchase these companies at high prices.

For example, in 2005, Olympus acquired a food container manufacturer for 70 billion yen. By 2009, the company's valuation became 14.3 billion yen, so the difference was 55.7 billion.

The yen is the loss that is covered in the accounts.

This kind of financial fraud is actually not very clever and can be audited by any accounting firm. However, Japanese companies have always been secretive about their own problems. As long as no one mentions it, it will be treated as if it did not happen.

But things went wrong during Olympus's scandalous operation, which involved a British medical device company. Olympus spent 211.7 billion yen to acquire this company with total assets of less than 100 billion yen, and then sold it to

The British financial company responsible for the acquisition paid a "consulting fee" of US$67 million. This operation allowed Olympus to wipe out a book loss of 110 billion yen.

The British are not Japanese. They are not used to Olympus. The Japanese audit department can not see such obvious financial fraud, but the British audit department cannot pretend to be blind.

In order to cope with the British review, in February 2011, Olympus hired British economist Michael Woodford as the CEO of Olympus. It was also for this reason that when Li Weidong came to Olympus

, what I saw was Chairman Kikukawa Tsuyoshi and Vice President Dai Jiuzhi, not the president.

This British CEO is not a fool. He is a serious economist, and he can still understand corporate financial reports. After he took office, he immediately discovered that the company's financial problems were problematic, and he also repeatedly reported to Kukawa Tsuyoshi and Dai Jiuzhi

When I asked, I was always put off.

The British CEO simply hired an investigation company to investigate secretly, and then discovered Olympus's financial fraud. The British CEO didn't want to take the blame, so he chose to put his cards on the table. He convened an interim board of directors and demanded the removal of directors.

Tsuyoshi Nagakukawa.

As a result, the board of directors unanimously voted to remove him from his position as CEO.

Obviously, the British CEO didn't understand that he was just a wage earner, and Olympus invited him here to frustrate the British audit. As a result, you have to open up this hornet's nest yourself, and I won't kick you away!

However, it was this incident that triggered a reaction from the outside world and finally triggered the Olympus financial fraud incident. After in-depth investigations by the media and institutions, Olympus could only admit that it had committed financial fraud of US$1.8 billion over the past twenty years.

, Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa bowed and apologized and stepped down.

Olympus is also a microcosm of the Japanese economy. The real estate bubble and the impact of the Asian financial crisis have made the Japanese economy strong on the outside and weak on the inside.

However, the Japanese are still living in the dream of "I am second in the world", stubbornly believing that they are right, burying their heads in the sand like ostriches, unwilling to look up and see the world.

When they got up, they found that the world had changed, and then they pretended that what they saw was an illusion, continued to bury their heads in the sand, and pretended that nothing had happened.

Although Olympus's financial statements are falsified, Olympus's technology and products are still genuine, and Olympus's lenses are still top-notch in the world.

Therefore, Li Weidong is willing to give more than 200 million US dollars to obtain Olympus's optical lens technology. This is also the best time.

On the surface, Li Weidong said that he was optimistic about the development of smartphones and wanted to localize mobile phone cameras. The subsequent launch of Xiaomi mobile phones would also be a good cover.

In fact, Li Weidong is interested in high numerical aperture optical lenses, which are one of the core components of the photolithography machine.

The working principle of the photolithography machine is that the light source is concentrated through the lens, and patterns are carved on the silicon body of the wafer. The light source and the lens are the two core components of the optical core.

In the future, the three major manufacturers of photolithography machines are ASML in the Netherlands, Nikon and Canon in Japan. Both Nikon and Canon make lenses. ASML in the Netherlands uses lenses from Germany's Zeiss.
To be continued...