Chapter 862 CATL

After all, what Ashley talked about when she came to Germany this time was not just the acquisition of Commerzbank by Natixis Bank.

Or in other words, through this matter, the two sides exchanged some interests behind the scenes.

The German side is not only concerned about the ownership of Commerzbank - this is not a priority issue. At present, for them, ensuring the stability of the euro and solving the European debt crisis are the most urgent needs.

Obviously, as the third largest bank in France, Natixis Bank's acquisition intention of Commerzbank has attracted much attention.

Especially now that Germany and France have differences on how to deal with the European debt crisis, to be honest, Germany does not want to set up obstacles to the acquisition of Natixis Bank, which will have a negative impact on the cooperation between the two sides.

If Natixis Bank can guarantee that after this acquisition, Germany will not be affected in the supervision of its domestic business, they are not prepared to prevent it from acquiring its own shares.

After all, this can also allow the government to recover some funds on the premise that the business of Commerzbank will not affect Germany's financial security.

Another issue discussed by both parties is the debt of Commerzbank. After the subprime mortgage crisis broke out, the German government injected funds into Commerzbank, including nearly 20 billion euros of debt.

If Natixis acquires Commerzbank, then Germany has reason to ask it to set a timetable for the repayment of these debts.

At least the previous request of its Minister of Economy that Commerzbank repay government debts within three years is worth discussing.

In this regard, Ashley Weber said that if Natixis can complete the acquisition of Commerzbank, it can naturally give a guarantee, but she cannot give a specific timetable for debt repayment now, but it requires Natixis President Lagarde to evaluate the situation of Commerzbank before it can be determined.

However, at least after this meeting between the two sides, many consensuses were reached, which also greatly promoted the process of Natixis' acquisition of Commerzbank.

…

Just when the world’s attention was focused on the London Olympics…

On August 6, Li Lu, on behalf of Tianhe Capital, signed an agreement with ATL, a subsidiary of TDK Corporation of Japan, to purchase 15% of the shares of CATL held by the other party.

Speaking of CATL, it was very well-known in Barron’s previous life and was called "King of Ning", but now the company has just been spun off from its parent company ATL.

Speaking of the development history of CATL, we must first talk about the experience of one of its founders, Zeng Yuqun.

In 1968, Zeng Yuqun was born in a small village in Ningde, Hujian - at that time, Ningde was still one of the top 18 poor areas in the country, and many families could not even solve the problem of food and clothing.

After graduating from the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering of Shanghai Jiaotong University, the 20-year-old Zeng Yuqun was assigned to a state-owned enterprise in Hujian Province.

However, work within the system could not inspire Zeng Yuqun's enthusiasm.

Less than three months after planning, Zeng Yuqun made his first bet in his life, to the confusion of his family - quitting his golden rice bowl and going to work in Guangdong Province!

After entering a US-funded foundry, Xinke Magnetics Factory, he met his immediate superior, Dr. Chen Tanghua.

Zeng Yuqun, who worked hard and had outstanding abilities, was highly appreciated by Chen Tanghua.

Under Chen Tanghua's promotion, Zeng Yuqun was quickly promoted from a grassroots employee to a manager.

During his 10 years at Xinke, Zeng Yuqun became the youngest engineering director and the first mainland director due to his outstanding professional ability. At that time, Zeng Yuqun was only 31 years old.

In 1999, the company's leaders Liang Shaokang and Chen Tanghua took Zeng Yuqun to start a business together, and ATL was officially established.

At the beginning of the business, ATL could hardly be said to have any core technology and could only purchase patents.

In order to quickly seize the market, Zeng Yuqun flew to the United States with more than 7 million and bought a lithium battery technology from Bell Labs.

He was delighted to think that the company would be able to make a lot of money with this technology!

But after returning to China, he found that this kind of battery was particularly prone to bulging after repeated charging and discharging, and it would be scrapped in a short time!

He was unwilling to give up and flew back to America to argue, but they didn't admit it at all.

Seeing that more than 7 million yuan had gone down the drain, Zeng Yuqun thought: No regrets, since I've done it, I'll do it to the end!

So he plunged into the laboratory.

Zeng Yuqun's team started with the study of electrolytes, and finally solved the problem of polymer batteries being prone to bulging after repeated charging and discharging through testing and optimization solutions.

Zeng Yuqun was able to solve the technical problems that even Bell Labs couldn't overcome!

After the battery bulging problem was solved, in 2002, an American customer came to the door and specifically asked to use Zeng Yuqun's battery. This customer is the well-known Apple.

With Apple's endorsement, ATL became a hit, and major companies such as Samsung favored it, and received soft orders!

It is worth mentioning that Honor Electronics is also one of ATL’s major customers, and some of their high-end mobile phones also use ATL’s batteries.

However, in 2005, due to lack of funds, TDK Corporation invested $100 million to acquire 100% of ATL's shares, and ATL became a wholly-owned subsidiary of TDK.

TDK was founded in 1935. This old Japanese company mainly develops magnetic materials "ferrite" - the magnetic tapes used by recorders and video recorders in the past were basically monopolized by TDK.

Shortly after being acquired by TDK, Zeng Yuqun and other ATL management decided to set up a power battery team to promote the research and development of vehicle-mounted power batteries and power battery management systems.

However, Zeng Yuqun's team still encountered bottlenecks in making car batteries at ATL.

When the BMW Group was looking for battery suppliers for its new energy vehicles, it noticed Apple's largest battery supplier in the world, ATL, and extended an olive branch to Zeng Yuqun.

However, the parent company, Japan TDK, was not enterprising and unwilling to expand production and invest in power batteries, and rejected BMW's cooperation request. This is one of them.

At the same time, due to national regulations, wholly foreign-owned enterprises cannot produce power batteries, and ATL is a 100% foreign-owned enterprise, so it is impossible to produce power batteries.

So Zeng Yuqun and another founder of CATL, Huang Shilin, decided to go a step further and completely separate the power battery team from ATL to establish a new company.

However, although CATL has separated from ATL, ATL still holds 15% of its shares.

This time, Tianhe Capital invested to buy shares of CATL from ATL. Zeng Yuqun naturally knew about this and welcomed Tianhe Capital's participation.

The reason is that in addition to the transfer of shares that can turn CATL's Japanese shares into mainland capital (Tianhe Capital), Tianhe Capital also promised to help CATL expand their users.