David Rubinstein, the founder of Carlyle Fund, arrived at this hotel in the west of Suzhou at 7 o'clock. When he saw a Chinese girl with a dimples when he smiled, the middle-aged man who had been in the officialdom and fund field for many years in Washington, was still his first reaction.

As one of Simon Westero's two most important lovers in China, Rubenstein knows very well that Chen Qing is actually the same as Lin Su, who is on the Forbes US 400 Rich List this year. In terms of status and wealth, it is inevitable that she will feel that she is more popular than others.

The Carlyle Fund was established in 1987 and has been working hard for nearly ten years. Rubenstein's current net worth is only 20 to 30 million US dollars.

Fortunately, with George Soros officially joining Carlyle as a partner a few months ago and even further connecting with the Westeros system, Carlyle Fund, which has been relatively small for ten years, finally ushered in a major turning point.

Especially last month, after tireless contact here, Carlyle Fund received a one-time investment of US$1 billion from Westeros.

The benefit of investing in the Carlyle Fund in Westeros even exceeds that of George Soros. Therefore, although Westeros has made clear restrictions on this fund and is basically just borrowing the Carlyle shell, David Rubinstein still attaches great importance to it.

In any case, you can never be wrong to invest with the Westeros system.

Let’s talk about the $1 billion, I personally talked with Westeros once. The arrangements there were to invest all the heavy industrial fields in China, to be precise, the construction, transportation, and mineral-related engineering machinery fields.

With the rapid expansion of the scale of Carlyle Fund this year, the investment strategy that focused only on the US domestic defense field in the past also needs to be changed, and diversified investment is an inevitable choice. Since Simon Westeros personally pointed out a path, David Rubinstein came to China a week ago to inspect the current situation of China's related industries.

Just when he was about to return to the United States, he received instructions from Westeros, asking Carlyle to involve projects involving Westeros system funds in China, and all projects need to be invited to serve as government policy consultant.

Carlyle's early breakthrough was to invite former Washington officials to serve as executives or consultants, thus obtaining a large number of defense orders. Even without Westeros' request, since she decided to do business in China, Carlyle would establish good relations with the Chinese authorities. Since the other party gave the arrangement, David Rubinstein agreed even though he felt that Chen Qing's weight was a little low or even had no weight at all.

This is also the reason for today's meeting.

After greeting each other, David Rubinstein took his assistant to sit down at a round table that was enough to accommodate seven or eight people. Chen Qing was the only one sitting, and two confidant maids were responsible for picking up the dishes. He didn't want irrelevant people to hear the conversation here, so the hotel waiter could only walk to the door.

Everyone sat down and told the waitress to serve the dishes. Chen Qing turned to Rubenstein: "David, after staying in China for half a month, how do you feel about Chinese food?"

David Rubinstein is a very talkative person and smiled and said, "It's amazing. I think I may be unable to live without Chinese food in the future."

"Actually, the boss is the same. However, Westerners may not be used to some of these flavors. Fortunately, there are many kinds of Chinese cuisine, and anyone who comes to this country can find their favorite food."

“It’s true.”

The serving efficiency here is very fast. After a brief chat, the two waiters have already brought some food. After all, they are foreign guests, and they carefully adopted the meal split mode. Chen Qing actually likes this way of eating more and more, rather than mixing together a group of people in the same dish.

After a simple greeting, both sides quickly got to the point.

"So, David, what do you think of a batch of corporate information we provide here?"

David Rubinstein was obviously awkward but still insisted on eating food with chopsticks, saying: "To be honest, Chen, the six companies I visited in person in a week gave me a very consistent feeling, rough, backward, chaotic, and small. Just like the XCMG Machinery Group in Jiangsu, the revenue in the past fiscal year was only US$260 million. This is already the top engineering machinery giant in China. In comparison, Caterpillar, the largest engineering machinery manufacturer in the federal ranking, had revenue of US$14.3 billion last year, and its net profit reached US$950 million."

Chen Qing's smile remained unchanged: "So, David, aren't you optimistic about the boss's choice?"

David Rubinstein did not deny it, saying: "If it weren't for Simon's investment strategy, I would never have invested a penny in these areas of China."

Chen Qing was very patient and asked, "What about now?"

"Of course, it's following Simon's ideas," Rubinstein smiled at the corner of his mouth: "I just hope that this investment will not be a Waterloo for Simon, otherwise Carlyle will also be unlucky."

Chen Qing half-jokingly said: "In fact, if you can prove that the boss made a mistake in his judgment, it would be considered a pioneering move. At least so far, of course, it does not mean that the boss has not made any mistakes, but in many industries, the boss has always been right."

"Yes, so Carlyle is planning to follow up on the same bet."

"You will certainly not be disappointed, but, David, I also hope you remember that the interests of the Westeros system should be put first."

“Of course, the client is our God.”

Chen Qing nodded and said, "Why don't we talk about the specific one? Do you have a definite goal?"

David Rubinstein raised his idle left hand and raised two fingers: "Two companies, the XCMG I just mentioned is one, and the other is in Hunan. This is a private company called Sany Heavy Industry."

Rubenstein's research and inspection targets during this period are actually materials provided by Cersei Capital's China Economic Research Institute.

Since his boss has been assigned a government policy consultant position, Chen Qing has also dutifully read many information about companies. When Rubenstein said that the general situation of these two companies immediately appeared in Chen Qing's mind.

Xuzhou Engineering Machinery Group is a large state-owned enterprise. The revenue of US$260 million that Rubinstein just mentioned is equivalent to RMB 2.2 billion, which is already a considerable scale in China.

Compared with another Sany Heavy Industry, unlike XCMG's involvement in agricultural machinery, automobile manufacturing, port machinery, etc., Sany is currently only a company that only involves construction machinery, is precisely concrete conveying equipment.

The reason why it was selected by the research institute is mainly because Sany pair's pump truck equipment that transports concrete to high-rise buildings has achieved technological breakthroughs, with a conveying height of more than 100 meters, breaking the overseas monopoly on related equipment. Coupled with its own high growth, it has become a star private enterprise in related fields for a time.

In Chen Qing's view, China's private high-growth enterprises are the most favored investment targets on Wall Street.

Thinking of this, Chen Qing asked: "Sany is easy to understand. David, why did you choose XCMG? This company has a very diverse product line and is expected to lose money this year?"

David Rubinstein did not directly answer Chen Qing's question, but said: "I communicated with Sany's team and also looked at their factories and products. This is a company with strict management and clear systems and clear development goals. The management is also very outstanding. I hope to develop it into a comprehensive construction machinery and excavation machinery giant through capital injection and technical support. As for XCMG, if I can talk about it, I hope to reorganize, divest China's fiercely competitive agricultural machinery and other businesses, and focus on developing port machinery and mining machinery and equipment."

"Construction machinery, excavation machinery, port machinery, mining machinery..." Chen Qing skillfully grasped the key point and said, "David, your thinking is very good, but have you ever thought about what if things don't develop according to your ideas?"

"What's the meaning?"

"We won't talk about other things. If we only invest in these two companies, do you think Carlyle can use $1 billion?"

"Of course not, but this is only one aspect. In addition to engineering machinery, Simon is also interested in ships, railways and other fields. This is also a very expensive industry. Chen, you have to know that I don't plan to spend all the $1 billion in one or two years. It is expected that all investment will be completed, which will take about three to five years."

"Okay, I mean, I think the boss should have the same idea," Chen Qing said: "That is, invest in multiple companies at the same time, give corresponding support, let them compete freely, and eventually eliminate the weak and retain the strong. According to our Chinese side, this is called... Well, I don't know how to translate it. Someone put scorpions, spiders, centipedes and other poisonous insects together to let them fight each other, and the one who stayed behind was the strongest one."

"I get it, it sounds cruel, but..." David Rubinstein thought for a moment and said, "I have no problem if Simon agrees."

The main reason is that there is really too much money in your hands.

If you only invest in the two companies selected this time, according to Rubinstein's idea, one-tenth of the 1 billion US dollar of funds will not be used. But if you invest in multiple projects at the same time, although David Rubinstein does not know the allusion of raising a Gu, Chen Qing's idea of ​​survival of the fittest is actually worth operating.

Because Rubinstein also found that China's relevant industries are still in its early stages, the cost of entering the market will be very low. In addition, the construction machinery industry in China is quite scattered, and almost every province has related enterprises, and large-scale investment is also quite feasible.

Not only that, the model of casting a wide net can still be subdivided. A certain type of machinery is limited to two or three companies, which can also ensure relatively healthy competition.

Of course, the key point is that the premise of all this must be that Simon Westeros’ correct judgment on the prospects of China’s related industries.

China has adopted austerity policies since 1993, which has led to a shrinking scale in the domestic infrastructure sector and a major impact on all types of engineering machinery industries. According to the normal economic cycle, this is an industrial trough period, and it is the best time to buy at the bottom. The Westeros system is now starting to be laid out, so we need to expect China to change its economic policies, move towards loosening, and launch infrastructure on a large scale in the next few years.

As long as this transformation becomes true, the field of engineering machinery, as the basics, will usher in a period of rapid development.

In addition, David Rubinstein has also considered various other aspects, which are based on Simon's correct judgment. Once a young man makes a mistake in his judgment, the Westeros system invests $1 billion in Carlyle and $1 billion in Carlyle's year-on-year follow-up, it is doomed to have an uncertain future.

The next day of this dinner, Rubenstein returned to North America and began preparing for the follow-up action.

Chen Qing also received a call early in the morning, hurriedly left Suzhou and returned to Beijing.

The team from Beijing informed her that her boss hoped that the golf course and high-end villa area project built at the foot of Xiangshan in the western suburbs of Beijing had made progress.

When he flew to the capital in the morning, Chen Qing was immediately called to go to the municipal government for a meeting.

Originally, I hoped to get 2,500 acres of land near the foot of the mountain on the southeast side of Xiangshan Park in Haidian District, but was rejected by the municipal government. However, it was not completely rejected. Instead, it was said that if the project wants to be approved, it needs to be translated about 1 kilometer eastward. Simply put, it cannot be built at the foot of the mountain.

Chen Qingchu was a little depressed when she heard this, but she was not too surprised.

At the foot of the mountain, not to mention Xiangshan Park, the large foot of the mountain is considered a Feng Shui treasure land to some extent.

After all, being surrounded by mountains and rivers is a high-quality Feng Shui pattern that most ordinary people in China subconsciously recognize. Even in the West, I have seen many luxury houses of my boss. Even if there is no Feng Shui theory in the West, the top luxury houses of foreigners are basically the same. Chen Qing also carefully studied the plot of the selected land, there was no courtyard house for some people at the foot of the mountain, and now it still failed. Obviously, even if there wasn't before, there should be something next.

In short, the water in the capital is still very deep.

After the meeting that lasted for more than half an hour, Chen Qing had no success in his efforts and had to decide to hand over the result to his boss. However, no matter what, such a 2,500-acre super-large real estate project could be approved, and the municipal government did not require a joint venture, which is definitely due to the sake of his boss.

It was almost noon and after the meeting, Chen Qing was about to leave with her entourage when she was called to stop.

He quickly changed his smile and Chen Qing called out to the middle-aged man who called him: "Secretary Liu, is there anything else?"

"That's right, Xiao Chen," the middle-aged man signaled to go out together, and seemed to be inadvertently looking at Jill Pecket and Zhao Annie who followed Chen Qing, and said, "Are you very interested in the Rose Garden Villa Project in Changping?"

Chen Qing noticed the middle-aged man's eyes and realized that the actions here were not hidden from the above.

This is planning to find someone to take over!
Chapter completed!