Chapter 127: Zhongsha Industrial Park: The Starting Point of the Orange (Begging for Monthly Tickets)

Wang Zihao drove the Mercedes, circling the Saige Tech Park twice, with Zuo Hongyu leading the way up ahead.

After looking at three factory buildings in a row, Chen Yansen wasn't quite satisfied with any of them.

First, the area was too small—the smallest was 800 square meters, and the largest barely topped 2,000; second, the factories were stuffed with broken-down production lines, so anyone who wanted to rent had to buy these useless pieces of equipment, clearly trying to take them for suckers.

Chen Yansen sighed and waved everyone back into the car.

"Chen Zong, Saige Tech Park is right next to Huaqiangbei. This whole area used to be Shanzhai phone factories—at its peak there were over a thousand of them—so the factory spaces are a bit fragmented. My idea is to rent several of them and knock them through into one."

Zuo Hongyu stood outside the car and explained slowly, offering a solution.

There was nothing for it—the bigger factory spaces in the park had long been taken, and besides, those were producing legitimate smart phones, outside the scope of the Double-Crackdown operation.

All the places Zuo Hongyu had contacted were old factories left behind by bosses who'd fled after the Double Crackdown.

Last year the rent was 1.5 yuan per square meter per day; now it's dropped to 1.1, some even falling below 1 yuan, yet hardly any bosses have come to talk business.

Seeing the group about to walk away, the factory owner hurriedly cut the price, offering a discount on the rent and throwing in the equipment cheap.

But Chen Yansen found the space too small and left without even looking back.

"Let's look somewhere else. The location of Saige Tech Park is good, but the factory spaces are too scattered. I said before—the building area has to be at least 10,000 square meters."

Chen Yansen waved his hand, cutting off Zuo Hongyu, who was about to keep explaining.

He understood what Zuo Hongyu was thinking—nothing more than finding a dozen or so small factories and signing a unified contract—but the owners of these factory buildings were all different, and it would be hard to coordinate the rent prices, lease terms, and payment cycles.

"Chen Zong, then we can only go to Zhongsha Village. The rent is at least 50% cheaper than Saige, though the location and transport are a bit worse."

Zuo Hongyu nodded and offered an alternative.

"How far is it from here?" Chen Yansen asked.

"About 9 kilometers, 15 minutes by car," Zuo Hongyu answered immediately.

"Let's go take a look."

Chen Yansen didn't hesitate, instructing Zuo Hongyu.

At this moment, Chen Yansen began to agree with Cao Dahua's assessment of Zuo Hongyu: an honest man, few words, reliable and methodical in his work.

When Chen Yansen was dissatisfied with the factory spaces in Saige Tech Park, Zuo Hongyu immediately came up with a new plan—clearly he'd prepared in advance.

That morning, to persuade an old friend not to take his own life, Zuo Hongyu had risked offending his new boss, arrived half an hour late, and even taken the liberty of bringing Zhou Jinling along.

Though he had the look of a villain, in this era where everything is measured in gold and silver, he was still willing to talk loyalty and friendship with people. He might not make it as a boss, but as an employee he was a capable hand.

Afterwards, the two cars sped along Binhai Avenue, passing the Shencheng Convention and Exhibition Center and Tian'an Digital City, and finally arrived at the Zhongsha Village Industrial Park.

Just as Zuo Hongyu had said, the surroundings were dead quiet—in half a day they only saw one delivery truck pass by.

Locals in baggy shorts and flip-flops, fishing rods in hand, zipped past on little electric scooters.

Chen Yansen got out of the car, looked around, observing the transport and supporting facilities. Compared with Saige there was a gap, but the environment was pleasantly quiet.

Not far off, a large stretch of factory buildings stood connected together, not scattered like Saige's, more like a grid of rooms.

Zuo Hongyu pulled out his phone and made a call.

Soon, a man in his forties, wearing a stand-collar polo shirt, came zooming over on an electric scooter.

"Boss Zuo, is your Big Pineapple expanding capacity again?"

The man stopped his scooter, looking puzzled, and couldn't help asking.

"Boss Huang, I left Big Pineapple last week. Let me introduce—this is my new boss, Chen Yansen."

Zuo Hongyu pulled Huang Qiming over to Chen Yansen and said with a smile.

"Oh! Chen Zong, you're a handsome young man! Let's go look at the factory first, shall we?"

Huang Qiming sized up Chen Yansen, tossed out a compliment, then pointed at the factory area ahead and got straight to the point.

"Boss Huang, pleased to meet you."

Chen Yansen acknowledged him and followed Huang Qiming toward the industrial park.

Cao Dahua, Wang Zihao, and Song Yuncheng followed behind, looking around at the surroundings.

"This stretch is A3, covering 3,400 square meters, basically all three-story factory buildings, plus one six-story dormitory. Total building area is 11,000 square meters. Set up for Shanzhai phones, with the equipment in place, you could crank out five million units a year!"

Huang Qiming pointed at his own factory buildings and bragged with great conviction.

"Boss Huang, making Shanzhai phones in Shencheng these days is a dead end," Zuo Hongyu said, none too pleased.

"Ha, then let's do brand-name phones," Huang Qiming gave a dry laugh, looking a bit awkward, and brushed it off.

He was helpless too—one Double Crackdown from above, and eighty percent of the phone factories in Huaqiangbei had gone under.

Even the factory spaces in Saige Tech Park couldn't be rented out, let alone the more out-of-the-way Zhongsha Industrial Park.

A factory this big, 6,000 to 8,000 yuan a day in rent—every day it sits empty is a day of losing money.

Huang Qiming was desperate, so he just talked nonsense.

To close the deal, he led the group around A3 for half the day, walking them through the factory conditions—the power distribution room, air compressor room, refrigeration station, and all the rest.

Chen Yansen said nothing, leaving everything to Zuo Hongyu and Cao Dahua.

It had to be said, Huang Qiming's factory conditions were pretty good—supporting facilities were complete, with staff dormitories, a parking lot, a garbage station, all there, and the layout was reasonable. You could tell at a glance that a professional designer had been hired when it was built.

Zuo Hongyu glanced at Chen Yansen. Seeing his boss give a slight nod, he understood, and began discussing price, lease term, and payment schedule with Huang Qiming.

"0.65 yuan per square meter per day, settled every three months, minimum two-year lease, contract renewed every two years."

Seeing that Zuo Hongyu had an inclination to lease, Huang Qiming hurriedly quoted a price.

"Boss Huang, you can fool outsiders with that, but we've been in Shencheng for over ten years, we know the prices inside out. If you think Chen Yansen is some out-of-towner and try to take advantage of him being new, we'll just have to find someone else."

Zuo Hongyu shook his head repeatedly after hearing it, his face darkening, and asked unhappily.

"Rent settled once a year, we can sign an eight-year contract, but on the price, Boss Huang has to come down more—how about 0.5 yuan?"

Cao Dahua, belly out, asked with a smile.

Chen Yansen saw them haggling and had no interest in joining in. Leaving Wang Zihao to learn, he took Song Yuncheng to wander around the park.

"You sold 5% of Fox Tao's equity just to make phones?"

Song Yuncheng asked softly.

"There's that side of it." Chen Yansen gazed at the setting evening glow and answered casually.

"The internet's all saying you're going to package up Fox Taobao and sell it." Song Yuncheng hesitated, then asked again.

"Shouldn't you be happy about that, then?"

Chen Yansen turned around and teased with a smile.

Song Yuncheng, Zhang Wenbo, Xiang Pengfei, and the others each held options for 100,000 shares; calculated at a 16-billion valuation, that batch of options was worth over three million.

At this time, housing prices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shencheng were mostly 10,000–20,000 per square meter, and only the more remote suburbs were a little over 8,000 per square meter; if Chen Yansen really sold the company, they could get rich overnight.

"Everyone wants to make Fox Taobao stronger and bigger."

Song Yuncheng shook her head and said earnestly; this view also represented the heartfelt wish of a portion of Fox Taobao's people.

Although after selling 5% of his equity, Chen Yansen still held nearly 70% of the equity, most startup founders would not cash out equity during a project's Growth phase.

Chen Yansen's move undoubtedly signaled to the outside world: he wanted to cash out early.

"Relax, I don't plan to sell Fox Taobao."

Chen Yansen smiled, and added silently to himself: at least not for now.

Fox Taobao's performance wasn't stable enough yet; the 16-billion valuation given by Augusta Capital was, frankly, inflated, and finding a buyer domestically to take it over would be difficult.

If Mama Ali could go public next year, Ma Liyun might be interested, but right now, Mama Ali's move to transfer ownership of Alipay has already been noticed by Yahoo.

The two sides were arguing online with no end in sight; for Old Ma to resolve this and then buy back Yahoo's equity, he'd need to prepare at least 5 billion US dollars.

He simply had no spare capacity to take over!

So when Chen Yansen said he wouldn't sell, it was only because he hadn't run into a suitable buyer.

Song Yuncheng felt a little steadier after hearing Chen Yansen's words, but still reminded him in a small voice: "A lot of people in the project team are talking about it; I think you should hold a staff meeting to explain."

"Alright, I'll have Xu Dan arrange it later."

Chen Yansen raised his hand and ruffled Song Yuncheng's head.

"Brother Sen..." Wang Zihao, who had just finished discussing the price, walked over; just as he was about to call out to Chen Yansen, he spotted him patting Song Yuncheng's head and immediately shut his mouth.

Chen Yansen heard the movement behind him, patted Song Yuncheng's shoulder, and walked back as if nothing had happened.

Wang Zihao opened his mouth, hesitated, and in the end still said nothing.

Back in the office, Zuo Hongyu and Cao Dahua were waiting.

Chen Yansen picked up the draft contract: lease term starting at 5 years, rent renegotiated every 3 years, rent settled every 6 months, 0.5 yuan per square meter per day.

That was 20% less than Huang Qiming's quote, and compared to the rent at Saige Tech Park, it was actually half the price.

Chen Yansen did a rough calculation: nearly 2 million in rent per year.

Looking again at Huang Qiming's attire, he really didn't look like a boss worth tens of millions.

Chen Yansen nodded and handed the follow-up matters over to Zuo Hongyu.

Cao Dahua decided to stay in Shencheng to help contact equipment suppliers and set up the production line; things like functional testers, injection molding machines, and CNC machine tools could all be sourced in Huaqiangbei.

But as for SMT placement equipment, the two of them felt buying brand-new was too wasteful; conveniently, this month there was an electronics equipment auction in Shencheng, with a chance to snag a batch at a low price.

Chen Yansen naturally wouldn't let Cao Dahua help for nothing, and gave him an extra salary on top.

In Chen Yansen's eyes, although Cao Dahua had failed in the business world, he was still capable of running errands and sourcing equipment.

Of course, in Cao Dahua's own words, he was guiding college students in entrepreneurship; his real job was still being a university professor, so drawing two salaries was perfectly reasonable.

Four people came, three went back.

(End of chapter)