Chapter 123: Funds Arrived and Construction of Super Factory Started

Another week has passed, and it is already the end of April. The temperature in Hong Kong has started to rise a lot. I have already put on short-sleeved shirts. Sometimes, it is still quite hot without an electric fan.
"Knock knock knock" there was a knock on the door outside. Yang Wendong, who was still calculating the accounts, looked up and saw it was Wei Zetao.

"Come in." Yang Wendong also said with a smile, then took out a bottle of Coke from the refrigerator behind him and handed it to Wei Zetao who had just walked in and sat opposite him, saying, "It's sunny outside. You've worked hard. Have some iced Coke."

"Haha, thank you." Wei Zetao took the Coke with a smile, opened it and took a sip, saying, "It's so refreshing. Drinking iced Coke in the summer is such a pleasure."

"Yeah, I like to drink it too." Yang Wendong smiled.

In fact, based on his experience in his previous life, Sprite obviously tastes better after being refrigerated in the summer; he also discovered a long time ago that there was no Sprite in Hong Kong, and there were not even cans. Coke was either in glass bottles or plastic bottles, with the latter being the majority.

Later, he asked someone to check, and found out that these two things were not even available in the United States. However, these two things were not suitable for him to make.

For example, cans. In fact, decades ago, American beverage companies have been studying how to put beverages in similar metal cans, but they have not been successful for decades. It is estimated that there must be problems with the metal material or the process.

Not to mention Sprite, for all beverages, it doesn't matter whether they taste good or not, but whether you have the ability to build the brand. As long as you have this ability, and the taste is good, you are 8% successful. So even if he has the recipe of Sprite, he can only make this kind of drink at most, but it is impossible to create a global brand.

It is not the case that once something is made, it will definitely be successful if it is patented. Many things can be successful because the company to which they belonged originally made them successful.
"It's a pity that I'm old and not in good health. I don't dare drink too much of these sweet things. It's okay to drink them occasionally." Wei Zetao's face also showed regret, and then he said: "It would be better if I could be younger."

Yang Wendong shook his head and said, "It's a pity, no matter how much money you have, you can't buy time, but having money can still solve most of your troubles."

"Yes, let's get down to business." Wei Zetao also returned to normal and said, "I just received a call from Liao Chong Hing Bank. They have approved a loan of HK$200 million to us. As long as we sign, the funds will be in our account within three days."

"Well, it seems that Liao Chong Hing Bank has raised so much funds recently." Yang Wendong smiled and said.

Wei Zetao nodded and said, "Almost. Although their bank is not small, a lot of it has been used by Liao Baoshan to open a real estate company recently, and the rest is also used to maintain the daily operation of the bank itself.

We suddenly needed 400 million in a short period of time, and it did take them some time to turn around. Now if we cut it in half, it will be much faster.”

Yang Wendong asked again: "What about Hang Seng Bank?"

Wei Zetao replied: "Manager Ye's reply is that the proposal has been handed over to He Shanheng. Mr. He is currently arranging people to investigate the sticky note issue. I guess there should be no problem once they have accurate information."

"That should be about right." Yang Wendong nodded and said, "It's easy to find out how popular Post-it Notes are in the United States right now."

In fact, it is not just in the United States, but also in Hong Kong. During this period, many people have come to us to purchase sticky notes;

However, since they cannot even satisfy the US market, they will not supply to others. Because even if they supply a little, it will be sent to Europe and Japan, triggering market demand but not being met, which will immediately attract a bunch of small manufacturers who infringe on patents.

The current situation is just a few or dozens of people with a little vision who feel that there is an opportunity. Even if they infringe on patents, the impact will be limited, at least there will be a time difference.

This is also why Yang Wendong is in a hurry to increase production capacity, because if you increase it slowly, someone will help you increase production capacity; and by then, it will be very troublesome to file an international lawsuit.
Wei Zetao said: "Ho Sin-hang is a very capable person. He helped Hong Kong's industrial sector a lot in the early days. He is considered half an insider. He should be able to judge whether the risks are big or not.

So I don’t think it will be a big problem.”

"I hope so. I don't want to get involved anymore." Yang Wendong nodded, and thought of Liao Chong Hing Bank again, so he asked, "Does anyone in the market know how much of Liao Baoshan's bank's funds he used to buy land?"

Wei Zetao shook his head and said, "I don't know. No one knows this amount except the senior financial executives in the bank. But Liao Baoshan's real estate company cannot be concealed. Now he has real estate businesses developing in many places in Hong Kong Island.

It’s just that Liao Baoshan also advertised that these were joint ventures, but we don’t know with whom, and we don’t know whether it was true. And even if it was his own, no one knew how much of his own funds or the bank’s funds he used. In short, everything is a mystery.”

Yang Wendong shook his head and said, "Never mind. It's too risky for the bank to play this way. According to the original plan, once the loans from both banks are approved, we will provide 3M with an account at Hang Seng Bank and let them send the checks to Hang Seng Bank in the future."

Although he knew that a bank run on Liu Chong Hing Bank only occurred in 1961, it would be difficult for him to get out easily if he continued to cooperate with Liu Chong Hing Bank for a long time.

Especially if there are distributors in Europe, Japan and even other regions, or if Magic Cube and other new product businesses appear, Changxing Industrial will have a large number of customers, and all transactions will be conducted using Liao Chong Hing Bank's account. It will be very troublesome if you want to change it in the future.

For Yang Wendong, the early account opening policy of Liao Chong Hing Bank helped him a lot. If there were no problems with the bank, he would not mind long-term cooperation. But now, it is natural to separate. Anyway, in this less than a year of cooperation, he has also provided them with a lot of profits.

Wei Zetao nodded and said, "Okay, no problem. But if we do this, Liao Chongxing Bank will find out about it."

"If they find out, they find out." Yang Wendong didn't care at all and said with a smile: "Who among the rich people or big companies in Hong Kong doesn't have multiple accounts?

If these banks want to attract us to use them, it depends on their own ability.”

A few months ago, although he was not submissive to the bank, he did need their help.

However, as long as the production capacity of sticky notes is increased smoothly this time, even if there will be many more cooperation in the future, it will not be as passive as this time. In the future, it can be hard, just like the extremely popular Lao Gan Ma in the previous life, which was begged by banks to cooperate with it. Of course, that was the peak moment of Lao Gan Ma. A few years before Yang Wendong traveled through time, Lao Gan Ma was not doing well later.
"Well," Wei Zetao said, "then we'll wait for the bank loan funds."

"Yes." Yang Wendong nodded and said, "Having money can solve many problems."

Time soon came to early May. With the joint efforts of Wei Zetao and lawyer Zhang Weida, the total loan amount of HK$5 million applied for from Hang Seng Bank and Liao Chong Hing Bank finally arrived.

However, the funds still had to be kept in the accounts of two banks and supervised by the banks, and could only be used for reasonable reasons, such as the construction of new factories, purchase of new equipment and raw materials, etc. applied by Changxing Industry.
There are still many restrictions, but that is normal. In the past, the loan funds for many people to buy houses were strictly controlled to prevent the lenders from messing around and causing bad debts, even if there was collateral, because the purpose of the bank is to make money, not to auction the collateral.

On the morning of the 7th, when Yang Wendong came to the company, Wei Zetao happily came over with some information and said with a smile: "Mr. Yang, this is the plan of our new factory. Take a look. There is no big problem. We are going to build it according to this."

"Let me see. I remember I've been waiting for a long time, right?" Yang Wendong took the drawing. In fact, he had discussed the new factory plan with several company executives in the early stage, but those were just hand-drawn based on a basic land drawing.

Then I commissioned a professional company to design all the details, but I was busy dealing with the bank loan matter before, so I didn't rush.

Wei Zetao smiled and said, "The real estate industry is developing well now. These construction companies are quite busy. Our drawings were also drawn by their designers who worked overtime."

"Yeah." Yang Wendong nodded, and without saying anything else, he began to look at the factory structure drawings carefully.

In this era without personal computers, mechanical and architectural drawings had to be done manually, which was indeed very time-consuming, prone to errors, and required constant correction.

The blueprint was placed on the table, and Wei Zetao stood up and said, "Mr. Yang, this is..."

Yang Wendong also listened carefully. After a while, when Lao Wei finished speaking, he said: "I don't get involved too much in these professional matters, but there are two points. The first is the issue of fire safety. We need to prepare more fire extinguishers and arrange them more reasonably;
The second is the escape route. There will be more people in our factory in the future, so we need more and wider stairs. No matter what the situation is, nothing should be allowed inside the stairs. The stair railings should not be made of wood, but iron.

Don’t save this money. Even if the building area is slightly lower, it is acceptable.”

Fires also frequently broke out in Hong Kong factories during this era, resulting in casualties;

He cannot control other factories, but he must pay attention to his own factory. This is a person's basic conscience. It is okay to "exploit" ordinary people. After all, if they are given jobs and food but not a safe environment, that would be too heartless.

Wei Zetao nodded and said, "Don't worry, Mr. Yang, we also attach great importance to safety issues. Our products are all flammable. Now that the scale is so large, we dare not ignore it.
Now all employees receive safety training every month, and fire is strictly prohibited inside the factory.”

“Yes,” Yang Wendong nodded, and then said: “According to this blueprint, there will be a total of 6 6-story industrial buildings, with a total area of 50 square feet, which is 20 times what we have now.

Although it may not be able to satisfy the US market, it will at least alleviate a lot of the pressure.”

Wei Zetao said with a smile: "Yes, we can also prepare to start exploring the markets in Europe, Japan and other places. Many potential dealers have come to inquire about it.

However, judging from the market potential of Europe and Japan, the combined market size may not be much worse than that of the United States. We will have to see the situation at that time, and we may have to continue to build factories."

"It's okay. As long as this factory is successfully built, we won't be so short of funds." Yang Wendong smiled and said, "With this experience, it will be much easier to expand the scale."

To supply the world, even the simplest product requires a very large factory, and a factory of this level cannot be built overnight.

If Yang Wendong did not have enough confidence and certainty, he would just be like a normal person, following the gradual expansion of the market instead of borrowing a huge amount of money all at once to build a new large factory that could meet part of the U.S. market.

It’s not so bad. Although sticky notes have many customers and basically every office worker has this demand, it is a low-frequency purchase product, far less than high-frequency products such as beverages. Otherwise, building 10 new factories would not be enough.

Wei Zetao also smiled and said: "Yes, with the profit margin of post-it notes, as long as the business develops smoothly, even if we have millions of loans now, we can pay them off in less than a year.

As long as we have sufficient repayment capacity, banks will be eager to give us more money.”

"Haha~, banks really like to add icing on the cake." Yang Wendong nodded and said, "However, we also need to make the best use of the bank's funds to expand in the future, otherwise it will be too slow to develop relying on our own profits."

Wei Zetao agreed, "No problem. Then I will sign a contract with the construction project and ask them to work 24 hours a day to complete the construction of our industrial building in the shortest possible time."

Yang Wendong asked: "How long will it take?"

"About one and a half to two months." Wei Zetao said, "The most time-consuming part is leveling the land. After I bought the new land, I arranged for someone to do it.
But it is not completely finished as of today, and it will take some time. Once the land is leveled and the foundation is laid, the upper floors can be built very quickly."

"Yes, that's good. It saves a lot of time." Yang Wendong nodded and said, "Let's do it. The sooner we build the factory, the sooner we can make a profit."

"I see." Wei Zetao smiled. One thing was settled. Then he asked, "Mr. Yang, the new factory is almost done. So, should we take the promotion of the Rubik's Cube in Hong Kong a step further?"

(End of this chapter)

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