Chapter 596: An Aircraft Worth Over $4000 Million

Chapter 596: An Aircraft Worth Over $4000 Million

Cars travel on California Highway 1.

Fan Wumian was still on the phone, asking the British businessman on the other end of the phone the question he was most concerned about:
"Which do you think is better in terms of safety, the Falcon 7X or the Gulfstream G500?"

A British businessman named Evan Duke answered him without hesitation:
"Of course it's the Falcon 7X. It uses three engines, so even if one fails during the flight, it will still not affect a smooth landing."

"And its fly-by-wire control system is also used in the Mirage 2000 and Rafale fighter jets. Dassault's private business jets have performed very well for decades and have never had any major accidents."

"Last year, NetJets, the world's largest private jet operator, purchased 24 Falcon 7Xs from Dassault at one time, spending a total of $11 billion, mainly because of its safety."

After calculating the price, Fan Wumian asked:
"Is there a discount for bulk purchases? Less than $4600 million per aircraft, which is still a little more expensive than the Gulfstream G550."

The businessman Evan Duke continued in his London accent:
"Bulk purchases are indeed cheaper, but Mr. Fan, you are a star, so maybe I can help you get some discounts. Dassault has always wanted to open up new markets in Asia, so I can try to help you get the lowest price."

"The starting price of the Gulfstream G550 is relatively cheap, but customization is very expensive. Just changing the cabin layout, upgrading seats, tables, sofas, lighting, etc., the total bill will be 7 to million US dollars. In addition, the subsequent maintenance and other operating costs are also more expensive than the Falcon X."

"In the past, when I met a distinguished customer like you, I would recommend the Gulfstream G550 without hesitation, but the Falcon 7X is about to start delivery this year, and the situation has changed. Its various performances are indeed quite good."

Fan Wumian replied:

"I need to look at the information and compare the specific conditions of these two aircraft. If I buy them from you, how much will it cost?"

In his opinion, since he didn't know much about the business, it was necessary to find an expert to help keep an eye on it so as to avoid being cheated by the aircraft manufacturer.

Evan Duke continued in an amusing tone:
"I don't need to make any money on your side. I can just take 1% or 2% commission from the manufacturer. I mainly deal in second-hand private business jets. If Mr. Fan is willing to accept a nearly new Gulfstream G700 with only 550 hours of flight time, I can also help you find one, and the price is only about 3300 million US dollars."

Fan Wumian's heart was moved for a few seconds, but he still declined and said:
"I need to arrange a small room on the plane, with only about 8 seats. I often come to the United States for business, and it is more comfortable to sleep lying down, so it is better to customize a new plane directly to avoid the cabin layout being too strange."

The other party asked him again:
"Do you need a shower room? Dassault Falcon 7X offers customized shower services. The space is a little small, but it is sufficient."

"You can shower on the plane? That's even better."

Fan Wumian simply communicated the requirements with Evan Duke and asked the other party to help inquire about the price and see when delivery can be done.

After the call, I slept in the car for about two hours. When I woke up, I could see San Francisco shrouded in darkness.

I still remember that in my previous life, someone developed a program that specifically marked places where there were poops on the streets of San Francisco. The entire map of San Francisco was soon flooded with poop icons.

Because of this incident, it is difficult for Fan Wumian to have a very good impression of this city. It is like Paris, which is shrouded in the smell of urine and puppy poop. Sometimes he is unwilling to believe what others say 100 times, but when he goes there in person, his filter is immediately shattered.

Thieves in Rome, Italy, even brazenly pried open the lock of a truck and took away more than a dozen boxes of Valentino belts. By the time the Roman police found clues, one-third of the belts had already been sold at low prices.

Fan Wumian actually turned a disaster into a blessing. In mid-December last year, the theft of goods helped Valentino to get a global advertising campaign for free.

He was not in a hurry to place an order for the private jet, he just wanted to understand the situation in advance. He also vaguely remembered that more than ten years later, the boss of the French Dassault company would die on the spot in a helicopter accident.

At that time, many netizens in the mainland speculated that there was more to the story than meets the eye. In Fan Wumian's opinion, it would be fine if it was just an accident, but if it was really due to a conspiracy by competitors, it seemed to indicate that the company's technology was still quite strong.

In addition to performance and safety, Fan Wumian is also considering whether he will be physically wiped out after he becomes rich. From this perspective, Dassault Aviation, a French company, has a great advantage over Gulfstream Aviation, a US company.

The film, television and entertainment business is insignificant, but Fan Wumian still controls a large amount of resources in the mainland's Internet market. Now foreigners still look down on the mainland market, but it is hard to say what will happen after a few years when the scale has grown.

Rich people often encounter plane crashes, or their entire family suffers at the same time. It is difficult to say whether it is a natural disaster or a man-made disaster. It is definitely a good idea to keep a hand in advance.

Last year, it chose to use YouTube shares to exchange Penguin Group's shares from a South African company.

Later, YouTube was acquired by Google at a high price. South Africa felt like it had picked up a large sum of money for free and was quite satisfied in the short term.

However, as the share price of Penguin Group continued to rise, a large gap in yields had appeared. Fan Wumian had obviously made the right decision again and made a lot of extra money from it.

Since the launch of the international version of the Penguin Weibo project, this subsidiary has been making steady progress in Silicon Valley. The user growth rate seems slow compared to Facebook, but as the content becomes more and more abundant, the number of active users has been growing steadily.

The development speed is a bit slow, mainly because it is cost-conscious and does not invest too much money in advertising. Currently, the international version of Weibo has 1500 million active users outside the mainland market, of which more than 420% are concentrated in Asia, and the North American market has barely exceeded million.

The international version of Weibo was launched hastily and many of its functions still had flaws. In addition, the user ecosystem was never established, so many users went to Facebook after using it for a while.

The reason is simple. Some users use Weibo, but most of their friends use Facebook, which makes these users who use Weibo feel like they are playing a stand-alone game.

Fan Wumian is not in a hurry about this. Compared with spending money madly to expand the market and arouse the vigilance of companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo, he feels that it might be better to keep a low profile.

Wait until Penguin Group's cash flow is more sufficient and it truly enters the era of mobile smart terminals, and then spend money frantically on expansion. This will lower the cost of acquiring customers and help keep the international version of Weibo project alive.

Now, in order to acquire an active user, it may take more than ten dollars to invest in advertising costs, but the revenue brought to the international version of Penguin Weibo is very limited. It would be better to spend the budget on the Asian market first.

Even Facebook has not yet found the right monetization model. Last October, Yahoo proposed to acquire the company, offering only $10 billion.

Facebook's size is currently much larger than that of Weibo, so it is indeed not worth making a fuss about.

Facebook, which has not yet gone public, has long been sought after by venture capital companies in the financing market, and several old media giants are also eyeing to acquire this platform.

Fan Wumian wanted to get a piece of the pie, but unfortunately the Facebook management team headed by Mark Zuckerberg looked down on him. The main reason was that he only had money but could not provide the type of monetization channel resources that Facebook needed.

This resulted in Fan Wumian having to stare blankly at the huge piece of fat meat dangling in front of him, and he had to settle for the next best thing and pay attention to listed companies such as Amazon and Marvel Entertainment, whose stocks were freely circulated and easier to get.

The motorcade passed through the city and stopped in front of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in San Francisco.

After Fan Wumian went into the room to check, he went out for a walk and strolled around the Golden Gate Bridge.

It was just a bridge. I looked at it for a few seconds and then left. I walked into a Japanese restaurant and had barbecue and ramen.

That night, Guo Biting called and asked him where he was.

This girl just got a three-day vacation, but unfortunately Fan Wumian couldn't go to see her, and told her to go back early after finishing her work in the United States (End of this chapter)