If you list the top five wineries in France, its name may not be among them, but if you expand the list to the top eight, Chateau Cheval Blanc will definitely be among them.

Its owner is not a member of the Rothschild family, who are known for their business acumen. Instead, he took steady steps and learned to expand the business at the end of the previous year. He successfully bought half of the shares of Domaine Romanee-Conti from the shareholders of the winery.

In the early years, Romanee-Conti was jointly managed by two shareholders, named Henri Leroy and the Devaux-Blocher family. It was Henri Leroy who chose to sell his shares, so Han Chudong's acquisition of Chateau Cheval Blanc meant that he also acquired 50% of the shares of Romanee-Conti. Otherwise, the value of Chateau Cheval Blanc alone would not reach this figure.

In addition, it also includes a luxury house in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, covering an area of ​​more than 1,300 square meters. It was built in 1967 and is currently rented to a wealthy British businessman, as well as a castle in Nice, France and a hotel on the seaside in Cannes.

Interestingly, the original owner of Château Cheval Blanc was rather old-fashioned. After the original owner passed away five years ago and the winery was handed over to the family's son-in-law, the business suddenly became diversified.

Especially in the past two years, it even bought three office buildings in London, England, but they are not included in this transaction. It is probably stimulated by the success of Lafite Winery. It is said that many wineries have been trying to get involved in other assets recently.

Tragically, this family son-in-law did not choose a good time. Not only did the land prices in France fall, but the land prices in London also fell. It seems that he lost a lot of money.

Finish looking through the asset list.

At this moment, Han Chudong looked at the photos of the new hotel, then at the beautifully designed Paris manor, and said, "If I continue to buy more houses, I will have to set up a real estate company to manage these assets. Sixty-six million US dollars... This number is quite auspicious, with a premium, but it is still within my acceptable range. So let's leave it at that. It would be best if I could pay in installments and pay it all off within a year."

"Instalments? I don't think they will accept it. The currency is depreciating too fast now, especially when it is settled in US dollars."

The person who said this was named Sam, a secretary in the secretary's office. Recently, he was in charge of following up on the transaction of acquiring the winery. He looked a little embarrassed, mainly because he was afraid that Cheval Blanc would not be willing to accept the installment payment method, which would ruin the agreement that was finally reached.

"Don't worry. The asking price is so high. I will pay half first and the other half in half a year or a year. I think you can accept it." Han Chudong didn't have much impression of the secretary in front of him. With so many people in the company, how could they take care of everything? On weekdays, it was mainly Assistant Arthur who helped manage the secretary's office. He found a comfortable position, put his feet on the desk, looked at Assistant Sam and asked, "What about Chateau Margaux? Still no news?"

"Yes... but it's bad news. After Chateau Mouton Rothschild learned that we were in contact with Chateau Margaux, they also started to frequently contact people from Chateau Margaux. Yesterday, our people met Baron Philippe Rothschild there, and he asked someone to tell you that in the wine industry, you can't do whatever you want just because you have money."

After Secretary Sam said this, he carefully observed Han Chudong's expression, and then quickly looked away.

Han Chudong was speechless: "A member of the Rothschild family who has been rich for so many years actually said that I can do whatever I want after I get rich? Well... I'll just take it as a compliment. Going back more than a hundred years, their acquisition of wineries such as Lafite and Mouton is actually no different from what I am doing now."

A surge in wealth gave him the capital to expand his business.

In the eyes of others, he has been shopping all the time recently, which seems a bit arrogant, and this probably caused the displeasure of Baron Philip.

Secretary Sam was not very good at flattering people, so he asked in a proper manner: "With the emergence of competitors, the cost of acquiring Chateau Margaux will definitely increase. What should we do next?"

"We will continue the negotiations according to the previous plan. Even if we cannot buy Margaux, we will still upset the Baron of the Rothschild family. But we must not act on impulse. If the price is too high, we will not want it. Let them think that we just want it, just like deliberately asking for a high price during an auction. Do you understand?"

"clear."

"Okay, go discuss this with Cheval Blanc first, and tell me if you have any news."

Han Chudong lowered his head and continued to read the information he had not finished.

Since late January, he has been personally responsible for the establishment of the personal computer research and development project. Last year, he bought the complete set of Otto computer technology from Xerox. He needs to redevelop the system and upgrade the hardware before it can be put on the market, which is a lot of work.

So far, we have planned projects such as mouse, keyboard, motherboard, sound card, network card, etc., and are trying to develop modems and memory. While cooperating with many headhunting companies, we are also trying to contact many universities and research institutes to jointly set up project teams. For example, the research institute under Xerox Corporation, since it has the ability to develop the immature Alto computer, it means that it must have good capabilities and ready-made resources.

This may be his focus for some time to come.

A full 30 million US dollars was intercepted through the Mason United Group and was prepared to be invested in Mason Laboratories as research and development funds. Moreover, this was only start-up capital. If he wanted to develop a finished product that would satisfy him, this amount of money might not be enough.

There is no wrong version in the 1619 book forum!

The scale of Mason Laboratory is really not small. The number of employees has quietly reached nearly 600. The monthly personnel expenses are a huge amount of money, which is divided into multiple projects. There is a toy laboratory that develops products for Mango Toy Company, an electrical appliance laboratory that develops products for Baofeng Electric Appliances, and a beauty laboratory that develops products for Rainbow Beauty. There are masters everywhere, and there are also many doctors. Although they have no sense of presence, they are valued by Han Chudong.

Take the electrical laboratory for example. The projects it is currently developing include electric bicycles, lithium batteries, portable cassette players, home video players and the like. More than 200 top students gather in a small building near Echo Park, spending the whole day researching and exploring new products according to Han Chudong's ideas. They have previously tinkered with some ovens, desk lamps, electric kettles, etc., which have already begun production through third-party manufacturers and are sold in Baofeng Electrical Appliance Stores.

Not to mention the beauty products, twenty different shades of lipstick were launched at the beginning of the year, all of which were the results of laboratory researchers. In addition, there is the so-called seaweed soft mask, which is positioned as the main product of the year.

Developing a personal computer is much more difficult than other current projects. Recently, the laboratory director and Han Chudong have been very busy, both mentally and physically...