The sixth pillar industry.

Hadi wants to develop the 'luxury goods industry'.

"Manufacturing makes money based on industrial scale, while luxury goods make money based on brand. We have the support of the media industry and have a very high degree of publicity, so we can create a number of luxury brands."

"The profit margin of the manufacturing industry is usually only about 10%, while the profit margin of luxury goods is several times or even dozens of times higher. For example, a bag costs only $10 but can be sold for $2,000. Why? It's the added value of the brand."

"We can acquire shares in luxury brands or create our own luxury brands. As long as we promote them well, any product can become a luxury product."

finally,

Hardy looked at Andy and said.

"In addition to the current departments, the group company needs to establish another department. This department is very important."

"What department?"

"Group think tank."

"The management is the body, and the think tank is the brain. It can provide policy-oriented and forward-looking policy research and consultation for the company. The think tank can summarize business intelligence, provide policy design and solutions, and guide the company's decision-making."

"The IQ of one person is not enough after all. If a group of smart people are gathered together, they can exert a powerful force. The group company is a block structure, and think tanks can connect these departments and subsidiaries."

Andy expressed his support for Hardy's plan and took it back to add details. Two days later, Hardy Group held its first group meeting and announced the group's three-year plan.

Of course, some can be disclosed directly, while others are kept as top secrets of the company and known only to a very small number of people.

These plans are the company's designs for the future, and if leaked they could cause competitors to attack or get ahead of you.

After the meeting, each company and department will develop its own three-year plan, which will be submitted to Hardy, who will review them one by one.

For example, Wash Mining was the first listed company Hardy got. In fact, Hardy did not run it well after getting it. He just manipulated the stock price several times and drained millions of dollars from him.

This time Hardy made a plan. It would be a pity to leave such a good listed company idle, so he ordered the current exploration director Columbus to expand the exploration team and look for new mineral sources.

"Okay boss."

"How are you going to start working?"

"Oh, expand the survey area and work hard in places across the United States where there may be mines," said Columbus.

Hardy shook his head and took out a map from the drawer. "This is a map of Australia. Experts say Western Australia is a mineral-intensive distribution zone. There are only a few companies in that area now, and there are still large areas that have not been surveyed. You take people there."

Australia's reserves of iron ore, aluminum ore, coal ore, gold ore and copper ore are among the highest in the world. Now is 1948, and many of the large mines of later generations have not yet been discovered. Now is a good time to enter the Australian mining industry.

In his previous life, Hardy went to Australia for a trip. His friends introduced some situations to him and mentioned a few place names, but Hardy didn't know the specific locations.

All we know is that Australia's mineral resources are mainly concentrated in Western Australia. Let Columbus discover the rest. He could even find the New World, so finding minerals should be no problem for him.

After dealing with the group's affairs, Hardy relaxed.

He has a president and managers of various departments and companies under him, and they are responsible for specific matters. If he does everything himself, what else do they need to do?

A few days later, Andy reported to Hardy that there was news from PepsiCo.

......

Just after the third day of the new year, PepsiCo announced its financial report for the previous year. Compared with the previous year, PepsiCo's business shrank again in 1947 and its profitability continued to decline.

PepsiCo's stock price fell on the news.

Then some bad news circulated in the market, saying that PepsiCo's financial situation was very bad and on the verge of collapse, and the shareholders' meeting was preparing to negotiate with Coca-Cola again, hoping that Coca-Cola would acquire it.

This is the third time PepsiCo has asked Coca-Cola to acquire it.

The stock price fell again on this news.

A few days later,

A pipeline collapsed at PepsiCo's syrup production plant in San Francisco, causing the leak of nearly 50,000 liters of syrup. At the same time, the plant had to be shut down for three days for maintenance, and the losses may have reached hundreds of thousands of dollars.

As soon as the news came out, PepsiCo's stock price fell again.

Soon after, the Global Times reported the news that a reporter from the Global Times went to interview Coca-Cola and asked whether Coca-Cola would acquire PepsiCo. The president of Coca-Cola made it clear that they would not acquire PepsiCo.

Finally, the commentator analyzed:

Pepsi and Coca-Cola have been competing for the market for decades. In Coca-Cola's eyes, Pepsi has always been the plagiarist. Even in their market reports, they never correct Pepsi's name but always call it the plagiarist.

Pepsi and Coca-Cola have the same taste, so it makes little sense for Coca-Cola to acquire Pepsi. It would require paying tens of millions of dollars, and it might also trigger antitrust laws, so the possibility of Coca-Cola acquiring Pepsi is very slim.

If PepsiCo does not develop further, there may be only one outcome for it, which is closure and bankruptcy.

This report caused the market to lose confidence in PepsiCo, resulting in panic selling. The stock price began to fall sharply, from $8.3 per share at the beginning of the year to $5.6 per share, and the market value evaporated by more than $5 million.

Even many shareholders have lost confidence in PepsiCo's future.

At this time, PepsiCo received bad news again. The Hardy Group, which had just acquired PepsiCo shares and is now the largest shareholder of PepsiCo, had a fierce dispute at the latest shareholders' meeting between the shareholder representatives of the Hardy Group and the current president of PepsiCo, Walter Mack. Afterwards, the Hardy Group stated that in view of the situation of PepsiCo, it might sell its shares.

As the largest shareholder was leaving, the small shareholders became even more panicked, and the stock price fell again.

Just when the small shareholders were panicking, a financial company appeared and approached them, offering to buy the shares from the shareholders. Many shareholders lost confidence in Pepsi and sold their shares one after another.

In this way, it didn't take long for the financial company to acquire many shares from small shareholders, accounting for 18% of the total share capital.

At the same time, Andy also acquired more than 8% of the shares in the circulating stock market.

Now Hardy has a 49% stake and is the undisputed largest shareholder.

Taking this opportunity, Walter Mack also acquired some PepsiCo shares. His total shares now account for 27%, making him the second largest shareholder of the company.

Master Ma once said: The accumulation of capital is bloody!

In order to make money and control more capital, Hardy and Walter Mack used various means to suppress stock prices, and frantically absorbed shares when people panicked.

The real losers are the small shareholders and stockholders.

Is the purpose of listing stocks to make shareholders make money? No, never. The purpose is to make better bloodsuckers.

That day, Walter Mike found Hardy, gave him a box of Pepsi, and said with a smile, "Mr. Hardy, the pull-tab and lucky draw activities we talked about before have been prepared and registered."

He pointed at the Coke.

Hardy picked up a bottle of Pepsi, which was not much different from a Coca-Cola bottle, also a classic slim-waisted bottle. The lid had changed. It used to be a metal lid, but now it was an aluminum lid with a beautiful blue and red Pepsi logo printed on it and a pull ring next to it.

Hardy pulled the pull ring and the bottle cap was pulled open with a slight pop. Hardy liked this sound very much, which was much better than the sound of a can.

There were clear handwriting printed under the bottle cap: "Another bottle" was written in four large characters on Hardy's bottle.

“Bang, bang, bang~ bang, bang~!”

Hardy opened five or six bottles in a row.

Some said thank you for your patronage, some ordered another bottle, and finally I was lucky enough to win a 50-cent cash reward.

Hardy put down the bottle cap with satisfaction.

"What do bottle caps cost?" Hardy asked.

"Each bottle cap needs to be printed, so the cost is a bit higher, about 0.3 cents per bottle cap, which is twice as much as the previous iron bottle cap," said Walter Mike.

Hardy found this perfectly acceptable.

"What about the awards?"

"The ratio is 50% for thanking you for your patronage, 45% for another bottle, and 5% for a cash reward, starting at 10 cents and decreasing geometrically upwards. For every 100,000 bottles sold, there will be a $100 grand prize, to stimulate consumers."

"Also, the advertising slogan has been changed this time, targeting young people."

Hardy nodded. "I remember that Coca-Cola has never advertised on TV. Find HD Films and ask them to make an advertisement for Pepsi and broadcast it on ABC. The main point is not how good the taste is, but the fun of the pull ring and the fun and joy of redeeming the prizes."

"If we release more big prizes in the near future, people will see the winners and it will create a concentrated publicity effect. Then the TV stations will report on it and I believe more people will buy Pepsi."

Walter Mike nodded continuously.

A few days later.

During the 8 o'clock show on ABC TV, a new Pepsi ad was played. A group of young people were holding up Pepsi bottles and shouting:

"Drink Pepsi, it's delicious, fun and you can win big prizes!"

Gently pull the pull ring and easily open the Coke bottle cap. After gulping down the drink, turn over the bottle cap and you will see the middle label on it.

When the people around saw it, they all shouted excitedly, "Wow! We won a prize! A hundred dollars!"

Next, the winning rules are introduced, including another bottle and cash rewards, up to US$100.

In that era, one hundred dollars was half a month's salary for a worker.

It's not a small amount of money.

Pull-Tab Pepsi is officially launched on the market, and many people flock to grocery stores and supermarkets to buy it. It’s the same price as Coca-Cola, and there’s a chance of winning a prize, so why not buy Pepsi?

At any time, the poor are the mainstream of society, and cheap things will always have a market. Such cheap products that have the potential to win prizes are naturally more popular.

A few days later,

abc news time.

The two hosts reported an anecdote with a smile.

The male host said: "A young man bought a bottle of Pepsi. He won the first time, so he ordered another bottle. Then he kept ordering more and more bottles. In the end, he won 20 bottles. Looking at the table full of Coke, he didn't know what to do with it. In the end, he invited everyone present to drink together."

The female host laughed when she heard this. "Haha, it's really interesting. I saw some news about big prizes in the Global Times. It said there was a girl who only bought a bottle of Pepsi and won $100 when she opened it. She was so lucky. Then she bought the new bicycle she wanted most."

After these rounds of promotion, Pepsi sales skyrocketed.

In just two weeks, statistics show that Pepsi sales have increased by 800% compared to the same period last year. If this data continues, this year's sales can reach more than 25 million US dollars, and the net profit may be 3 million.

This is definitely a gratifying number, because PepsiCo suffered a loss of more than 1 million last year, and it has made a great comeback in just a short time.

Due to the hot sales, the production volume could not keep up for a while. Now we buy as many as we can. There are even large trucks waiting in the factory, and the workshop is running at full speed.

Meanwhile Andy reports to Hardy.

Due to the surge in sales, as well as the effects of advertising and promotion, PepsiCo's stock price soared.

It more than doubled in a short period of time, and is still soaring now. The main reason is that the idea of ​​the pull-tab prize is so good. Many investors think that the time has come for PepsiCo to rise, so they buy in one after another.

Hardy initially purchased 23% of the shares, and later through operations, he bought 26% of the shares. Because the stock price was lower due to the operations, the total was a little more than 6 million. Now that PepsiCo's stock price has soared, his 49% stake has soared to 13 million.

In just over a month, the profit doubled to more than 6 million.

This is the joy of capital, you can't imagine it.