Reborn in America

Chapter 47: Brokerage Company

The center of the world in this era is the United States, and the center of the United States is in New York.

In this modern city, Alex can finally find a sense of later life. Human beings are all products of the environment. It is human nature to want to live in an environment familiar to them.

Even after living in this era for six or seven years after being reborn, Alex is still a little unaccustomed to living in the United States in the 1950s.

However, in these days of living in New York, Alex slowly felt the existence of technology products.

Electronic products such as air conditioners, refrigerators, and televisions are still luxury goods in other regions, but they are a very common daily necessities in New York, the center of the world.

Americans have had such a rare opportunity to get rich in history. At the beginning of 1950, the steel industry in the United States fulfils 98% of its potential. The number of pre-orders for refrigerators reached an unprecedented record. The Christmas Shopping Week in 1949 set a record high in retail sales in history.

Henry Luce, who once invented the title "American Century" in his editor-in-chief "Life" magazine, talked about the reason why the world should and will be led by American industry in 1950: "First of all, American industry produced More food, more housing, more doctors and more entertainment; secondly, it has overcome the most serious problem in the operation of the economy, that is, actual poverty during the booming period."

Luce believes that even if the United States may experience an economic recession, the poor will be taken care of, and they will be the first people to take care of the economy. In other words, the American welfare system is gradually eliminating poverty!

Yes, the twentieth century is the "American Century", and the 1950s was the process of continuous upward economic growth in the United States. This period was also a period of time when the number of the middle class in the United States continued to increase.

While the U.S. economy continues to grow, the U.S. entertainment industry market is also increasing. The biggest growth is the record industry and the film industry.

Carpenter Records only relied on the two Carpenters brothers to support it, which is not a good phenomenon. When Rudy first took over the record company, he had already run away most of the artists. By the time the Carpenter family owned the company, the original artists had completely gone.

Now after almost a year of rest and reorganization, the company has resumed profitability and various departments have been reorganized, but the broker has not made any major moves. The entertainment industry in this era is not as developed as later generations. Agents are almost like stragglers, looking everywhere for newcomers to introduce to record companies. No formal broker company has appeared yet.

Because of this, Carpenter Records has not found a suitable new singer until now, and there is no good manager willing to introduce the singer to them. This made Rudy and the others very anxious, and even Rudy planned to go personally to find new singers who have not signed a contract in various nightclubs.

Before Rudy could move, he was stopped by Alex. Now the company cannot lack Rudy, and he needs to lead the company's affairs.

"Let's form a brokerage company by ourselves!" Alex saw that the time was ripe, so he said his plan.

Bart didn't quite understand this new term. He asked, "What is a brokerage company?"

On the contrary, after hearing this, Rudy's heart moved, and he immediately understood what Alex meant. He pondered for a while and asked, "Alex, do you want to bring the brokers who work alone to the company? But what is the difference between this and the brokerage department in the company?"

Many of the current agents are attached to large record companies. They belong to an employee of the record company and receive a monthly salary. However, their position is more inclined to the company than the singer. Singers like the independent agents, and only these talents will stand by them wholeheartedly.

"What I mean is to separate the agent and become a separate agent company." He explained that this is to focus the record company on the production and distribution of records, while the artists use another company to manage.

Everyone gradually understood from the sidelines, but there is still a problem. This kind of newly established company takes too long, and it seems that there is no way to solve the immediate problem immediately.

"That's easy! As long as we buy another company." Alex said with a smile.

"Acquisition of the company?" Bart touched his head with his callous hands, and his heart moved.

Bart may not understand the music industry. After all, he has been doing rough work, but he is not stupid. Alex's words opened his mind suddenly, and he seemed to have found his way in the dark all at once.

Rudy also understands. He said: "We can buy a small record and split it up. We only need to keep the brokerage department. Add the people who have been split up to our company, so that we can grow. Our company’s personnel and equipment can achieve our goals."

Carpenter Records has cash. In the United States, as long as you have money and you are willing to spend it, there is nothing you can't do. This acquisition was carried out in the name of the company and used the company's working capital.

A few days later, Rudy found a record company that was selling. This is a small company, but the staff and equipment are complete. The key is that there are many artists under the company's name, so they can be transferred directly to Carpenter Records.

The boss of the company owed a large debt and had to sell the record company in order to repay the money.

1,000,000! This is a sky-high price for many people!

This company sells for up to $1 million! This price gave Bart the idea of shrinking. He is here to make money, not to spend money. Put all the money in your hands out, and once you lose money, the Carpenter family will be beaten back to their original shape immediately.

Rudy said that he doesn't care, anyway, 90% of the company's shares belong to the Carpenters, and the opinions of his minority shareholder can be ignored.

Panicking, Bart called a family meeting again. He felt that these money was earned by his sons, and he should listen to their opinions on how to spend it.

"Is this company worth 1 million?" Alex asked directly.

Bart thought for a while, and then took out a document: "This is a property appraisal report. According to the estimates of professionals, the value of this company should be around 1.5 million. However, the company's boss is in urgent need of cash, and the bank mortgage is only I can get seven or eight hundred thousand, so..."

Both Alex and Richard turned over these documents, and the various data above seemed dizzy. However, since this report was made by experts, it should be a little credible.

American experts are not Chinese experts. People rely on their true ability to feed their food, rather than speaking for whoever gives more money. Once credibility has been lost, it is very difficult for them to continue to do it. Especially in a society like the United States that relies on credit for maintenance, people who don't have credit can't do anything in this country.

For these people, credit is life and money. They will not make fun of their lives and money.

"Then buy it!" Before Alex finished reading the documents, he asked again: "Is the company's money still enough?"

Angel thought for a while, and said: "I think the company's accounting can still be supported now. Even if you buy this company, it won't be affected too much. The key is that the debt needs to be delayed."

"But 1 million is too much, and now the company's debt has not been paid off, if..." Bart immediately objected after hearing this.

"Believe in the strength of Richard and me! The money is gone, we can still earn it back!" After Alex finished speaking, he turned his head and asked: "Richard, do you think?"

Richard put the file in his hand and said without expression: "I am not interested in this matter. I just want to record the fourth record as soon as possible. Don't bother me with this kind of thing in the future!"

After he finished speaking, he left the room and went back to practice singing.

Everyone was left speechless by Richard's words. After a long time, Bart said, "Since you are not afraid, then we will do it!"

Seeing that the problem was solved, Alex asked, "How is the radio production of the electronics company now? Is it going to be marketed?"

The transistor radio made by Alex is not very complicated, but many parts need to be remade. Fortunately, there is no need to redesign. Bart and the others only need to do it according to the existing objects, which saves a lot of effort. Even so, the original factory production line must be rebuilt.

Bart made an estimate in his mind, and happily replied: "The trial production of the production line will begin next week. In fact, the radio itself is not difficult to produce, but the difficulty lies in the battery!"

"Didn't I let you buy the production patent of the aa battery?" Alex asked with some confusion.

Bart had to explain: "The original electronics factory didn't have the equipment to produce batteries. We had to find another place to build a factory for production."

Only then did Alex understand that Bart and the others were busy doing this. He thought for a while, and said: "You'd better leave this battery production department alone and become a battery company alone."

"Is it necessary to form a company to produce only one type of battery?" Bart said in a puzzled manner.

Alex nodded and said, "Yes, trust me! You will find that this will be better in the future."

At his strong request, Bart and the others set up a battery production plant that only produces aa batteries. It is not affiliated with Carpenter Electronics, but is a separate battery company.

Carpenter Electronics is a very large company. In addition to the sales department and the R&D department, it also has thousands of workers and thousands of square meters of workshops, as well as various electrical production equipment. In terms of the purchase price, they are considered a big bargain. However, because the factory is too big, the monthly salary is hundreds of thousands of dollars, Bart is under great pressure.

In addition to producing radios, they also produce other electrical products, such as air conditioners, refrigerators, televisions, and so on. Because of poor management, the production cost of the product was too high, and the more he produced, the more he lost. He had to sell the company.

After the Carpenter family accepted it, Bart was mainly in charge. The first adjustment he made was to stop the production line of radios and change to the production of transistor radios. As for the other production lines, he hasn't changed and is still in production. As a worker, he knew that if the workers had nothing to do, there would be big problems.