Chapter 80 Clear goals
These state-owned capital investment institutions often consider what the project can bring to local industrial development rather than the rate of return when screening suitable projects.

Shudu invested in Smartisan smartphones, and Hefei invested in NIO and BOE. Considering the historical background, industrial development status and competitors at the time, the return on investment in these companies was not even as good as bank deposits.

But they still invested in order to leave room for local industrial upgrading, exchange funds for jobs, and gain opportunities for coordinated development of upstream and downstream enterprises in the local industrial chain.

Therefore, the logic behind most state-owned investment enterprises is supply chain development and industrial collaboration, and the rate of return is only one of the more important reference indicators.

Shenzhen Guotou is backed by the Pengcheng State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, which has an investment portfolio of up to 4.6 trillion yuan. Chen Yuanguang's blueprint is grand, but the payment will be made in stages, with only 20 billion yuan required in the first stage. He will not move on to the next stage until he sees results.

It is not cost-effective simply from an economic perspective. Even if a space-to-earth express delivery channel can be built, spending tens of billions of dollars just to serve a number of people on the space station that can be counted on ten fingers is completely mismatched in terms of cost and benefit.

But the account cannot be calculated in this way. Silicon Valley became Silicon Valley because of its accumulation of technology. After the end of the Cold War, a large number of technologies from the US-Soviet space race were civilianized, providing inexhaustible power for the development of Silicon Valley.

Shenzhen Capital Group has the same idea, introducing industrial chains through investment.

China's aerospace industry is mainly concentrated in Yanjing and Chang'an. Yanjing has many universities and a high concentration of talent. A large number of start-up companies in the commercial aerospace field choose to be located in Yanjing. In addition to the universities, Chang'an also has historical factors.

As for Pengcheng's aerospace industry, it is very weak and has almost never had any opportunities before. This time, the light armor aerospace is the best opportunity. Chen Yuanguang's reputation plus the investment scale of tens of billions of dollars is a gimmick that can pay a fortune.

There is one thing Chen Jing'an didn't say, which is his idea, and that is battery technology. Chen Yuanguang dared to propose such a huge plan, dared to pay in stages, and gradually increased the capital from a small amount to a scale of tens of billions of dollars. He must have some real stuff in his hands.

Otherwise, why would investors keep playing with him? No one’s money comes from the wind. Only when they see hope will they continue to increase their investment.

In Chen Jing'an's opinion, this plan could even be so long that Chen Yuanguang could devote his entire life to it.

The goal of the first phase is to build a fully automatic transportation channel, which means that a breakthrough in solar cell technology is needed.

Chen Yuanguang's teacher at MIT was Mongi Bawindi, one of the pioneers in the field of perovskite batteries. There was no content related to perovskite batteries in Chen Yuanguang's previous published results, but Chen Jing'an did not think that Chen Yuanguang had not done relevant research.

He feels that the technological breakthrough in the field of solar cells is Chen Yuanguang's trump card, or even just one of his trump cards.

Of course, this is just Chen Jing'an's guess. For Shenzhen Guotou, it is a bonus. As long as corresponding results can be achieved under the leadership of Chen Yuanguang, this transaction will be a profit for Pengcheng.

The first phase invested US$20 billion and the second phase invested US$50 billion. The greater the loss, the more valuable the results Chen Yuanguang produced, and the more money Pengcheng State-owned Assets made.

The more you lose, the more you earn.

The six investment managers from Hefei State Investment Group looked at each other in bewilderment, and Shenzhen State Investment Group spoke first.

Hefei is a star investment institution in the venture capital field after the explosion of new energy vehicles. It manages assets worth 5 trillion yuan, comparable to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Shenzhen. It is praised by the outside world as the city of venture capital, relying on its boldness and carefulness.

Unlike Pengcheng, where only Shenzhen Guotou came, Hefei came with senior investment managers from three fund companies: the Emerging Industries Development Fund, the Industrial Transformation and Upgrading Fund, and the Hefei High-Quality Development Guidance Fund.

Just when Chen Yuanguang was introducing the project, they had already agreed to invest in the project together, with the largest emerging industry development fund to subscribe for $10 billion and the other two to subscribe for $5 million each. Considering that Chen Yuanguang had Guangjia Technology, a monopoly enterprise with a valuation of tens of billions of dollars, they had originally planned to sign a bet agreement with Chen Yuanguang and use Guangjia Technology's shares as the subject of the bet.

Unexpectedly, Shenzhen Guotou came out to disrupt the situation. Duan Zhizhong, the investment manager of Hefei Emerging Industry Development Fund, quickly raised his hand to signal:
"Dr. Chen, Hefei State Investment also intends to invest in Guangjia Technology. Unlike Shenzhen State Investment, we plan to share the risk through three fund companies.

We only have one requirement, which is to locate our headquarters in Hefei.

Compared with Pengcheng, Hefei's biggest advantage is talent. We have the University of Science and Technology of China, and we are very close to the Yangtze River Delta region. We can attract outstanding graduates from Shenhai, Jinling, and Hangzhou to form a new aerospace industry cluster.

Our only disadvantage compared to Pengcheng is that our financial capital is not active enough. However, private capital and foreign capital are unlikely to be considered for such a large project, so this disadvantage can be offset.

Hefei has the strength, willingness and patience to support your grand vision.”

Anyway, the first phase is $20 billion and it is subject to supervision, so they are not afraid at all and invest boldly.

For Pengcheng and Hefei state-owned assets, the only regret is that there are competitors who share the same ideas as them, which makes it difficult to negotiate terms.

Shenhai State-owned Assets also arrived at the scene. Seeing that Hefei and Pengcheng were actually trying to snatch our company away, they definitely could not tolerate this.

Shenhai's support and scientific research capabilities will only be stronger than theirs. Since their autonomy is much weaker than the other two, the fund manager of Shenhai Guotou made an urgent phone call for instructions.

As a result, the state-owned enterprises of Guangjia Aerospace were very active, and everyone had only one request, which was that the headquarters must be moved to their place.

"It's the same as before. Please write down your respective strengths and weaknesses, and your intended share. We will give you a clear answer after internal research."

Chen Yuanguang didn't expect it to be so smooth.

In his mind, among these state-owned assets, Pengcheng is definitely the top priority, not only because he is from Pengcheng, but also because Pengcheng is geographically close to Hong Kong, so some inconvenient research content can be moved to Hong Kong.

Hefei and Shenhai are both good, but the content they provide is not what he wants.

Moreover, there is no essential difference among Hefei, Shenhai and Pengcheng in their attractiveness to talents. Hefei relies on its housing price advantage, while the other two places rely on the charm of first-tier cities.

Chen Yuanguang continued:

“I am very grateful for your trust in me. I want to say something in advance. In my plan, this project will take three years. During these three years, we will complete phased results and build a transportation channel to low-Earth orbit.

In five years we will establish a transport corridor to lunar orbit and conduct the first space mining attempts.”

(End of this chapter)