Chapter 1363: Military industry! Aviation!

Apart from the perfect implementation of the short oil futures layout, there have also been results in other areas.

The UK.

The Guangming Fund has acquired 8% of the shares of the UK's largest natural gas energy company, British Gas, at a cost of £448 million.

It also acquired a 12.5% stake in British Aerospace for £825 million.

British Aerospace is the largest aerospace company and the largest missile manufacturer in the UK. It is mainly engaged in the research and development and production of military aircraft, civil aircraft, missiles, satellites, electronic equipment, instrumentation and testing equipment, and related weapons systems. It has 19 aircraft factories and 4 missile spacecraft factories in the country.

It has almost a monopoly on the development and production of British military aircraft, spacecraft and tactical missiles.

In the civilian sector, it has also participated in the research and development and production of Airbus A300, A310, A320 and other models in Western European cooperation.

Last time, in 1981, the British government sold 51.57% of British Aerospace to private individuals, but Bright Fund did not get a slice of the pie that time.

Four years later, Bright Fund's strength had changed dramatically, so in this privatisation, it directly took nearly a quarter of the shares sold this time!

In the United States,

North Star Capital Company successfully repelled General Motors Corporation and used a financial offensive to acquire Hughes Aircraft Company in its entirety, spending 5.2 billion US dollars!

Hughes Aircraft Company was founded in 1932 by Howard Hughes, the prototype of 'Iron Man'. Under the control of Howard Hughes, the company was simply unstoppable.

The world's first ruby laser was created at Hughes Laboratories, and in 1963 Hughes Aircraft produced the world's first synchronous communications satellite. In 1966, it produced the world's first synchronous meteorological satellite. Also in that year, following the success of the Redstone, Hughes Aircraft produced and launched the Surveyor probe, which achieved a controlled soft landing on the moon.

In addition to being one of the top three satellite suppliers in the United States, Hughes Aircraft was also one of the main missile suppliers for the US Air Force, and the US Air Force's fourth-generation air-to-air missile was also being developed by Hughes Aircraft.

Unfortunately, Hughes Aircraft's helicopter business was acquired by McDonnell Douglas for $500 million in 1984, and the Longbow Apache attack helicopter disappeared.

But if the Hughes Helicopter Division had not been sold, there would have been even more companies competing to buy Hughes Aircraft this time, and it is doubtful that Northrop Grumman would have been able to win the bid.

This opportunity came about because after Howard Hughes died in 1976, he left all of the company's assets to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which he had founded himself, because he had no children.

This time, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute was looking to set up a more flexible biomedical research foundation, so it planned to sell the company Hughes Aircraft to raise funds to facilitate the operation of the foundation, so that it could devote itself to medical research and not be involved in running a company.

So this opportunity was indeed extremely rare, and if the Howard Hughes Medical Institute didn't want to sell, no one else could take it away.

In Canada:

The Bombardier Group, with the support of the Canadian government, acquired the De Havilland Aircraft Company (Canada Branch), which was located in Ontario and once belonged to Boeing, for 450 million US dollars.

De Havilland Canada was originally a subsidiary established in 1928 by British aircraft designer De Havilland, but was later acquired by Boeing and finally sold by Boeing.

De Havilland's most famous airliner was the Trident, but it was no match for the Boeing 727 of that era, and only 117 were produced, including a number bought by Continental.

Although de Havilland's airliner manufacturing technology is inferior to Boeing's, and it has been quite neglected over the years, its heritage still remains.

Bombardier Group acquired de Havilland Canada and combined it with the technology of the original Canadian Aeronautical Industries to gain the strength to manufacture civil airliners. Whether it can compete head-on with Boeing depends on how it continues to strengthen and develop.

But at least with the completion of the acquisition of de Havilland, it has embarked on the road to hegemony.

In its previous incarnation, the Bombardier Group had developed extremely well. Xia Yu also knew the rise of the Bombardier Group through mergers and acquisitions, and the key was two companies: Lear Jet in Arizona, USA, and Short Brothers Aircraft in Northern Ireland, UK.

Completing the merger and acquisition of these two companies would enable full coverage of business jets, regional airliners, aircraft structures and engineering services.

...

There are also some key news stories that can influence the industry landscape.

For example, the global semiconductor industry is a sunrise industry.

At the end of June, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) filed a lawsuit with the US Trade Representative, stating that 'the island semiconductor industry has made abnormal capital investments in the island's closed domestic market structure and exported at excessively low prices, disrupting the order of the US semiconductor industry.'

The SIA demanded that the US increase its share of the island's semiconductor market and take measures to prevent low-price dumping.

This news attracted worldwide attention and caused violent upheavals within the island.

At the end of June, the island nation had a market share of over 70% in the global semiconductor memory market, leaving the United States far behind.

In 1975, when the semiconductor memory market was just getting started, the United States had almost 100% of the global market.

By 1985, just ten years later, the island nation's share of the semiconductor memory market had reached 70%, while the United States had only about 25%.

Even in the entire semiconductor market, for the first time, island nation companies surpassed the United States and reached the top of the world!

The American semiconductor industry was completely unable to compete in the face of competition.

The island nation was feeling proud of itself for this, but who knew that such a big crisis would suddenly arise.

The reason for the island nation's nervousness was because the American Semiconductor Industry Association had concocted a very explosive argument this time – that the weakening of the American semiconductor industry would pose a major risk to national security.

The logic was very simple: because superweapon technology is inseparable from superelectronic technology, and superelectronic technology is inseparable from the latest semiconductor technology.

If the US semiconductor technology lags behind, the US military will be forced to use foreign products, including island country goods, for key electronic components.

Foreign sources are unreliable, and in times of war, they will run out of stock for the US, and in peacetime, they will also supply the US's rival, Red Soviet.

Therefore, if the US allows the island country to dominate the field of semiconductor chips, it is tantamount to sacrificing national security...

An industry competing with the US and Soviet Union is related to US national security, and things will naturally get out of hand.

...

At the end, Xia Yu noticed a piece of news.

The news came from the island country.

The island country's Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Takekami Noboru had already conducted a secret study on the appreciation of the yen, and the pressure for this came from the United States.

Xia Yu understood instantly.

This was the prelude to the Plaza Accord!

He kept this in mind and had a clear plan in mind.

He was particularly gratified that without him having to specifically order it, the consortium had already taken note of this matter in advance and reported it.