Chapter 114 Lithium Battery Master

The person who brought people to block Fang Hexuan was the CEO of Hasbro.

It was a middle-aged white man named Dave Hudson.

He was very humble and took the initiative to shake hands with Fang Hexuan after meeting him, and did not care about the other's ugly face.

"You only have five minutes. If you can't convince me, then I'm sorry, I have to catch a plane back to Silicon Valley."

"Mr. Fang, the chairman and CEO asked me to say hello to you and apologize for all the unpleasantness that happened before."

".Just unhappy? You Hasbro are stealing my ideas and property."

"Stealing other people's private property and plagiarizing other people's creativity is not only shameful, but also shakes the foundation of all Western civilization."

"I just can't imagine that an American company would do something so absurd and disgusting."

"Yes, yes, after those things happened, Hasbro conducted a deep reflection, and we also fired the vice president who decided to plagiarize the Transformers idea."

"Stop talking nonsense. You still have three minutes!"

"Mr. Fang, Hasbro is willing to provide Pokémon with all its channel resources in North America and even Europe, as long as you agree to cooperate with us."

"Oh? That seems interesting. What do you mean by channel resources?"

"TV stations, newspapers, magazines, amusement parks, toy stores, video stores, department stores, etc."

"Mr. Fang, there is no need to doubt Hasbro's strength. We have been established for nearly 60 years, and our distribution capabilities are absolutely beyond your imagination."

"Is it just for Transformers or does it include all Pokémon toys?"

"We are indeed here for Transformers, but if Pokémon has other toys with great market potential, or if Mr. Fang can make appropriate concessions on the details of the cooperation, we can also open up all categories."

"You finally piqued my interest."

······
After a day of negotiations in the hotel's conference room, the two sides finally reached a preliminary cooperation agreement.

1. Designate Pokémon as the sole OEM for the Transformers toy series.

Second, the sales profits of "Transformers" toys in North America are divided equally between Fang Hexuan and Hasbro.

49. The profit from the sales of Transformers toys in Europe is 51% for Fang Hexuan and % for Hasbro
Fourth, the sales profit of "Transformers" toys in South America, Africa, and the Middle East is 40% and 60%, with Fang Hexuan only getting % and Hasbro getting %.

45. Fang Hexuan authorized Hasbro to make limited changes to the design of "Transformers". The sales profit of the new toys was 55% for Fang Hexuan and % for Hasbro.

6. Hasbro Toys is authorized as the only sales agent for Pokémon in Asia.

7. Other series of Pokémon toys can be distributed through Hasbro's sales channels, and the profits will be split 50-50.

8. The two parties may renegotiate the terms of the agreement every two years.

Overall, Fang Hexuan is quite satisfied with this agreement with the world's largest toy company.

He does not particularly value the sales revenue of toys, but rather focuses on the global promotion and popularization of the "Transformers" IP.

If Hasbro hadn't come to him this time to ask for cooperation, Fang Hexuan would have spent money on all-round promotion of this toy on his own.

However, this time may be postponed by 3-4 years, and it may not be able to be fully linked with the global distribution of BYD's new cars.

Anyway, this is a pleasant surprise.

After settling this matter, Fang Hexuan left the United States and flew to the United Kingdom.

This time he specifically visited John Goodenough, who was a professor of chemistry and director of the research and development group at Oxford University.

According to the industry research that Fang Hexuan did when he was a venture capitalist in his previous life, this scientist is the founder of lithium-ion batteries. On October 2019, 10, John Goodenough, Stanley Whittingham and Japanese scholar Yoshino Akira jointly won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

In recognition of their great contributions to the development of the lithium battery field.

A Tsinghua PhD wrote an article expressing his feelings:
The invention of lithium batteries is not an inevitable result of human technology tree, but a miracle.

Without the heroic contributions of John Goodenough and Stanley Whittingham,

Perhaps we are still living in a world without lithium batteries.

Fang Hexuan's visit this time was not to seize any advantage.
It's purely to get a feel for the situation. Of course, one of the purposes is to donate some research and development funds to Goodenough.

There is no need to say much about the wide application of lithium batteries.

Many technological products in the future will be inseparable from lithium batteries, including electric vehicles, drones and many other products with huge market potential.

Fang Hexuan would definitely start a battery company early. After all, the earlier the research and development of this thing is done, the better. The more technology accumulated, the more obvious the advantages will be.

When he found Professor Goodenough, the scientist was still doing research in the laboratory.

"Hello, Professor. I'm sorry to interrupt you."

"Forget it, Mr. Fang Fang, right? What exactly do you want to talk to me about?"

"Haha, I want to start a lithium battery company soon, and I would like to ask the professor to be our company's technical consultant."

"Oh, you merchants with sharp noses!"

"Has anyone else approached you, Professor?"

"No, but I have met a few company owners who promised me a rosy picture at industry exchange meetings."

"Haha, I'm not just making empty promises. You may not know me, but I'm the richest man in Hong Kong, with a personal fortune of nearly $80 billion. I'm definitely not one of those small bosses with no power."

"Oh, nice to meet you! I have to praise you for having good taste."

"No way! As long as the professor agrees, I will give you three times the salary at Oxford University and provide you with 200 million pounds to continue your research on lithium batteries."

"It seems that you have a longer-term vision than I thought. What else do you want besides being a consultant?"

"Regarding your lithium-ion battery technology patent, I would like to obtain the corresponding technology patent authorization."

"It's too early to talk about this now, but I am open to cooperation."

"Thank you, Professor. Excuse me, what is the current status of your research?"

"Well, three months ago, my research group and I published a paper titled 'Solid solution oxides used as battery electrodes' in the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, which clearly proposed the use of metal oxides to replace titanium sulfide as the positive electrode material for batteries."

"Last month, we published an article titled 'Lithium cobalt oxide: a new high-energy-density battery cathode material' in the Journal of Materials Research Bulletin, officially announcing the breakthrough in practical lithium-ion battery cathode materials."

After hearing this, Fang Hexuan was even more excited than the professor himself.

These two articles alone indicate that the practical application of lithium batteries is just around the corner.

In fact, in the following years, Goodenough and his team continued to experiment with various lithium compounds as electrode materials, and achieved good results.

　Thanks to book friends 2021030110400737228, book friends 20230318044509636, and book friends 20171029004947168 for their recommendations!

(End of this chapter)