Attracting Attention

Jinping District, Hui City.

At the headquarters of the Hui City Water Affairs Company, Lin Baijie, Jiang Hailin, and others were discussing disposal plans with the newly appointed general manager of the company, Du Tai.

Jiang Hailin held the company's roster, shook his head, and mocked, "What a collection of 'talent' we have here!"

Du Tai, who had just taken office, also felt a headache coming on. The total number of active employees at the Hui City Water Affairs Company had reached a staggering 1,088—more than the 954 sanitation workers in all of Hui City.

The number of meter readers alone was absurdly high.

Lin Baijie gave direct orders: "Conduct a comprehensive assessment of all departments. Dismiss those who fail, and streamline the departments that are a complete mess."

"Also, notify the people on this list to come to my office immediately."

Taking the list, Du Tai glanced at it. It naturally contained the names of those identified as problematic, mostly consisting of middle and upper management.

"I will notify them right away."

Half an hour later.

The former general manager, his pot-bellied frame seemingly overheated, walked in sweating profusely and wearing a plastered-on smile. "Manager Lin, Team Leader Jiang, how can I help you?"

"No help needed, just look at this." Lin Baijie handed over a document.

The big man, feeling anxious, opened the file. Sweat began to pour down his forehead like rain, and his breathing grew rapid.

Lin Baijie said calmly, "Let's part on good terms. I'll pretend these things never happened. Do you understand?"

"I understand, I understand. My capabilities are insufficient. I will go back and write my resignation letter immediately." The big man, as if granted a reprieve, nodded frantically before handing the file back.

"Take it back with you! I have plenty more here."

"Heh!" He let out a dry laugh and left the office. Before leaving, he glanced at the desk and saw a large stack of identical folders, causing him to lick his dry lips.

Following this, the water company employees who entered the office one by one went in with trepidation and came out with complex expressions.

In less than three days, over two hundred people had voluntarily resigned—some after talks with Lin Baijie, and others who had guilty consciences and chose to leave on their own.

Du Tai then promoted a large group of staff from the existing pool and combined them with a dozen people brought over from Shanmei to form a new management team.

For the remaining employees, the company did not carry out mass layoffs but instead adopted a diversionary disposal plan, compressing the total number of staff at the water company to around 450.

The 450 diverted employees would be absorbed into Hailu Gas, Hailu Organic Fertilizer, Blue Era, and the Suiren Company (Hui City Branch).

This was an opportunity for them; if they could not pass the assessments after being diverted, the company would have no choice but to dismiss them.

To ensure these diverted employees could adapt to their new roles, they were all sent to the Shanmei headquarters and assigned to various corresponding positions for on-the-job training before being transferred back to the Hui City branch.

Meanwhile.

Gallic Veolia Company, which had invested heavily in Huaguo, also took notice of the newly rising Suiren Company.

The domestic headquarters of Veolia Company was located in Beiping.

Vice President of the branch, Huang Xiaojun, saw the newly collected data and immediately went to the office of the branch president, David.

"David, I've found a competitor with great potential."

The middle-aged white man with a receding hairline and a hooked nose flipped through the report and immediately set aside his previous dismissiveness. "Huang, this company does indeed have great potential. We should consider acquiring them."

However, Huang Xiaojun shook his head. "Acquisition is likely impossible. Look here."

David's gaze fell on one page of the report, discovering that Suiren Company actually possessed a national key laboratory, and this laboratory had a specific suffix.

Having worked in Huaguo for nearly ten years, he naturally understood the meaning of this suffix.

This likely involved classified matters, and even if Suiren Company agreed, the authorities might not approve an acquisition. David dismissed the idea of a takeover.

"It seems we are facing a formidable opponent."

Huang Xiaojun shared some internal news: "Perhaps we can cooperate with them. I heard that Pengcheng wants to introduce Suiren Company's technology and contract out their sanitation services to them."

"Oh? Are there any specific details?" David became interested.

"I will consult with the Pengcheng branch."

"OK."

More than two hours later, the Pengcheng Water Affairs Company sent a twenty-page fax to the Veolia Beiping headquarters.

When Huang Xiaojun and David met again and finished reading the contents of the fax, they realized that Suiren Company's appetite was not small at all. They were demanding that Pengcheng pay 5 billion in sanitation contracting fees annually—a price that was truly terrifying.

There were also a host of auxiliary clauses, and even after formal negotiations, the lowest price Suiren Company would accept was still as high as 4.2 billion per year.

In fact, the cooperation model used in Hui City could have been an option, but Pengcheng did not have a water company under its full control. Unless they replaced it with the gas franchise rights in Pengcheng, Suiren Company would not agree to cooperate.

Huang Xiaojun felt a headache coming on. "This cooperation plan is too troublesome."

David, who had been silent, also understood the trouble. After all, Pengcheng had 35,000 sanitation workers, and the expenditure on wages and benefits alone was a massive burden.

Even with Veolia Company's deep pockets, they would not dare to take on such a project lightly, because the ultimate goal of the company was to make a profit.

For public services like sanitation, finding a point of profitability was truly difficult.

However, the technologies mastered by Suiren Company did indeed hold the possibility of profitability.

David, Huang Xiaojun, and the others did not know Suiren Company's operating costs, but from their professional perspective, without the gas franchise rights, the possibility of achieving profitability by contracting Pengcheng's sanitation services was zero.

That was why the proposal included an asking price of 4.2 billion; in David's view, this was actually a reasonable price.

If there weren't such high contracting fees, they would have to keep squeezing the sanitation workers' wages or even lay off a portion of the staff just to barely scrape by with a profit.

Yet, at the Suiren Company headquarters in Shanmei, the sanitation workers' wages and benefits were nearly double those of the workers in Pengcheng. One was a fifth-tier city and the other a first-tier city; wasn't this a slap in the face?

Clearly, Suiren Company would not choose to lower wages to cut costs, so the 4.2 billion contracting fee became an inevitable requirement.

David thought for a moment, discussed it with Huang Xiaojun for a while, and decided to take a wait-and-see approach regarding the situation between Suiren Company and Pengcheng.

However, they hadn't given up entirely on the other side; Huang Xiaojun planned to lead a team personally to visit Shanmei to scout out Suiren Company's technology. If the technology proved suitable, they would attempt to acquire shares, buy the company out, or license the technology.

It was just that their parent company, under the influence of the subprime mortgage crisis this year, had developed some internal disagreements regarding investments in Huaguo, which greatly weakened their previous investment strategy.

As the cooperation between Hui City and Suiren Company was exposed, other cities in the country also took notice of the matter, and several cities with their own ideas began sending people to Shanmei one after another to conduct inspections.

This was especially true for cities in the Northwest; if Suiren Company's sewage treatment technology was truly capable of turning sewage into pure water, it could greatly alleviate the water shortages and water quality issues in those regions.

Consequently, over a dozen cities in the Northwest dispatched inspection delegations, heading straight for the urban area of Shanmei.

Thank you all for your support, and thanks to book friends "Qingtianyi" and "Tingzipiao" for the tips (˙ω˙)