Chương 87: Book 3 - Chapter 14 B

A few days later I met with François Mitterrand, President of France. We discussed my desire to acquire Renault's ownership stake of AMC. I then casually mentioned, "If it was at all possible I would buy Renault in a heartbeat. I'd buy forty percent, the government could keep thirty and we would put the other thirty on the open stock market. I'd even accept French citizenship if it was required, I believe in Georges, and Renault." That set him back.

He had been looking at the success Chirac had in privatization and I knew that with his socialist policies he hated the series of privatizations Chirac had already forced through. I'd have to offer something more than a straight privatization to pique his interest. If it could humiliate Chirac, then even better for us both.

"Your government would not like you as a French citizen," he warned me.

"Dual citizenship is fine. Would that suffice if Renault needs to be French owned?" I asked.

"I don't know. Forty percent is considered a controlling interest."

"But I'm young, just ten you know. A controlling interest by one party over a long period of time just means stability. I'd be willing to sign a first-right-of-refusal with the government, so if I ever decided to sell my stake, the government would have first pick."

"What would you say the value of Renault is Georges?" he asked the man who was listening to this conversation in stunned fascination.

"Twenty billion francs, perhaps more," he said.

"But that's in assets, after including debts we are 17. 6 billion francs negative.

"Forty percent would be just over $1 billion dollars of debt at that valuation," I told them.

"The French government would have to list the company to pay off as much of the rest of the debt as it could. I'm sure Georges could turn things around eventually, so you would certainly keep at least twenty percent. With that much debt paid off Renault would be in fine financial shape."

"No one would buy it, John," Georges said.

"Even with 40% of the debt exchanged for private ownership prior to listing."

"One billion dollars is my cash purchase limit anyway," I said with a sigh.

"Volvo wants a merger, you know. They rightly believe they are too small. With the move to a European common market, combining perhaps Volvo, Mercedes, Renault and Land Rover you would have the ultimate European car company. Mercedes luxury sedans, Volvo family cars, Renault compact cars, and Land Rover four-wheel drives. Sharing parts, sharing sales outlets. That would be a truly wonderful thing. You could possibly even bring in Fiat with Ferrari for the sports car market.

You would kill in the American market with that combination." Both men looked at me like I was crazy. I smiled.

"Look how sharing parts and suppliers with Renault has affected AMC. Every new car designed with as many existing parts as possible. Just imagine that on a grand scale. You'd have to call the car makers the Big Four instead of the Big Three.

'Euro Motors'," I said, naming my ambition to the men.

"I'd pay a billion dollars for a piece of that! I'm not the only one either."

"I think that is a little grandiose, but it is a fetching idea, Jean," President Mitterrand said cautiously but with an amused smile at my enthusiasm.

"Yeah, but something like it is intriguing. What I really need to do is solve the fuel problem," I told them, changing the subject quickly to let the problem percolate.

"Fuel problem?" I was asked.

"Have you ever actually looked at the ingredients of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel? It's just carbon and hydrogen. Two abundant elements, that we suck out of the ground at great expense, then burn. We need synthetic fuels. No pumping, no resource scarcity, no fluctuating prices, just distributed production centers. We can just suck the ingredients right out of the atmosphere!"

"Is this what you are working on? Western Europe has only difficult to reach reserves. This is something we would be very interested in," Mitterrand expressed with mild interest.

"The pollution is only part of it," I continued.

"Did you know that the 1980s are pretty much the last time we will have a new cold record? All that carbon dioxide we are pumping into the atmosphere, it's warming the atmosphere and the ocean. Expect record summer heat waves over the next decades that will kill thousands of your citizens. The ocean will keep getting warmer and warmer, but nobody will notice, because it's all happening at depths we don't record temperatures at!" Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform.

Support original creators! Mitterrand was unsure about my rant, but he knew that I had said one important thing.

"Perhaps when you develop this fuel technology you could bring it to France for demonstration to the world. I'm sure by that time we will be ready to make Renault a private company again." Later back at his home Georges asked me, "What were you saying about heat waves?"

"I apologize for getting carried away," I said.

"It's fine, I'm just curious."

"Well, last year they discovered a hole in the ozone layer in Antarctica," I told him.

"They've determined that it is human caused. Next year the countries of the world will probably work out an agreement to ban the production of the chemical that is causing the hole.

"But here's the thing: the total number of CFCs—that's the chemical causing the hole—produced since the 1930s is only about a hundred million tons. It's a very stable molecule and it is constantly floating around out there causing trouble."

"And that will cause heat waves in France?"

"Sorry, I'm not explaining it very well," I said, shaking my head and back tracking.

"The ozone hole will eventually close itself back up, once we stop putting CFCs into the atmosphere. It'll just take a while, because no one knows how to make it happen faster. Maybe a century, maybe two.

"Now carbon dioxide from burning fuel is a greenhouse gas. Like the glass on a greenhouse, it holds in heat. We've been putting it into the atmosphere in quantities faster than it can be reabsorbed by the earth since the start of the industrial revolution. But guess how much carbon dioxide we put in the air this year?"

"A hundred million tons?" he guessed.

"Five point six billion tons."

"That much is surely impossible!"

"It's true. Now just like the CFCs, if we stopped putting it in the air, the earth would recover and pack all that carbon away again. It would just take time."

"No one would just stop though, would they?" he said, understanding the problem.

"No. No one will ever stop. It's too convenient and our economies are too reliant on it. But CO2, carbon dioxide, that's why France will have heat waves. They will get more frequent until they become a part of every summer."

"What a terrifying prediction. How do you plan to fix it?"

"I can't fix it, but I can make it better. All the ingredients to make gasoline are in the air we breathe. If we can somehow harness that resource we can convert it back into fuel."

"I wish you good luck my friend. It doesn't sound like an easy task." Christmas became New Years in Paris. I didn't want to overstay my welcome, so I made plans to travel around Europe. Before my visit was done I submitted a written offer to Georges: $10 million dollars for their 46. 1 percent ownership of AMC and the takeover of the Renault AMC debt. I left the ball in their court and traveled to England knowing that his eagerness to sell would be embarrassing.

It would take Georges time anyway to convince everyone else. I stepped out of the glossy black Land Rover that security had used to transport me by ferry from Calais. The chill January air of London hit my face. My reflection smiled back from the polished brass plaque beside the entrance. Claridge's. The exterior was a study in dignified power a massive stone structure. It was Beaux-Arts grandeur built to last an empire. I loved the scale of it the serious architecture.

It felt like something permanent like the future I was building. The commissionaire in his dark coat and white gloves held the door open and I crossed the threshold. It was like walking into a time capsule of style. The Lobby hit me instantly, a perfect statement of Art Deco mastery. It wasn't fussy or cluttered. It was streamlined modern. The high ceiling gave it that sense of monumental scale I enjoyed but the details were all geometric and clean. I saw the famous zig-zag lines and the polished chrome accents.

Everything was symmetrical and balanced. The floor was a bold pattern of black and white marble that stretched out, a perfect plane of design. I nodded to the reception desk. My eyes ran over the huge ornate light fixtures. They weren't soft little lamps they were powerful statements of glass and metal giving off a bright warm light. It was the absolute pinnacle of design from the 1920s and 30s. It felt right here. Art Deco was pure modernism refined into luxury.

It had the clean lines of the 1960s aesthetic I loved but layered with the permanence of Beaux-Arts tradition. This place understood design. It made me feel at home in a way that few places had.

"Hi Boss!" Thomas greeted me as he crossed the checkerboard lobby.

"Hi Thomas," I returned.

"Everything set?"

"All done. You've got seventy-five percent of Aston Martin."

"Fantastic. I'll want to head to the factory tomorrow," I told him.

"They are expecting you."