How did American oil giant Hammer get rich?

Armand Hammer

American entrepreneurs. Russian origin, born in new york, USA, died on 1990+02+00. 19 19 took over his father's pharmaceutical factory when he got a bachelor of arts degree from Columbia University. 192 1 when he got his doctor's degree in medicine, he already had assets of 2 million dollars and became a student entrepreneur. Later, he went to the Soviet Union and did a lot of work for the trade and mineral development between the two countries. At the same time, a pencil factory was established in the Soviet Union, and the successful management experience of the United States was passed on to this factory. 193 1 year, he returned to the United States and founded a modern barrel factory and cattle farm. 1956 bought the western oil company and created another oil kingdom in the western world. In 1980s, he vigorously promoted the diversification of western oil companies, making them the giants of meat and food processing and the leaders of American petrochemical products manufacturers. Hammer is also known as a management wizard. Hammer established a friendship with Lenin during his stay in the Soviet Union. He had contacts with several American presidents, foreign heads of state, princes and nobles, generals and popes. He also visited China many times for business cooperation with China and donated money to the China Children's Fund. He spent a lot of money and energy to collect a large number of art treasures and sent them to exhibitions all over the world as human wealth. Therefore, people also call him a political and diplomatic entrepreneur.

Hammer, the Red Capitalist

Armand hammer is the chairman of American Western Oil Company and a legend. In the west, he was the all-powerful rich man who turned the stone into gold, but in the Soviet Union and China, he was a well-known "red capitalist" because he was the first western entrepreneur to cooperate with the Soviet Union after the October Revolution and was affectionately called "Comrade Hammer" by Lenin. He was also the first western entrepreneur to visit China by private jet, and was praised as a "brave man" by Deng Xiaoping. Autobiography of the Hammer became the most popular bestseller in China.

Hammer, a descendant of Russian immigrants, was born in new york, USA in May, 1988. His great-grandfather Vladimir was a Russian Jew. He made a fortune by building ships during the reign of Tsar Nicholas I, and by the time Hammer's grandfather Jacob got married and had children, a tsunami triggered by a typhoon had washed away all his family wealth. From 65438 to 0875, Jacob moved to America with his wife and son Julius. When Julius reached the age of 15, he gave up his studies and worked as a foundry worker in a steel plant to support his family. He is young and strong, and has become an important figure among the workers. He joined the Social Labor Party, organized trade unions and became an active socialist. When Julius 19 years old, he applied to be a pharmacist. A few years later, he bought his boss's drugstore with his accumulated salary, and later opened two branches and a pharmaceutical factory. In this way, young socialists became young capitalists. However, Julius did not give up his faith and remained a loyal follower of the American socialist movement. On a socialist outing in 1897, Julius fell in love with a young widow, Rose, and soon got married. A year later, they had their first child. Julius specially named his son Armand hamer, which is said to be taken from the flag emblem of the American Social Labor Party "Arm and Hammer".

Only four months after Hammer was born, his father Julius was admitted to Columbia Medical College. In the next four years, Julius will not only study medical courses, but also run a pharmacy and a pharmaceutical factory, but he is a man of steel and eventually graduated from 1902. This achievement has a great influence on the later growth of the hammer.

Julius believes that saving lives is more noble than making money in business, so he decided to sell pharmacies and pharmaceutical factories, opened a clinic in the Bronx, new york, and became a doctor. He practiced medicine all his life and saved the lives of more than 5000 babies.

The children grew up under their father's example. Hammer is the most disobedient of the three brothers, but it is also the most creative. He played truant. After his father's education, he changed. He rose to the first place in his studies. After school, he also learned to play the radio and make airplane models, and won a gold medal in the speech contest for senior high school students. In addition, he was fascinated by the biographies of famous American entrepreneurs who started from scratch, such as Rockefeller and Carnegie, and began to look around for ways to make money. 16 years old, in high school, he successfully made his first "big deal". One day, he saw an old two-seater convertible at a Broadway auction and decided to buy it. He borrowed money from his half-brother Harry, who sold goods in a drugstore, and promised to pay him back soon with confidence. It turned out that he got a job from the newspaper advertisement, that is, he could drive to deliver goods to a candy merchant and get a reward of $20 a day. Sure enough, two weeks later, he not only paid off his brother's money and got the car, but also jingled coins in his pocket.

Three years later, that is, 19 17, after completing the two-year pre-medical course, Hammer came to the prestigious Columbia Medical College ambitiously and submitted his application for admission. The staff in charge of registration looked him up and down and asked, "Are you the son of Dr. Julius?" 1898 I applied for your father's admission in the year when you were born, and I am here to welcome you today. "In this way, Hammer proudly became a student of Columbia Medical College, and the boat of destiny seems to be moving in the direction of inheriting his father's career.

One day, however, the father came to the campus to find a hammer and told his son bad news: the pharmaceutical company he invested with his savings was on the verge of bankruptcy. And because of poor health, especially if I want to continue practicing medicine, I have no energy to manage the company; So he made his son the general manager of the company, but didn't let him drop out of school. He stressed: "Son, that's what I used to do, and you can do the same."

In fact, my father's worry is completely unnecessary. The hammer has long been eager to try. He met such a challenge with great excitement. In order not to delay his studies, Hammer invited a poor student with excellent academic performance to live with him, and provided room and board for another student free of charge, provided that the student went to class every day, took a lot of notes and brought them back to him at night so that he could cope with the exam and write a paper. With this learning "double body", hammer can concentrate on managing the company. He reformed the company's management policy and marketing mode, organized a strong team of salesmen, and changed the company name to the resounding "United Chemical Pharmaceutical Company". The hammer finally saved the company from bankruptcy and the number of employees increased from a dozen to 1500. Products sell well all over the country, and the company began to enter the ranks of large enterprises in the pharmaceutical industry.

It didn't take long for Hammer to become a unique millionaire studying in Columbia Medical College and even universities all over the country. The average income of 19 19 in the United States was $625, and the personal net income of Hammer in that year exceeded 1 100 million. In his studies, most of his test scores were "A" and he was rated as "the most promising student" in his graduating class. 192 1 In June, he obtained the doctor's degree of medicine that he dreamed of as a child. Since then, people have always called him a doctor, although he has never officially practiced medicine since then.

At this time, Hammer decided to use the short period of half a year from the end of the course to the beginning of the internship to do a shocking thing, that is, to visit the Soviet Union. After the October Revolution, Hammer's father, as one of the founders of the American Producers' Party, paid great attention to the Soviet Union and provided necessities for the blocked Bolshevik regime. However, due to a medical accident,1June, 920, Hammer's father was tried and imprisoned. This sudden change made the young hammer determined to fulfill his father's unfulfilled wish and go to the country where his father was born to help the Soviet Union overcome the spread of famine and typhoid fever there.

As a result, Hammer sold the pharmaceutical company for US$ 2 million, spent more than US$/kloc-0.0 million on a field hospital and its supporting medical supplies and equipment, and spent US$ 6.5438+0.5 million on an ambulance with the words "American medical mission to Moscow" painted on the side of the car. He wanted to give these to the Soviet Union as a gift. At that time, the Soviet Union was isolated from most western countries, so for many people, Hammer's trip was tantamount to exploring the moon. In this way, 23-year-old Hammer embarked on a road that fundamentally changed his life.

The young millionaire went through all the hardships and finally arrived in the Soviet Union in the early summer of 192 1. Tired from the journey, he fell ill. But he didn't complain, refused special treatment, and lived a miserable life in wartime with the Soviet people. He insists on reciting and learning to use the Russian word 100 every day so that he can start working soon.

1921In early August, Hammer visited the Urals with the delegation. The situation here puzzled him: on the one hand, there are huge treasures, rich products, platinum, precious stones, fur and almost all other valuable things here; On the other hand, famine is severe, hunger is everywhere, and the minimum necessities of life are extremely scarce. So he asked the Soviets who led the team, "Why don't you export these things for food?" "That's impossible," they answered. "Europe has just lifted the blockade on us. It takes too long to sell these things and import food. In addition, at least 654.38 million bushels of food are needed to save the people in the Urals from hunger. " Then a bold plan formed in Hammer's mind. He thought that there was a bumper harvest in the United States at that time, and the grain price had dropped to $0/per bushel, so he suggested: "I have $0/million in funds, and I can urgently buy 1 10,000 bushels of wheat in the United States, transport it to Petrograd, unload the grain, and then transport the leather goods and other goods worth $0/10,000 to the United States." Hammer's suggestion soon spread to Moscow, and Lenin personally called back, agreeing to the deal and asking Hammer to return to Moscow as soon as possible.

On the second day of his arrival in Moscow, Hammer was called to Lenin's office. In order to recuperate the young Soviet Union, Lenin was carrying out a new economic policy, so he paid special attention to Hammer's suggestion. Lenin stood up from his desk to welcome Hammer and had a cordial conversation with him in English. When Lenin expressed sincere thanks to Hammer on behalf of the Soviet government, the great revolutionary shed tears with excitement. Since then, they have forged a sincere and profound friendship. Lenin encouraged Hammer to invest in the factory and allowed him to mine asbestos mines in Siberia, thus making him the first foreigner in the Bolshevik Soviet Union to obtain mining rights.

The barter trade between the United States and the Soviet Union began. Hammer organized a joint American company and communicated with more than 30 American companies. He became an agent of Soviet trade with the United States. Later, due to an accidental discovery, Hammer founded a pencil factory in the Soviet Union. One day, he dropped by a stationery store to buy pencils, but there were only expensive German products in the store. He had a brainwave and found that making pencils was a new and profitable industry. He doesn't know how to make pencils himself, but he knows how to use people who know how to do things. He hired technicians from Germany and Britain to start a pencil factory with a high salary, and managed production with the piece-rate system in the United States. As a result, he miraculously put into production in just seven or eight months, and the first annual output value reached 2.5 million US dollars. A few years later, the hammer not only met the demand of the pencil and pen market in the Soviet Union, but also exported 20% of its products to more than a dozen countries such as Britain. This factory soon became one of the largest pencil factories in the world and brought millions of dollars to Hammer.

Hammer spent nearly 10 years in Moscow. The Soviet Union became the birthplace of the billionaire, and he also supported the young Soviet regime with his own efforts.

However, the most active period of hammer's life began at 193 1 after the Soviet Union returned to the United States. He cast a net everywhere, turning the stone into gold, and he succeeded in whatever industry he was engaged in. He is like an omnipotent magician who can conjure one rabbit after another from a top hat in public. His business scope is dazzling. In addition to buying and selling works of art, he also dabbled in radio broadcasting, gold trading and charity. What can best show his talent is to avoid drinking and raise cattle.

When Hammer returned to America, it was the Great Depression of 1930s, but he thought it was time to make money. Although his eyes are fixed on the business of art sales, his ears are listening to information from all directions. He captured a clear message: Roosevelt is moving towards the presidency of the White House. If he is elected and implements his new policy, the prohibition of alcohol promulgated by 19 19 will be abolished. This will mean that the national demand for beer and whisky will surge, and the number of barrels will show an unprecedented demand, when there were no barrels on the market. Hammer made a decisive decision, immediately ordered several ships of high-quality timber from the Soviet Union, set up a temporary barrel board processing factory at new york Wharf, and established a modern barrel factory in New Jersey. The day prohibition was abolished, it happened that the barrels of Hammer Barrel Company rolled off the production line, and his barrels were snapped up by various wineries at high prices. Hammer was not satisfied with being a barrel supplier, but also got involved in the wine industry and started to operate the whisky business. He bought several wineries in succession, and quickly defeated all his competitors through substantial price reduction and a lot of advertising. His Dante brand whisky has become the first-class famous wine in the United States, with an annual sales volume of 654.38+00,000 cases.

Barrel introduced Hammer to the whisky industry, and his habit of eating steak introduced him to another field, namely, raising cattle, which was equally successful.

Hammer accidentally broke into the cattle industry. Once he complained that there was no good steak in the market, and one of his employees suggested buying a cow and slaughtering it. The cow was bought back, but it was a cow with a calf. Hammer thought he was not greedy enough to kill pregnant cows, so he put them in the manor. As it happens, Hammer's neighbor is an expert in cattle raising, specializing in Angus purebred cattle. He not only successfully delivered the cow that Hammer bought back, but also mated it with his own bull in a short time and gave birth to a calf with the excellent quality of Angus breeding cattle. Hammer was moved by cattle experts and became interested in raising cattle. Because a new business brain wave flashed in his mind: it is a good move to turn the residue into gold to raise the by-products of breeding cattle.

As soon as he started, Hammer quickly set up a cattle ranch and spent 654.38 million US dollars to buy the best bull of this century-"Prince Eric". In the following three years, Prince Eric alone bred 1000 calves, including six world champions, earning him $2 million. Hammer has also changed from a layman who raises cattle to a recognized leader in the cattle industry.

1956, hammer is 58 years old. He accumulated countless wealth in the commercial war. He really intends to retire from business and move to California with his third new wife, ready to enjoy his old age quietly. However, by chance, the attractive oil industry conquered him, and he began a new life of "life begins at the age of 60" and became a world-famous oil tycoon.

At that time, there was a western oil company on the verge of bankruptcy in California. Its actual assets are only $34,000, three employees and several oil wells that are about to be scrapped. The company's share price is only 65,438+08 cents. A distant relative of Hammer, a well-known accountant in Los Angeles, suggested that Hammer invest in this oil company. Because according to the U.S. government's preferential policies for the oil industry, funds used for oil wells that have not yet produced oil do not need to be declared. For the idle hammer, he has no intention of buying this company, but he is willing to lend Western oil companies $50,000 to let them drill two more wells. If oil can be exported, both sides will get 50% profit. If the oil is not exported, the money invested by the hammer can be deducted from the taxable amount as a loss. Unexpectedly, both wells produced oil. The stock of western oil companies suddenly rose to 1 USD, and Hammer also tasted the sweetness and began to set foot in the oil industry. Before long, Hammer became the largest shareholder of this company, and in July 1957, he was elected as the chairman and general manager of Western Petroleum Company.

Hammer began to build an oil kingdom with his years of experience and great risks. He recruited the best drilling engineers and geologists, and finally drilled two huge natural gas fields in California in 196 1. The share price of western oil companies jumped to 15 yuan per share, and the company's strength was enough to compete with the larger oil companies in the world.

At that time, most of the rich oil fields in the world were owned by seven western oil companies known as "Seven Sisters", and it was difficult for Hammer to get his hands on them. Therefore, the adventurous Hammer resisted the pressure inside and outside the company and bet on Libya. At the end of 1966, Hammer persisted in two leased lands abandoned by other oil companies, and finally found a major oil vein and opened up two new oil fields rich in high-grade crude oil. Under Hammer's management, the business of western oil companies is booming, profits are rising year by year, and the scope of oil exploration is expanding. Abundant oil resources have been found in the Middle East, the North Sea, South America, Pakistan and the South China Sea of China, from home to abroad, from land to sea. Especially in Beihai area, the achievement is the most obvious: his company entered the business at the latest, but produced oil at the earliest. From 65438 to 0974, the annual income of his western oil company was $6 billion. By 1982, Western Petroleum Company had become the 12 largest industrial enterprise in the United States and the eighth largest oil company in the world after "Seven Sisters".

In order to better adapt to the ever-changing business needs, one of the management tricks of hammer is never to hang from a tree and carry out multi-faceted management. This is his magic weapon for a long time.

1966 Shortly after the discovery of oil in Libya by western oil companies, Hammer bought Permian Company, McWood Company and Garrett R&D Company with a share of 88 million yuan.

In 1968, the shares of western oil companies rose above 100 USD per share. The hammer changed each old stock into three new shares in time, and then the price of each new share rose to $55. Hammer took advantage of this favorable opportunity to use the company's stock as currency to develop diversified businesses such as coal and chemical products.

1968 At the beginning of this year, western oil companies acquired Dow West Coal Company, the third largest coal company in the United States, for10.50 billion dollars. The company's annual sales amount is USD 65.438 +0.5 billion, and the raw coal reserves reach 3.5 billion tons. 1974, the net profit of daoxi coal mine company was nearly 1 100 million dollars.

1In July, 968, Western oil companies acquired Hooke Chemical and Plastic Products Company at the price of $800 million in preferred shares, which was the largest merger in the United States.

In the 1970s, Hammer turned his eyes to a wider field.

From 65438 to 0972, after many political twists and turns, Hammer and the Soviet Union made a 20-year $20 billion fertilizer business, which pushed the trade between the United States and the Soviet Union to a peak.

1979 In May, at the invitation of Comrade Deng Xiaoping, Hammer, aged 8 1 year, became the first western entrepreneur to visit China by private jet. Since then, western oil companies have signed a series of economic cooperation agreements with our government. Among them, Antaibao Open-pit Coal Mine in Pingshuo, Shanxi Province, with an annual output of 654.38+0533 million tons of raw coal, was the largest cooperation project between Dr. Hammer and China, and was also the largest Sino-foreign joint venture in China at that time.

198 1 year, western oil company merged with two major meat processing enterprises in the United States, making western oil company the largest meat production enterprise in the United States at the same time.

In this way, the business composition of western oil companies has developed from a single oil company to a comprehensive enterprise including coal, chemistry, fertilizer and metal processing. Up to now, it has set up branches in more than 50 countries around the world, with sales of nearly $20 billion, ranking among the famous big American enterprises.

As a successful entrepreneur, Hammer is different, and his management is often associated with politics. He regards money as a floating cloud and seems to care more about human peace. In his office, there are many precious photos, one of which is signed by Lenin, and his photos with several American presidents and foreign heads of state. He is the initiator and sponsor of the annual international conference on peace and human rights. He often flies from one country to another by his own plane, conveying the message of peace, calling for and vigorously promoting the talks between the top leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union. He is a famous social activist. He often generously supports cultural, educational and social welfare undertakings. He founded the cancer research center and served as the chairman of the three-person cancer research advisory group of the US President. He personally led a medical team to the Soviet Union to rescue the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. He is charitable and donates money everywhere. 1988 donated $20,000 to China UNICEF.

Old people in their nineties are healthy and full of vitality. He looks like a 60-year-old and works like a middle-aged man in his prime. As always, he traveled around, lived a kaleidoscope-like life, constantly pursued new things and climbed the peak, and was praised by the world as the most incredible monopoly in the 20th century.