No wonder Fan Wumian has such a big appetite and wants to swallow up Dongjing Multimedia Network in one go.

The boss of this company currently has no bargaining chips to negotiate with the Penguin Group. Since he is not at the table, he can only appear on the menu.

He and Pony Ma agreed that now is the best time to seize the market with Alibaba Group. The longer they wait, the more difficult the situation will become.

Last year, Yahoo exchanged US$10 billion in cash, all of Yahoo China’s businesses, and the right to use Yahoo’s brand and technology in China for a total of 39% of Alibaba Group’s shares and 35% of the voting rights, becoming a major shareholder of Alibaba Group.

After obtaining sufficient cash flow, Alibaba Group began to expand across the board, which made other competitors breathless. At the same time, it also attracted siege from other competitors, who all “ganged up” on it.

Under the encroachment of companies such as Google, Baidu, Sohu, and Penguin, Yahoo China has been fighting and retreating. The performance of its search business, advertising business, instant messaging business, and wireless value-added business has continued to decline, swallowing up a lot of money from the Alibaba Group and making Jack Ma very anxious.

The reality is far from as good as imagined. It is estimated that Jack Ma has begun to regret taking over the mess of Yahoo China. For this reason, he and the founding team even lost their position as the largest shareholder.

There may not be any problems in the short term, but releasing so much equity at one time will make the company particularly passive in other subsequent financing stages.

Xiao Ma Ge is all too familiar with this.

He has regretted more than once that he took too much money in the early days, which resulted in him currently owning only 13.1% of the shares in Penguin Group, barely one-third of Fan Wumian’s total shareholding.

If Pony Ma had learned more from Silicon Valley and followed the angel round and A, B, and C rounds of financing, given QQ’s extremely high market share and development environment at the time, his total net worth might have been twice as high as it is now.

Due to the limitations of the times and the lack of experience in dealing with multinational companies, many companies have suffered losses in foreign cooperation. The main reason is that many people simply cannot imagine how the mainland will develop in the future and are always accustomed to only considering the present.

In Fan Wumian’s opinion, if Jack Ma had not been thinking about Yahoo China’s business last year, and had only raised $300 million to $500 million in the initial financing, it would have barely been enough for Taobao and Jifubao to survive until the next round of financing.

Alternatively, if Jack Ma raises funds separately in the name of Taobao and Jifubao, he will not be taken advantage of by the island country and the United States. This will also allow Jack Ma to keep a large number of Alibaba shares.

As for Alibaba Group’s B2B business, it can be financed through a separate listing, which will not consume too much cash flow.

For a startup Internet company, not being able to get financing is certainly a headache, but investors giving too much at one time is actually also a common venture capital strategy, which helps to seize more potential stocks from the founding team while the price is low in the early stage.

After listening to what Xiao Ma Ge and Fan Wumian said, Da Qiangzi felt like he was being roasted on a fire.

The reason is that for a long time, he has been thinking about how to raise external financing, rather than packaging up all his hard work over the years and selling it at a good price.

What bothered him was that Dongjing Multimedia Network had indeed encountered a bottleneck in its development. It not only lacked money but also long-term planning.

Since Taobao.com began its full-scale expansion, relying on the powerful support of Jifubao, the user growth rate of Dongjing Multimedia Network has begun to slow down. Many advertisements seem to have been wasted, converting only a very small number of new users.

If it were possible to sell Dongjing Multimedia Network in a package, cash out the total profit for the next 10 years in one go, and continue to manage the subsidiary under the wealthy Penguin Group, and receive an annual salary and option rewards, it would be very tempting if you think about it carefully. The advantage is that there is no risk at all.

Only 2006 years.

Having tens of millions of RMB in cash is more exaggerated than being worth hundreds of millions of RMB in a dozen years.

Da Qiangzi did a simple calculation and found that the money he would get after the sale was about 1000 times the average company in Yanjing. It was enough for retirement. He began to waver and asked:
“After acquiring the entire company, can you promise not to lay off employees? My brothers and sisters have been with me for a long time, and I don’t want to abandon them. In fact, an American venture capital company has contacted me recently and arranged to meet at the end of the month.”

Hear the words.

Several executives who hold shares in Dongjing Multimedia Network looked at each other. They wanted to shut Da Qiangzi up and say to him:

——”As long as we can get the money, we can be left behind! We are willing to work with Penguin Group!!!”

Others do not have the advantage of Fan Wumian’s foresight, and everyone is standing at a crossroads, finding it difficult to see the road ahead.

However, judging from Dongjing’s current situation, it is difficult for these executives to have much confidence in it. As an independent local Internet company, its scale may be quite good, but it is far behind those online shopping platforms that have obtained financing.

The competition in the mainland’s Internet market is fierce and a major reshuffle is taking place. Some companies vowed to become “number one in the country” just a few days ago, but closed down immediately after a few days because of a breakdown in negotiations with investors.

Many executives do not have the entrepreneurial spirit like Da Qiangzi. As long as they are paid high salaries on time and given some equity rewards, they would be eager to switch to work for Penguin Group. At least they have deep roots and do not need to worry about the company going bankrupt and laying off employees at any time.

After listening to Da Qiangzi’s words, Xiao Ma pushed up his glasses. He looked elegant and energetic in his white shirt and black suit. He smiled calmly and said:
“Of course. We are all valuable talents who have been able to build your website to this point.”

“On the way here just now, I talked about this with Mr. Fan. He thinks that if you want to gain a share of the online shopping market, you need a fierce wolf spirit. However, our Penguin Group has a large number of users, and success often comes too easily. We lack this wolf culture to open up the market.”

“I thought about it carefully and found that Mr. Fan’s advice makes a lot of sense. Businesses like games, Weibo, portals, and music are always successful in one go. They rely on funds and users to build up success. They are not good at online shopping business and lack e-commerce genes and operational experience.”

“If we reach a cooperation agreement, we will ask Mr. Liu to manage Paipai.com, which was established last year, and Xianyu.com, which sells second-hand goods. We plan to invest 2 million yuan next year. If the development is good, we will double the investment the year after next.”

With the help of Fan Wumian, some positive factors have been released.

Games such as “World of Warcraft” and “Dungeon & Fighter” that it represented, and “KartRider” and “Audition” that it acquired, have contributed sufficient cash flow to the Penguin Group.

It also successively represented “Street Basketball” and South Korea’s “Hot Blooded Jianghu” games, which also won the love of a large number of users.

Thanks to this income, Penguin Group’s cash flow has become abundant. It also plans to issue a corporate bond with a total amount of HK$5 million in Hong Kong in the near future. The funds will mainly be used to open up international markets and acquire South Korea’s Smile Gate game company.

The only project of this game company now is the development of “Cross Fire”. Fan Wumian played it for a summer in his previous life and spent hundreds of dollars on lotteries. Of course, he knows how strong its money-making ability is.

Since becoming a major shareholder of Penguin Group, Fan Wumian has indeed rarely interfered in specific management work, but has given some investment advice from time to time.

Xiao Ma Ge was a little speechless, but the problem was that the suggestions he made did help Penguin Group make money, and there was really nothing wrong with them.

There is no pressure on Penguin Group to squeeze out a budget of 2 million to invest in Dongjing next year. The board members of Penguin Group have been coveting the big fat piece of online shopping market for a long time, but it is a pity that they cannot compete with Alibaba Group.

Take PaiPai.com for example. When it was first established, it attracted widespread attention and quickly attracted a large user base. However, only half a year later, few media mentioned it anymore.

Even Fan Wumian hardly remembers the existence of PaiPai.com and finds it difficult to treat it as a core business.

Da Qiangzi was worried that he might do something bad in a moment of impulse, so he paused for a while before saying:

“I need to think about it for a while. I feel the sincerity of Mr. Fan and Mr. Ma, but I was not mentally prepared before. I need to discuss it seriously with everyone for a few days. For example, how should the salary and option rewards after the acquisition be calculated?”

Xiao Ma said cheerfully:

“That’s easy. We will raise the current salary by 50% and promise not to lay off employees within three years. We will discuss the stock option bonus separately when the time comes. You should first consider whether you are willing to accept the acquisition to avoid wasting time.” (End of this chapter)