2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 727: Fighting?

2010 5 Month 6 Day.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) released its latest sales rankings for April, with the Yuechi A1 continuing to hold the top spot with 12180 units sold.

Honda CR-V closely followed with 11975 units, while Toyota RAV4, Great Wall H series, and Highlander ranked third to fifth respectively.

Among the top five best-selling SUVs, joint ventures account for three and domestic brands account for two, making it a close race.

"The reason why the Yuechi A1 was able to win the sales championship for two consecutive months is mainly due to the impact of the Toyota recall."

Toyota's aggressive and discriminatory compensation policy in China doesn't seem to have a significant impact on the overall market, especially on the RAV4 model at the center of the incident.

The fundamental reason why the RAV4's sales still rank among the top three is that there are not many competitors in the market.

However, the impact on the sales of Japanese brands as a whole was still significant. In March and April, the overall sales of Japanese brands dropped by 15%, which is a very alarming figure.

German brands benefited the most, with their sales increasing year-on-year over the two months.

The BYD F3 remains incredibly strong. Even after being battered by the dealer backlog, it still sold 40897 units in April, topping the list of best-selling sedans. However, it's unclear how many of these were simply unsold inventory from dealers.

"Damn, are cars really that easy to sell these days? A car that's so ugly can sell over 4 units a month. Clothes don't even sell that well."

Seeing these sales figures, Xie Junhong, who was standing to the side, couldn't help but complain.

"Haha, clothes actually sell very well too. You'll see if you try shopping online sometime. Business is really good."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see once you try it. Mr. Xie, you need to learn to accept new things too. The internet trend is about to take off."

Tan Jincheng didn't say much. In fact, doing business these days has really not been difficult. The information gap is particularly serious. Take online shopping for example, many online shoppers don't even know how to return goods.

If you buy a piece of clothing and it doesn't fit, you can't find the return option. You have to contact customer service and beg them to pay for the return shipping.

Take the Taobao stores that Tan Jincheng used to run as an example. If you returned a piece of clothing, you would charge the buyer 10 yuan for shipping. If you just had a good attitude, the buyer would be very grateful. The information gap is even more serious offline.

Those so-called export overstock items sold at rural markets may cost tens of yuan per piece, but their actual cost may only be a few yuan, resulting in a profit of 10 times or even more.

As incomes rise and living standards improve, people's demand for products such as cars and mobile phones is increasing. However, the market is polarized, with joint venture brands not only being too expensive but also frequently selling out even with markups.

Domestic brands like F3 and Yuechi not only have sufficient production capacity and are easy to buy, but are also inexpensive. As long as it doesn't affect the use of the product, consumers are really not that picky.

"This is what they call a seller's market, isn't it? Wei Lai entered the market too late. If he had entered two years earlier, the Yuechi A1 would have sold even better."

"That's not entirely true. The market has to follow its own rules. The concept of urban SUVs was not mature a couple of years ago. If the Yuechi A1 had actually been launched, it would most likely have been cannon fodder for the CRV and RAV4."

There are many SUVs on the market that predate the Yuechi A1, even Yangzi, a brand under its own company, has the Feiyang series, and Huanghai also started making SUVs relatively early.

There are countless SUV brands that sell a few thousand or tens of thousands of vehicles a year, but the CR-V and RAV4 are the ones that truly made the market recognize the SUV, especially the urban SUV, segment. Without their huge success, the market wouldn't have been able to take off.

Just like the emergence of Douyin and Pinduoduo at this time, being too ahead of its time can only lead to its demise.

Xie Junhong thought about it and agreed. The Zhongtai 2008, which was very popular a few years ago, is no longer selling well, with only two or three thousand units sold per month. Fortunately, they have a 5008, which is an upgraded version of the 2008.

This model sold reasonably well, but last year they sold less than 5.4 vehicles across all their models, indicating a serious overcapacity problem. It's fortunate that they transferred the Beicang factory.

As for Weilai Motors, from January to April this year alone, it sold a total of more than 5.2 vehicles, including SUVs, pickup trucks and buses. The sales volume in four months is close to the sales volume of Zhongtai in the whole year last year.

The district's gamble paid off; Weilai Auto's sales this year are definitely going to exceed last year's expectations.

"Yes, there have been significant breakthroughs in the technology of power battery systems. In the future, we will need to spend more money and cannot rely on loans indefinitely. Even if we do rely on loans, we must be able to generate our own revenue."

"The merger of the other two companies will also benefit Weilai Auto's research on new energy vehicles. We must also accelerate the progress of research on new energy vehicles."

The era of massive subsidies has arrived, and Weilai Auto will definitely benefit from these subsidies.

"In principle, I have no problem with it, as long as you can coordinate the interests of the shareholders. The district will definitely not interfere with how the company is operated."

Xie Junhong smiled. The reason why his career has been so stable over the years is largely due to his investment in Flash Group. It was originally a task assigned by the district, but it unexpectedly became the driving force for his advancement.

He should get a promotion when this term ends.

It's really hard to understand a person's luck sometimes. The naive young man from a few years ago is now sitting in front of me. Who would have thought that he could bring me such a big surprise?
Even disregarding the impact on his personal career, Beicang City Investment's investment returns in Shanchi Group alone amounted to several billion yuan.

These urban construction and real estate investments in Beicang yielded a huge profit.

“I’ve also spoken with the other shareholders, and they have similar opinions to yours. However, what I mean is that after the merger, there will be a total of five shareholders. If we still use the current shareholding calculation method, then my shareholding will be too small, which will be detrimental to future financing and listing.”

If the merger proceeds as it is now, ByteDance's stake in the company will drop to 50%. This is only the second round of mergers. If things continue like this, what's the point of continuing? We're not an internet company.

Therefore, some shares will definitely be taken back. The new company, Tan Jincheng, only wants to give up 30% to 35% of the shares at most.

It's impossible to say that you currently hold 70% of the shares in Weilai Auto and 68% in Jinxin New Energy, and that after the merger your shareholding will drop to 50%. That's not the kind of concession you should be making.

Xie Junhong laughed and said, "I understand. Once the financial audits of both companies are completed, we can sit down and talk about this."

Tan Jincheng has high requirements for the number of shares held by his companies. They have always known that if they want to cooperate, they have to accept his rules. This is a must, even for those who have already entered the market.

However, they also knew that this young man had always been fair, and if the new company's shareholding decreased, he would definitely provide them with other forms of compensation, and he wouldn't let anyone suffer too much loss.

Although Tan Jincheng has been jokingly called a "dog-like" person all these years, he has a very good business reputation among investment institutions, local governments, and even suppliers.

From a practical business perspective, Tan Jincheng's point is valid. Weilai Auto is destined to go public, and having too few shares held by the major shareholder is not conducive to the listing process.

"I'm definitely fine with it. We've been working together for so long, and I can make decisions about even a small share. If they agree, I'll definitely agree too."

Mr. Xie is quite straightforward. Since 08, the status of the city investment company has risen, and he has been living a very glamorous life. However, he still maintains the same attitude towards Flash Group.

The business environment in Beicang District is quite good. At the same time, Xie Hongjun is also well aware that while he can be transferred, Flash Group will never move away from Beicang.

If he really tries to trip him up, he won't be in serious trouble, but he won't get anything good out of it either, since Beicang City Investment doesn't belong to him after all.

"Thank you so much, brother. Once I'm all ready, I'll get everyone together for a meeting and we can discuss this properly."

Having powerful investors is a good thing, but it can also be quite troublesome at times. If it were just an ordinary shareholder with 5% or 10% of the shares, Tan Jincheng wouldn't even bother to bother and would simply share the profits.

Look at the shareholders of Weilai Automobile. Even someone like Chuzhou City Investment Group wouldn't dare to mess with them casually.

The three major urban investment companies did not have such high requirements for shares, and they were all secured through negotiations. Next is Sequoia Capital. Shen Nanpeng is still in the United States, so we can only talk to him by phone or video for the time being.

Shen Nanpeng mainly invests in the internet industry. Speaking of which, the internet financing environment has recovered somewhat this year. Companies like Bitauto, Tudou, and Youku are all rushing to go public. Vancl, which Tan Jincheng didn't think much of, actually had someone easily come up with $5000 million in four rounds of financing.

Compared to last year, things have improved. Even Li Bing complained that Vancl's model was able to secure such high funding, considering it was a genuine internet automotive portal and the first automotive-related internet company to prepare for listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Last year, even dogs wouldn't pay attention to them, but this year, as a company with internet DNA, they can easily secure funding. It's just bad luck.

Actually, this guy overlooked one thing: his connections are no match for Chen Nian's. The investment institutions in Yiche.com's previous rounds of financing were not particularly powerful, and none of them were as powerful as the shareholders of Orange Technology.

Not to mention Chen Nian. Although he comes from a literary background, he used to work at Joyo.com and is considered a veteran of the internet industry. His connections are far superior to Li Bing's.

When an internet company wants to go public, apart from venture capital rounds where money is the primary consideration, the background of each subsequent investment institution is extremely important. Brilliant founders even start screening investors from the venture capital round.

If Tan Jincheng hadn't invested in Lei Jun, and hadn't had access to clothing factories and extensive offline channels, Chen Nian probably wouldn't have bothered with him.

People with extensive networks never lack investors.

The internet is booming again, and Shen Nanpeng is extremely busy. Although Weilai Auto is developing rapidly and selling cars very well, Shen Nanpeng never imagined that a physical enterprise could have such a high rate of return in just a few years.

However, he really didn't have time to pay attention to these things. As for Jinxin, Shen Nanpeng never thought that the power battery system would be so easy to break through, so he had even less time to pay attention to it.

"Two companies merged? A breakthrough in power battery system technology? Wow, you've got something special, you actually pulled off the collaboration with BMW?"

Shen Nanpeng was somewhat surprised when he received the call; the speed was quite fast.

"It's up to you to merge. Merging is a good thing. Some resources are shared between the two companies, and there's no need for two separate teams. However, I still want 10% of the shares, even if it means paying extra."

Professional investors are investors; they are quite sensitive to stock prices and technological breakthroughs. When we were discussing the merger with three local government financing vehicles, they didn't seem to have much of a sense of the technological breakthroughs in power batteries.

As for the physics institute, they understand technology, but they don't understand investment. The shares they had before were nothing to them.

In contrast to the bureaucratic system, Tan Jincheng proposed using a portion of cash compensation as a way to reclaim some of the shares. After some consideration, and with the mediation of Lü Ruifeng, the proposal was accepted.

In their view, whether it was the previous 15% stake or the current 12% stake, it wasn't very useful. Over the years, apart from sharing some of Lü Ruifeng's and others' salaries and donating some money, they hadn't gained much benefit.

Taking advantage of the merger to exchange for some cash might be a good return on investment. "Okay, no problem, 10% it is, but you'll have to do me a little favor later. You know, your status is sometimes more useful than mine."

"Haha, you little rascal; alright, let me know when you're all set up on your end, and I'll be heading back to China then."

Shen Nanpeng couldn't help but chuckle. This kid really wasn't willing to suffer any loss; he even wanted to use his status.

"Oh, by the way, when are you coming to Wall Street? The company you invested in is currently rushing to go public. Wow, the first car website to list on the NYSE, you're something else."

"Ha, why would I go to Wall Street if they go public? I'm just an investor. Besides, judging from the current situation, their IPO might be a bloodbath, so it's not a very good investment."

"Come on, you're just after his media resources. This deal isn't particularly profitable for ByteDance, but it's a windfall for Wyman Motors."

"Ha, since you figured it out, you'll have to give me more money later. I'll use my own money to provide resources for Weilai Automobile."

"Haha, do you think that's possible?"

The Yuechi A1 sells very well, which is undoubtedly due to its effective marketing. The company's ownership of Yiche.com shares, investment resources, and advertorials have all played a significant role in this success.

Tan Jincheng also wanted to buy shares in Autohome, but it was too difficult. Its largest shareholder is Telstra, which holds more than 70% of the shares, while the founders and management only hold 20%, of which the founders only hold 5.3%.

This shareholding structure is simply unworkable, unlike Li Bing, whose personal shareholding was still 18.94% even after Bitauto went public and the shares were diluted.

Both of the Li bosses are clearly highly educated, but Li Bing, who has been through several setbacks, is slightly stronger.

"Let's not talk about that anymore. Speaking of Wall Street, I need your help. Could you introduce me to Musk? Our company wants to collaborate with Tesla on some patented technologies."

The US is too tight-lipped about patent technology. While the US is similar, it's not as severe. They'll sell when they need to and cooperate when they need to. Also, Masla is a more strategic person.

They later made many of their patents public, so they didn't become patent trolls.

In truth, Nokia's rapid decline was partly due to their patent trolling tactics; even after losing their mobile phone business, they still clung to their patents to survive.

This is practically forcing others to start their own businesses and not play with you anymore.

"Oh, Musk, he's a Wall Street celebrity. Introducing him wouldn't be difficult."

"Okay, then please help me make the contact. If it goes well, I'll come over. I'll have the company's patent department send you an email later."

“Okay, no problem. In fact, this is also my business as a shareholder. You haven’t asked me for anything in all this time with Weilai Auto, so it’s only right that I do my part.”

"Then let's do this for now."

After hanging up the phone, Tan Jincheng had a headache. Hongshan was reluctant to give up its shares, even if it meant paying more money to subscribe, but he was only willing to give up a maximum of 35% of the shares.

With only 25% of the shares remaining, the four companies will divide them, averaging only 6.25% on average.

That's quite a difference, especially for the Institute of Physics, whose shareholding has been almost halved. Moreover, he doesn't really want to give up 35% of the shares; 30% would be the most comfortable equity structure.

"What can we do? Damn it, we shouldn't have given Chuzhou City Investment too many shares in the first place. We miscalculated."

Looking back now, those tens of millions were definitely a loss. Given Yangzi Automobile's current contribution to Langya District's GDP, even without the city investment company, there wouldn't be any problems.

This time, we need to find a way to reduce their shareholding by a significant amount.

The road ahead is difficult.

Forget it, let's go home first. Gu Qingqing is already in her eighth month of pregnancy, and she needs to be especially careful lately. Her due date is getting closer and closer, and her emotions are similar to those in the first three months.

The father-in-law and mother-in-law are recently planning to hand over their agritainment business to his older brother, Gu Yanning's father, to manage temporarily.

The whole family was quite nervous.

Back at the villa, Tan Jincheng didn't see Gu Qingqing in the living room. He asked her and found out she was in his study.

Because of his attempt to poach players from BYD, Tan Jincheng casually established a game company that reminded him of League of Legends, a game that had not yet been released in China. With the idea of ​​making use of waste, Tan Jincheng wanted this shell company to take over the domestic operation rights of League of Legends.

This matter was entrusted to Gu Qingqing to keep an eye on, but after finding out, she discovered that Riot Games, the company that developed League of Legends, had already been invested in by Tencent back in 2008!
The 2008 subprime mortgage crisis was indeed a great opportunity for our companies to pick up bargains everywhere. Tan Jincheng was busy with mining, and Pony Ma was not to be outdone, going overseas to acquire game companies.

If Tencent holds more than 70% of the shares in the company, then what the hell is the point of this game?

Whether or not Tan Jincheng can secure the League of Legends distribution rights isn't particularly important, but games like League of Legends have a significant impact on the live streaming industry. Xiao Wang's live streaming website became a huge hit by operating game tournaments.

When Gu Qingqing passed on this news to him, Tan Jincheng was filled with regret. "Why didn't I think of this sooner? Now DNF and League of Legends are both his, making it much harder for Xiao He to run his live streaming website."

Such a well-known game should have been expected to be targeted by Tencent; they miscalculated.

It seems that Orange Technology has absolutely no chance in the PC game market. Tencent and NetEase are just too powerful; they can't compete.

In that case, I'm sorry to say, but for mobile games like Honor of Kings and Onmyoji, you'll still have to fight for them.

Game live streaming has always been a very popular project. After being incubated by Orange Technology, Orange Live Streaming is also hoped to be expanded by Tan Jincheng, who hopes to raise funds and go public.

Once Gu Qingqing has finished giving birth and is ready to recover, this will be my responsibility.

Hehe, the most beautiful CEO has transformed into a mobile game queen? Not bad, not bad, but she can't be involved in the specific affairs, she can only be in charge of investments.

"Hey, you're back. Come take a look. Those two software programs you asked me to keep an eye on are now incompatible."

Pushing open the study door, Gu Qingqing, who was sitting in front of the computer, only glanced at it before excitedly shouting to Tan Jincheng.

Speaking of which, Gu Qingqing had also systematically studied computers for a period of time. She had also studied diligently while working at Orange Technology, and she could still write a couple of lines of code.

"Oh? Really? Let me see."

Tan Jincheng was equally excited. His study was large and had several computers. One of them was specifically used for various tests. The incompatibility Gu Qingqing mentioned was between QQ Doctor and 360 Security Guard.

"Yes, just like you said, these two companies are about to fight."

Having said that, he instructed Tan Jincheng to give it a try.

Sure enough, QQ Doctor has been renamed PC Manager and is no longer compatible with 360 Security Guard.

It's coming, it's about to start! Is the infamous 3Q War about to begin? It seems to be happening a little earlier than in my previous life?

Speaking of 360, it was still in the early stages of its startup. At the beginning of this year, they had just completed their Series A funding round, raising $3000 million. The company had fewer than 500 employees.

However, 360 Security Guard has been popular for several years. Launched in 2006, it was initially just a small anti-virus software that Zhou Hongyi tried after encountering setbacks in his search. Unexpectedly, it quickly accumulated hundreds of millions of users by hitting the pain points of users.

Later, in 2008, Lao Zhou made further moves in multiple areas, successively launching software such as 360 Antivirus and 360 Browser.

The rapidly developing 360 naturally couldn't escape Tencent's watchful eye. At that time, Tencent was extremely domineering, and their internal goal was to become the water and electricity of the internet.

Tencent employees even joked privately: "We'll take every road we can, leaving no road for other companies to take."

Aside from online shopping, which they lack, they've really succeeded in other areas by copying and revitalizing every single one of their products, thanks to the massive social media tool QQ. Last year's QQ Doctor was clearly aimed at competing with 360.

"Wow, it's really here! We can start the game studio project now; hmm, let's call it TiMi."

Looking at the updated and renamed PC Manager, Tan Jincheng, with a touch of wicked humor, decided to launch a large-scale mobile game.

To be honest, I hadn't thought about League of Legends before, partly because I genuinely hadn't thought about it, and partly because I didn't want to confront Tencent head-on.

It's not that I'm afraid of him, but I don't want to get involved in this pointless dispute and cause unnecessary internal friction.

Damn, before the 3Q War, they were really shameless. They would copy whoever was popular to death and mess with them relentlessly.

"You think Tencent can't beat 360? They used to copy anyone and that person would die. Now they're incompatible with everything. Their security software is really dangerous."

"It's not that we can't beat them, but Zhou Hongyi isn't that simple either. Anyway, let's do things our own way."

Were there any losers in the 3Q War? It seems not.

On the surface, Lao Zhou suffered a complete defeat, but through this battle he became famous and gained widespread sympathy from netizens. His company also quickly went public and escaped the fate of being strangled.

After this battle, Tencent changed its domineering style to be more open and inclusive, and began to win over some competitors by investing in them and not interfering in their operations.

This also marks the beginning of Tencent's second takeoff.

"That's true. Someone who started out making rogue software isn't going to follow the rules. In that case, you should move your shell company back here, change the legal representative to my sister, and keep the name you suggested."

Tan Jincheng had long ago treated the boatman's outburst of anger as a joke to amuse his wife.

(End of this chapter)