Rebirth 2010: I taught Mr. Lei how to make a mobile phone

Chapter 307 Bargaining, One Price
One billion, US dollars!

If this price was set a year ago, Chen Mo would be overjoyed and would sell the Bi'an Mobile Assistant immediately.

But who are we looking down upon with this price now?

The other side never fights an unprepared battle. Before coming here, Chen Mo asked the Public Opinion Center to collect and organize the latest news from Baidu.

In fact, the news that Bi'an received about Baidu's intention to acquire 91 Mobile Assistant did not come from Baidu.

Instead, the news came from 91. At the same time, it was learned that Alibaba also extended an olive branch to 91, and 360 also intervened, even saying that as long as 91 Wireless went public in Hong Kong normally, 360 would unconditionally invest 2000 million US dollars.

360's move is not to get involved in the acquisition of 91, but to prevent the marriage between Baidu and 91.

But these are just speculations based on general information, and the specific inside details are unknown.

However, although Chen Mo was not clear about the details, the result was clear. In the previous life, Baidu finally spent a sky-high price of 19 billion US dollars to acquire 91 Assistant, which became the largest acquisition case of the year.

Out of curiosity, he actually learned some of the inside story. Mainly, the acquisition of a mobile phone assistant for over 10 billion yuan was a bit beyond his cognition. As he continued to learn more, Chen Mo felt that he was still too young.

其实当时阿里给91助手出的最终报价是18.6亿美元，其中包括6亿美元现金对应91无线即将上市的市值，剩余12.6亿美元，按20美元一股作价用阿里的股票支付。

If calculated based on Alibaba's stock price of $80 on the day of its listing, if Hu Zemin agreed to Alibaba's acquisition, 91 Wireless would have been a sky-high acquisition worth $55 billion.

Unfortunately, there was no if, and Hu Zemin finally chose Baidu, which had more money at the time.

After Alibaba failed in its competition with 91 Assistant, it turned its attention to Wandoujia, which is second only to 91.

At that time, in addition to 91 Assistant, Innovation Works' Wandoujia was also very popular, but they did not see through the virtual illusion of the popularity of the distribution platform, and thought they could establish long-term "strong relationships" with the community and users and sell at a high price.

Therefore, when Alibaba offered $10 billion to acquire Wandoujia, the latter rejected the offer without thinking, because 91 could sell for $19 billion, while Wandoujia only sold for $10 billion.

In the early days of mobile Internet in 2012-2013, the value of distribution platforms was the highest. As the mobile Internet landscape gradually became clearer and more stable, the value also declined.
Later, Hu Zemin also admitted in an interview that the value of application distribution was indeed overestimated at the time.

Because the marginal effect of distribution is decreasing, and for most users, there are only about 20 to 50 commonly used software. Once downloaded, the relationship with the distribution market is more about updates rather than downloads. This is a weak relationship.

Later, Wandoujia, which was self-admiring and maintained its independence, missed the best "period for selling itself", which led to a sharp drop in its value. In the end, it had to be sold at a low price. The buyer was still Alibaba, but the price was reduced from US$10 billion to US$2 million.

Judging from the cause, Baidu adjusted and shut down the wireless business four years after acquiring 91 Wireless, which caused many people to discuss that the valuation of 4 Wireless was too high at the time. In their view, Baidu's purchase of 91 for RMB 116 billion was a complete loss-making deal, and the investors were just fools with too much money.

How smart are Li Yanhong and Ma, how could they not see the tricks Hu Zemin had set up at the same time? Perhaps they did not necessarily see the inflated valuation of the distribution platform, but they were just at a higher level and thought three steps ahead.

Don't just look at one side of things. Just like when Hu Zemin chose Baidu, there were actually several reasons behind it. That is, Hu Zemin was only the CEO of 91 Wireless who led the acquisition, and NetDragon was behind him.

At that time, NetDragon believed that Baidu's Robin Li was an engineer with a technical background, who had always kept his promises and would fulfill his words.

Although Alibaba's side is full of room for imagination, people on NetDragon's side feel that Ma has a lot of "ideas", and the "cash + stock" method always feels a bit unrealistic. In addition, there have been cases where investors have reneged on their decision during the acquisition process.

Another point is that Baidu also has its own distribution business. With the acquisition of 91 Assistant, the two will form a synergy and will have better development prospects. After all, everyone wants to find a potential buyer for their product.

91 Mobile Assistant was indeed acquired at a premium, but did Baidu really lose money? Judging from the acquisition price, it did lose money.

But from the perspective of the stock market, not only did they make money, but they made a lot of money.

On the day Baidu acquired 91 Wireless, its stock price rose by 4%. Over the next ten days, Baidu's stock price continued to rise due to the acquisition, with a cumulative increase of 16%. In other words, Baidu spent tens of billions to acquire 91 Wireless, and the stock price increase was equivalent to the price of three 3 Wireless.

This stock price rise has become one of Baidu's strongest stock price peaks in many years.

This is just one of the reasons. Secondly, after acquiring 91 Assistant and integrating it with Baidu Assistant, the market share will surpass Wandoujia and 360 to become the industry leader.

Third, 91 Wireless is the core value of Baidu’s strategic layout. In other words, if Baidu had failed to take over this important mobile Internet portal, and Alibaba or 360 had taken the lead, it would have been a big problem for Baidu at the time.

So from this perspective, Baidu's desperate acquisition of 91 Wireless has, to some extent, blocked the expansion of its rivals and is also a reflection of Baidu's determination to reverse the pace of mobile Internet. At the same time, it has also invisibly added to Baidu's record of defeating Alibaba and 360. This invisible influence is also very useful.

This is similar to the fact that Alibaba spent 30 billion to win the bidding for the Spring Festival Gala some time ago.

It is precisely because of these considerations that Baidu will definitely acquire a mobile assistant. As for whether it will be 91 or Bi'an, it will be up to each of them to show their unique abilities. Chen Mo was brainstorming, but in fact, it only took a few seconds.

After hearing the $10 billion offer, Chen Mo sat on the Diaoyutai without even looking at Tang Hesong. Instead, he looked at Li Yanhong without saying a word.
For a moment, the scene fell into silence, and you could hear a pin drop.

Tang Hesong was a little unsure of the other party's tactics. Generally speaking, negotiations require a give and take, and if you disagree, you can bargain. What does it mean to remain silent?
He was about to speak when Robin Li coughed and pretended to be confused, "Mr. Chen, are you not satisfied with Baidu's offer?"

"I just don't see your sincerity."

"In buying and selling, there is always a process of bargaining."

Chen Mo crossed his fingers on the table and leaned forward slightly. "But I prefer a one-time deal. $18 billion! One price, no bargaining!"

18 billion US dollars. Although Li Yanhong still had a smile on his face, he felt a pang in his heart, because Chen Mo's move just cut off his psychological bottom line.

The highest they had agreed on was 18 billion, but I don't know if the other party was just guessing or not.
After Chen Mo finished stating the price, he observed the expressions of the three people opposite him. Li Yanhong and Tang Hesong were fine, but Li Mingyuan's expression changed slightly, which was seen by Chen Mo. He made up his mind and it seemed that he had guessed correctly.

Seeing that Li Yanhong had something to say, Chen Mo directly stretched out his hand to interrupt the spell, "As for why the other side mobile assistant is worth this price, you might as well listen to our reasons."

After saying that, Chen Mo winked at Xu Chaojun, who opened his notebook and began to introduce why Bi'an Mobile Assistant was worth 18 billion US dollars!
Chen's comparison method appeared, and a horizontal comparison was made between Bi'an Mobile Assistant and 91 Mobile Assistant.

There are only a few dimensions: revenue, number of users, distribution volume, software installation volume, development trends reflected by various data, etc.

The two sides are evenly matched and each has its own wins and losses. Now there are only 91 and Bi'an dominating the market, while Wandoujia, 360 Assistant and App Store all belong to the second tier.

Finally, Xu Chaojun, from Baidu's perspective, talked about several benefits of Baidu's acquisition of Bi'an.

It is nothing more than a series of outputs from major directions such as business, stock market, strategic position, to the trend of mobile Internet.

Of course, these were the countermeasures that had been discussed before they came. For this purpose, Xu Chaojun even used PPT to simulate and practice several times in front of Chen Mo, Zhang Xiaolong and Zhou Shouzi, which resulted in the effect that people felt that the Bi'an Mobile Assistant was worth 28 billion but is now being sold for only 18 billion.

"18 billion is indeed a bit too much. We need to discuss this internally before we can give an answer. How about we skip the negotiation of Bi'an Mobile Assistant and directly discuss the cooperation with Baidu and WeChat?"

Chen Mo raised his hand and rejected Li Yanhong's proposal. "The acquisition of Bi'an Mobile Assistant is a prerequisite for our cooperation. You see, I didn't go to Alibaba and Tencent. I came directly because you invited me.

The previous $10 billion was indeed a bit too much, you see I am not angry at all, Bi'an came with sincerity, I hope Baidu's sincerity will be equal to it."

Baidu wants to use WeChat's traffic to provide better search services and improve user experience by using Baidu's search capabilities in multiple search portals on the mobile Internet. WeChat public accounts are about to be launched.

The mutually beneficial cooperation between WeChat and Baidu is the icing on the cake. It brings more benefits to Baidu, but it doesn't matter much to Baidu if it doesn't exist.

So now on the surface it seems that the other side has a slight upper hand in the negotiations, and Chen Mo has basically figured out the bottom price in his mind, but in fact he has already become an invincible Vajra.

Li Yanhong hesitated for a moment and said, "We are indeed sincere. Can't we negotiate the price?"

Chen Mo shook his head. "This is the price. No bargaining!"

"The last question is, why did Bi'an sell the mobile assistant?"

Robin Li asked the question that concerned him the most. This kind of distribution platform is important to Baidu, and it should be even more important to a technology company like Bi'an that has pure mobile Internet genes. Previously, all products under Bi'an were not for sale, but now the other party actually agreed to sell them. There must be something wrong with this unusual situation, which left him puzzled.

Chen Mo looked reluctant and sighed, "All items not for sale have a time limit. Mobile assistant was indeed crucial to Bi'an last year, but this year you have probably seen that the WeChat market is basically saturated, and Bi'an's game business has already established a good reputation. We will slowly divest the distribution platform and de-distribute it.

Bi'an Mobile Assistant is like a child we have raised. We know that if we continue to raise it without combining it with our own business, it will not have a great future. Who doesn't want to see their sons and daughters become successful? Instead of wasting time on Bi'an, it is better to find a good family with a bright future.
Of course the money must be in place. After all, we on the other side also want to save face. Even if we are getting married, the betrothal gift must be sufficient."

Chen Mo, who had just shown his true feelings, immediately became energetic when he talked about money.

After listening to this, Robin Li thought about the development of Beyond the Shore and realized that it was indeed as Chen Mo said. He nodded and said, "I understand Mr. Chen's good intentions. Baidu will definitely give a satisfactory answer, but as I said, we need time to communicate internally."

"I understand. Why don't you wait until you guys have thought it over, Robin, and then we can talk about it!"

Chen Mo raised a finger and said, "I will wait for your news for a week. During this week, I will not contact anyone. After that, it will be hard to say~"

After saying this, he winked and stood up first, and everyone on the other side left Baidu.
(End of this chapter)