In some books and discussions, it is customary to compare China's business world to Jianghu? There may be a reason why Chinese people like to do business! As long as a certain business makes money, all businessmen will flock in.
For example, in the era of treacherous masters: one billion people, 900 million are in ruins, and there are still 100 million who are still looking for it. For example, in the era of VCD.
So in 2016, when I look back at China's business process since the reform and opening up, it is really similar to the rise and fall of famous martial arts sects. There have been many ups and downs and many autumns.
Shortly after the "Phoenix Film and Television Appreciation Banquet" on October 10, 2016, various rumors in the world were raging, but everything seemed to be calm.
It was in this calm atmosphere that Jing Gao gave his girlfriend Li Mengwei a simple and warm birthday in a courtyard in Beijing on October 15. He made it from the imperial green jadeite he bought from Ren He.
A small jade Buddha pendant was given to Weiwei.
However, the gathering of dark clouds will eventually turn into a storm! Within a few days, after Tsai Congxin took over the matter, he continued to meet with the country's top investors, the heads of state-owned capital, and Didi's shareholders.
In the afternoon of the 17th, before Didi issued the news of holding a media conference at the Peninsula Hotel in Shanghai at 19:00 tonight, Cai Congxin held an internal small-scale core meeting at the Peace Hotel where he stayed.
There were only four people attending the meeting: He, Cheng Wei, Liu Qing, and Ren Zhi.
Since its opening in 1929, the Peace Hotel has always been a landmark building in Shili Foreign Market. It is also located in the most prosperous business district of Shanghai: Nanjing Road. It was once known as the "First Floor in the Far East."
In the living room of the luxurious suite on the 12th floor, 53-year-old Cai Congxin sent all his assistants out, sat on the sofa, crossed his legs, and smoked a cigarette.
As the younger brother, Cheng Wei was reporting on his achievements in the past few days, "Mr. Cai, the shareholders that Mr. Ren and I visited basically agreed to continue to hold shares in Didi and agreed to sell part of the shares to us. Here,
Mr. Ren has given me a lot of help.”
Ren Zhi was the youngest among the people present. He was 23 years old at the time. He had a clean and fair appearance. For today's gathering, he even brought a plain mirror to add a sense of stability. At this time, he said humbly: "I
We are also optimistic about Didi’s development prospects.”
He mobilized 1 billion US dollars in one week to purchase Didi's equity. When he and Cheng Wei went out to talk, they all used Didi's name to recover the shares. But in fact, they were eaten by him. Of course, the price was a bit high.
.
Didi's highest valuation in early September was US$33.5 billion. Now the valuation has dropped to about US$22 billion. This is the latest valuation given by the consulting firm. Ren Zhi was acquired at a valuation of US$30 billion.
In total, they obtained approximately 3.3% of Didi’s shares.
He successfully became a shareholder of Didi, and incorporated the big data algorithms of Xinghan Digital Company that he controlled and mastered into Didi's operating procedures.
As we all know, artificial intelligence and big data algorithms require a large amount of sample data before they can be iteratively upgraded. The company that does the best in recommendation algorithms is a short video company. After going overseas, the company was threatened by the king of understanding and quickly knelt down.
Cai Congxin nodded and praised: "Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Ren."
With Cai Congxin's status in the world, it is completely okay for him to call Ren Zhi "Xiao Ren". However, considering the status of Ren Zhi's father Ren He in the domestic business community, he cannot set the record for his predecessors in this way. In this game Among them, wasn’t it Ren Zhi’s funds that they relied on? There was also the reputation of the Galaxy Group!
Liu Qing continued: "Mr. Cai, I have specific information here. Uber's new round of financing on October 14th only received less than 800 million U.S. dollars. This will only be in the next competition. It’s a drop in the bucket. Venture capital institutions such as Hongbin Capital, Zhen Fund, IDG Capital, and Hillhouse Capital all chose not to sign the contract after the negotiations were completed.”
"As expected." Cai Congxin lit the cigarette ashes. He personally negotiated with Shen Nanpeng and others. He handed a piece of information at hand to Cheng Wei, "This is the personal information of Jing Gao, the actual controller of Phoenix Fund. You pass it on Take a look."
Jinggao's acquisition of "Yidao" under the name of LeTV will make Guan Guan check the background of Mr. Jia. Since Alibaba and Phoenix have been tit-for-tat to this extent, how could the Alibaba department not check the background of Jinggao?
This personal information was more detailed than that found by Shao Sisi, the assistant to the chairman of Fangyuan Group and Jing Gao’s classmate.
"Mr. Cai, this..." After Cheng Wei roughly read it, he was extremely surprised. Jing Gao's resume was very unreasonable! Seeing Liu Qing, Ren Zhi had a look of confusion on his face. He reacted and tore apart the information in his hand. Separate it, hand it to Liu Qing, and let him rule.
Cai Congxin was smoking leisurely, looking like a big boss. After the three of them had finished reading, he slowly said: "Through this material, we can clearly see that there are some rumors about Jing Gao, such as his The fact that he is the rich second generation of Northern Jiangsu can be ruled out. His relatives within the fifth server have been checked and there are no rich people."
A "within five servers" reveals the Alibaba style of methods and arrogance!
Ren Zhi took a deep breath. This situation was actually completely beyond his expectation.
As far as the information he knew, whether it was from his father, his sister-in-law, or from his circle of friends, it was basically the default that Jing Gao was a rich second generation from Sujiang Province. After all, China now has the second largest GDP in the world. , aren’t there any hidden rich people among the people? Eighty percent of the time there are.
But this reasonable explanation has been completely overturned.
Cheng Wei said with emotion: "Mr. Cai, Jing Gao, who has always been mediocre, suddenly became rich in April this year and started spending and investing heavily. He owns textiles, real estate, banks, venture capital, film and television, The assets of online ride-hailing companies. This seems strange no matter how you look at it!”
Liu Qing nodded in agreement.
Of course, she did not think that Jing Gao was a foreign spy and was funded by some organization. This logic was the same as when Zhao Canglong investigated the bottom of Jing Gao. How could any spy agency spend 20 billion US dollars to give a spy to a spy? People?
Do you really think that the U.S. dollar is a waste of paper? Don’t even think about it. Even online articles would not dare to write this.
Cai Congxin pointed to the coffee table in front of him and said: "I have entrusted friends in the domestic banking system to check, and all sources of Jing Gao's funds are legal. The key is that he is unreasonable.
However, it is impossible for us to find his 24-hour surveillance video in those days in April. My assistant told me that the general storage period of public surveillance video is three months.
Therefore, we don’t know who he met at that time and suddenly became rich. We can only make a bold and reasonable guess that he is currently an agent for certain overseas funds to come into the country!”
The scale of foreign investment coming into China every year is an astronomical figure. According to statistics and published data, China attracted US$126 billion in foreign investment in 2015. Note that this is only one year's data!
Moreover, this is funds from formal channels, and does not include hot money coming in through underground banks and shadow banks.
Cheng Wei sat on the sofa, took a drink of mineral water, shook his head and sighed: "Unbelievable."
Cai Congxin said with a smile: "It's hard to believe but you have to believe it. Think about it, hasn't he done a good job in the past few months? If Uber can merge with Didi, as long as it is listed on Nasdaq, the investors behind it will
But it’s a huge profit!
Therefore, we cannot despise him because his work resume five years after graduation is poor. Nor can we deny him because he went to a second-tier university and failed in the college entrance examination competition. In fact, we cannot use the traditional elite template to apply
on this person.
You are all still young, and Mr. Ren’s father should know something about it. In that era of burning passion, how many rich people made their fortunes in the wilderness and became famous for a while? Let me give you a few examples.
What was the educational background of Mou Qizhong, the national entrepreneurship idol and the richest man in the country, and how old was he before he started to show his business talent?
What does Hu Guangbiao, the CEO of Aido VCD, do?
Another example is Gome's Huang Guangyu. What is his educational background? He just graduated from junior high school. He has also become the richest man in China.
Therefore, the experiences of extraordinary people must be extraordinary. Of course, only a few of these reckless heroes can turn into dragons in the end, and the companies under their names can still survive. We, I guess this time we are going to be the test stone of Jing Gao, Phoenix Fund."
Ren Zhi nodded convincingly. The three words "testing stone" showed Mr. Cai's strong self-confidence.
Cai Congxin said: "Therefore, based on this judgment, our next response strategy is very clear.
First of all, we have to assume that Jing Gao has an extremely huge amount of liquidity. This is the worst default situation. But we must make such a default. The Phoenix Fund price war was so brutal that it burned 3 billion a month.
The U.S. dollar must be confident.
Secondly, we should clearly see that Phoenix Fund’s business foundation in China is very weak. It is only to ensure that they have a firm foothold. It is not the same as our Alibaba’s influence.
So, first of all, we should make it clear to our employees that there is no need to be afraid. In the field of flower networking, burning money to kill your opponents was something Taobao did before. It happened during the Thousand Regiments War. In the past two years, your online appointment
The same has happened in the automotive field.
This is an internal problem that needs to be solved first. A team can win only by restoring morale. Xiaocheng, you and Liu Qing will be responsible. You can even pay some overtime subsidies appropriately."
Cheng Wei said convincingly: "Okay, Mr. Cai." The boss's perspective is different. In the fierce competition, he first emphasizes doing his own thing well.
“Second, how do we take down Uber?
I basically agree with the judgments of Liu Qing and Mr. Ren. China’s market size and capital are not enough to support the two online ride-hailing giants’ cash-burning operations. We must face reality and Didi is on the defensive. We will use our funds
Use it sparingly and keep Didi’s survival in key cities! Let Uber take the bulk of the share.
There is an old saying in China that goes, 'You can't be strong enough to last, and you can't be soft in defense.' We can't just defend. We can't just hope that Uber will burn through all its money in a few months. In this strategic stalemate, we
How to break Uber’s offense?
Three points. First, at the evening press conference, we must act as a weakling to drive domestic public opinion to boycott Uber..."
Listening to Cai Congxin's clear plan, Ren Zhi's mood was a bit complicated. He dared to join Didi and hit the well with a sap because he thought Didi could hold on. But after all, he was too young, which was ignored by Mr. Cai.
No, it fell off.
Mr. Cai’s thinking is very clear. He cannot compete with Phoenix Fund to burn money. Even if Didi has the support of two consortiums, Alibaba and Galaxy. Instead, it should compete with other business methods.
The question now is, how to mobilize public opinion to boycott Uber? Is it patriotic? There is nothing persuasive about this! Didi’s equity structure is also very complicated. If you say that Uber is a foreign-funded company, the effect will be limited.
Cai Congxin had a huge think tank behind him to provide support for his decision-making. At this time, his voice continued to reach Ren Zhi's ears: "
The number of online ride-hailing users is extremely large, and these user data cannot be placed in the hands of a foreign-funded company like Uber! We, Didi, must report it to the relevant departments. The ultimate goal is to persuade the state to intervene, so that Didi and Uber can
to take a dominant position in the merger.”
I go.
Awesome!
Ren Zhi felt like a bolt of lightning split through the dark sky. The haze that had been hidden in his heart due to his misjudgment of Jing Gao's identity and misjudgment of his funds disappeared.
And it sounds like Mr. Cai has other means of business competition.
This chapter has been completed!