Chapter 315 Tengda: I feel like I can do it again!
Both of Lu Kai's proposals were approved by Zhang Shuo.
AutoNet is expected to raise 3 billion, Qingcheng Group is expected to receive 6.34 billion in liquidity, plus the Dream Fund's $1 billion in debt, the total is 15.74 billion.
All put in place, it will be enough to support the expansion of Germination throughout this year.
The problem of tight cash flow has been initially resolved.
Zhang Shuo also breathed a sigh of relief, and then chatted with Lu Kai about another matter: "As mentioned before, we want to recruit a vice president of the group from outside to be responsible for the group's Internet business. How is it going?"
"Director Wu and I screened it several times and finally locked in one person."
"who?"
"Lu Qi!"
"He, he..."
Zhang Shuo did not expect that Lu Kai and Wu Sheyuan had quite big appetites.
Lu Qi, born in 1961, is another young genius in the Chinese computer field. He served as senior vice president and executive vice president of Yahu. In 2008, he joined Weisoft as the general manager of the Internet business department.
He later served as executive vice president of Weiruan.
It is the highest level position held by a Chinese person in the headquarters of a global technology company.
It is reported that Lu Qi was originally a strong competitor for Weiruan CEO, but for unknown reasons, he suddenly resigned from Weiruan in 2016 due to physical reasons.
Later, he joined Qiandu in 2017 and served as the president of Qiandu.
It is said that Mr. San has placed high hopes on Lu Qi, hoping that Lu Qi can clean up Qiandu from within, let Qiandu start anew, get out of the mobile Internet dilemma, and lead Qiandu to greatness again.
During his tenure at Qiandu, he indeed made many achievements.
Unfortunately, Lu Qi resigned from Qiandu again after only two years of service at Qiandu, ending with regret.
It seems a bit sad.
There is no doubt that Lu Qi is a technical genius, especially in the two major fields of search and artificial intelligence. He has made profound achievements and has strong leadership.
Weiruan CEO once said this about him——
Lu Qi combines senior professional technical knowledge, excellent leadership skills and extensive business knowledge, making him a very rare talent in the industry.
no doubt.
Lu Qi perfectly meets Zhang Shuo's selection criteria for the vice president of the sprout group. His arrival will not only lead Qinghe Technology and Qingyun Data, but also make up for sprout's shortcomings in the search field.
Although Zhang Shuo is unwilling to call Meiya a pure Internet company, in fact, every business of Meiya is closely related to software.
Not to mention smartphones, the software of electric vehicles is also the core.
The issue is--
"Will Lu Qi himself be willing to join Sprout?"
Lu Qi is now the executive vice president of Weiruan. If he joins Sprout, even if he can serve as rotating president and vice president like Lu Kai, Jiang Yue, and Gu Mingzhang, it is basically a horizontal transfer.
It's not even as good as the treatment given to Lu Qi by the original Thousand Degrees of Time and Space.
"Mr. Zhang, you are so humble."
Lu Kai laughed, "Looking around the world, there are really not many people who would refuse an invitation from Sprout."
After three days of separation, treat each other with admiration.
With Weixin breaking out of the industry, and its layout in semiconductors, smartphones, electric vehicles and other fields, coupled with its dominant strength in the field of mobile games, the sprout is no longer the sprout it once was.
Even in the eyes of outsiders, Germination is already the world's number one unicorn company in terms of valuation.
There is a future with infinite possibilities.
Especially with the arrival of the 4G era, as the biggest dark horse in the mobile Internet era, the budding future is full of unlimited imagination.
In the eyes of people like Lu Kai who know the inside story, as long as the two businesses of Maili Mobile and Mango Auto are the same, it is not impossible for Germination to surpass Weiruan in the future.
After all, Weiruan is on the decline, and sprouts represent the future.
"Director Wu and I have communicated with Lu Qi through emails. Lu Qi himself is obviously a little moved. We only need Mr. Zhang to come forward in person and meet once, and the negotiation can basically be concluded."
Compared with Zai Weiruan touching the ceiling, for Lu Qi, Mo Ya Wu Wu is a better choice.
"OK."
Zhang Shuo was very pleased that Lu Kai did not set up obstacles when recommending Lu Qi, but acted very magnanimously.
honestly.
Once Lu Qi joins Sprout, he will definitely be one of the strong contenders to become the president of Sprout in the future.
It can also be seen as Lu Kai's competitor.
But the good thing is that Sprout Group implements a rotating president system, which ensures that high-level talents like Lu Kai, Lu Qi, and Gu Mingzhang can coexist in Sprout.
Rather than constraining each other.
"Lu Qi will also be invited to the Internet Conference next Thursday, right? During the Internet Conference, you can arrange for me to meet Lu Qi." Zhang Shuo was of course happy to see it.
"good!"
Lu Kai smiled and agreed, then stood up and left.
………
Two days later.
Zhang Shuo went to Yangcheng and chaired a meeting of the Qingcheng Group's board of directors, notifying the company of the need to pay RMB 50 billion in service fees to Weixin. He also proposed a RMB 5 billion capital increase and the timely launch of Series B financing.
Not surprisingly.
Both proposals were unanimously approved by the board of directors.
Pei Weiping and Wang Xin both had their approval in advance, so it was useless for other directors to object.
Even though I feel a little uncomfortable, the request made by Meiya is reasonable and reasonable. Just because Meiya is the controlling shareholder of Qingcheng Group, we can’t just not charge a penny in service fees, right?
In business, there is absolutely no such truth.
If Qingcheng Group were not a company owned by Sprout, but instead it was Nomi.com, Alibaba-Dianping, etc., it would probably be happy to pay a higher service fee than Qingcheng to obtain Weixin traffic support.
In just two months of attracting traffic, Qingcheng APP’s daily activity increased by 30%.
How terrifying is this?
Those who can participate in Qingcheng Group’s investment are all smart people, and of course they understand this truth.
It's just that Wang Xin's expression is a little tangled.
So after the board meeting, Zhang Shuo was in the office and made a special appointment to meet with Wang Xin.
As the chairman of Qingcheng Group, Zhang Shuo not only has an independent office in Qingcheng Building, but also the most luxurious one in terms of specifications and interior decoration.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Although Zhang Shuo rarely comes to Qingcheng Group a few times a year.
Every time I come here, I mainly attend the board meeting. I often leave directly after the meeting. I don't even use this office, but it is still cleaned every day.
Not only the tabletop is spotless, but the pure water in the water dispenser is also changed every day.
Ensure it is available at all times.
Pei Weiping is always meticulous in these small details.
"Mr. Lu told you, didn't he? If the funds needed for this capital increase are inconvenient, the group can help advance part of it." Zhang Shuo took the initiative to open the topic.
"said."
Wang Xin was a little cautious, "Thank you, Mr. Zhang, for your concern. I'm really nervous recently."
In the final analysis.
Wang Xin is an entrepreneurial talent. He used to be the boss, but he is still a little uncomfortable facing Zhang Shuo.
Strictly speaking.
Zhang Shuo can even be said to be Wang Xin's descendant when it comes to starting a business.
It definitely requires a mental adjustment process.
Fortunately, Wang Xin is also a professional. After opening the topic, he immediately began to report on the work, focusing on the integration of Moutuan and Qingcheng, as well as Qingcheng's expansion in new business formats such as tourism and hotels.
Zhang Shuo had actually heard about it for a long time.
In the past two months, Qingcheng Group's cultural and tourism division, under the personal leadership of Wang Xin and taking advantage of the guidance of Weixin, has done a great job, and its market share has been rising steadily.
Services have been gradually opened in all first- and second-tier cities.
Compared with the Du Qingqing era, it was just a trial operation in Binhai and Yangcheng, which was undoubtedly a big step forward. On average, a new city was won every three days.
This is due not only to Wang Xin's leadership, but also to the powerful local promotion team that Wang Xin has cultivated since his bad days.
This powerful local promotion team, with its super strong execution ability and referring to the previous group buying war model, continues to conquer cities and territories in the tourism and hotel fields.
It's simply a no-brainer.
After winning the Thousands of Groups War, it only took three or four years for the original space mold group to expand its business from group buying to various local lifestyle businesses such as food delivery, travel, hotels, and movie tickets.
It's not unreasonable.
It also reflects from the side that it was indeed a very cost-effective deal for Qingcheng Group to absorb Mold Group.
Merging the business is another step, the key is that talent is hard to come by.
It is no exaggeration to say that although Qingcheng Group has not participated in the food delivery war from beginning to end, Qingcheng has been at the forefront in the local life service track.
Not to mention, two new businesses, Qingcheng Bicycle and Shared Power Bank, are still incubating.
"What is the response to Qingcheng's efforts in hotel and tourism business, dolphin travel and camel travel?" Zhang Shuo asked.
Whether it is dolphin safari or camel safari, they are all old players in the tourism industry.
"They're a little anxious."
Wang Xin is naturally also paying attention to the developments of these two competitors.
"According to the information I have received, Scarlet Capital seems to be interested in recruiting Tengda to promote the merger of dolphin travel and camel travel, in order to build a moat and prevent Qingcheng from expanding its tourism and hotel business."
"Oh, it's the same old trick again."
Capital only has this ability. If it cannot defeat them, it will promote mergers and form a market monopoly.
Zhang Shuo was not surprised at all that Tengda was involved this time.
Not to mention Tenda’s recent concern with Bu Ya, even if it is just for business reasons, after the wholly-owned acquisition of Dacong Dianping, Tenda originally intended to expand its investment in the local life service industry.
In order to promote Tenda Map and Caifutong with the help of local life service scenes.
The latter two are of great significance to Tenda.
Especially Caifutong, which originally wanted to challenge the status of wealth treasure, but before the challenge was successful, Weixin Pay came out halfway.
Now, let alone challenge to get rich, it is still at a disadvantage in the competition with Weixin Pay.
Take the local life service track, because Zhang Shuo is very interesting and did not disable the Fortune Treasure in Qingcheng app. Ali Dianping also introduced Weixin payment.
Although you have to scroll down to find it, at least it's not an alternative.
Nomi.com, a subsidiary of Qiandu, uses Weixin Pay as its main payment tool due to the good cooperative relationship between Qiandu and Sprout and the fact that Qiandu itself has no payment tools.
That is to say.
Among the four local life service giants, Weixin Pay accounts for three and Caifutong accounts for only one.
Make a decision!
In addition to the local life track, Weixin Pay is superior to Caifutong in various scenarios such as mobile game recharge payment and offline payment, and it is already a strong challenger to Zhifubao.
How can this not make Tengda anxious?!
"If dolphin travel and camel travel merge, how much impact will it have on Qingcheng's tourism and hotel business?" Zhang Shuo asked.
"To be honest, it's quite a challenge."
Wang Xin is also very pragmatic, "After all, these two are old travel websites. Not only are they rich in experience, but the key is that they have accumulated a sufficient number of customers and merchants. Once merged, it will be difficult for other new forces to get involved."
Since there is Tengda's shadow behind him.
You don’t need to think about it to know that after the merger of the two companies, Tenda will definitely divert traffic through ICQ.
This will further weaken Qingcheng Group’s advantages.
Although Weixin's reputation is better than that of ICQ, user inertia cannot be ignored. Coupled with the huge user base accumulated by ICQ, even if Tenda looks ugly, it still has huge traffic.
The value of the ICQ secondary entrance must not be ignored.
"Then do you have any way to prevent the merger of these two companies? For example, anti-monopoly or something like that." Zhang Shuo asked.
"It's hard to stop."
Wang Xin is not optimistic, "You know China's anti-monopoly aspects, especially in the Internet industry."
"All right!"
Of course Zhang Shuo understands that even after a few years, the changes will be limited.
A fine of hundreds of thousands or millions is probably not even a scratch for the giants. Only a few companies such as Ahri and Moutuan have experienced the iron fist of antitrust.
But Tengda has always been a thief.
"Ahem, regarding dolphin travel and camel travel, I have heard people complain. They say that using Xiaomi and iPhone, new users and old users in the same hotel have different prices. It seems that there is a phenomenon of big data killing familiarity.
.I don’t know, have you noticed any related issues?”
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Since other methods don't work, Zhang Shuo can only give Wang Xin some evil tricks.
In my impression, the big data industry has been heavily exposed since 2018. Taxi rides, ride-hailing services, including dolphin travel and camel travel all have similar problems.
But Zhang Shuocai is not good at it. These companies only started to mature in 2018.
It must have started early.
Zhang Shuo of the original time and space hated this behavior deeply, and the fly restaurant, second only to the takeout industry, took this opportunity to pop the pustule in advance.
It can also serve as a warning to those who come after you, not to look too ugly when eating.
It can be said that it achieves multiple things with one stone.
"This is an easy thing to do...cough..."
Wang Xin's eyes lit up subconsciously, and then he realized something was wrong, and quickly changed his words and said: "This is a good breakthrough, I will arrange for someone to test it."
Once relevant evidence is obtained, it will be a trump card in dealing with the merger of the two companies.
"Just arrange it."
Zhang Shuo glanced at Wang Xin and said, "I declare once again that Qingcheng will never engage in such crooked ways. If you find out, don't blame me for being merciless."
"Don't worry."
Wang Xin looked stern, but he really listened.
At the end of the conversation, Wang Xin did not forget to congratulate Zhang Shuo: "Mr. Zhang, congratulations."
"Congratulations for what?"
Zhang Shuo was confused.
"Congratulations on winning the Youth Medal."
"Oh, you said this, thank you."
Today is the May 4th Youth Day. Just yesterday, the official announced the list of this year’s Youth Medal winners. Zhang Shuo’s name was prominently listed, becoming the only young entrepreneur.
It's a great honor.
The official can nominate Zhang Shuo, not only because he has done a good job, but also because he is a role model and benchmark in fulfilling corporate social responsibilities.
The meaning of pushing Zhang Shuo to the front desk is self-evident.
………
After meeting Wang Xin, Zhang Shuo met Pei Weiping.
It must be exposed to both rain and dew.
Compared to meeting Wang Xin, Pei Weiping was an old subordinate and one of the executives Zhang Shuo relied on and trusted the most, so the atmosphere of the conversation was naturally more relaxed.
"Fifty billion service fees, are you stressed?" Zhang Shuo asked with a smile.
Ahri can easily withdraw 35 billion. That's Ahri's size and brand influence. In addition, Ahri has already achieved profitability, so it is natural that it is full of confidence.
Green and orange are different.
Counting from the roots of Qingcheng Retail, it has only been established for two years, and it is still in a period of losses.
It's just killing me.
But there is no way, the brothers still have to settle the accounts openly.
If Qingcheng collapses because it cannot afford the service fee, or fails to operate properly, it will be nothing but proof that the business model Zhang Shuo gave Qingcheng is not working.
As early as when Qingcheng launched its Series A financing, it was destined to be unable to receive blood transfusions from Germination.
It is necessary to be self-reliant.
In the business circle, if you are unable to make a profit, the so-called self-reliance only has financing, and it is difficult to obtain loans from banks.
this is the truth.
"There must be pressure, and I have to pay it off in five years, otherwise I won't be able to handle it." Even if he encounters difficulties, Pei Weiping speaks in a leisurely manner.
"But it's okay, I can still resist."
"In addition to the capital increase and Series B financing you proposed, I also plan to issue some corporate bonds at the right time. At the same time, I will cry with the Yangcheng officials to see if I can get some bank loans."
After all, Qingcheng Group is also a company in Yangcheng.
Yangcheng cannot ignore it at all.
If this is really the case, Qingcheng Group can move its headquarters to other cities, such as Jiangxia, Shancheng, and Rongcheng. They will probably welcome them with both hands, and they will definitely give them what they ask for.
Because it is not a physical manufacturing industry, relocating the headquarters can only take a matter of minutes.
Can Yangcheng really remain indifferent?
A unicorn company with a valuation of 60 to 70 billion, even in Yangcheng, must treat it as a treasure.
"It's a good idea to feed the crying baby."
Zhang Shuo was very pleased that Pei Weiping did not strictly adhere to the circles drawn by the board of directors, but found his own way. This is what a qualified professional manager should do.
You can't wait for everything, you have to use your subjective initiative.
"Let me tell you the truth too."
There are things that I can say more clearly with Pei Weiping in private.
"For the second tens of billions of service fees next year, the group's initial idea is to increase capital. By the year after next, the third tens of billions of service fees will be almost ready to start Series C financing."
Wait until then.
Qingcheng’s valuation must have already exceeded 100 billion, and it is no problem to raise tens of billions.
"good!"
Pei Weiping also quietly breathed a sigh of relief, feeling more confident.
………
After returning from Yangcheng, Zhang Shuo visited the old man again on the weekend and chatted with his second uncle.
"Don't eat alone, that's good."
Tang Yi was very pleased that Zhang Shuo was able to adjust his business strategy in a timely manner. He smiled and said, "Now that the funding problem has been solved, will Germination make another big move?"
"No way."
Zhang Shuo deliberately let it go.
"Xiao Shuo, what you said last time about building a research university in Binhai City, how is the progress?" Mr. Tang rarely cared about Zhang Shuo.
This surprised the second uncle and Zhang Shuo.
Since he retired, the old man has enclosed himself in a small courtyard and has not heard what is going on outside the window. However, he rarely cares about the outside world. Even if he witnessed the sprout growing from scratch, he never made a sound.
did not expect.
Today I broke my precept and rarely paid attention to the progress of the establishment of Haibin University.
"At Sprout, we are already conducting feasibility studies one by one on the site selection, planning and design, school running philosophy, school scale, school running methods, etc. of Haibin University. A detailed project report has not yet been formed."
Zhang Shuo answered honestly.
"This is a major event that will benefit the future. We must be cautious and hurry up. It is the name of Binhai University, and it is easy to be confused with Binhai University. Can I make a suggestion?"
"Of course, please tell me."
Zhang Shuo was flattered. The more he learned about Mr. Tang's resume, the more he respected him.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "Let's call it Eastern University of Science and Technology."
"Hey, this name is so domineering!!!"
According to Zhang Shuo's original intention, of course he was as low-key as he could be. How dare he choose such a domineering name.
But when Mr. Tang opened Chrysostom, the meaning was completely different.
"Okay, let's call it Eastern University of Science and Technology."
Zhang Shuo is also under a lot of pressure. If he doesn't do well, he will really live up to this good name.
………
Monday, May 7th.
Just one weekend has passed, and the news is already circulating on the Internet that the news that Dolphin Travel and Camel Travel are about to merge is probably news deliberately released by Scarlet Capital and Tenda.
Test out the reactions of all parties.
And it coincides with the eve of the Internet Conference, so this news has attracted even more attention.
Netizens first scolded him as a sign of respect.
"Yoo yo, why don't you join if you can't beat me?"
"Let me go, what the hell is this, just playing house?"
"If these two companies merge, will we, the customers, still have a say? We will no longer be at the mercy of others."
"Monopoly, this is Chi Guoguo's monopoly!!!"
"I was wrong. I solemnly apologize to Meiya. I complained about Meiya's lack of ideals before. Now it seems that Meiya is many times better than Tengda."
"Without comparison, there is no harm."
…
There is no doubt that netizens are usually dissatisfied with Tengda's ugly eating appearance, but they can only vent their dissatisfaction online.
Apart from that, nothing can be done.
At the same time, news that AutoNet plans to transfer part of its shares before going public, including that Qingcheng Group is about to launch Series B financing, has quietly spread in the venture capital circle.
It exploded instantly.
Just like before, countless investors and investment institutions began to go crazy, using various methods to contact the Sprout Investment and M&A Department, Qingcheng Group, Automobile Network, etc. to inquire about the news.
Everyone wants to get a piece of the action.
Naturally, the legend about the Meng King's awakening spread more and more widely, which slightly wiped away Zhang Shuo's reputation.