Chapter 514 Overseas mergers and acquisitions are frequent, but Zhang Shuo has to be patient and restrained?!
At the beginning of 2016, various mergers and acquisitions were staged one after another.
On January 11, Mogujie and Nialishuo merged through a stock exchange at a consideration of 2:1. The new company’s overall valuation is nearly US$3 billion, and its prospects look very attractive.
This can be regarded as another merger and acquisition in China’s e-commerce field.
Mogu Street was established in 11 years. It is positioned as an e-commerce website focusing on female consumers. Relying on the fertile e-commerce soil of Mobao, Mogujie uses social platforms to guide traffic to Mobao through content models such as selection and shopping guide.
Thus rising rapidly.
At its peak, Mogu Street once provided 10% of Mobao's traffic, and its own number of users reached 60 million.
This also laid a "solid" foundation for the new company's valuation of US$3 billion.
But only Zhang Shuo knew that this was just a flash in the pan.
When the original Time and Space Mogu Street was listed in 2018, its market value had shrunk to US$1.5 billion, which was cut in half. By 2022, the latest market value was less than US$20 million.
It is no different from delisting.
………
The next day, Wangda announced that it would acquire 100% of the equity of Legendary Pictures in China for no more than US$3.5 billion in cash, making it the largest overseas cultural industry acquisition by a Chinese company to date.
After all, Lao Wang couldn't resist the urge to buy overseas.
Although the acquisition of a mere US$3.5 billion cannot be compared with the previous confrontations between Germination Storage and Dongzhi Flash Memory, including the ongoing acquisition of Xianzhengda.
But a single overseas acquisition exceeding 20 billion is considered a big deal.
But how to say——
Lao Wang is still too impulsive and his investment vision is not very good.
Leaving aside everything else, when it was acquired by Wanda, Legendary Pictures was burdened with debts of more than 9 billion U.S. dollars, and it was facing profit pressure. It was not really a high-quality asset.
The acquisition price of US$3.5 billion is a serious premium.
Wanda wants to give it a try, and even plans to integrate Wanda Pictures and Legendary Pictures to develop into a super film and television giant that spans the Chinese market and beyond.
The ideal is very full, but the reality is very skinny.
At the end of 2016, that is, at the end of this year, the movie "The Great Wall" was released. It was a box office success with both word-of-mouth and box office success, shattering its fantasy of creating a Chinese-style popcorn movie.
It also clearly exposes the smoke of the capital war between Wanda and Legendary Pictures to the world.
It can't be said to be tragic.
"The Great Wall" is a huge gamble for Wanda, with a so-called investment of one billion, top Chinese and foreign directors, and a Hollywood blockbuster. It is difficult to live up to its reputation.
Due to the Lunar New Year period and Wanda's strong support in the film schedule and release, the box office was only 1.17 billion in the end, which was far from reaching the return on investment ratio.
The most direct feedback is that Wanda Cinemas continues to decline. Ten days after "The Great Wall" was released, Wanda Cinemas' total market value evaporated by approximately 5.49 billion, a loss that even my grandma could not recognize.
Subsequently, the CEO of Legendary Pictures suddenly resigned, further confirming the failure of "The Great Wall".
What’s more ironic is——
Just half a year after "The Great Wall" failed, "Wolf Warrior 2" came out.
It can be seen that only the "earth" ones are the most fashionable.
In contrast, whether they are “foreign”, “half-local and half-foreign”, or even “looking like local but actually foreign”, it is difficult to truly please Chinese consumers.
………
Three days later.
Haier announced that it has reached a strategic cooperation memorandum with GE Group, a beautiful country. The former will acquire the home appliance business unit of GE Group for US$5.4 billion.
Another overseas merger and acquisition, and the amount was higher than Wanda.
After the acquisition is completed, Haier will obtain all the R&D and manufacturing capabilities of GE Home Appliances, nine factories in the United States, and logistics and distribution channels around the world.
GE has actually had the idea of selling its home appliance business for a long time.
As early as September 2014, the GE home appliance division announced that it would be sold to Yinlux. The price quoted at the time was US$3.3 billion. After more than a year of investigation, the transaction was stopped by Beautiful Country.
Subsequently, the GE home appliance business was put up for sale again, and buyers participating in the bidding included Samsung, LG, Haier and Mei. In the end, Haier won the GE home appliance business not because of its high bid.
This is not the first time that Haier has thoughts about ge.
As early as 2008, there were rumors in the industry that Haier wanted to acquire GE's home appliance business, but GE's value at that time was still too high for Haier.
Some comments said that Haier's "winning" of GE is a win-win situation.
Zhang Shuo, as someone who has experienced it, also knows that Haier's merger and acquisition of GE Home Appliances is generally successful, and the latter's market share in the beautiful country will still be on the rise in the future.
Unlike Wanda...
As for how much positive effects the acquisition of GE Home Appliances itself will have on Haier's global brand influence, global R&D capabilities, and overseas market development.
This is a matter of benevolence and wisdom.
………
But no matter what, the overseas mergers and acquisitions launched by Wangda and Haier one after another, together with the acquisition of Xianzhengda that Moya is currently participating in, have set off a wave of discussions on the Chinese Internet about companies going overseas.
"Wanda it's okay!"
For those born in the 1970s and 1980s, in the field of cultural industry, Hollywood is definitely one of the iconic symbols of strong overseas cultural output.
Wanda's acquisition of Legendary Pictures is very much like a reverse acquisition and counterattack.
Naturally, it makes some people feel excited!
"Compared with Wanda's acquisition of Legend, I appreciate Haier's acquisition of GE Home Appliances more. After all, manufacturing is the foundation. The so-called cultural industry can only be regarded as the icing on the cake at best."
"Yes, just like the acquisition of Xianzhengda that Moya participated in."
"There's no need to praise the high and underestimate the low, right? These are all overseas acquisitions. Wouldn't it be better to have more flowers? Let's look forward to the industrial blockbusters released by Wanda and Legendary Pictures this year."
On the Chinese Internet, there are still many people who have some kind of "belief" in Hollywood.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! It is even unbreakable.
………
Monday, January 18th.
At the meeting, Senior Vice President Lu Qi reported a piece of news, “Last week I attended the board of directors of Tenda Video and said that Tenda Video’s spin-off and listing plan had encountered obstacles.”
"Oh? What's the reason?" Zhang Shuo asked curiously.
"One is the protest by Tenda's small and medium-sized shareholders, saying that Tenda has already violated the interests of small and medium-sized shareholders by spinning off Tenda Music and listing it. Now it wants to spin off Tenda Video, which is even more intolerable."
Many of Tenda's major shareholders are also shareholders of Tenda Video.
on the contrary.
A large number of small and medium-sized shareholders only hold Tenda shares and only enjoy indirect benefits from Tenda Video.
Naturally, I felt violated.
"Again, in the eyes of investors, Tenda Video does not have any particularly outstanding advantages over Qiyi Video, Heyi Group and Beishi Video. Its future development is full of great uncertainties."
Especially with the acquisition of Qiyi Video by Qinghe Group, the long-form video field has become even more involved.
No wonder investors are not optimistic about Tenda Video.
However, given Tenda's resilience, it is estimated that it will continue to promote the spin-off and listing of Tenda Video in the future. Otherwise, it will be a heavy setback to its big entertainment strategy.
This is unacceptable to the current Tengda under any circumstances.
Later.
Lu Qi also reported on the progress of Qiyi Video’s search for TV manufacturer partners. “Currently, we are talking about major domestic brands such as Haixin, TCL, Skyworth, and Haier. The one with the most positive attitude is Haier.”
"Hail?"
Zhang Shuo was a little surprised. In his impression, Haier was most famous for its refrigerators, and TVs didn't seem to be its strong point.
"It's like this..." Seeing this, Lu Qi explained: "Haier probably hopes to establish a relationship with Qinghe Group and even Sprout through cooperation with Qiyi Video, and wants to cooperate with Qinghe Group in the field of intelligent home appliances.
We have reached strategic cooperation."
"So that's it."
Zhang Shuo suddenly realized that at last year's Internet Conference, the founder of Haier had proposed the idea of "interconnection" and had a brief conversation with Tan Yunsong.
It turns out that the foreshadowing has been laid for a long time.
Thinking back to Haier's recent acquisition of GE Home Appliances, it is not difficult to see Haier's expansion ambitions.
He is indeed very strategic.
"We can cooperate."
Zhang Shuo didn't think much and nodded in agreement, "In the early stages of development of the Xirang system, the overall tone of interconnection has been set. It's time to start the connection with smart home appliances."
Previously, in order to speed up the development progress of the Xirang operating system, the system was split into various subsystems, which were applied to mobile phones, tablets, laptops, smart watches and VR glasses.
And just in the second half of last year.
Xirang Technology has already started the system integration work on the three major platforms of mobile phones, tablets and smart watches. In the future, it will gradually integrate laptops, desktop computers and VR glasses.
Smart home appliances are naturally within the scope of integration of the Xirang system.
"Chairman, I have an idea."
Senior Vice President Gu Mingzhang intervened at the right time and said: "Look, we have the Xinliang System, Maili Group has also accumulated strong manufacturing capabilities, and at the same time we have a platform like Qiyi Video, so we have everything."
"In that case, can we consider referring to the model of Beiwang and produce smart TVs by ourselves?"
Gu Mingzhang didn't just do it temporarily.
Among many mobile phone manufacturers, Xiaomi has long been producing smart TVs, and Warwick is also following suit.
In this case, it seems logical for Maili Group to enter the smart TV track, and its conditions will only be better than Xiaomi and Warwick.
If you think about it more carefully, there is even a smart manufacturing platform like WALLI Intelligent Manufacturing under its banner.
It's simply a blessing.
"Forget it."
Zhang Shuo shook his head, "Smart TV is indeed a good track, and I also believe that Maili Group can do well. However, in terms of product diversification, Maili still needs to focus on the field of consumer electronics."
"So as not to dilute the brand value of MaiLi and dilute MaiLi's R&D focus."
After any company develops to a certain scale, it seems logical to take a diversified development path when it encounters a growth bottleneck.
But this is not the real optimal solution.
Because diversification often means that the company's organizational structure, business lines, etc., will become more and more bloated, which will not only dilute the brand influence, but more importantly, it will distract from focusing on the main business.
If one of them is not good, diversification may not be successful and the main business may be in crisis.
There are countless similar examples.
Of course, as Gu Mingzhang said, Maili Group has unique conditions to enter the smart TV track and is unlikely to affect its main consumer electronics business.
But the problem is——
If Maili Group makes a start now and enters the smart TV track, will it be able to enter the fields of smart speakers, smart refrigerators, smart air conditioners and other home appliances in the future?
The principles are the same!
Once you start shooting, there is no turning back.
Let’s take the Xiaomi mentioned by Gu Mingzhang just now as an example. In the original time and space, Xiaomi has made bold attempts on the road of diversification, making TVs, speakers, sweeping robots, air conditioners, etc.
In the future, we even set our sights on the new energy vehicle track.
Among them, Xiaomi TV focuses on high cost performance, and its sales even topped the Chinese market for a time, surpassing traditional TV manufacturers such as Hisense and TCL.
But if you look closely at its profit margin, it's hard to explain.
Analyzing Xiaomi's financial report, it is not difficult to find that although Xiaomi has made more achievements in diversified tracks, the absolute main source of revenue still comes from the mobile phone business.
Other products looked lively, but they did not really drive revenue growth significantly.
On the contrary, OV, which has always been focused on the smartphone track, has shown more restraint than Xiaomi in this area and knows how to concentrate its resources on the research and development of the mobile phone sector.
The subsequent performance in the high-end market will actually be better than that of Xiaomi.
These are all lessons!
On the other hand, it is precisely because Xiaomi's main business, the smartphone sector, has too low profit margins and has never been able to break through into the high-end market. In order to maintain revenue growth, it was "forced" to choose a diversified business strategy.
Including Xiaomi's subsequent car manufacturing, it is also based on the same logic.
The problem is that Maili, unlike Xiaomi, has now reached the top of the global high-end smartphone market, with frighteningly high profit margins, and future revenue growth will not be a problem.
Sales of its tablets, laptops, smart watches and other products are also increasing year by year.
Xiaomi has no worries at all.
In this case, we must not let the wheat go to waste. We must learn to properly control our desire for "diversification", concentrate our energy and resources, take root in the consumer electronics track, and continue to bring better products to consumers.
Rather than building a smart TV in pursuit of revenue.
For example, GE Group, in order to focus on its main business, even sold its home appliance business to Haier. There is really no reason for Maili Group to do the opposite.
There is another very important reason why Zhang Shuo disagrees with Maili Group’s entry into the smart TV track.
That is--
Chinese TV manufacturers, represented by Hisense, TCL, etc., have done very well, and their standards have reached the world's leading level, and they are even exploring overseas markets.
In that case, Maili Group really has no reason to join in the fun anymore.
"certainly!"
Zhang Shuo changed the topic and said with a smile: "Maili Group does not enter the smart TV track, but it does not need to sit on the sidelines. As we can see, the home appliance industry is ushering in a profound change in intelligence."
This is the general trend.
"The Maili Group can rely on Germination's accumulation in this area and use the Xi soil system as a platform to integrate resources from various aspects such as Qinghe Group, Fertile Land Research Institute, Nebula Group, etc., and play an enabling role in it to provide home appliance manufacturers with
Provide a full range of software services.”
The core of intelligence is software.
Otherwise, the founder of Haier would not have approached Tan Yunsong at the Internet conference before.
"Understood!"
After being prompted by the big boss, Gu Mingzhang was enlightened.