"Mr. Zhang, you really guessed it. Ms. Pang from Ahli came to negotiate with me again."
Rocket.com CEO Mark started laughing while talking on the phone. It was obvious that he was in a good mood at the moment.
Zhang Yida was discussing the next shared bicycle operation strategy with Huang Xiaofeng. When he received a call from Mark, he gave Huang Xiaofeng a "pause" gesture and started chatting with Mark in detail.
"Yeah?"
Zhang Yida smiled and was not surprised by this result. For Ali, hundreds of millions of dollars are far less than the time saved and the grand international expansion blueprint.
"Then what price did Pang Lei offer you?" Zhang Yida asked Mark with a smile.
"2.2 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of fully... 200 million U.S. dollars from last time."
Mark especially emphasized the word "200 million U.S. dollars" and made a long sound.
Zhang Yida was lying on the sofa, put the phone to his ear, and continued to ask: "Then do you think this price reaches the upper limit of their minimum price?"
"Definitely not!"
Mark said in a very affirmative tone that he was also a very "competent" businessman. In his opinion, Ahri's talks collapsed last time and he came back to eat again this time. He must be doing this because he valued Laizanda.
Zhang Yida also mentioned Ali's international strategy to him, and he now agrees with Zhang Yida's point of view: Lazanda is a very important overseas springboard for Ali and has an irreplaceable role.
"Then how much do you think Lazanda should be sold for?"
Mark replied without thinking: "3 billion U.S. dollars! Not even one cent less!"
Zhang Yida smiled and shook his head. Mark really regarded Ah Li as his son.
Originally, I wanted to sell it for US$2 billion. If I hadn't been there to dissuade it, I might have sold it long ago.
Now it seems that Ahri has changed his mind and wants to sell it for US$3 billion.
But everything goes too far, and Zhang Yida is really afraid that Ahli will be angered, so he will buy a small e-commerce company by himself and slowly start operating it in Southeast Asia.
If that really happened, Zhang Yida would be dumbfounded. He spent hundreds of millions of dollars in it and then "deeply locked up" himself.
If Pinduoduo now has a market value of tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of millions of users, and hundreds of billions of GMV, Zhang Yida would not be unable to consider whether to take over Lazada.
But now that Pinduoduo’s domestic affairs have not been straightened out, how can it dare to blindly expand overseas?
After Pinduoduo develops for another two years, it will almost have its roots firmly established, and it won’t be too late to go overseas by then.
Zhang Yida decided to persuade Mr. Mark, who was obsessed with money-seeking, and said: "Mr. Mark, there is an old saying in China that says, "take it when it's good, stop it when it's good."
Mark recited an old Chinese saying by Zhang Yida: When we are still at the forefront of doing something, we can consider whether we should stop. If we continue to persist, it does not mean that the result will be better.
Mark silently pondered the meaning of this sentence and lamented that Chinese is really broad and profound!
"Jack Ma has a very bad temper. I'm afraid that if I push him too hard, if he doesn't acquire Lazada and starts his own platform, we will be dumbfounded.
With more than 2 billion US dollars in acquisition funds pouring into Southeast Asia, I believe that in less than 2 years, Ali will be able to build Lazada from scratch to its current size.
Ahri does not lack funds, manpower, experience, nothing, the only thing it lacks is time.
This is why they chose to acquire Lazada instead of building an e-commerce platform from scratch."
Mark still respects Zhang Yida's opinion. First of all, Zhang Yida is an Internet tycoon whose net worth is not weaker than his. In addition, he also expects that he will turn around if he wins Ahri.
So Mark is now very willing to cooperate with Zhang Yida, communicate more with each other, and strive to sell Lazada at a good price. He added:
"Okay then! Since you said that, Mr. Zhang, you must have a point.
You are in China, and you must be more familiar with Mr. Ah Li and Jack Ma than we are.
Mr. Zhang, what do you think our base price should be?"
Zhang Yida thought for a while and said: "2.5 billion US dollars! You and Pang Lei can slowly adjust the price!"
Anyway, it's them who are worried, not you.
All you have to do is act like you want to sell the company but are concerned about the price.
Keep Ahri hopeful that this deal can be negotiated. That way they can give you a little increase in price until you reach your goal."
After hearing this, Mark smiled and said: "Mr. Zhang, you are really a difficult opponent. You don't look like a 21-year-old young man at all."
"You have ambitions but not your youth!" Zhang Yida said another golden sentence.
"Whether a person has ambition or not has nothing to do with his age!"
Mark exclaimed: "Is this also what ancient Chinese philosophers said? It seems that I have to study Chinese carefully. It is really interesting."
Zhang Yida taught Mark a few more famous aphorisms before hanging up the phone.
Then he called Song Caiwei and said: "Go and purchase a set of Xinhua Dictionaries, as well as three hundred Tang poems and the Three-Character Classic.
Oh, by the way, there is also a Chinese-German dictionary.
Then mail it to Mr. Mark from German Rocket Network."
Huang Xiaofeng was a little curious and asked: "What operation is this?"
"The barbarian country admires the Chinese culture and asked me to help."
…
"Ms. Pang, happy to cooperate!"
Pang Lei was furious when she saw the "dishonest" German in front of her. She reluctantly shook hands with Mark and said, "Congratulations, Mr. Mark, you have done a good business!"
Mark smiled and said, "Ms. Pang, you have also gained a mature and stable e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia. In the future, Ali Group will definitely become an international giant comparable to Amazon."
Lazada was sold for a good price, a full 2.6 billion US dollars, and Mark was in a good mood and praised the other party.
Pang Lei sighed helplessly. Although the acquisition price of US$2.6 billion did not exceed her bottom line, the feeling of being ripped off was really unpleasant.
She has been in Germany for several days and negotiates with Mark every day.
Her initial acquisition offer was US$2.2 billion, but the Mark in front of her remained unmoved. He told her every day about how promising Lazada was and how much its revenue had grown.
If Mark hadn't relaxed a little and the quotation would drop a little every day, she would have thought that the other party was not sincere and returned home.
In this way, Pang Lei raised prices by tens of millions of dollars every day, and Mark lowered prices by tens of millions of dollars every day.
After nearly a week of negotiations, the deal was finally settled at a price of US$2.6 billion.
Pang Lei was very dissatisfied with this result. If Jackma hadn't specifically told her to complete the transaction within a week, she felt that she would have been able to negotiate a better purchase price.
But now that the matter has come to this, she just wants to know about it as quickly as possible.
Then she flew to the United States and Singapore to negotiate with JP Morgan, Temasek and other shareholders.
Rui Xiang, the largest shareholder, was placed last because she was afraid that Zhang Yida would raise the price.
However, Zhang Yida did not come forward, and it was Lan Lan who was responsible for negotiating with Pang Lei.
In an office in Ruixiang, Lan Lan chatted enthusiastically with Pang Lei.
"Mr. Pang, I have known for a long time that you are a role model for Chinese business women. Unfortunately, I have never had the opportunity to meet you. Today I finally met you."
Pang Lei didn't take Lan Lan's praise seriously and replied: "Mr. Lan, you are also very good. You have become Ruixiang's CFO in your early 30s."
The two exchanged business compliments, but no one got to the point rashly.
In the end, it was Lan Lan who got to the point first, "Mr. Pang, are you here for Zanda's business?"
"good!"
When Pang Lei said this, she was very confident. Except for Ruixiang, she had reached agreement with all other Lazada shareholders.
As a major shareholder with little voting rights, Ruixiang cannot stop the transaction even if he wants to.
At most, it’s just not selling the shares!
Ruixiang didn't sell her shares, so she had already considered a way to deal with it, which was to keep injecting capital, then burning money, injecting capital again, and burning money again...
If Ruixiang does not follow the capital injection, the shares will be diluted. If Ruixiang does follow the capital injection, it will be better, and it can use Ruixiang's money to develop Lazada.
Anyway, the controlling rights are in Ahri's hands, and there is no fear of Ruixiang taking away the control of the company. What a blessing it is to have a small shareholder who will follow suit and contribute money and efforts.
As for financial dividends, judging from Lazada's cash-burning efficiency, there is no need to think about it within five years.
Even if it makes a profit or goes public, Ruixiang will at least get some financial returns.
For Ahri, the significance of strategic holdings is the most real. If Ruixiang does not withdraw, it will not be a big deal, and it will not cause any trouble anyway.
"Other shareholders have also informed us of this."
Lan Lan nodded and said, "The price is US$2.6 billion, right? Ruixiang is willing to sell all the shares and not keep any share."
Pang Lei was a little surprised. She originally thought she would need a good argument, but she didn't expect Rui Xiang to be so easy to talk to.
No price was discussed, no shares were retained, no conditions were negotiated, all the shares were sold.
Pang Lei had some delusions for a while. Was Zhang Yida's conscience aware of it? He felt that he had done too many bad things and wanted to change his ways.
But she quickly dismissed the idea from her mind, guessing that Zhang Yida was doing it purely to make money.
She calculated Ruixiang's investment and found that the two rounds of investment totaled only US$430 million. Based on the purchase price of US$2.6 billion, Ruixiang, which held 24.72% of the shares, could receive an exit return of US$642.72 million.
In less than a year of investment, the net profit exceeded US$210 million, and the annual return rate exceeded 50%.
Zhang Yida enjoyed this bite, but Ah Li suffered a lot.
Pang Lei didn't gossip much, took out the equity transfer intention agreement, and signed it on the spot with Lan Lan on behalf of both parties.
Then Lazanda held a general meeting of shareholders to vote on the draft resolution on the acquisition.
When Lazada CEO Bitne received the news, he was completely confused.
In addition to the founding management team, other shareholders have agreed to approve Ali's acquisition draft.
Bitnet's arms couldn't twist his legs, and he and the management team, who lacked voting rights, had no choice but to follow the crowd and agree to sell the company.
In this way, the acquisition of Southeast Asia’s largest Internet company came to an end.
The “sky-high price” acquisition of US$2.6 billion shocked the entire Internet community in Southeast Asia.
Ahri, the big financier, also became popular. The Japanese media called out: Ahri makes no secret of his ambition to dominate the world!
Some media are also paying attention to how much returns Rui Xiang, the largest shareholder of Lazada, has received!
Ruixiang released a little bit of news and made a profit of more than 200 million US dollars.
The media then helped Ruixiang calculate the return on investment. After investing US$100 million for nearly one year and US$330 million for three months, the profit exceeded US$200 million, and the annual return on investment was as high as 116%.
The investors of the third phase of Ruixiang Industrial Fund all called individually and had a few words with Zhang Yida.
But unfortunately, Lazada’s first investment of US$100 million came from the second phase of the fund, and the second US$330 million came from Ruixiang’s own funds.
When I invested in Zanda, the third phase of the industrial fund had not yet been announced! In other words, major investors were still hesitating.
Missing out on Lazada's huge returns made the investors of the third phase of the fund all beat their chests, and at the same time they became more confident in holding on to Zhang Yida's thigh.
Zhang Yida didn't feel anything special, he just made more than a dozen small goals and distributed part of it to the investors of the second phase of the fund. What really belonged to Ruixiang was just over 100 million, in US dollars.
But this acquisition also made Ruixiang Industrial Fund famous. At the same time, it also sent a message to the outside world: investing in the Internet in Southeast Asia can really make money.
Many domestic venture capital firms are gearing up to enter Southeast Asia.