Huang Xiaofeng remembered another thing and asked Zhang Yida: "Mr. Zhang, will Green conduct another round of private equity financing or sell the company?"
Zhang Yida smiled with a playful look on his face: "What do you think?"
Huang Xiaofeng couldn't express his opinion on this matter, so he could only analyze Green's current situation objectively.
"Although our business has expanded to three continents, dozens of countries, and hundreds of cities.
But the issue of profitability is always a difficult problem that needs to be faced realistically.”
Zhang Yida nodded heavily, "Yes, none of the sharing economy companies in the world has yet made a profit.
Whether it’s Uber or Didi, they are all losing money.”
Seeing that Zhang Yida did not refute, but rather agreed with his own point of view, Huang Xiaofeng continued: "Shared electric scooters are just a subdivision of shared travel. Just like in China, with Uber here, our imagination space
Very limited.”
"Um!"
Zhang Yida made a soft nasal noise, and his thoughts suddenly drifted far away.
Whether it is for himself or for people-friendly travel, it is too late for Green to join the shared travel industry.
There are giants such as Didi and Uber on this track. No matter how hard we try, we can't reach their size.
As Ruixiang and Zhonghe continue to grow, he has learned to focus on the big and let go of the small, and most of his energy is focused on these two companies.
As for other companies, they are all transitional products. As long as the price is right, there is nothing they cannot sell.
Huang Xiaofeng added: "Also, most of the big cities in Europe and the United States are located in the northern hemisphere, where there are severe cold and heat, and people rarely use scooters to travel in the cold season. As a result, Green's actual operation only lasts for half a year, and its income will be greatly reduced."
In addition, we have to face the endless methods of competitors such as Lime and Bird.
Although these two companies are not as big as ours, they have also received a steady stream of financing.
They are crazy about launching electric scooters regardless of the cost. When we expand to Europe, they chase us all over Europe, just like a dog-skin plaster.
Although there is no price war, it is quite disgusting."
Zhang Yida sighed. Although he asked Howard to attach great importance to these two competitors, he still could not stop the rise of the other party.
It's just that compared to the market share of the previous life, the two companies' market share in this life is more than half lower.
In terms of size, the two companies combined are less than half of Green.
"I heard that the scooter was seriously damaged?"
Huang Xiaofeng got angry when he mentioned this. He waved his hand and said, "The quality of European and American people is just that. You can often see it in videos on social media. Some people will deliberately knock down rows of electric scooters, or throw electric scooters into the air."
Throw it out of the parking lot..."
Zhang Yida sneered, "This is normal, there are weird things everywhere."
He doesn't feel bad. The company is an American company, the employees are European and American, and the funds also come from Europe and the United States.
And he just provided a model or idea, without paying a dime.
Although these bicycles are company property, destroying them would also harm his interests as a shareholder.
But there is no way to prevent this kind of thing. Foreigners are used to doing things their own way, and they will never change their bad habits after just a few words of advice from you.
"Mr. Zhang, should we conduct another round of financing or sell the company?"
Zhang Yida glanced at him, looked into the distance, and said slowly: "Sell it for a cent!"
…
"Green for sale?"
Green's CEO Howard rushed back to the company from South America and immediately heard the breaking news from Zhang Yida.
Howard was a little confused. The company was in its prime development period and several competitors were far behind. Why were they thinking of selling the company?
“Boss, our company is now valued at over US$2.5 billion, and I am trying to raise a US$500 million round of private equity financing.
If we develop for another two years, we will definitely be able to list on Nasdaq with a market value of tens of billions of dollars."
Zhang Yida waved his hand, "Howard, have you thought about profitability?
After listing, how can we maintain the stock price if we are still losing money like now?
It is better to take advantage of the golden period of the market and exchange the equity for green dollars."
Howard was silent. Profitability is indeed a sentimental topic.
The shared travel market in the United States, whether it is Uber, which has the largest market share, or Lyft, which ranks second, all rely on financing.
Uber was the earliest company established in 2009, but it has not been profitable for nine years.
Lyft was established in 2012 and has suffered losses of US$600 million for two consecutive years.
If Green continues to raise funds, its shares will be significantly diluted, and it may not be cost-effective to sell it all at once.
He holds a 1.2% stake in Green Scooter. If he can sell the company at a valuation of US$2.5 billion, this option, deducting exercise costs, will bring him a return of more than US$15 million.
The part of the option that has not yet been exercised will have to be abandoned unless he joins the acquiring party and continues to work.
Thinking of the green US dollars and Zhang Yida's determination to sell the company, Howard no longer objected.
After company management reached an agreement, Green began to notify shareholders.
After Sun Zhengyi learned of the news, he quickly informed Uber's current CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
Uber has experienced a series of scandals in recent years, including sexual harassment, gender discrimination, driver complaints, large-scale leaks of user data, etc.
Founder Kalanick was ousted and replaced by Khosrowshahi, a typical professional manager who once served as the CEO of Expedia, which is listed on the US stock market.
Khosrowshahi was born in an investment bank and once served as CFO. While working at Expedia, he managed a series of beautiful mergers and acquisitions cases.
Because of his outstanding work performance, the board of directors rewarded him with a total salary of more than 90 million yuan in 2015, ranking among the highest executive salaries among all S&P 500 companies.
The Iranian-born CEO, who immigrated to the United States as a "refugee" with his parents in his early years, was so excited that he almost jumped when he learned from the major shareholder Masayoshi Son that Green was about to be sold.
Mergers and acquisitions are what he is best at.
He took over the position of CEO of Uber within a few months. He did several major things, reshaped the corporate culture, apologized to the public, etc., and finally pulled Uber out of the quagmire of scandal.
But these are all internal tasks.
He also needs to prove to the outside world and shareholders that he has the ability to lead Uber to expand its territory.
He was just thinking about how to break the situation, but news of Green's sale came out. He was so sleepy that someone gave him a pillow!
This shared electric scooter company has developed rapidly in Europe and the United States in recent years. It is deeply loved by young people and its operating data has also been rising.
They are also on the shared travel track. After acquiring Green, Uber can not only strengthen its market share in the large travel field, but also use Uber's resources to completely establish its dominance in the short-distance travel segment.
It is of great benefit to increase the company's valuation.
Khosrowshahi has always been a person who makes decisions before taking action. Instead of acting rashly, he called Didi CEO Chen Wei and asked the latter about Zhang Yida and the details of the merger and acquisition of Huimin Travel.
After ending the call, Khosrowshahi almost understood the reason why Zhang Yida sold Green.
This is an entrepreneur with lofty ideals, and Green may not be worth mentioning in his mind.
Seeing that there was no opportunity to grow bigger, I sold it casually.
Google and Lyft also quickly learned of Green's impending sale.
Unlike Google, which randomly dispatched an M&A team to participate in negotiations, Lyft CEO Logan Green attached great importance to this merger and sent a very high-standard M&A team. Except for him, all the company's CFO and others were dispatched.
Shared electric scooter companies such as Lime and Bird also used intermediaries to inquire about prices. Once they heard the quotations starting at US$2.5 billion, they disappeared without a trace.
…
Silicon Valley.
Inside the Green shared electric scooter company.
Three companies, Google, Uber and Lyft, were successfully shortlisted for negotiations.
As CEO, Howard serves as the host of this bidding auction.
He looked at the people from the three companies with a smile on his face and said: "The starting price of this auction is 2.5 billion US dollars, and the auction item is Green Shared Electric Scooter Company.
Only one quotation will be accepted, now please write your quotation in the envelope."
Zhang Yida watched this scene with a smile. He did not expect Green to be so attractive, attracting both the first and second brothers from North America who shared the ride.
As for Google, he guessed that it would be a soy sauce, and the final candidate would have to be chosen between Uber and Lyft.
Howard specifically added: "Under the same price, cash will be given priority."
Lyft CEO Logan Green said secretly that in terms of cash, they can't compete with Uber, which has strong financial resources.
In desperation, he wrote "US$1 billion in cash + US$2 billion in equity" on the paper.
US$1 billion in cash is already the limit that Lyft can bear. If it is more, it will have to launch another round of equity financing or use financial leverage to borrow money.
He felt that he had tried his best. If he still couldn't win the Green scooter, he could only say that he missed the chance.
He thinks that he and Green Scooter are quite destined because his name is the same as Green.
At first, there were a lot of jokes in Silicon Valley, thinking that Green Scooter was founded by him.
The Google representative looked expressionless and wrote "$2.5 billion in cash" on the paper.
He thought for a while, crossed out the number again, and changed it to "US$2.62 billion in cash."
Khosrowshahi seemed very confident. He just understood what Howard said about "prioritizing cash". Zhang Yida is still the same Zhang Yida.
This young rich man prefers cash rather than company equity in M&A transactions.
Although he was confident in the value of Uber's equity, he chose to fill out the form in all cash just to be on the safe side.
Google has always been interested in transportation and is one of Uber's early investors, holding more than 5% of Uber's shares.
But a few months ago, the relationship between Google and Uber soured, with Google's self-driving car unit suing Uber's self-driving company for patent infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets.
At the same time, Google also invested US$500 million in Lyft, Uber's arch-enemy, and became an important shareholder holding more than 5% of Lyft's shares.
To ensure nothing goes wrong, Khosrowshahi filled in "US$2.7 billion in cash + 100 million in equity."
The three letters were collected and opened on the spot. Zhang Yida looked at them and could only sigh that Uber is so damn rich.
"Congratulations to Uber, congratulations to Mr. Khosrowshahi."
When the final results were announced, the Google representative shrugged and walked away.
Logan Green looked disappointed and shook his head and walked away. It seemed that this Green really had no chance with him.
Khosrowshahi had a smile on his face and shook hands with Zhang Yida, Howard, Huang Xiaofeng and others one by one.
Zhang Yida is also very satisfied with the price, mainly the cash part, the number is large, and Uber is very sincere.
As for the US$100 million equity, ask SoftBank if he will take it. If he does, sell all of his share to SoftBank.