“Boss, the Chinese portal had been acquired, and is fully owned by us,” Ralph called to report.
“Good job. Have you contacted those two professors to buy their Sohu’s shares? How is progress?”
Feng Yu is satisfied. After acquiring that US Chinese web portal, Wang Zhixi’s web portal will merge with that portal to form Sina, and they will overtake Sohu and Netease to be the biggest Chinese web portal.
Sohu and Netease had started before Sina and Sohu depended entirely on venture capital funding. Zhang Chaoyang had gotten the funding from his former Professors to start Sohu, and the shares of the company were shared equally between the three of them.
Ding Lei had set up Netease himself, and he owns 53% of the company’s shares.
But both companies had reached a bottleneck now, and the main reason is the shortage of funds. In Feng Yu’s previous life, Ding Lei had gotten venture capital funding from Sun Zhengyi (Masayoshi Son) to let Netease develop quickly.
Sina had also gotten funding from Sun Zhengyi, as he likes investing in such tech firms.
But in this life, Sun Zhengyi will not have the chance to profit from China because Zhang Chaoyang and Ding Lei had approached Tai Hua Consultancy.
Since Zhang Chaoyang and Ding Lei had approached Tai Hua Consultancy, Feng Yu will not let them go to that Japanese company. These three companies are the top three Chinese web portals in the future and will bring in profits for Feng Yu within five years.
If these companies got listed, Feng Yu might double his profits within two to three years.
Look at Sun Zhengyi. He had invested 100 million into Yahoo two years ago for a third of the company’s shares, and he sold 2% of the company’s shares for 400 million USD! The return is more than ten times, and Yahoo shares are still rising.
Although Sina, Sohu, and Netease shares will not shoot up like Yahoo, their shares increased by several folds after they got listed.
“Boss, one of those two professors are willing to sell his shares to us, but his asking price is higher than the highest offer you set. The other professor is not willing to sell, and his asking price is doubled on your highest offer!”
Huh?
Feng Yu had got a headache. His highest offer is set at double the market value. Those old professors wanted double of my highest offer?! Does that mean Feng Yu has to buy their shares at four times the market value?!
But when Feng Yu thought about Sohu’s future development, it’s worth it! Most importantly, Zhang Chaoyang and his team cannot be valued in monetary terms.
“Continue to negotiate with them, and you must acquire their shares at all costs!”
Ralph knew Feng Yu is set to acquire those shares and is willing to pay more than four times the market value. Of course, Ralph will not buy the shares at four times the market value. If he is going to do that, Feng Yu will not need him anymore.
“Yes.”
Now, Feng Yu is going to gain control of Sohu and Sina.
Only Netease is not possible for Feng Yu to get the majority shares of the company, as Ding Lei is determined to be the Boss of the company.
But to Feng Yu, it’s alright. Anyway, these companies will have to work together in the future because of him. If Sina started the email first, Netease would not be as successful as his previous life.
Feng Yu had planned the directions of these three companies in his heart. Sina will focus on news, especially international news, and in the future, they will set up the blog and microblogging sites.
Sohu’s direction will be online video platform and continue to be the leader in Chinese online forums
Netease will focus on email services and game distribution. In the future, they will start developing their games.
Of course, these three companies can also have the same services, but their main focuses will be different. Feng Yu wants healthy competition among them for them to grow faster.
Feng Yu had thought of merging these three websites, but he changed his mind. This will not be good for their development. Separating them will speed up their developments and form a barrier for other tech firms to enter.
…….
Wang Zhixi had come to Tai Hua Consultancy again. He had reached an agreement with Ba Da Company for them to sell their shares. But they will not be selling all their shares, and there will be some restrictions.
Sun Lijie listened to Wang Zhixi’s conditions and nodded at Feng Yu. “I think we can accept this condition.”
After the Chinese Web portal in the US is acquired and merged, Tai Hua Consultancy has the majority shares of Sina. It does not matter if they can own more shares or now.
Acquiring Ba Da Company’s shares will be better for Sina’s development.
“Wang Zhixi, have you decided on the company’s direction after our chat previously?”
News. I think people are most interested in the news. Many people have the habit of reading newspapers in the morning. Still, with the internet, they can go onto our website. They can even set our website as their homepage, and our website will appear the moment they switch on their PC. This will bring more visitors to our site, and more companies will advertise with us.”
“Our news site will have an advantage over the traditional newspaper. We can consolidate news all over the world, and other news sites cannot do this. We can also sell other services like setting up a communication platform for companies.”
“Good. This will increase this company’s advantage. Let me tell you some of my ideas. First, news articles must be timely. Second, regionalized of the news, and lastly, the news must be interesting.”
Wang Zhixi understood the importance of real-time news, but what does regionalized news mean? Also, why must the news be interesting? Shouldn’t news be reporting on the truth?
“Real-time news means we will publish the reports of major events for the first time. We must let our visitors know that our site will also show the latest and fastest news.”
“Regional news means the site will show news based on the user’s IP addresses, or registration location. This is just like when people read the newspaper, they would prefer to read their cities’ newspapers.”
“Interesting news does not mean that we will not only focus on major events worldwide. We will also report news that interest our readers, like entertainment news, bizarre news, etc. Many people read the newspaper to pass the time, and interesting news will capture these readers.”
Wang Zhixi looks at Feng Yu with admiration. “Thank you for the guidance, Manager Feng. I know what to do now.”
Wang Zhixi’s tone sounds like he had received wise teachings from a guru.
Feng Yu had a ‘this is just a casual remark’ look on his face. But all these ideas are from his previous life’s news websites like Sina. All he did was to tell Wang Zhixi about what he will be doing in the future and impress him.
Giving guidance and getting admired by one of the bigshots of the industry in Feng Yu’s previous life is fantastic!
Translator’s notes:
Sohu
