Reborn since 1993

Chapter 1362 The dust has settled
Inside his residence in Lakeside Garden, Yuhang, Mr. Ma, who had just returned from Beijing, had been extremely busy these past few days.

Boss Ma returned to Yuhang. On his last night in Yanjing, Boss Ma, along with a group of confidants, sang a heartbreaking song called "True Hero" at the dinner table before leaving Yanjing, which had left them heartbroken, and returning to his old nest in Yuhang.

It's hard to say whether Mr. Ma gained nothing or built up connections during his years in Beijing.

Of course, he didn't make any money. At Yanjing International E-commerce Company, Mr. Ma only earned a few thousand yuan a month. Even though he developed many websites, he didn't actually receive the equity that was supposed to be in the agreement.

But to say that you gained nothing is definitely impossible; even if you suffer a loss, you still learn a lesson.

In Beijing, Mr. Ma established connections with the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, as well as many other departments and media outlets. He had begun to build his own network of contacts and was no longer the novice who didn't even know which door of the government office faced.

Jack Ma and his team, who returned from Beijing, have raised 500,000 RMB in the past few days and officially put up the Alibaba sign.

Jack Ma is currently busy with two things. The first is developing an e-commerce website and wants to launch Alibaba's e-commerce website as soon as possible. After all, if you want venture capital firms to invest money, you must have a website!

The second thing is to find venture capital. These past few days, Mr. Ma has been calling and visiting every venture capital firm he can reach.

Mr. Ma contacted not only domestic venture capitalists, but also overseas venture capitalists and Wall Street institutions, mainly to try his luck first, even if there was no guarantee of success.

Having just visited a venture capital firm and returned empty-handed, Mr. Ma returned to Lakeside Garden. Facing the eager gazes of the Eighteen Arhats, Mr. Ma smiled and said to them, "Today, I rejected another venture capital firm!"

Upon hearing this, a burst of laughter erupted in the room. Everyone present knew that Mr. Ma had actually been rejected by another venture capital firm, and he was just making light of the situation.

After chatting with everyone in the room for a while to boost morale, Boss Ma returned to a room, where his smile immediately disappeared, and a look of exhaustion appeared on his face.

Everyone at Alibaba is working incredibly hard, some even sleeping on the floor here, all to meet the deadline. And what Jack Ma needs to do is bring in investment for Alibaba as quickly as possible.

500,000 yuan sounds like a lot, but to be honest, it's not even enough to cover the cost of a single advertisement on domestic websites like China.com or Sina.

With food and supplies for both the people and the horses, the money was simply not enough, and it was about to run out. This made Boss Ma feel anxious. If he lost again this time, he didn't know if he would have any chance to make a comeback.

Sighing and composing himself, Mr. Ma turned on his computer and then opened China.com to check internet news. The first thing he saw was the sensational news that Himalaya Music was valued at over four billion US dollars.

Frankly speaking, for Alibaba, which is still trying to attract investment everywhere, seeing Himalaya Music secure 400 million in venture capital—in US dollars—without lifting a finger is quite remarkable!
Furthermore, among the shareholders of Himalaya Music, there are the world's four major record companies, Feiyan Technology, the first Chinese internet company listed on NASDAQ, and a host of other shareholders. Fortunately, Mr. Ma has a strong mentality, otherwise he would have really lost his composure.

The saying "Some are born in Rome, some are born on a mule or a horse" truly resonates with Jack Ma when comparing Alibaba and Himalaya FM today.

What's even more disheartening is that this group of renowned shareholders isn't Himalaya Music's biggest backer. Everyone knows that Himalaya Music, as a company in the Dongke Group, has its biggest backer in Dongling High-Tech, which is known as the highest mountain and the longest river in mainland China's technology sector!

Looking at the music of Himalaya FM, which is full of wonderful scenery, and thinking about Alibaba's current situation, Jack Ma could only sigh helplessly.

Subsequently, news about Yang Zhiyuan appeared on China.com, along with articles and media analyses suggesting that there might be even bigger news between Yahoo and Dongke.

Besides these news items, what attracted Jack Ma the most was a report by China.com about Cyberport's Port City Future Industry Foundation, which is raising funds for a new round of investment to increase its investment in the internet industry!

Cyberport's Port City Future Industry Fund is already the largest internet and high-tech venture capital fund in Port City. It is also one of the top choices for venture capital firms when Zhongguancun internet companies seek venture capital. Another venture capital firm is Tianya, which is also under Dongke.

Starting with Cyberport, the number of investment institutions, foundations, and consortia from the port city investing in mainland internet companies has been increasing.

Mr. Ma looked at the news and hesitated whether to contact the Gangcheng Future Industry Foundation or other investment companies in Gangcheng.

Mr. Ma knew that Cyberport was also a company under the Dongke Group, and that he had a very unpleasant falling out with a Mr. Zhou from Yahoo! China, a subsidiary of the Dongke Group, when he was in Beijing.

This is one of the reasons why Mr. Ma did not immediately seek venture capital from Tianya.

Of course, this is only one of the reasons. More importantly, Mr. Ma witnessed the control and regulation within large companies when he worked in e-commerce companies in mainland China.

He was afraid that after Alibaba joined the Dongke Group, it would also be bossed around by Dongling High-Tech. In that case, who would be in charge of Alibaba?

But now, seeing that Alibaba is about to collapse, Jack Ma is preparing to send a mass email to venture capital firms in the port city and also try to contact Dongling High-Tech.

After all, in the current domestic internet industry, Tianya and Cyberport, both subsidiaries of Dongling Hi-Tech, are the most generous internet venture capital firms!

Not to mention, the Zhixing Foundation, which specializes in overseas internet industries under Li Dashan, has already made a fortune overseas. This shows that Li Dashan is currently the person in China who "understands" the internet the most!
……

Li Dongling had no idea what Mr. Ma was thinking. Right now, Li Dongling was negotiating with Yahoo and his team.

At this moment, manners and so on were completely absent; the way they argued was no better than the haggling aunties and uncles at the market.

But appearances were no longer an option at this point. In the market, haggling over a dollar or two was a trivial matter, but in this meeting at Dongke's global headquarters, the stakes were in hundreds of millions of dollars. There was no room for compromise; a single step back would mean losses of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. "Fifty-five billion dollars is impossible!"

"GeoCities already has competitors, and with such a high acquisition price, the risk is simply too high!"

An executive who accompanied Yahoo President Koogler to Pingyang slammed his fist on the table and declared that Dongke was asking for an exorbitant price.

But Hu Zixian spoke calmly and unhurriedly to the "furious" Yahoo executives.

"Dongke was only trying to get Yahoo to complete its acquisition of GeoCities because of our alliance."

If Yahoo isn't interested, Dongke can contact other partners to acquire it!

Hu Zixian's attitude was very clear: if he thought it was too expensive, then Yahoo didn't have to buy it. Dongke could find a new investor for GeoCities.

Yahoo thinks it's too expensive, but its competitors certainly don't!
"Five-five billion US dollars is indeed too high an acquisition cost. Even Yahoo cannot explain it to the board of directors and investors!"

"With $4.7 billion, Yahoo can complete the acquisition of GeoCities!"

"Even Yahoo couldn't easily raise such a large amount of cash flow."

At this point, Kugel also spoke up, saying that he was definitely going to try to lower the price; how could he explain it to the Wall Street institutions if he didn't bargain at all?

"Fifty-three billion US dollars!"

After Kugel spoke, Ren Yuefeng also spoke up, saying that Dongke would never let him have his way if he wanted to take advantage of the situation.

In an instant, the meeting room transformed into a large-scale vegetable market, filled with utter chaos.

After several rounds of probing and arguments, Yahoo wanted to lower the acquisition price to below $5 billion, while Dongke naturally wanted to sell for an astronomical price.

"Five billion US dollars!"

Seeing that a decision was still uncertain, Li Dongling finally made a definitive statement.

"This is Dongke's final offer for GeoCities. If Yahoo rejects it, Dongke will look for a new buyer!"

Li Dongling looked at Kugel, Yang Zhiyuan and other senior executives and spoke.

Upon hearing the acquisition price, Kugel did not argue further. He exchanged glances with the executives on either side of him, and then spoke to Li Dongling.

"Yahoo can accept this acquisition price, but Dongke requires a cash transaction. Yahoo will need time to raise such a large cash flow!"

Kugel said with some pain, "Dongling High-Tech doesn't want Yahoo stock, which is worth as much as, or even more than, the US dollar. They insist on cash."

Yahoo needs time to raise cash, and can only do so by issuing new shares, bonds, and bank loans, but all of these take time.

Seeing Li Dongling nod slightly, Hu Zixian said, "Dongke can give Yahoo time to raise cash, but all of this cash must be raised by the end of this year!"

Yahoo's stock price is still soaring, and Dongling High-Tech is not worried about Yahoo defaulting on its debts. As long as the transaction can be completed within this year, that will be enough.

After the GeoCities deal was finalized, the atmosphere at Yahoo clearly changed. Yang Zhiyuan and Koogel exchanged glances, their eyes noticeably more intense.

"Yahoo is willing to repurchase the Yahoo shares held by Zhixing Foundation and Feiyan Technology!"

"But a buyback at a market capitalization of hundreds of billions of dollars is simply too..."

Before Kugel could finish speaking, Li Dongling interrupted, "There's no room for negotiation on this deal!"

"We must repurchase it at a market value of hundreds of billions of dollars; otherwise, Dongke would rather cancel the deal!"

Li Dashan acted very toughly. If it weren't for the fact that cashing out at Yahoo's peak market value would be too conspicuous, and that he might not be able to sell everything and could end up with a bad investment, he would have cashed out a portion in advance.

Otherwise, how could Li, the philanthropist, have allowed Yahoo's board of directors and Wall Street institutions to cash out Yahoo stock at a market value of hundreds of billions of dollars?

(End of this chapter)