Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 492: Retaining the title of the richest man
The Bona Group's successful listing on NASDAQ caused some waves when the news reached China.

Just as Yu Dong thought, although the company's listing was not very successful, it was listed on NASDAQ after all, and it was a film and television company, so it was still quite a gimmick.

Not only did the entertainment media report on it, but even the financial media also conducted in-depth coverage.

With a net worth of 3 billion, Yu Dong has become the fourth richest man in the entertainment industry, second only to Liu Zhou, Wanda's Da Lao Wang and Guangxian's Wang Changtian, but slightly higher than Wang Zhongjun.

There is no doubt that Liu Zhou and Lao Wang are worth more than him. Both of them are among the top ten richest people in China.

The 2010 Forbes China Rich List was just announced in early December. Liu Zhou retained his title as the richest man in mainland China with a net worth of US$141 billion, or nearly RMB 1300 billion.

The main source of Liu Zhou's wealth is still the shares of three listed companies: Sina, Golden Harvest and Penguin.

Now the market value of Sina Group has exceeded 20 billion US dollars, the market value of Golden Harvest Group is nearly 100 billion yuan, and the market value of Penguin Group is as high as 40 billion US dollars.

However, among the three domestic Internet giants BAT, Penguin Group has the lowest market value.

Needless to say, Ali is almost dominating the C2C e-commerce market. Its B2B business has also been listed in Hong Kong with a soaring share price. The outside world has valued the Ali Group as a whole at over US$ billion.

After Google withdrew from the Chinese market, Baidu also almost took over the domestic search market.

Because the application of the Internet is now almost inseparable from search, and the continued surge in Google's market value has also driven Baidu's stock price to soar. Baidu's current market value exceeds 40 billion US dollars.

Li Yanhong's net worth has soared this year, and he has made it into the top three of the Forbes rich list, ranking third, only behind Liu Zhou and Wahaha's CEO Zong Lao.

Penguin Group became the Internet company with the highest market value in China only after the rise of WeChat and games, and after it abandoned its previous strategic plan of doing all its own business and changed its plan to support and invest in emerging Internet companies.

In the past, including the current Penguin Group, when they see a good business, they copy other people’s models, and then use their huge traffic and strong financial resources to completely defeat the original creators.

The other party will either be acquired or go bankrupt due to a run on the penguin.

Therefore, the Penguin Group has been very domineering during this period and has a very bad reputation in the Internet industry. The label of plagiarism has always been hanging on their foreheads and even penetrated into their bones.

In 2024, Penguin Music was still copying NetEase Cloud's ideas, which made them so angry that they made a public statement.

But at least the Penguin Group had restrained itself a lot at that time. Entering the era of mobile Internet, Penguin changed its strategy and transformed itself into an investment company, providing traffic and financial support to emerging Internet companies.

At that time, Penguin's industrial investment fund was the most powerful investment company in the circle. JD.com, Meituan, Didi, Pinxixi and other second-tier Internet companies after Penguin Ali all had investments from Penguin.

These are still the top target companies. Penguin's industrial investment fund has invested in thousands of companies. With Penguin's support, the chances of success are extremely high.

Therefore, Penguin Industrial Investment Fund has also contributed hundreds of billions of US dollars in market value to Penguin Group.

At this time, Penguin Group's reputation improved because it shared traffic and no longer monopolized the market. On the contrary, Ali's reputation became worse and worse.

In the era of mobile Internet, traffic has become the most important thing.

Penguin Group naturally gathers huge traffic due to its mobile communications business, and then shares it with the companies invested by Penguin, achieving a win-win situation.

The most important business of Ali Group is e-commerce, which requires huge traffic.

So later we can see that Ali also acquired many well-known Internet companies, such as Ele.me, Youku, Tiantian Dongting, AutoNavi and other companies.

However, due to the continuous drain of traffic by the Ali Group, subsequent development became worse and worse.

All the companies acquired by Ali have had unsatisfactory subsequent development. Youku is the most obvious example. It was originally ranked number one video website, but later fell to the bottom.

These are the companies that have survived. Some companies were drained dry after being acquired by Ali, and even closed down.

However, Ali was at its peak at that time and had very strong financial resources. Ordinary companies could not resist Ali's acquisition at all.

In addition, Ali's behavior is somewhat overbearing, so Ali's reputation in the industry has not been very good during this period.

Penguin should be developing WeChat at present, but despite this, Penguin is still one of the three major Internet giants in the mainland.

Coupled with the rapid development of Sina Group, especially the increasingly successful development of its video website and microblog businesses, Sina's market value has exceeded the 20 billion US dollar mark, making it the Internet company with the highest market value after the Big Three.

The shares of Liu and Zhou's three companies, plus Zhou Shan Literature and some other assets, are valued at US$141 billion by Forbes magazine.

Last year, Liu Zhou's net worth was only US$88 billion, which skyrocketed by US$53 billion in one year, making him the first mainland billionaire with a net worth of over US$ billion.

At the same time, Liu Zhou also ranked 141th on the Forbes Global Rich List with a net worth of US$ billion. The one before him is Malaysian Robert Kuok, and the one after him is George Soros.

The only people in China who are worth more than Liu and Zhou are Hong Kong's Li Chaoren and Li Sishu. The former, with a net worth of US$210 billion, once again ranked first as the richest man in Asia and is ranked 14th on the global rich list.

The latter ranks 185nd on the world's richest list with a net worth of US$ billion.

Together with Liu and Zhou, they are the only three people in China to make it into the top 70 of the world's richest list. Next is Zong Lao, who ranks 104th with a net worth of US$ billion.

In fact, this year, the global economy was booming because of the rebound after the financial crisis. Not only Liu and Zhou, but the wealth of most wealthy people saw a surge.

Like Li Chaoren, his net worth has also increased a lot. Last year, it was only 162 billion, but this year it is 210 billion US dollars.

If Liu Zhou wants to surpass Li Chaoren, he has to wait until the mobile Internet era arrives, when the market value of Penguin and Sina will skyrocket.

With about 7% of Penguin Group's shares, Pony Ma can become the richest man in China. Liu Zhou thinks that with 10% of Penguin Group's shares, plus 35.5% of Sina Group's shares,

It is even possible that he could challenge the world's richest man before Musk's complete rise.

Musk is indeed quite impressive. His net worth is terrifying and he is involved in cutting-edge technology. As he himself said, Tesla, which is famous all over the world, is just the company with the lowest value and the least technological content under his control.

He deserves to be rich. He is indeed a bit like Iron Man in the real world.

By then, even if Sina had grown to the current size of ByteDance, Liu Zhou’s wealth might not be comparable to his.

However, Liu Zhou feels that with Penguin shares as a guarantee for the time being, he will be able to hold the title of mainland China's richest man for a long time to come.

In addition to Liu Zhou, Lao Wang also ranked tenth on the rich list with a net worth of 36 billion yuan.

Therefore, Liu Zhou and he are the two most valuable people in the entertainment industry. Of course, this year, Penguin, Sohu and Baidu have also begun to layout the entertainment industry to a certain extent. If the bosses behind these three companies are included, it will be another story. However, compared with Liu Zhou and Da Lao Wang, they have just extended their tentacles into the entertainment industry, and the entertainment business is also for the service of Internet business, so they are not considered to be people in the entertainment industry.

Liu Zhou and Lao Wang are the ones who have relatively strong strength in the entertainment industry.

The next most valuable person in the entertainment industry is Wang Changtian of Guangguang. Like Yu Dong, he also holds almost half of the company's shares.

But now the market value of Guangxian has exceeded 10 billion, which makes his net worth more than 5 billion, while Yu Dong only has 3 billion.

Huayi went public earlier and its market value is higher than that of Guangxian. The main reason why Yu Dong's net worth is higher than that of Wang Zhongjun is that he holds relatively few shares of Huayi, only more than 20%.

Even if his brother's 10% stake is added, it is still less than 40%. You should know that Yu Dong holds 46% of Bona's shares.

The reason why the two brothers have such a small share is that they raised funds very early.

At the beginning of the new century, they introduced investment from Taihe Group, and later introduced strategic investment from Jack Ma. After that, many investment institutions were also introduced when they went public, which diluted the brothers' shares a lot.

People like Liu Zhou, Wang Changtian and Yu Dong firmly hold the controlling rights of the company.

The reason why Yu Dong wanted to separate from Poly Group in the first place was to ensure that the shares and control over the company would not fall into the hands of others.

Poly Group is a giant enterprise, and their entertainment business alone is incomparable to Bona.

At the beginning, Poly Group wanted to integrate its entertainment business, and Bona, which was run by Yu Dong at the time, was developing well in the film industry and also wanted to integrate it.

In fact, if Bona is integrated, a new film and television giant will be born, whose strength may be second only to Golden Harvest.

After all, Poly Cinema Line is one of the top ten cinema chains in China, and all of them are self-operated, plus Bona has advantages in the film field, and Shenlong Film and Television has excellent performance in the field of TV dramas.

At the same time, Poly Group's entertainment business also includes music, opera and concert hosting.

The strength of this integrated entertainment group company will surpass Huayi and Guangguang in one fell swoop, becoming the undisputed second private film and television company.

Of course Yu Dong also saw this prospect at the time, but in the end he still refused because this new entertainment group company would no longer be his, Yu Dong's, company.

Although Bona Group was worth a lot at the time, it could not be compared with all of Poly Group’s entertainment businesses, let alone Poly Cinemas.

What's more, Poly Group is still the major shareholder of Bona. If Bona is integrated into the new group at that time, his shares in the new group will definitely be much lower than Poly Group, and in the end there may not even be three levels.

Although it sounds good that the new group will be handed over to Yu Donglai for management, it would be very easy for him to kick him out since he has absolute controlling rights.

By then, all my more than ten years of hard work will be wasted.

So instead of risking being eliminated for a false reputation and running an entertainment group that is not under his control, it is better to develop his own Bona peacefully.

Although the Bona Group has become much weaker, this is its own business, a business that belongs entirely to it.

What's more, Yu Dong felt that he might be able to lead the Bona Group to the top.

So he rejected Poly Group's proposal to integrate Bona almost without hesitation.

Now that Bona has successfully listed on the Nasdaq, it can be considered a good start.

Although the stock price increase is not very obvious, which is somewhat unfavorable for future financing, at least $100 million in funds has been raised.

Although Yu Dong had not returned to China at this time, he was already full of confidence and ready to do a big job.

Because of the time difference, when the news of Bona's listing on NASDAQ reached China, it happened to be the time when Golden Harvest's 40th anniversary party was held.

So on the 29th, the media not only reported the news of Golden Harvest's 40th Anniversary Gala, but also reported the news of Bona's listing.

But relatively speaking, the former is much more popular than the latter.

After all, Bona is far less well-known than Golden Harvest, and generally only interested netizens will pay attention to things like a company's listing, while most netizens don't care much.

What they care more about is celebrity gossip, and there is a lot of celebrity gossip at the Golden Harvest Gala.

From a purely spectator's perspective, the Golden Harvest Gala might be slightly inferior to this year's Bazaar Charity Night. Zhang Ziyi and several other big stars were on the verge of a public show, and the smiles on their faces revealed two different meanings.

【reluctantly】

[Damn, I really want to tear this bitch apart]

The main advantage of Golden Harvest's 40th Anniversary Gala is its grand scale, many stars, and many melons. Although they are not sweet, the large quantities are thirst-quenching.

Just the thought of it is enough to get everyone excited.

And even if the stars don't dare to tear each other apart openly, they still make various small moves. They are not intense, but they have deeper meanings. A careful analysis will reveal a different taste.

This is much more interesting than the Golden Rooster and Golden Horse awards ceremonies, and there are more stars. Therefore, some spectator lovers have called online for Golden Harvest to hold such galas regularly, preferably once a year.

This proposal actually received support from many netizens online, and some people mentioned this matter on Jiahe's official Weibo and Liu Zhou's Weibo.

However, Jiahe did not give an accurate response to this, and the implied meaning was actually a polite refusal.

To put it bluntly, Golden Harvest is not like Harper's Bazaar, which needs to rely on such celebrity galas to expand its influence, nor does it have the intention to hold such a gala every year.

Most of the stars who came to show their support were there for the sake of Liu Zhou and Golden Harvest. Just because they were able to raise 68 million in donations this time doesn't mean they can do so every time.

No matter how influential he is, it is impossible for him to ask others to donate money every year.

Moreover, in terms of efficiency alone, it would not be as fast and efficient as if Liu Zhou paid out of his own pocket.

If it wasn't to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Golden Harvest, Liu Zhou wouldn't have held this party. It was too high-profile, and it seemed like a celebrity-seeking event, which could easily cause controversy and murmurings from the outside world, and a good thing would turn into a bad thing.

Therefore, compared to high-profile charity galas that are more of a gimmick and entertainment, Liu Zhou prefers to do charity "quietly".

(End of this chapter)