My Age of Investment

Faced with Zhou Hongyi's accusation, Xia Jingxing still pretended to be ashamed and said: "I fully understand your mood at the moment, but I still want to say one thing, Sogou has already bought it, and I can't return it. Bar?

Moreover, Charles also said that the money and goods must be paid and will not be returned or exchanged. "

Zhou Hongyi saw that Xia Jingxing looked ashamed, and her tone was not as aggressive as before. She softened a lot and said, "Then you can't keep hiding it from me, right? Now the entire Chinese Internet is watching my jokes.

Others say that Mr. Xia, you are good at crossing rivers and burning bridges, following you around, and even counting your money after being sold by you. "

Xia Jingxing sneered and said, "These are the people who are afraid of the world being in chaos. They like to gossip and sow discord.

What is our relationship? Didn’t I come to see you as soon as I returned home? "

Zhou Hongyi waved her hand and said: "No, I'm afraid of you now. Just buy whatever company you like. In short, it has nothing to do with 360."

"Are you sure it doesn't matter?"

Xia Jingxing looked at Zhou Hongyi with a smile, and he was keenly aware that most of the other person's anger had disappeared.

He came to see Zhou Hongyi today. One of the reasons was to listen to the other party's two complaints. The other was that he had a more important task.

Zhou Hongyi pretended to be stupid and said blankly: "What do you mean? Are you planning to sell Sogou to 360?"

Xia Jingxing laughed when he heard it, and replied simply: "Okay! Just let the Overseas Holding Group control 360 Company."

Zhou Hongyi stopped talking. If he was really willing to sell the company, he wouldn't wait until today.

Seeing Xia Jingxing looking directly at her, Zhou Hongyi immediately changed the subject and said: "Mr. How to maintain it?

You promised me that WeChat will bundle 360’s software services in the future. "

Xia Jingxing smiled and said: "The cooperation will definitely continue. 360 Company, Domestic Holding Group and Sogou are not life-or-death enemies.

I remember telling you before that I will not touch any business like that greedy penguin.

For example, we will not do security business. "

Hearing this, Zhou Hongyi's face brightened slightly. The security business is currently the most mature business of 360, and it is also the biggest reliance of 360 in its attempt to go public. If Overseas Holdings does not get involved in this business, the relationship between the two parties will still be eased. room.

The anger and unwillingness he showed just now were actually largely fake.

When he first heard that Domestic Holding Group had acquired Sogou and invested in UC Browser, he was very angry and felt that he had been used and deceived by Xia Jingxing.

But when he calmed down, he found that he could do nothing except verbally protest and actively express his attitude to alienate Xia Jingxing.

Let alone the verbal protest, it is useless and just adds to the laughter.

As for alienating Xia Jingxing, let alone mention it. There is no substantial benefit, but it will offend his biggest backer.

Thinking about his life, he has punched Ahri, kicked Penguin, and even fought against Qianxun's Robin Lee. He has long been in such a miserable state that he is the enemy of everyone in the world.

If Xia Jingxing is offended again, he really won't be able to survive anymore.

He does have a strong character, but he is not stupid. He knows how to make the right choice at the crossroads of fate.

Establishing a good relationship with Xia Jingxing and allowing 360 to go public smoothly are the most important tasks at the moment.

Only when 360 successfully completed its listing and the company's wings grew, could he truly be regarded as a pivotal figure in China's Internet. At the very least, he would not be driven to Hong Kong Island by Bonima to seek refuge.

Vision Capital, the company behind Xia Jingxing, is an important shareholder of 360 Company, so he cannot fall out with Xia Jingxing at this stage.

But pretending to be nonchalant was inconsistent with his personal style.

Therefore, when he saw Xia Jingxing coming to the door, he put on an impromptu performance like this.

Now that Xia Jingxing had given him a step down, he naturally wanted to give Xia Jingxing a step down as well.

So, Zhou Hongyi said: "Then what you mean is that we delimit each other's territory to avoid accidental injuries?"

Xia Jingxing snickered in his heart, Zhou Hongyi was indeed an old actor, he got into the role so quickly.

"Yes, you are mainly engaged in security business, and our main business is still social networking. Businesses such as browsers and search engines are secondary to both of our companies.

There is no need to get into a tense situation over these second-rate businesses. "

Xia Jingxing paused and then said: "Instead of fighting each other to the death between 360 and Sogou, it is better to keep the guns aligned. Some companies have a much higher market share than our two companies."

Zhou Hongyi did not answer the question, and sighed and said: "After being beaten by the Gongxin Yamen, I have long since given up a lot of unrealistic ideas.

Now I want to safely list 360, give shareholders, employees, and myself an explanation. "

Looking at the waning Zhou Hongyi, Xia Jingxing felt that this guy was not telling the truth. If Zhou Hongyi is not aggressive, is he still Zhou Hongyi?

However, it is also possible that he has been psychologically shadowed by himself, and he no longer dares to rush forward to take advantage of the thunder.

Thinking of this, Xia Jingxing decided to be more proactive and said: "360 Secure Browser and Website Navigation used to direct traffic to Google and Qianxun. It seems that Qianxun was your largest advertiser for a while.

But I heard that Robin Li was very stingy. He suspected that you were cheating on your traffic and included traffic from non-360 companies into your income statistics. In the end, Qianxun even sued you and demanded compensation.

Now that Google has announced its withdrawal from the Chinese market, without these two major investors, where will 360 go in the future?

Are you taking advantage of the trend to launch your own search engine brand? Or should we choose to cooperate with Sogou?

Both options come down to your personal choice.

However, no matter which option you choose, there is a lot of room for cooperation. "

Xia Jingxing looked at Zhou Hongyi sincerely, feeling a little curious about what choice the other party would make.

In fact, there is no deep conflict between Haihai Holdings or Sogou and 360 at this time. At most, there is a certain degree of competition in the browser business, because 360 ​​has not officially launched its own search engine brand at this time, and netizens use 360 Browsers and website navigation actually use Google and Qianxun search engines by default.

In short, at this time, 360's huge traffic monetization is still relatively low-level. It is a wholesale traffic seller and does not have its own advertising platform. It needs to go through middlemen such as Qianxun and Google.

In her previous life, Zhou Hongyi didn’t know whether it was because she took too much energy away from preparing for the 3Q war and listing, or because she was afraid of Qianxun’s strength, so she didn’t dare to launch an independent search engine brand, which wasted the rare development after Google’s withdrawal from China. opportunity.

After Zhou Hongyi thought for a moment, she replied: "I still want to wait a little longer. Before going public, I don't want to cause any more complications."

“Then you direct the traffic to Sogou and make Sogou the default search engine for 360 browser and website navigation.

I will ask Sogou to give you a high price and contribute to 360’s listing work. "

Hearing this, Zhou Hongyi seemed a little hesitant. In fact, he has always harbored a search engine dream in his heart. From 3721 to 360, which initially only planned to be a community and forum search technology service provider, his dream has never changed. .

The current business model of 360 is to gather users and traffic through various software services such as free anti-virus software, browsers, and website navigation. However, 360 lacks sophisticated commercial monetization methods. It has a golden mountain but does not know how to mine it. He is extremely dissatisfied with being exploited by search engine service providers like Qianxun.

But he didn't dare to lift the table, because if the launch of the search engine did not go smoothly, it would have a considerable negative impact on 360's listing work, such as lowering the listing issue price, shrinking the amount of funds raised, falling below the issue price, etc. The situation may happen to 360.

Therefore, he did not dare to take any risks at the critical moment of listing.

But Xia Jingxing's proposal to make Sogou the default search engine service provider of 360 made him feel unwilling.

What if Sogou takes this opportunity to become bigger?

When 360 completed its listing, I looked back and saw that my good guy no longer had his place.

Seeing Zhou Hongyi's hesitation, Xia Jingxing vaguely guessed what he was worried about and advised: "Otherwise, Sogou and 360 will sign a one-year cooperation agreement first.

One year later, 360's listing work has definitely been completed as scheduled, and various internal problems have been sorted out.

When the time comes when you want to launch your own search engine brand, I will never stop you. "

Zhou Hongyi sighed. He weighed it again and again in his mind and found that he seemed to have no choice but to accept the "goodwill" conveyed by Xia Jingxing.

360 cannot launch its own search engine service at the moment, so it can only "outsource" this part of the service and collect some tolls at the same time.

With Qianxun at odds and Google withdrawing, it seems that only Sogou, which has the full support of Xia Jingxing, has the financial resources to support the company for a full year.

With this support fee, the financial report can be made more attractive, and the issue price of 360's shares may be set a few dollars higher.

"Okay, let's follow your plan!"

Zhou Hongyi looked at Xia Jingxing with sharp eyes and emphasized: "You can't trick me again this time!"

Xia Jingxing laughed dryly, "How could I cheat you? I'm the one who took out the real money, and I was afraid you would cheat me!"

Zhou Hongyi thought for a while, and it seemed that she could not suffer the loss. She smiled and said, "Okay, that's it, we'll sign the agreement tomorrow."

…………

…………

Hearing that Xia Jingxing had returned to China, Jack Ma rushed to the capital in a hurry.

As soon as he met Xia Jingxing, he said with a miserable look on his face: "Darren, I'm in big trouble!"

Xia Jingxing asked in confusion: "What's the trouble? Do you need my help?"

Jack nodded suddenly, "I need it! I need it very much! Only you can help me!"

Xia Jingxing was immediately speechless and signaled Jackma to clarify the matter first before talking about anything else.

“Aren’t the regulatory agencies going to issue a batch of third-party payment licenses?

Ali also submitted application materials, but our materials were sent back, saying that we did not meet the conditions for applying for a third-party payment license. "

Jack Ma picked up the cup on the table, took a sip of water, and then continued: "Everyone in our company is unconvinced, why doesn't Ahli meet the application requirements?

Later, I asked someone to inquire and found out that Ahri was stuck because its shareholding structure was not up to standard.

According to the requirements put forward by the regulatory authorities, the first batch of enterprises to obtain the conditions for issuing online payment licenses must be 100% domestic-owned enterprises. "

Xia Jingxing rubbed his head. He had basically guessed why Jack Ma came to see him. The Alipay equity transfer incident that made a lot of noise in his previous life happened at this juncture.

"Haifutong also submitted the application materials, but we haven't been called back?" Xia Jingxing replied calmly.

Jack Ma waved his hand and said: "The situation of Overseas Holding Group is different from that of Ahri. You hold the vast majority of the shares of Overseas Holding, while the vast majority of Ahri's shares are in the hands of foreign investors.

Envision Capital (US) holds 33%, Facebook holds 11%, and SoftBank holds 20%.

The total adds up to 64%, which is equivalent to foreign capital being the majority shareholder of Ali.

Regulatory authorities may be worried that online payment licenses will fall into the hands of foreign investors.

As you know, our country's financial opening policy has always been very conservative, and foreign financial institutions are not allowed to set up wholly-owned companies in China. "

Speaking of this, Jack Ma sighed, "What if Ahri loses this time?

Our e-commerce business is booming and we need a payment license to complete the closed business loop.

Without the most important payment link, Ali's business system will have loopholes. Whether it can maintain its position as the leading e-commerce company is a big question mark. "

Xia Jingxing glanced at Jack Ma with a dull look. He was indeed a master of deception. If he hadn't known about the issuance of online payment licenses in his previous life, he might have been fooled by Jack Ma.

Strictly speaking, Penguin also has major shares held by IH and other foreign investors, while Bonima and the management are only minority shareholders. However, Tenpay eventually obtained the online payment license.

Now that Jack Ma came to tell him this, he was a little suspicious of Jack Ma's true intention.

Xia Jingxing smiled and said, "Then do you have any good solutions?"

Jack Ma rolled his eyes quickly, and then said solemnly: "We may need to stage a golden cicada's escape from its shell!"

"The golden cicada escapes from its shell?"

"Yes, we will spin off Alipay and turn it into a domestic enterprise!"

Jack Ma said while observing the expression on Xia Jingxing's face.

In the previous life, the people Jackma needed to persuade were Yahoo and SoftBank, but in this life, they became Xia Jingxing and SoftBank.

Envision Capital and Facebook together hold 44% of Alipay's shares. As long as Xia Jingxing is willing to agree, Jack Ma's transfer of Alipay's shares will basically be settled.

When SoftBank saw that Xia Jingxing agreed, they probably wouldn't be too entangled.

So Jack Ma's plan was very good, and he lined up Xia Jing to win the target first!

Xia Jingxing nodded slightly, and then asked, "What next?"

Jack Ma didn't see anything strange in Xia Jingxing's face, so he could only continue to explain the plan he designed: "This is my plan. Our management will use a sum of cash to buy out the Alipay equity of Ali's shareholders in one go. "

Xia Jingxing pondered for a moment and said, "Old Ma, this matter is a bit difficult to handle!"

Jack Ma's eyes sharpened suddenly, and he said seriously: "I know, so the management and I will give a price that satisfies all shareholders."

Xia Jingxing said in a joking tone: "Does it mean that if I agree to this deal, you will agree to sell Sogou's equity to the overseas holding group?"