Meanwhile, the four-person team consisting of Eric, Xin Hailu, He Desheng, and Meng Chang was in the conference room discussing the acquisition of Finger Company.
The four had already shared the information they each possessed, formulated a complete plan, and scheduled their itinerary.
Among them, Meng Chang’s situation was somewhat special.
He first shared with everyone what Fan Xiaodong had observed in the U.S. capital market, and then after the four jointly formulated the plan, he refined the initial proposal with Fan Xiaodong overnight.
Simply put, it was about mitigating risks.
Although insider trading was a serious illegal activity in capital markets worldwide and would be severely sanctioned, there were limits to what actions specifically constituted insider trading.
It wasn’t as if possessing a bit of internal information and then investing in the capital market automatically counted as insider trading.
Otherwise, how would you explain professional short-selling institutions that first investigate a listed company, find evidence of falsified accounts or illegal activities, then short the company’s stock, disclose this negative information, cause the stock price to plummet, and profit from it?
Or, what about those who simply observe a company’s chaotic internal management and dysfunctional decision-making, become pessimistic about the company’s stock price, short it, and profit? How would you explain that?
Furthermore, what if an executive of a listed company deliberately made decisions that appeared foolish, causing the capital market to plummet? How could you prove whether they knowingly committed wrongdoing or were genuinely confused? Unless solid evidence was found that they directly participated in the trading, it couldn’t be proven.
Going even further, suppose a company executive told a friend during dinner that the company’s performance was exceptionally good and the outlook was very optimistic, and the friend subsequently bought the company’s stock—would this count as insider trading?
If all of these counted as insider trading, many short-selling institutions would have been fined out of business long ago.
So, it ultimately depended on the specific degree and whether there was concrete evidence.
Meng Chang and Fan Xiaodong believed Finger Company’s stock price would fall because Fan Xiaodong had noticed that Finger Company’s current CEO had established an investment company and heard rumors that Dayark Group wanted to sell Finger Company, making an educated guess.
This wasn’t insider information; many people knew about it, but they weren’t as certain as Fan Xiaodong and Meng Chang.
Since it was information accessible to many people, Fan Xiaodong and Meng Chang shorting Finger Company’s stock was merely a personal judgment and didn’t involve insider trading.
At most, Meng Chang could roughly estimate when Finger Company’s decline would bottom out, which had some connection to his work at Tenda.
As for whether the stock would surge if Tenda successfully acquired Finger Company?
That was possible.
So, after much consideration, Meng Chang decided to only profit from the short-selling and stop when Finger Company’s stock price approached its lowest point, forgoing potential profits from the subsequent rise.
After all, the initial plunge was entirely Charles’s doing and had nothing to do with Tenda, naturally having no connection to Meng Chang and Fan Xiaodong. The subsequent surge could be linked to them and carried certain risks, so they decided against it.
This wasn’t because Meng Chang was timid, but mainly because after careful consideration, he worried that such behavior might displease Mr. Pei by appearing too greedy.
Mr. Pei liked ambitious subordinates but disliked greedy ones. The boundary between the two was blurry, but Mr. Pei could distinguish it.
It was better to show some restraint.
As for the other three team members, after receiving Meng Chang’s information, they verified these messages through other channels and found them to be highly credible.
Therefore, the four quickly reached a consensus and formulated an acquisition plan.
Simply put, they would first negotiate with Dayark Group, but during the discussions, they would maintain a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, not rushing to move forward.
According to Mr. Pei’s intentions, they should try their best to acquire Finger Company, but if they showed too much interest from the start, it might cause Dayark Group to demand an exorbitant price, which would be very unfavorable for negotiations.
They wanted Dayark Group to know that Tenda Group had just a bit of interest in acquiring Finger Company, but the acquisition was merely to secure GOG’s market position—it wouldn’t matter if they couldn’t buy it.
Moreover, the negotiations must be kept strictly confidential, preventing outsiders, especially Charles and his group, from finding out.
Meanwhile, they would watch Charles begin his performance.
To acquire Dayark Group’s Finger Company shares at the lowest price, Charles would definitely find ways to impact Finger Company’s stock price. Exactly what methods he would use, no one could guess, but there was no need to guess.
They just needed to patiently wait for him to play his game with Dayark Group.
As Charles gradually tested Dayark Group’s bottom line, Tenda would maintain a tenuous relationship with Dayark Group.
Without Tenda Group’s intervention, as Dayark Group watched Finger Company’s valuation decline day by day and couldn’t find a more suitable buyer, they would have to cut their losses and sell the shares to the investment company behind Charles.
But with Tenda Group’s involvement, the situation became completely different.
At the critical moment when Charles thought everything was falling into place and only needed the final push, Dayark Group would suddenly announce selling all their shares to Tenda Group!
His expression and reaction at that time would surely be very interesting.
Of course, the final price Tenda would pay would definitely be a bit higher than the lowest price Charles had pushed for, but that didn’t matter at all. After all, Charles had been working so hard, and it wouldn’t be easy for him.
During the discussion of this plan, Eric also provided many suggestions and refined many details.
Because he was extremely familiar with Dayark Group and Finger Company.
Eric was well aware that Charles’s plan had a very high chance of success. But precisely because of this, with Tenda’s intervention, he would have an even higher chance of failure.
Meng Chang scrolled through his phone: “Hmm? It seems Finger Company has already made a move. I’ll share the news in the group chat.”
The others also took out their phones to check.
In an interview with foreign media, Charles publicly stated that he was considering merging the Asia servers!
Of course, he used some rather dignified, beautiful phrases, such as further promoting communication among Asian players, elevating the level of the entire Asia server, unifying operational activities, and so on.
But obviously, anyone who knew a little about IOI understood the real reason: IOI’s national server was in terrible shape. The player exodus after the World Championship had added insult to injury. High-end matchmaking queue times were getting longer and longer, and the player pool was seriously depleted. If they didn’t merge the servers, players truly wouldn’t be able to continue!
In fact, there had been various speculations about IOI merging servers for a long time, but there was never concrete evidence. Now that Finger Company’s current CEO Charles had personally mentioned it, the credibility was very high.
In addition, someone had leaked Finger Company’s planned April Fool’s Day event.
On the surface, this didn’t seem to be an internal leak but a coincidental event. However, in the eyes of Meng Chang and the others, this behavior was very suspicious.
Looking at this April Fool’s Day event alone, there wasn’t any major issue. The key was that it was similar to previous activities, basically just releasing new skins.
Beyond that, they had even added a pay-to-win event.
For players, this was certainly unacceptable!
Because even during the Spring Festival event, players had already made a huge fuss, criticizing Finger Company and Dayark Group.
When game mechanics, gameplay, and balance weren’t well-developed, they continued to release new skins—wasn’t the intention obvious?
And this time they didn’t even pretend, directly adding a pay-to-win event. How outrageous!
Players naturally responded strongly with a wave of criticism, especially targeting Dayark Group.
Because everyone had already assumed that any pay-to-win or money-grabbing events were definitely arranged by Dayark Group!
But Meng Chang and the others knew that this time, it might not necessarily be Dayark Group’s idea.
Although Dayark Group had sufficient motivation to grab money and run, Charles had even more motivation to use this method to further create unfavorable public opinion against Finger Company, thereby lowering the stock price.
Moreover, with Charles doing this, Dayark Group would neither stop it nor clarify it; they could only silently take the blame.
It could only be said that Charles had truly mastered how to play Dayark Group.
If this speculation was correct, then this might not be the end but the beginning.
Charles was probably just testing the waters, taking the first step of his plan. Next, he would definitely have many more methods to further lower Finger Company’s stock price, achieving his goals more smoothly.
The four looked at each other and all stood up.
“The plan is pretty much finalized, and Charles has started making his moves. Let’s go!”
…
In the afternoon, Wu Bin checked online evaluations of Tenda’s special recruitment exam again.
As expected, public opinion had undergone some changes!
Among those enthusiastic, jubilant comments praising Tenda’s integrity, some different voices had emerged.
“Although this seems good on the surface, I’m a bit concerned—would Tenda one day be dragged down by its own welfare policies? Previous high welfare benefits were at least given to young people who properly entered the company through exams, motivating them to work hard. But these specially recruited people have either subjectively lost their fighting spirit or lack energy due to physical or family reasons. These could slow down the efficiency of the entire company!”
“Indeed, so-called ‘social responsibility,’ to put it bluntly, is also a kind of ‘social burden’ for enterprises. I think treating everyone equally and entering through exams is already good enough. Is there really a need to give these people special treatment?”
“I’m afraid Tenda will be dragged down by a group of slacking employees… From the perspective of a working person, of course I hope to do less work and get more pay. But from a consumer’s perspective, if Tenda’s employees slack off, how can they provide us with better products and services?”
“I think Tenda’s current situation is dangerous, as if they’re creating a persona. Whether stars or companies, those who create personas generally don’t end well. Once a persona is established, there will always be a day when it collapses…”
“I’m also concerned—the key is, does Mr. Pei truly not care about making money? Who can resist the temptation of capital? Even if he can now, what about in the future? Even if he personally can, what about other executives? The higher you elevate Tenda, the harder it will fall… Anyway, those who praise are you, and those who criticize will also be you. I think Tenda’s current state is quite good, don’t continue to elevate it—it’s really dangerous.”
“Regarding this matter, I think there’s an even bigger hidden danger: I hope Tenda doesn’t turn into a ‘Zigong ransoming people’ situation, morally binding all other companies and causing the entire entrepreneurial environment to deteriorate! In that case, it would truly be a case of good intentions leading to bad outcomes!”