Tenda wasn’t short of money, but it couldn’t produce that much on such short notice.
After all, it was ten billion dollars.
Installment payments were certainly possible; many acquisitions were made through installment plans.
Pei Qian currently had tens of millions that he couldn’t spend, which could all be given to the Dayak Group as a down payment, perfectly achieving the losses for this cycle.
Moreover, this large sum of money could also greatly alleviate the pressure to lose money in future cycles.
Completing the acquisition negotiations at this critical moment was simply perfect!
Pei Qian felt that his future self should really thank his present self this time.
See, I’m not just creating trouble for you all; I’ve also learned to consume in advance!
Tenda’s various businesses would continue to make money in the future, but it didn’t matter. With this huge outlet opened, rushing to spend money before future settlements should be much easier.
Although Pei Qian hadn’t asked for details, the acquisition team quickly sent over a detailed report outlining the specific situation of the negotiations to acquire Finger Company.
Ten billion dollars was indeed not cheap.
When the Dayak Group initially invested in acquiring the young Finger Company, they only spent 200 million dollars to buy 80% of Finger Company’s shares.
At that time, Pei Qian thought 200 million dollars was a lot and that the Dayak Group was quite wealthy. But looking at it now, what was 200 million dollars?
Of course, later they were forced by Mr. Pei to use a privatization offer to buy all of Finger Company’s shares, spending another 72 million dollars, which could be considered a huge loss.
But now, the Dayak Group was selling Finger Company for ten billion dollars, so they couldn’t really be said to be at a loss.
This was normal—the Dayak Group wasn’t stupid, how could they make a loss-making deal? If they were going to sell Finger Company, they would certainly want to make a profit.
But for the Tenda Group, this deal wasn’t a loss either.
Because the ten billion dollars bought not just a simple game, but also the copyright for all the heroes in IOI, all of Finger Company’s employees including the designers, and most importantly, the ready-made system that IOI had built in so many regions and markets around the world, as well as all of IOI’s players.
The Dayak Group had invested a large amount of capital to promote IOI, and of course, IOI was also continuously making money.
Being able to receive all these results in full was quite good for the Tenda Group.
Even ten billion dollars, relative to acquisitions of gaming companies, could be considered cheap.
Of course, the reasons for this were quite complex, mainly these few points:
First, Finger Company was unlike other game company giants. It only had one game, IOI, and IOI’s data had not only failed to rise rapidly recently but was actually continuously shrinking.
Many game company giants had several classic IPs under their belts, all still making big money, with no directly competing games on the market. With a visibly profitable future ahead, acquiring them would certainly be expensive.
But given IOI’s current situation, being chased by GOG globally, even the Dayak Group itself had lost confidence in it, naturally making the outside world even less optimistic.
With such low confidence, the price would naturally be lower.
Second, Finger Company’s CEO Charles had recently caused a series of problems, courting disaster and generating one negative news story after another.
Charles wanted to lower Finger Company’s stock price as much as possible so he could buy it at a low price and make a killing. So not only did he release negative news, but he also tried every possible way to persuade the Dayak Group: sell to me quickly; if you don’t sell now, you might not even get this price in the future.
The Dayak Group had also contacted some interested investors, but these investors were either hesitant and observing, or they were directly tricked away by Charles’s small tactics, with none reaching an acquisition intention.
All these situations further lowered the Dayak Group’s expectations for the acquisition price.
Finally, Tenda’s acquisition team also played a role, adopting a rather clever strategy and avoiding being taken for fools.
Although Tenda’s team quickly made contact with the Dayak Group, they didn’t show a very strong acquisition intention.
This was also normal—Tenda had GOG, which was beating IOI badly on a global scale. Why would they need to buy IOI?
If they bought it, it was only to provide a safety net for GOG and completely swallow the MOBA game market. If they didn’t buy it, they wouldn’t suffer any loss; after all, no matter who Finger Company was sold to, it was unlikely to pose a fatal threat to GOG again.
“We at Tenda are buying IOI and won’t push the price down to a level you can’t accept, but don’t think you can take us for fools and try to make a killing—that’s absolutely impossible.”
So, after all the negotiations, they arrived at a price of about ten billion dollars.
Of course, these ten billion dollars couldn’t buy the entire Finger Company, because the Dayak Group had previously given some shares to Finger Company’s executives as incentives to better motivate them. For example, Charles held about 10% of the shares.
Adding up the shares held by other executives and some individual retail investors, the total was less than 20%.
That is to say, the Finger Company shares that Tenda bought from the Dayak Group actually amounted to just over 80%—enough for absolute control, but not complete ownership.
The Dayak Group could only sell the shares they held; they couldn’t make decisions for Charles and other executives to sell their shares too.
If they wanted to keep them or find the right time to cash out, that was their freedom.
As for what to do with the remaining shares, Pei Qian hadn’t completely thought it through.
Do it twice?
Like the Dayak Group did initially, make a privatization offer to delist Finger Company again, pursuing 100% ownership?
That really wasn’t necessary.
Because these shares might look small, but they were expensive to buy.
Although Pei Qian didn’t care about money, there was no need to be taken for a fool by these executives.
Moreover, there was no need to pursue 100% ownership; Pei Qian didn’t have OCD.
Exactly how much control he had wouldn’t affect his grand plan going forward.
The report also reminded him that some of Finger Company’s executives, including Charles, might cause trouble, which was something to guard against.
But Pei Qian didn’t care at all, because he really didn’t care whether these people caused trouble or not.
As long as he didn’t care about money, there were plenty of ways to deal with them!
…
…
February 26th, Tuesday noon.
At a restaurant in Shanghai.
Brother Wei, Old Zhou, and several senior employees from Shengrun Group’s Public Affairs Department were having a meal together.
The reason they chose noon was because Shengrun Group had recently encountered a public opinion crisis, and the Public Affairs Department had to work overtime until very late, even in the evenings.
Since they all had to work overtime anyway, it didn’t matter when they had the meal…
Including the lunch break, a few people slipping away wouldn’t be so noticeable.
These people didn’t pick a special place; they just found a restaurant near Shengrun Group, agreeing that when they had more time in the future, they would find a better restaurant and have a proper meal.
“Brother Wei, how did you feel about the exam? Were the questions difficult?”
“Old Zhou, didn’t you take the exam too? Are you confident? Give us some advice!”
“Hope you both can pass successfully. That way, when we go to take the exam, we’ll have some help.”
“I watched the livestream recording. I have to say, Manager Lü is really cool! He left Old Nie speechless and completely humiliated. So impressive! The employees at Headwind Logistics are lucky to work under such a boss.”
“Indeed, quite envious. If I met the conditions for Tenda’s special recruitment, I’d go take the exam too!”
“These past few days, negative public opinion has exploded, and we’ve been heavily criticized. But why do I feel so satisfied? Although we inevitably have to work overtime too…”
“At work, we have to put on an SM face like Director Nie and the others, but inside we’re actually happy! So what if we work overtime? We get to see such great entertainment while working overtime—it’s worth it!”
Although Brother Wei had already resigned, their friendship remained, so they naturally wanted to have a good meal together in private.
The old employees chatted while eating, all expressing concern about the Tenda recruitment exam situation.
Because they all wanted to go!
Besides this, they naturally also talked about the previous conflict between Old Wei and the vice president, as well as the livestream debate between Lü Mingliang and Director Nie.
This matter had caused quite a stir, hanging on the trending searches for several days, and the heat showed no signs of dying down.
Old Zhou said with some guilt: “Brother Wei, you got into an argument with the vice president because you were asking for leave on my behalf. I didn’t even stand up to speak for you, which was a bit unfair to you…”
Brother Wei waved his hand: “Hey, don’t say that. I was actually unhappy with the job for a long time. This time I just couldn’t bear it anymore, so I had an emotional outburst. It had nothing to do with your situation.”
“Besides, what good would it do if you spoke up for me? We’d both be fired together? That wouldn’t make sense. My financial situation is a bit better than yours, so I can handle being temporarily unemployed.”
Someone asked: “Brother Wei, you still haven’t told us, how was the exam? Was it difficult?”
Brother Wei said somewhat helplessly: “There were a lot of people taking the exam, really a lot! I originally thought that with such strict conditions, the number of exam-takers would be fewer, but I didn’t expect the competition to still be so fierce.”
“I can only say that Tenda is really popular—it’s practically a paradise for working people.”
“I can’t guarantee whether I’ll pass. They’re still in the grading stage. Results probably won’t be out until next week, and with interviews and other miscellaneous processes, it might drag on for half a month.”
Someone else asked: “What about you, Old Zhou?”
Old Zhou scratched his head: “I can’t really say either! The questions were quite challenging. Some questions were very professional, and some tested predictions and views on industry development. And there was also content related to the Tenda spirit test—I had no idea whether my answers were right or wrong; I could only guess.”
Everyone nodded and didn’t ask more.
After all, the Tenda recruitment exam was famously difficult, and they had to consider the possibility of “not passing.”
This probability not only existed but was quite high.
But in such a setting, they couldn’t say such inauspicious words. People needed some emotional intelligence; they should naturally wish both candidates success in passing the exam.
As they were eating, Brother Wei’s phone rang.
Without thinking much, he answered: “Hello?”
Then he fell silent, listening to the person on the phone for nearly half a minute before finally responding: “Uh… okay! No problem!”
“Alright, I’ll make a trip to Jingzhou in the next few days!”
After hanging up, everyone realized that the situation seemed unusual.
“Brother Wei, what’s up?”
Brother Wei looked at everyone with a bewildered expression: “I… I’ve been specially recruited by Tenda!”