Chapter 15: Med-Ferry Acquisition (Part 6)

Chapter 15: The Med-Ferry Acquisition (VI)

Before long, Fanhai announced it would not extend its tender offer deadline and withdrew from the bidding for Med-Ferry. With its rival out of the picture, Qinghui's acquisition moved forward at a much faster clip.

The Med-Ferry board recommended that shareholders tender their shares to Qinghui and urged them to vote yes at the extraordinary general meeting. Two months later, the EGM took place as scheduled, and shareholders voted, formally green-lighting the acquisition.

Some time later, the deal sailed through EU approval. As for the Chinese side, government approvals, forex registration, and the rest all went off without a hitch. All three agencies that any cross-border acquisition has to clear—NDRC, MOFCOM, and SAFE—gave the green light.

The deal closed.

Fanhai Group was the first to sell its 8.9% stake in Med-Ferry—bought on the open market—to Qinghui Group. True to its word, Qinghui Group soon handed Med-Ferry's AI drug R&D subsidiary over to Fanhai.

Around that same time, Fanhai Group also pulled off the acquisition of a UK medical device company.

Jing Hong knew Fanhai's next move was to wait out the lock-up period and then hand over its remaining 10% stake in Med-Ferry to Qinghui. At that point, Qinghui's stake would blow past the 90% threshold, triggering a compulsory buyout of the remaining shares.

By that day, retail investors' Med-Ferry shares would be sold off en masse by the exchange, and Med-Ferry would be taken private by Qinghui Group① and delisted from the Stockholm exchange.

When the news that "Fanhai obtained Med-Ferry's AI drug development subsidiary" first broke, finance bloggers were absolutely stunned, falling over themselves to speculate:

"Looks like there's more to Fanhai pulling out of the Med-Ferry bidding than meets the eye?"

"They must've cut a deal..."

The comments below ran the gamut.

"Fanhai and Qinghui are still able to work together?"

"Come on, why not? Why would anyone turn down money?"

Jing Hong saw similar comments too, but didn't give them a second thought.

…………

A few days after Fanhai acquired the AI drug development company, the biggest event in China's internet industry—the World Internet Conference—arrived to great fanfare.

This year's conference was a high-profile affair, with the country's top leadership in attendance and giving remarks. Jing Hong and Zhou Chang were both slated to speak on the morning of day one.

The conference wasn't in Beijing or Shanghai, but in a scenic little water town in Jiangnan.

When Jing Hong arrived, the whole town was wrapped in a fine, misty rain. Taking it in, he felt the town looked like a classical Chinese landscape painting—hazy outlines, with most of what met the eye in layered shades of black, gray, and white, broken up by the occasional flash of color.

The International Internet Exhibition Center sat right on the town's little bridges and canals, just as old-world in style, yet brimming with modern energy. Whitewashed walls rose in staggered layers, and dark-tiled roofs rolled like waves. The courtyard had bluestone paths, waterside pavilions, kiosks, winding corridors, green bamboo, and lotus flowers. At the same time, the upper part of the building had a curtain wall made of tens of thousands of steel rods—like the silk that once set out from here to link the world in ancient times, or the fiber optics that link the world today.

Volunteers in period-style clothing bustled in and out.

Inside, the main hall was dominated by tech-blue—a deep, dark blue. The stage was decked out in deep blue carpeting against a deep blue backdrop, and even the little lights hanging directly overhead were all deep blue.

This was the first time either Jing Hong or Zhou Chang had set foot in the Exhibition Center—this was only the conference's second year; last year was the first, but Jing Hong had just taken the reins at Fanhai Group and hadn't come, and Zhou Chang had been in the same boat.

………

The opening ceremony was the same old song and dance—the leaders each gave speeches, the provincial governor declared the conference open, and attendees took a group photo. This year's conference was even higher-profile—the front row was all leaders, while Jing Hong and the others lined up one by one in the second row.

Once the conference got underway, the four CEOs of the "Big Four" and the top brass of major foreign giants took the stage in turn.

Jing Hong, as cool as ever, laid out Fanhai Group's AI strategy.

Zhou Chang, for his part, talked about Qinghui Group's cloud computing results, like a few brand-new features. Zhou Chang also said Qinghui was developing its own Arm-based chips in-house, hoping to make cloud servers use less power and run faster.

The World Internet Conference was a different beast from the AI forum Jing Hong had attended before—bigger in scale and in impact. After his keynote, Jing Hong didn't head out—he planned to sit through the entire two-day conference, and it looked like the other heavy hitters were doing the same.

This was as much a networking opportunity as a learning one.

The organizers had put Jing Hong and Zhou Chang right next to each other. Over the course of the next while, Jing Hong was surprised to find that when he took notes during a talk, Zhou Chang usually did too; when he sat there unmoved, Zhou Chang usually did the same. They seemed to be interested in exactly the same things.

Jing Hong also noticed that, unlike most handsome men, Zhou Chang didn't have those long, elegant fingers. Instead, Zhou Chang's hands were big—broad palms, long, slightly thick fingers, and knuckles that stood out clearly—radiating the raw power of a grown man, perfectly in proportion with his height and build.

"Getting pinched by those would probably hurt," Jing Hong thought.

But of course, there was stuff at the conference that interested Jing Hong, and stuff that didn't. Not every talk was interesting or worth listening to; sometimes he felt it was a total waste of his time. For guys like them, time was the most precious thing there was.

This feeling hit its peak right at the start of the afternoon session. As if possessed, speaker after speaker on stage tried to outdo each other in talking nonsense, while outside the Exhibition Center, thunder rolled and a steady drizzle fell.

Jing Hong was bored out of his mind, so he zoned out, propped his chin on his hand, and stared blankly at the stage.

After a bit, he suddenly wanted to check the conference program brochure to scope out who the next speakers were and what their talks were about.

The brochure wasn't out in the open, so Jing Hong casually flipped up the notebook lying open on the table, figuring the schedule might be underneath the notebook. But before he found anything, he heard a muffled "thunk"—the ballpoint pen he'd tossed onto his notebook had rolled off the far side of the table and hit the floor.

Jing Hong: "…………"

That snapped him back to reality.

Each guest had only been issued one ballpoint pen. Jing Hong tilted his head and swept his gaze under the table from his own side—no sign of the pen.

Was he going to have to look from the other side?

No way around it—Jing Hong stood up, leaned over the table, and peered across to the other side, scanning for a moment.

...Found it.

His ballpoint pen was just lying there, perfectly still.

But how the hell was he supposed to pick it up?

Jing Hong hesitated: pick it up, or not?

Just then, Jing Hong heard a short, muffled laugh from his left.

"..." Jing Hong craned his neck and looked at Zhou Chang next to him.

Sure enough, Zhou Chang was watching him with a leisurely, amused look as he hunched over the table hunting for his pen.

Jing Hong couldn't believe it—Zhou Chang had actually laughed out loud!!!

Jing Hong sat back down, shot Zhou Chang a look, and his expression was clearly not happy.

Knowing Jing Hong had heard him laugh out loud, the smile at the corners of Zhou Chang's mouth hadn't faded. He just curled his right hand into a fist, put it to his lips, and let out a fake little cough, and said, "Sorry."

He said "sorry," but Zhou Chang clearly didn't look sorry at all.

"..." Jing Hong said, "President Zhou, could you scooch over a bit?"

There was plenty of room between each row of tables for guests to get in and out, but the tables were one long continuous stretch.

Jing Hong could've walked around from behind his seat to the front of the table to grab it—no one needed to move for him. But the talks were still going, and the table was so long—was he really going to walk all the way around just to pick up a pen? That was way too much.

With at least an hour to go before the coffee break, waiting was definitely not an option. Jing Hong also wanted to jot down some notes—he remembered there were a few well-known scholars coming up later.

The volunteer wasn't paying attention to them either, so his only option now was to duck under the table to grab the ballpoint pen.

But the conference seats were crammed together, and Jing Hong couldn't bend down unless Zhou Chang scooted over.

Zhou Chang didn't say anything, just casually scooted half a seat over to the other side.

Now there was finally enough room.

Jing Hong stayed put and slid one leg out first. Then he hesitated a moment, but eventually bent down, his head turned toward Zhou Chang's side, and ducked his upper body under the table to grab the pen.

The pen was actually closer to Zhou Chang than to him.

Zhou Chang looked down at Jing Hong, but unexpectedly noticed that this composed, seasoned man had a playful cowlick on the top of his head.

Apparently, it forms when a baby is too active and restless in the womb.

Zhou Chang figured Jing Hong was around 1.8 meters tall, so no one would ever normally see the cowlick on his head. Also, given his status, Jing Hong's hair always seemed perfectly neat and never out of place, and Zhou Chang never imagined Jing Hong would have such a playful cowlick.

As if he'd discovered a whole new world, Zhou Chang stared at Jing Hong's cowlick for a long time.

The CEO of Xingyuan, sitting next to Zhou Chang, saw him staring and thought Jing Hong might be going bald too, so he craned his neck to look, but only saw a head of thick, dark, soft hair and was totally confused.

After more than ten seconds, Jing Hong finally got the pen.

He was still sitting in his chair and slipped back out, but as he emerged, he clearly misjudged where the table edge was—he tried to sit up when he was still a few centimeters short.

Zhou Chang reacted in a flash, without thinking, and pressed his right hand palm-down, the back of his hand against the table, under the tabletop. So when Jing Hong sat up, his head bumped into Zhou Chang's open palm.

Because Zhou Chang had shielded him, Jing Hong's head didn't hit the table directly.

Between Jing Hong's head and the hard wooden table lay a warm hand.

When Jing Hong realized that it was Zhou Chang beside him who had helped block it, protecting him, he froze for a moment.

A few seconds later, he looked at Zhou Chang and said, "...Thank you."

"You're welcome," Zhou Chang said. "Don't be so mischievous next time."

Author's note:

① Privatization: On this point, China, the United States, Germany, etc., are the same—after a tender offer, if the shareholding exceeds 90%, the shareholder can choose to force-buy the remaining shares, turning the company into their own and delisting it from the stock exchange.