Chapter 18: Med-Ferry Acquisition (Part 9)

Chapter 18: The Med-Ferry Acquisition (IX)

The second day of the World Internet Conference passed just as quickly.

That day, when Jing Hong saw Zhou Chang again, his expression was as calm as ever. However, when the two of them sat together listening to the keynote speeches at the main forum, Jing Hong would inexplicably think back to that moment that morning when they'd both turned their heads at the same time, as if some lingering emotion still clung to the ink-wash landscapes in the art museum.

Back then, neither of them had said a word to the other. Jing Hong was the first to look away, pretending to keep studying the paintings, strolling along as he did so, and soon drifted to the other side of the gallery. After that, they didn't run into each other again in the museum.

That evening, Jing Hong skipped the private dinner hosted by Weilai's CEO and boarded a direct flight back to Beijing. Zhou Chang did the exact same thing.

...

Back in Beijing, Zhou Chang would sometimes think about Jing Hong.

The way he'd carried himself and the tone he'd used during the negotiation in his office last month, the little smudge of coffee at the corner of his mouth; the way he'd hunched over the table in that small town, staring at the pen, the stubborn cowlick on the crown of his head; the tone when he said "I believe in the ambition and determination of Chinese pharmaceutical companies," the WeChat Moments post that was just a single gray line; the umbrella spinning slow, lazy circles atop the White Lotus Pagoda; the slight nod he'd given at Fengyuan Double Bridge; the way he'd turned his head when he heard "a lifetime is only enough to love one person."

But these thoughts soon faded into the daily grind of paperwork.

One day, the head of Qinghui Group's Strategic Investment Division came to report to Zhou Chang again. After running through a few other items, he brought up the main topic he wanted to discuss: "Zhou, our investment in Suigou... seems to have hit a snag."

Zhou Chang raised his eyes. "Go on. You've gotten more long-winded lately."

"Suigou" was a community group-buying app, and community group-buying was the hot new trend that year.

"Mm," the head of Qinghui's Strategic Investment Division duly dropped the preamble and got straight to it. "Fanhai Group—"

Fanhai. That familiar name again. Zhou Chang's brow twitched almost imperceptibly, and he said, "Didn't Fanhai already get shut out of the Suigou investment?"

Two months ago, Fanhai and Qinghui had both shown interest in Suigou around the same time. But Qinghui's investment team was quicker on the draw—the head of the division flew overnight to where the other CEO was on a business trip, laid out a generous offer, and beat everyone to the punch, signing an exclusive investment deal with Suigou.

The deal was already signed. What could Fanhai possibly do now?

"Right," the head of Qinghui's Strategic Investment Division said. "The problem is with the CTO candidate you insisted on, Zhou."

Talking to Zhou Chang, he was nowhere near as relaxed as Zhao Hanqing was with Jing Hong.

Zhou Chang fixed his gaze on the man, signaling for him to go on.

Zhou Chang's memory wasn't that bad—of course he remembered what he'd said. Last week, after going over Suigou's materials, he'd raised a point: the product concept was excellent, but the tech was a bit lacking. He wanted Suigou to bring in a CTO (Chief Technology Officer) to handle the app's technical side, because the current developer was just a former Google Tech Lead with no experience managing a new product—not enough to compete in the market, and the guy himself was under a ton of pressure. For this reason, Zhou Chang had proposed last week that before the first payment was made and the shareholder change was registered, Suigou must hire a CTO.

"Here's the thing," the head of Qinghui's Strategic Investment Division said. "Fanhai... seems to have guessed you'd want to swap out the CTO. Three days ago, they put a candidate in front of Suigou. Here, take a look—he's a perfect fit." He handed over a file, and Zhou Chang took it, realizing he knew this guy too.

This guy had been tracking the community group-buying space early on and had been working in O2O① the whole time. The O2O concept came out of Japan, and this guy was one of the best in the field—he'd done O2O at Walmart, then moved to a major tech conglomerate to build a team and develop a product, basically like a startup, and it ended up succeeding. He came back to China early last year and joined an investment firm. According to the file, he'd been trying to get other people to build community group-buying products so he could invest, and he'd already pitched at least seven or eight people.

He had vision, technical chops, experience, connections, the ability to manage internally and communicate externally, and a solid grasp of operations.

Zhou Chang looked at the file in his hands, his face giving nothing away—impossible to tell if he was pleased or not.

The man across from him handed another stack of candidates to Zhou Chang: "There are others too, but compared to this guy, they all fall somewhat short."

Zhou Chang took the other materials and flipped through them rapidly. He only glanced at each page once or twice—the last two places of employment, the positions, and a few numbers from quantifiable achievements in that role—then turned to the next page. Some people he could dismiss with a single look at their empty, verbose, meaningless resumes.

Indeed, none of them were quite good enough. Or rather, a few would have been fine on their own, but with a gem in front, they paled in comparison.

Zhou Chang closed the materials, tossed them back, tapped two fingers on the cover of the first person's dossier, and asked, "This guy—what's the catch?"

The other man immediately continued: "This guy was proactively introduced to Suigou by Fanhai Group. He apparently... had a good relationship with Jing Hong in the past. For some reason, he's extremely loyal and completely immovable." The head of Qinghui's Strategic Investment Division also looked somewhat puzzled. "He keeps saying he'll go forward or backward together with Fanhai. If Suigou wants to hire him, they must simultaneously accept Fanhai as an investor and let Fanhai invest at least 10%. If Fanhai can't invest, then he definitely won't come over."

Hearing this, Zhou Chang let out a laugh of exasperation.

"He also said," the other man continued his report, "that if he doesn't go to Suigou, he'll directly join Fanhai and build a similar product within the Fanhai Group—Fanhai self-developed—to compete with Suigou for market share."

After laying out the current situation, the head of Qinghui's strategic investment division asked Zhou Chang for the next step: "So what do we do now? Jing Hong guessed that we'd want to replace the CTO, proactively introduced this guy, and tied him up as a package deal. Buy one, get one free—Suigou buys a CTO and gets an investor thrown in. Fanhai is bending over backwards to get in."

"..." Zhou Chang didn't look at the materials in his hand again, nor did he hesitate any further. He tossed the materials back to the other man and said, "Qinghui currently holds 30% of the shares, right?"

"Yes. 30%."

Zhou Chang continued: "Redraw the investment agreement. Qinghui gives up 10% to Fanhai. For this project, we'll invest together with Fanhai."

"..." The other man nodded.

But after a moment, the head of Qinghui's strategic investment division sighed with feeling: "Back then, to secure the exclusive investment agreement with Suigou and shut out Fanhai and everyone else, I flew overnight to Japan, skipped dinner, negotiated through the entire night, and only signed the agreement by morning. I thought Fanhai was finally out of the picture. And now—ha—Fanhai still got in."

The exclusive 30% investment by Qinghui became Qinghui holding 20% and Fanhai holding 10%.

"Not your fault." Zhou Chang watched the other man gather up the messy materials and said, "General Jing's business warfare tactics are..."

The head of Qinghui's strategic investment division casually finished the sentence: "Quite brilliant?"

"No." Zhou Chang raised his eyes but didn't look at the other man—he seemed to be looking through the void at someone, his gaze sharp and focused, and said a word that was somewhat inexplicable but roughly meant the same thing: "Quite sexy."

Author's note:

①O2O: Online To Offline, online marketing driving offline transactions.