Chapter 27: Saint Games Acquisition (Part 2)

A few days later, Zhao Hanqing reported to Jing Hong again on the progress of the Saint Games acquisition.

The Fanhai Group refused to commit to refraining from further share purchases, and the Saint Games board appeared powerless against the incursion of the corporate raider Qinghui Group. Qinghui’s offer was indeed exceptionally generous, and shareholders were genuinely eager to sell. Ultimately, after multiple rounds of negotiations, both parties agreed to shorten the “no further stake increase” clause to three months. Simultaneously, the voting-rights proxy period for Saint Games’ CEO was also adjusted to three months.

Jing Hong nodded in approval.

Three months—acceptable.

Next, the Fanhai Group launched a preliminary all-cash offer to all Saint Games shareholders at a flat £25 per share—slightly higher than Qinghui’s. However, Fanhai’s offer was conditional upon due diligence, unlike Qinghui’s unconditional bid.

The day after Fanhai announced its offer, Saint Games’ official website posted the offer documents at lightning speed.

Qinghui did not escalate into a bidding war. Though both offers were cash-based and financially comparable, Fanhai enjoyed strong backing from the Saint Games board—a decisive advantage, as boards wield considerable influence over shareholder decisions.

Qinghui simply kept extending its own offer deadline, waiting to see whether Fanhai would withdraw following due diligence.

What Zhao Hanqing hadn’t anticipated was that Saint Games persistently dragged its feet on due diligence. They exhausted every possible tactic to delay it, fabricating excuse after excuse to keep Fanhai at bay.

“It seems…” Zhao Hanqing tapped his fingers on the table, “Saint Games is merely playing us. Since we haven’t pledged never to acquire additional shares or transfer our voting rights to them, Saint Games has no real intention of letting Fanhai successfully submit and execute an acquisition. They’re using our offer solely to buy time and placate shareholders.”

Jing Hong frowned. “Dragging their feet?”

“Yes,” Zhao Hanqing explained. “The Saint Games board is likely still searching for other ‘white knights’—parties willing to promise not to increase their stake—or perhaps assembling a consortium to carry out the acquisition. Either way, they clearly don’t want Qinghui taking them over—and they don’t want Fanhai doing so either. Fanhai’s offer is merely a pretext to reject Qinghui. As long as Fanhai’s offer remains unofficial, Saint Games retains flexibility. They’re exploiting Fanhai.”

So long as Fanhai’s superior offer remained on the table, Saint Games’ shareholders naturally held off accepting Qinghui’s proposal. Meanwhile, Saint Games stalled Fanhai’s due diligence while keeping all options open.

Jing Hong nodded and let out a light laugh. “That’s pretty low.”

Zhao Hanqing agreed. “Yeah.”

“Here’s what we’ll do,” Jing Hong said. “You go to San Diego yourself. Lean on them. Set a hard deadline.”

“Alright,” Zhao Hanqing replied—he’d been thinking the same thing. “I’ll have my assistant book the flights right away.”

............

Zhao Hanqing departed for London that same day, while Jing Hong waited at the Beijing headquarters for his update.

Zhao Hanqing didn’t disappoint. The next day, Saint Games agreed to allow the Fanhai team to begin due diligence.

It was said that, determined to arrive as early as possible, Zhao Hanqing hailed an Uber straight from the airport to Saint Games’ offices. That morning, he met with Saint Games’ CEO and CFO—but got nowhere. First, they claimed one item on the due diligence list wasn’t ready; then another.

The following morning, Zhao Hanqing returned to Saint Games’ headquarters—but still made no tangible progress on the acquisition.

That night, with Jing Hong’s approval, Zhao Hanqing checked out of his hotel, grabbed his bags, hailed a cab, and headed directly for London International Airport. En route, he emailed Saint Games stating that, given the inability to proceed with due diligence, Fanhai had decided to withdraw from the bidding process.

Just as Zhao Hanqing’s car neared central London, Saint Games’ management called him back.

Saint Games finally relented, declaring that Fanhai was welcome to begin due diligence starting Monday—and confirming that their best conference room had already been reserved.

Thereafter, due diligence proceeded smoothly. Saint Games proved to be a highly attractive acquisition target: strong brand equity, a capable management team, loyal customers, and solid goodwill. Fanhai encountered only one snag—the finalization of due diligence paperwork—because Fanhai’s General Counsel had been detained in Beijing for mandatory criminal compliance training, culminating in a field trip to a detention center. Unable to leave the facility—and thoroughly unnerved by the experience—the legal chief couldn’t sign off.

While waiting, Jing Hong developed the habit of reading Eternal-Sunshine_Zhou’s posts daily on an old forum to unwind.

Through those words, Jing Hong could almost see Zhou Chang as he’d been a decade earlier—and converse with him.

Clearly, Zhou Chang had also been learning and researching back then—far less adept with emerging technologies than he is today.

Occasionally, Jing Hong would spot Zhou Chang referencing him in a post—for instance: “This question has already been covered in @Swan’s tutorial, so I won’t revisit it here.”

Jing Hong always felt a strange sensation.

So it turned out they’d known each other over a decade ago—before that business rivalry.

Through the internet.

Both studying computer science, both working in the internet industry, both immersed in the digital world their entire lives—it turned out their very first point of connection had also been the internet.

Debating the nascent mobile internet on the traditional web—what a mouthful.

He finished reading the final post on the evening due diligence concluded.

Before vanishing from the forum, Zhou Chang had posted one last farewell message. Its closing line quoted a famous poem:

“The curtain of the mobile internet has risen; the sky glows with dawn’s light.

We will inevitably meet again somewhere in this world called the ‘internet.’

Do not worry that the road ahead holds no kindred spirits—who in this world does not know you?”

“Do not worry that the road ahead holds no kindred spirits—who in this world does not know you—” Jing Hong murmured softly, seeing those words again after more than ten years.

Later, the mobile internet truly surged forward—eventually unleashing enormous waves.

Today, he himself, Zhou Chang, and founders of several prominent companies all regularly featured in the media.

Of course, the vast majority of successful entrepreneurs relied on “imitation” plus localization. Once an American app succeeded, Chinese entrepreneurs replicated it within days.

Jing Hong wondered: Did he and Zhou Chang count as having “met again somewhere in this world called the internet”?

Zhou Chang now possessed a sharp eye for emerging internet fields. Jing Hong suddenly found himself curious about how Zhou Chang had evolved over the past decade-plus—from back then to now.

Jing Hong opened Google News, typed “周昶” in Chinese, clicked “Tools,” set the “Time” filter to “2009.1–2010.1,” and searched.

No results.

In English: “Zhou, Chang”—still no results.

He changed the timeframe to “2010.1–2011.1”—still nothing.

“2011.1–2012.1”—still blank.

Not until “2014.1–2015.1” did relevant profiles appear on McKinsey’s official website—mostly project experiences authored by Zhou Chang himself. Large firms often encourage employees to publish online content as part of “community building.”

Article titles included: “Interpretation of New FCC① Regulations and Net Neutrality,” “2015: The Sharing Economy May Face Stricter Legal Regulation,” “2015: Four Major Trends in Cloud Computing,” and “Project Experience Sharing: [XX Project],” among others.

Jing Hong scrolled through them year by year, article by article—focusing primarily on the projects.

Initially, they centered on investment management—why a particular acquisition was pursued, how funding challenges for client companies were resolved, etc.

Going further back, the focus shifted to corporate management. Jing Hong even came across the layoff project that had catapulted Zhou Chang to sudden fame. Zhou Chang wrote that his approach was “cut all at once, with the CEO explicitly stating, ‘There will be no second round of layoffs,’” because a single round allowed employees to maintain normal operations—or even feel a quiet sense of relief. But a second round would trigger widespread panic, with everyone fearing a third or fourth. It wasn’t just about cost.

Point by point, everything was meticulously organized.

Jing Hong touched his lips with his fingers, feeling a bit thirsty.

He walked to the refrigerator, picked up a cup, scooped some ice—but hesitated upon seeing the array of drinks inside.

In the end, he pulled out a bottle of beer.

He had a vague feeling that sipping this while digging further into Zhou Chang's past would hit the spot.

Jing Hong popped open the beer can, white foam spilling over.

Jing Hong tipped his head back, took a swig, and kept reading.

Jing Hong had actually heard of quite a few of these investment projects. As he read, he thought: So the acquisition of Company X by Company Y—that was Zhou Chang's doing.

Contrary to what Jing Hong expected, Zhou Chang hadn't been half-assing these "community building" posts at all.

Jing Hong knew Zhou Chang wasn't the type to enjoy sharing or teaching others, yet every project summary on the site was meticulous and polished.

The reasoning behind the acquisition, the potential upsides, the possible downsides, backup plans for those downsides, the whole decision-making process, the pros and cons of the deal, the new curveballs that came up, and how they were handled...

Ambition was written all over it. Perfecting every task, even if it was just "community building." Clearly, Zhou Chang wanted a higher position and bigger deals to run.

Jing Hong also noticed that with failed projects, Zhou Chang would tear them apart and analyze them piece by piece.

He didn't have many failures—Jing Hong only came across two or three.

One was investing in the wrong company. That startup eventually went bust, and Zhou Chang laid out a detailed breakdown, point one through six: for instance, even though the founding team was solid—all ex-Google—the company culture and perks were a total carbon copy of Google's, giving employees the false sense that "this is basically Google Jr.," so they lacked the hustle and urgency of a real startup...

Another was a bidding war where the offer came up short, and the client's boss dithered too long, ultimately blowing the chance. Zhou Chang wrote that one up in detail too. Sure enough, the company that client snapped up on the cheap turned out to be a dud.

Zhou Chang's English was smooth, idiomatic, and polished—even better than Jing Hong's American classmates'.

Very few Chinese people speak fluent English, especially guys. It takes brains and serious effort—you can't have one without the other.

It was late, way past bedtime, but Jing Hong kept reading through those projects and reports.

So this was what Zhou Chang was like back when he was just a cog in the machine.

Bold in his moves, yet meticulous in the details.

Jing Hong even flipped through some of Zhou Chang's earlier academic papers, cracking a small smile here and there.

Before he knew it, both cans were empty, and Jing Hong felt a warm buzz creeping over him.

It felt like by peeking into Zhou Chang's twenties, Jing Hong had gotten a read on the thirty-something Zhou Chang of today.

He felt a rush.

Knowing your opponent inside and out is always an edge in a competition.

Jing Hong chalked that rush up to having his rival fully figured out.

But somewhere deep down, a small voice whispered: Maybe that's not it.

Author's note:

In real life, the "no further stake increases" period is usually set to one or two years, with half a year being the bare minimum. Here, for plot purposes, it's three months—real life is rarely that short!

①FCC New Rules: In 2015, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) passed a rule banning network operators (like AT&T and Verizon—think China Mobile and China Telecom in China) from selling faster speeds to content providers (usually big tech companies like Google), on the grounds that it violated Net Neutrality. To draw an analogy with Chinese companies, it's like banning China Mobile from charging Tencent for faster transmission speeds for Tencent's videos, arguing it's unfair to cash-strapped smaller businesses. This rule was later repealed in 2017.