Chapter 5: Kunpeng & Huawei Merger (Part 3)

Chapter 5: The Kunpeng-Huawei Merger Case (III)

From that point on, the pace of negotiations for the Kunpeng-Huawei merger suddenly accelerated.

Qinghui and Huawei's side got the CEO position, while Fanhai and Kunpeng's side secured veto power and several other benefits—for instance, the company would be named "Kunpeng Huawei" rather than "Huawei Kunpeng," and the equity ratio between Kunpeng and Huawei would shift from 50:50 to slightly favor Kunpeng, making the merger appear Kunpeng-led to reassure its employees. In the end, both sides' employees would walk away thinking their own camp came out on top.

At the second round of negotiations after conceding the CEO position, both parties brought along lawyers, financial advisors, and auditors, and began drafting the framework agreement.

The investment department was highly professional, and Jing Hong never followed up on the merger process afterward—if his decision were needed, Zhao Hanqing would proactively report to him.

As negotiations deepened, news that Kunpeng and Huawei were about to merge leaked out. People in the industry were saying: "Kunpeng and Huawei have been fighting for years, and in the end, each side just picked up an extra parent!" "Exactly! Kunpeng gained a Qinghui parent, and Huawei gained a Fanhai parent. They each had one before, and now they each have two."

…………

The next time the name "Qinghui" came up for Jing Hong, it was over something pretty minor.

A prominent figure in artificial intelligence had just returned to China from the United States, wanting to live out his remaining years back home and be buried in his native soil. Now, Fanhai, Qinghui, two of the other "Big Four" companies, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, and numerous other corporations and universities were all trying to recruit this scholar as one of their own—at the very least as a strategic advisor or visiting professor.

One day, the general manager of the human resources department reported that, thanks to Qinghui's president Zhou Chang's personal connections, Qinghui was currently in the lead. She added that Professor Hong had originally been completely unwilling to consider the Fanhai Group and was already planning to sign with Qinghui, but through sheer sincerity, she'd managed to talk him into visiting Fanhai—to see its AI department, its launched AI products, meet its AI lead, and learn about the machine learning systems Fanhai had long been using and its vast internal machine learning content library. Professor Hong wanted to decide fast, so he'd scheduled the visit for 3:30 that very afternoon.

Additionally, the HR general manager had secured Professor Hong's agreement to have a face-to-face conversation with Jing Hong.

"Fine." Jing Hong flipped through his schedule. "4 PM then. I'll make time."

He chuckled to himself. The HR head was sharp. If, after his own meeting, the other party still declined, then it wouldn't be HR's problem—it would be Jing Hong's. The blame wouldn't fall on her—if Jing Hong couldn't close the deal himself, she sure as hell couldn't be expected to. But she had indeed done everything within her power, and sending out the highest-ranking person also showed due respect to Professor Hong. Nothing wrong with that.

"I'll present Fanhai's strengths comprehensively and do my best to win Professor Hong over," the HR general manager continued. "But personally, I feel that deep down, Professor Hong is already heavily biased toward Qinghui. It's essentially decided. This afternoon's visit will be hard to turn around. It seems Professor Hong only agreed to come because he couldn't bring himself to refuse me outright—he was too polite to say no. But this 'visit' is quite perfunctory, scheduled for this very afternoon, probably just a quick look before declining." She was analyzing the situation while also giving Jing Hong an out.

"Too polite to refuse outright?" Jing Hong latched onto that detail, his hand pausing as he flipped through documents. He thought for a moment, then said: "A true intellectual, indeed—too thin-skinned to say no."

The other party was taken aback, not expecting that Jing Hong's focus would be on how hard it is to turn down such warm hospitality, and said, "Probably so."

Jing Hong then asked her, "Is Fanhai currently hosting that AI talent bootcamp?"

As a top-tier tech enterprise, Fanhai Group hosts an AI talent bootcamp every year. The camp has several tracks—some for startups, some for university students, some for individual developers—totaling several hundred participants. Startups, university students, and other applicants submit applications, and Fanhai selects those who can join the "Fanhai AI Talent Program," followed by regular training sessions.

During the training, startups can learn successful business models, scientific management methods, the latest research findings, and the hottest application areas, while university students can also gain exposure to a wide range of things. Through the "Fanhai AI Talent Program," Fanhai has discovered numerous promising startups and capable university students, and has folded some of them into Fanhai's business empire through investments, recruitment, and other means.

The head of HR replied, "Yes, this cohort ends next week." Such activities naturally require coordination from the HR department, such as managing the camp's teaching staff.

"Alright." Jing Hong leaned forward slightly. "Here's what I want you to do—get AG to cooperate on this. This afternoon, when Professor Hong arrives, have the AI camp participants line the corridor and welcome him. Have them say things expressing great admiration for Professor Hong and anticipation for his lecture, like 'Professor Hong~~~could you give us a talk~~~' and 'We're so looking forward to it~~~'—you can arrange the specific wording yourself. Let's bet on intellectuals having thin skin." AG refers to Fanhai's artificial intelligence business group.

The head of HR: "..."

"Your response?"

She replied with a smile, "Understood, Mr. Jing."

Jing Hong's management style leaned Western. During one-on-one meetings with subordinates, he gave off an air of quiet confidence, yet his attitude was easygoing, and the overall atmosphere was relaxed, so subordinates weren't too tense. However, they were all well aware of Jing Hong's intellect and tactics, and knew full well that he could flip at any moment.

...

At exactly 3:00 PM, Jing Hong had his assistant pull up the surveillance footage of the AG department's corridor and took a look.

There, the moment Professor Hong stepped through the entrance of the AG department, the sea of people lining both sides of the corridor burst into applause! There were several hundred people in total!

Professor Hong was visibly startled.

The president of the AI business group explained, "We're running an AI research camp. On this side are startups—there's the founder of 'XX Aerospace,' and founders of 'XX Biotech,' 'XX Robotics'... in short, these are the most promising startups in China right now. On that side are the academic elites—see, he's the number-one student in Tsinghua's AI program, third year; this one's a sophomore; there are also top students from various years at Peking University, and here we have the champion team from the World Robot Competition, and... I mentioned that Professor Hong might come by the class, and, haha, they insisted on coming out to welcome him together! They all know that Professor Hong is a leading figure in AI worldwide, having solved countless problems."

"..." Professor Hong grew reserved.

The general manager of the AI business group continued, "The research camp at Fanhai Group is the only one of its kind in all of China. We at Fanhai know we bear an important social responsibility."

"Mr. Liu!" a young man asked, "Will Professor Hong teach us a bit? Offer us some guidance? Even just asking about his problem-solving approach would benefit us immensely!"

"We'll see," the general manager of the AI business group said with a smile. "It depends on whether Professor Hong will join us at Fanhai."

The moment he finished speaking, several hundred pairs of eyes all turned to Professor Hong at once: "Please~" "Please~" "You have to come!" "Professor Hong, we're begging you!" "Yes, we're begging you!" "We'll all bow down to you, Professor! Thump, thump, thump!"

A girl playfully said, "We'll wait! Forever!"

Another young man immediately started swaying and singing, "My heart is waiting, always waiting~" Several others joined in, swaying along.

They were all young—confident, cheerful, and bright—and the whole hallway was buzzing with laughter and chatter.

Of course, there were also plenty of the more reserved, stereotypical IT guys and IT girls.

This vibe lasted until Professor Hong stepped into a conference room.

Professor Hong toured the AG department for an hour.

At 3:55, figuring the time was about right, Jing Hong stood up from behind his executive desk, buttoned his suit coat, closed his office door, and strode toward the AG department floor.

He went to them, rather than making them come to him, which fully demonstrated Fanhai Group's sincerity.

During the conversation, Jing Hong noticed that Professor Hong seemed less resolute.

He asked Jing Hong a series of questions, and those questions made it clear that Fanhai Group wasn't entirely without a chance.

Jing Hong had always had a silver tongue—highly persuasive and stirring, and he had a winning appearance. After he laid out in detail Fanhai Group's grand ambitions, future plans, R&D capabilities, thorough preparations and phased achievements, and the crucial role Professor Hong would play in the plan, you could tell Professor Hong was even more wavering.

Then, a little after five in the afternoon, somehow, several financial reporters picked up the story, with headlines like "Fanhai Group's Research Camp Collectively Pleads for Hong Xu to Join."

The articles read: "Fanhai Group's research camp is the only one of its kind in China, encompassing nearly all of China's reserve AI talent, including CEOs and CTOs of prominent startups, top students from dozens of elite universities' AI programs, and winners of world-class and national AI competitions... Additionally...

It is reported that they collectively pleaded for Hong Xu to join Fanhai Group's research camp, to provide invaluable wisdom..."

This wasn't orchestrated by Jing Hong, but he was pleased to see it.

Since Hong Xu was thin-skinned, why not stoke the fire a bit more? Now, the industry and academia alike all knew that several hundred people were begging Hong Xu—and these people represented the future of AI in China. So, if Hong Xu rejected Fanhai, in most people's minds, he would instantly become a "cold-hearted" figure, "someone who turned down several hundred people for income or some other reason," "someone who previously stayed in America, contributing to America, and now returns to China claiming to contribute to China, but in reality doesn't care about China's future at all"—a villain. Hong Xu would hardly want that, because it would severely undermine one of his main purposes for returning to China: to show everyone that he hadn't only thought about contributing to America while never considering contributing to China.

As a scholar, Hong Xu would never suspect that all of this was deliberately arranged by Fanhai Group.

...

On the other side, Qinghui Group.

At seven in the evening, Zhou Chang walked out of Qinghui Group.

He had switched cars today—a Rolls-Royce.

With a Bluetooth earpiece in his ear, Zhou Chang listened to a call as he stepped into the car.

The call was from the general manager of Qinghui Group's HR department, who said that Professor Hong had suddenly become very hesitant, wanting to think it over, and refusing to say what was on his mind—it looked like he might be poached.

They hadn't yet seen the financial reporters' coverage, nor did they know what had happened at Fanhai Group, but inexplicably, a name surfaced in Zhou Chang's mind—Jing Hong.

Did Jing Hong do something?

Zhou Chang asked the HR general manager to contact Professor Hong again and find out his concerns, but they were already on it—the phone just wouldn't go through. So Zhou Chang said that if there was no word by tomorrow morning, he would reach out to Professor Hong through private channels.

After hanging up, Zhou Chang leaned back in the leather seat, gazing out the window.

The seat was upholstered in nappa calfskin. Nappa cattle are raised exclusively on the northern slopes of the Alps, where the sunlight and humidity keep insects almost nonexistent, which makes the leather nearly flawless. Only a handful of top-tier luxury cars use nappa calfskin.

Zhou Chang didn't believe for a second that any university could poach Hong Xu—his only suspect was Jing Hong.

After a while, Zhou Chang's phone rang again.

He initially figured it was still about Professor Hong, but a glance at the screen said otherwise.

It was his cousin, Zhou Qingyuan.

Zhou Chang relaxed a little and answered: "What's up?"

The playboy Zhou Qingyuan laughed: "Nothing much, just heard your dad's started fixing you up on blind dates? The Shixi Group's daughter? Just poking around to see the show."

Zhou Chang snorted: "You're quick on the news."

"How's it going?"

Zhou Chang said: "I haven't met her."

"Why?" Zhou Qingyuan was puzzled. "Your dad's got a point. A business marriage—on one hand, you're evenly matched in status, fewer headaches; on the other, the two companies get deeply linked and can watch each other's backs."

"Come on," Zhou Chang said offhandedly. "Isn't any marriage just a blood transfusion? That's hardly what I'd call an equal match."

"You want a perfect match?" Zhou Qingyuan teased. "Let me remind you, bro—the only perfect match for Qinghui is Fanhai."

"Fanhai?" Zhou Chang said lazily, thinking of those ambitious eyes, and loosened his tie. "Now that'd be interesting."

Zhou Qingyuan clicked his tongue: "...Bro, you're kidding, right?"

Zhou Chang asked: "What else?"

Zhou Qingyuan relaxed and added: "Just go meet her, then? I heard the Shixi Group's only daughter is absolutely gorgeous, and she's a pretty good fit for you."

Zhou Chang smiled faintly: "Does she dare to call herself a 'pretty good match'?"

Zhou Qingyuan was too scared to speak.

After a long pause, Zhou Qingyuan finally found his voice: "Alright, honestly, your dad asked me to check on your dating progress and try to talk you into it. The old man said you're too overbearing, and the Shixi heiress has a gentle personality—she suits you."

"Gentle, huh," Zhou Chang said. "Then that's even more boring."

Zhou Qingyuan: "..."

"Forget it, I can't talk you into it. I'll just see if you can find someone 'interesting.'" Finally, Zhou Qingyuan gave up. "But I think your old man is pretty stubborn. If you don't meet this one, there'll be number two, three, four, five lined up after."

Zhou Chang said: "He's really making a fuss."

"Nothing else to do," Zhou Qingyuan said. "The company's already handed to you. From the past six months, he can't manage it anymore, so all he can do is manage your personal life."

"Waste of effort," Zhou Chang said. "He can't manage the company. And me—he definitely can't manage."