Everyone thought Sun Tongyu's idea was brilliant, if only he hadn't said what he said next.
"At the same time, we immediately stop all current activities, declare the event concluded ahead of schedule, ban new merchant applications, and rigorously vet all shops that applied to create their businesses after the event started, weeding out any merchants without proper qualifications. Furthermore, we will refrain from any aggressive expansion policies for a period, consolidating our current achievements. We will spend about three years on stable operations, helping to integrate all cooperating express companies and transform them into a few large-scale, nationwide express enterprises!" Sun Tongyu spoke without reservation, causing the expressions of others at the scene to become increasingly peculiar.
Was Sun Tongyu suggesting they'd gotten Old Ma's activities wrong?
Was this a case of setting things right?
Indeed, many faces showed expressions of worry.
As expected, Old Ma's expression immediately turned gloomy. Before Sun Tongyu could finish, Old Ma said, "Alright, Tongyu, your suggestion is excellent, and I will consider it carefully!"
Old Ma had thought Sun Tongyu would obediently shut his mouth this time, as he had on the previous occasion, and not say anything further. To his surprise, the other man immediately followed up with, "Boss, please don't make a decision that disappoints all of us and ruins the company, I beg you!"
What do you mean by that? Are you accusing me, Old Ma, a genius businessman and future trillionaire, of leading my company to ruin?
At this moment, many observed Old Ma trembling with anger.
Sun Tongyu, however, stood straight, looking directly at Old Ma, seemingly having completely suppressed him in terms of presence.
"You can all leave now. I will consider this matter carefully!" Old Ma knew this was not the time to get angry. The company still needed these people to maintain operations; at the very least, his own team couldn't scatter before the event concluded.
Thus, everyone departed with a sense of unease. However, Old Ma's orders were soon relayed.
Firstly, Old Ma largely implemented the first half of Sun Tongyu's plan, which was to appease users who had complained to the GS Bureau as much as possible. He established a refund channel for them, allowing direct refunds from the Forty Thieves headquarters if the GS department determined there were issues with the products.
Additionally, the Gouhuasuan platform announced a new platform notice, stating that the current event had been too successful, with customer consumption enthusiasm exceeding expectations by more than tenfold. This resulted in insufficient express capacity, with some deliveries potentially taking 1-2 months to arrive.
Therefore, Gouhuasuan proactively compensated users whose deliveries were significantly delayed. Users who hadn't received their express deliveries within seven days of placing an order and making payment would receive a one-time, no-threshold voucher for two yuan. For every subsequent five-day delay, they would receive a discount coupon of 20 yuan off a 2 yuan purchase, continuing until the goods were delivered.
However, the execution of Sun Tongyu's suggestions stopped there. There was no mention of ending the event or anything similar. Instead, it was announced that due to various unexpected issues, the event would be postponed to November 11th, extending it by another six days.
As for merchants and strict scrutiny, nothing was mentioned at all.
The fact was that Sun Tongyu's plan was quite effective. After this announcement, the platform's sales data for the day experienced another small surge.
It's worth noting that after the initial wave in the first few days, many people's desire to consume had gradually waned, leading to a gradual decline in sales over the preceding days.
However, with the release of this announcement, sales reversed their trend and surged upwards again. Within a single day, 22 million more packages were processed, which was a sales miracle. To this day, all marketing professionals pore over this announcement, studying its sales wisdom on how to transform a crisis into a massive victory.
Upon seeing this announcement, Sun Tongyu merely let out a cold laugh. After laughing, he began to cry. It is said that someone passing by his office heard Sun Tongyu exclaim, "It's over, it's all over! The Forty Thieves are no more!"
Many people believed Sun Tongyu was being overly worried, deliberately trying to showcase his own intelligence. However, they were unaware that the Forty Thieves were indeed on the verge of ruin at that moment.
—
"Chairman, you called for me?" Lou Wensheng entered Old Ma's office.
"I need to go to Hong Kong. While I'm away, you'll have to watch over the company!" Old Ma said.
"Chairman, you can't leave! This is the most critical time for the company. Without your direction, we can't accomplish anything!" Lou Wensheng said in panic. He was capable of handling specific tasks, but he felt he was not suited to managing the entire Forty Thieves.
"I think you can! Old Ma encouraged him, "Besides, you don't need to make any decisions. You just need to maintain the company's operations and handle issues based on inertia!"
"As for me, I have no choice but to leave!" Old Ma sighed. "Alas, you are the person I trust most, so I'll be frank with you. The company's available funds are now less than 100 million yuan!"
"What!" Lou Wensheng exclaimed.
"There's nothing strange about it. The company's sales data has increased again in the last few days, which is a good thing. However, it's almost depleted all of the company's funds for our subsidies!" Old Ma sighed and then briefly explained the financial situation.
In fact, it was easy to calculate. Previously, the Forty Thieves had about 1 billion yuan in cash. They were "fleeced" by Jiangnan Group for 460 million yuan. After that, various subsidies cost another 1.4 billion yuan. If it weren't for the fact that as the event unfolded, many people in China were attracted by the Zhuanqianbao activity and invested money into it, allowing the Forty Thieves to gain another 1 billion yuan in cash, they would have already gone bankrupt.
Even so, the Forty Thieves were now out of cash.
"That's why I must go to Hong Kong now to raise funds. This is what you told me before: our company faces a great crisis, but also a great opportunity. As long as we can secure external funding and get through this period, the entire market will be ours!" Old Ma said. This was indeed what Lou Wensheng had told Old Ma earlier.
"I understand!" Lou Wensheng nodded and then said, "But do we really need to go to Hong Kong to raise funds? We can completely get loans from the bank!"
"Since Huang He could borrow a massive 60 billion yuan from the bank, why can't we ask the bank for a mere one or two billion? With the current scale of our Forty Thieves, it shouldn't be a problem!" Lou Wensheng said.
"Wensheng, you don't understand banks!" Old Ma shook his head and said with a bitter smile, "Do you think I haven't approached banks before? In fact, the moment you told me that, I had already contacted all the major domestic banks!"
"They also sent personnel to our company for inspection, but they all refused to lend us money. Forget 2 billion, they wouldn't even lend us 20 million!"
"Why?" Lou Wensheng asked, puzzled.
"Because they are different from us; they are ignorant and old-fashioned capitalist forces who don't understand the value of modern online society, let alone the value of online enterprises! They actually said our company doesn't even have any tangible assets, and can't find anything to use as collateral, so they wouldn't lend us a single cent!" Old Ma said, his face filled with contempt and resentment as he spoke.
However, this couldn't be blamed on the banks. This was because domestic banks were basically large state-owned banks, and their loans had to comply with the basic rules of lending.
That is, you must have solid collateral to hand over to them, and only then can they lend you funds based on the value of the collateral.
And this collateral should ideally be real estate. Various gold and jewelry are also acceptable. If all else fails, patents and technologies can also be used.
Jiangnan Group had many such assets. They had large manufacturing centers in Wenzhou, Shenzhen, and Caoxian, whose land values had now more than quadrupled.
In addition, Jiangnan Group had various stores across the country, as well as various equipment and production lines, and crucially, storage chip technology, all of which were genuine assets that banks could immediately sell. Jiangnan Group mortgaged all these assets, and only then did they obtain a loan of 60 billion yuan.
However, after investigating Forty Thieves, the banks found that Forty Thieves had nothing. They owned no real estate, no hard currency, only a few websites, and the millions of users that Old Ma boasted about.
But for the banks, these millions of users couldn't be sold for cash... Of course, if it were a bank in 2021, they would certainly be very happy to have these millions of users. But in 2003, these so-called assets were practically meaningless, and naturally, the banks dared not lend so much money to Forty Thieves.
Therefore, Old Ma's hope of obtaining a loan from the bank was instantly shattered. The only possibility left for him was to seek other investors to invest in his company.
Normally, Old Ma should have just contacted SoftBank's Masayoshi Son, as SoftBank had previously invested heavily in Forty Thieves, and it would be normal for them to increase their investment at this time.
Moreover, it was believed that Masayoshi Son would be very willing to continue investing. However, Old Ma was unwilling.
This was because Masayoshi Son now held 40% of Forty Thieves' shares. If Masayoshi Son invested another one or two billion yuan, wouldn't Old Ma completely lose control of Forty Thieves?
Although Masayoshi Son was unlikely to do such a thing, Old Ma had to guard against it.
Furthermore, with SoftBank holding 40% of the company's shares, if they continued to invest, the investment amount would inevitably be too low relative to the shareholding, and Forty Thieves would suffer a great loss.
Therefore, Old Ma had to seek external funds. And the place with the most active capital in China at the moment was naturally Hong Kong. Thus, Old Ma's trip to Hong Kong became imperative!