"YiQu has been acquired?" Li Guoqing's eyes widened in shock as he looked at the other person and instinctively asked, "By whom? Who acquired you?"
"Mr. Begel, you will discuss with them personally from now on!" Shao Yibo said with a smile, and then a foreigner with blonde hair and blue eyes walked out of the lounge in the chairman's office. He looked at Li Guoqing and Wang Juntao with a hint of reserve.
"Hello, I am Begel, Executive Vice President of our eBei!" The other party announced his identity in fluent English. Upon hearing the name eBei, Li Guoqing and Wang Juntao were both stunned.
It was eBei, eBei had acquired YiQu!
eBei, a name that seemed to barely exist in the memories of many Chinese people, was the world's second-ranked online e-commerce platform in 2003.
As for the first place, it was Amazon.
Like most famous companies, the founding of eBei was entirely due to an accidental opportunity.
In September 1995, a Jewish man named Pierre had a girlfriend who was very fond of a brand of candy boxes called PEZ.
However, this was a very niche brand at the time, and it was difficult to find like-minded people to communicate with in reality. So, Pierre created a candy box forum for his girlfriend, hoping to attract fellow enthusiasts.
But the forum never had many users.
As a result, Pierre had a sudden inspiration and changed the forum into an auction website. It transformed from a forum for PEZ candy box enthusiasts to communicate into a website specifically for auctioning various PEZ candy boxes.
Because PEZ candy boxes were known for their wide variety of styles and extremely limited release quantities, it made it very difficult for PEZ candy box enthusiasts to purchase the styles they desired.
So, when this auction website appeared, it immediately attracted a large number of PEZ candy box enthusiasts.
At the same time, what Pierre didn't expect was that not only PEZ candy box enthusiasts were drawn in, but also enthusiasts of other very niche communities, such as Barbie dolls, Transformers, and other various special item enthusiasts, flocked to the website and listed the items they wanted to sell.
Because these communities were very small, and it was difficult to find a specialty store selling these items in reality, the appearance of online stores immediately garnered a large amount of user attention and usage.
Soon, not only enthusiasts of these niche items, but also enthusiasts of all sorts of strange and unusual things began to auction their items on this auction website.
For example, there were people selling stamps, others selling flashlight bulbs, laser pointers, phone cards with no remaining balance, beer bottle caps, basically all sorts of strange and unusual goods that had no sales channels in daily life were displayed on the eBei website.
It also attracted a large number of like-minded individuals to join. In a way, eBei at this time was like Xianyu, an online flea market.
It is worth mentioning that later, eBei placed an advertisement in the Transformers movie, where the protagonist placed the broken glasses of his adventurer grandfather, which also recorded the location of Megatron, who had crashed in Antarctica, on the eBei website for auction. Subsequently, the Decepticons found the protagonist's location by hacking into a US military base computer.
At the same time, Optimus Prime and others also found the protagonist's location through the same method, and a war between the Decepticons and the Autobots thus began.
It can be said that eBei's product placement was very brilliant, far more brilliant than Yili Shuhua milk, which was also placed in the movie.
Of course, this is not to say that domestic advertisers are too stupid; it only means that the film production agencies had different levels of dedication.
The former specifically designed a clever plot to integrate eBei into the story, while Yili Shuhua milk appeared at an untimely moment, in an inappropriate place, and was unceremoniously drunk by an out-of-place extra.
In short, through these examples, everyone can understand eBei's positioning.
Later, eBei went further down the path of Xianyu, receiving a large amount of investment. Although Pierre himself was the chairman and his success was entirely accidental, he also had his brilliant aspects.
For instance, he was well aware of his own limitations and decisively handed over the CEO position to a professional manager in '96.
Later, this professional manager was also unable to manage the increasingly vast eBei. He then spotted Meg Whitman, who was then Vice President at Disney. Indeed, she lived up to expectations and eventually successfully led eBei to the second position globally.
Throughout 2002, its annual sales reached 23 billion US dollars, with a net profit of 1.8 billion US dollars, not much different from Amazon's data.
But to be fair, this was almost the limit that eBei could achieve at this point, as Amazon's advantages were too great.
Just like how Jiangnan Mall suppresses the entire industry at this moment, Amazon also formed a suppression over the entire US e-commerce industry. eBei could only operate within its original flea market niche and struggled to become a comprehensive e-commerce website.
Therefore, Meg Whitman decided not to directly compete with Amazon head-on for the time being, as the probability of winning was less than 10%, which was too dangerous.
Instead, she chose to find a new path, abandon concentrated effort in the US domestic market, and instead focus on undeveloped markets. In these markets, she would grow and strengthen the company as quickly as possible, and finally, encircle the US from these markets to launch a final annihilation campaign against Amazon.
Meg Whitman's decision was resolutely implemented. Throughout 2002 and 2003, eBei successively invested in the e-commerce markets of Europe, South America, and Asia.
It successively invested in e-commerce enterprises in regions such as Japan, India, and Taiwan, employing a very aggressive strategy of wholly acquiring them. It quickly took control of the leading enterprises in various regional markets at that time.
The Chinese market was naturally no exception.
In fact, as early as May 2002, eBei had already acquired a 30% stake in YiQu and invested 30 million US dollars, allowing YiQu to defeat 8848 and ascend to the top position in China at that time. Shao Yibo was beaming with pride, feeling invincible. Therefore, he resisted eBei's subsequent intention to wholly acquire YiQu.
However, no one expected that by early 2003, Dangdang.com, a latecomer, had caught up and defeated YiQu, becoming the number one in China.
But Dangdang.com's reign as China's number one lasted less than two months before it was utterly crushed by the emergent Jiangnan Mall, losing its future in the blink of an eye.
After experiencing these two blows, coupled with significant problems in his family, Shao Yibo suddenly realized that he was not suited to managing a company. Thus, he finally agreed to eBei's request to sell all his shares in YiQu to eBei and withdrew completely.
In fact, Shao Yibo had already signed the relevant agreement with eBei yesterday. The reason for calling Li Guoqing and Wang Juntao today was at Begel's instruction and request.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we eBei are willing to acquire Dangdang.com at a price of 150 million US dollars and 8848 E-Commerce Network at a price of 20 million US dollars. Due to time constraints, I do not wish to waste time on negotiations, so these are my bottom lines. If you two do not accept, you can leave directly!" Begel said very concisely.
"I'll do it!" Wang Juntao said without hesitation. The entire 8848 was now just a shell company with only debts left. Now, some fool was willing to spend 20 million to acquire 8848. If anyone refused, they would be an even bigger fool.
So Wang Juntao agreed without hesitation. As for whether the investors behind it would agree, it didn't matter. After all, he no longer held any shares in 8848, and whether it was sold or not had nothing to do with Wang Juntao. He was just an employee collecting a salary. He only needed to make the decisions he believed were correct.
Some people might wonder, since whether it's sold or not has nothing to do with Wang Juntao, and he wouldn't earn any profit, wouldn't it be the same if Wang Juntao refused?
Of course, it's different. Because eBei intended to acquire 8848, in order to appease the management of 8848, even if they didn't give him real power, they would still offer him a well-paying position.
Getting paid without working, how could Wang Juntao refuse such a good thing? If he missed this opportunity, there would be no other.
Seeing 8848's decisive attitude, Begel nodded with satisfaction. Of course, he certainly didn't know that 8848 was now entirely negative assets, otherwise, he would never have offered the price of 20 million US dollars.
After Wang Juntao defected, only Li Guoqing was left to deliberate.
He was constantly calculating in his mind.
From a pricing perspective, 150 million US dollars was definitely a high price. After all, up to this point, the capital that Li Guoqing had truly invested, including his wife's, was only about two to three million US dollars.
So, even though his equity was diluted to about 60% after subsequent financing, 60% of 150 million US dollars was still a full 90 million US dollars. His assets had increased more than thirtyfold, and Li Guoqing was satisfied.
Moreover, it was clear that Jiangnan Mall was the sole dominant player, and Dangdang.com might not be able to persist in the future and would directly go bankrupt. Therefore, selling Dangdang at this time was undoubtedly a very correct decision.
However, Li Guoqing was still somewhat unwilling. After hesitating for a while, he asked Begel, "Mr. Shao Yibo just told me that I would become the president and CEO of the new company..."
"Don't worry, Shao's promise is my promise, because I authorized him to say it!" Begel said decisively, "Li, among the three of you, you are the most talented. You have also worked and studied in the United States and are of one mind with us Americans. Therefore, I believe you can successfully shoulder the responsibility of helping eBei conquer the Chinese market!"
"At the same time, our parent company will provide you with significant support, giving you sufficient funds to defeat your competitors in the Chinese market!"
"Thank you for your trust. I am willing to sell Dangdang.com to eBei!" Upon hearing that he would be the CEO of the new company, Li Guoqing also agreed readily, not to mention the financial support from the parent company.
This was a network enterprise with an annual turnover of nearly 2 billion US dollars. Even a tiny bit of its wealth could completely crush the Jiangnan Group.
He was now filled with renewed fighting spirit.