Wind Rises 2005

Chapter 479 Crazy Bird

"It can't be that easy!" Jennifer hurriedly complained, "If it weren't for my clever methods, the stubborn old man at Rovio wouldn't have agreed so easily."

She took the opportunity to vent her bitterness and tell about her difficulties.

Jennifer is actually not exaggerating at all. If it weren't for some tricks, it would be impossible to acquire a full share of the company.

Don't look at Rovio, a small company that is on the verge of bankruptcy, and its internal shareholder relationships are complicated.

When the founder, Niklas, was still studying in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki, he and two classmates won the mobile game competition jointly organized by HP and Nokia with a game called "Cabbage King".

It was this opportunity that strengthened his determination to start a game business.

In 2004, Niklas finally established a game studio called Relude and invited his cousin Mikael Hed to serve as CEO.

The two scraped together a few thousand euros to start a studio.

While they were formulating strategies for the studio, they were also doing some outsourced game product development for another game developer, Digital Chocolate.

At the end of 2004, they decided to change their name to Rovio (meaning "fire" in Finnish) Entertainment Company.

The name was also changed to welcome the €100 million angel investment from Mikael Hed’s father.

The abundant financial support made Niklas feel that "everything is on the right track" and he hired many people with confidence.

But not long after, Mikael left Rovio after a quarrel due to disagreements with his father Kaj Hed (Chairman of Rovio's Board of Directors) on the direction of game development.

This caused the originally planned strategy to split instantly and take another path.

Rovio abandoned the cultivation of distribution and marketing capabilities and instead accepted more outsourcing projects.

Although it has continuously produced games such as "Need for Speed" and "Bounce Ball Adventure" for game companies such as EA, Namco, and Real Networks, the income obtained from this cannot support the normal operation of the entire company.

Rovio has been in financial crisis several times, but Kaj Hed has refused to continue to inject capital.

Starting this year, Niklas was forced to start laying off employees, and the original team of more than 50 people was reduced to less than 20 people.

Kaj Hed, the major shareholder, may have completely given up hope and is still ignoring it.

If other startups were in such trouble, it should be easy to negotiate an acquisition, but Rovio is very strange.

Founders Niklas and Mikael Hed are cousins, and angel investor and board chairman Kaj Hed is CEO Mikael Hed’s biological father.

The key point is that Kaj Hed's father is still a rich man, so he just wants to compete to make his son obedient.

Who asked his son Mikael Hed to leave without even saying hello? Where could he put his face?

For such a complex family business, it is really a huge challenge to negotiate a full acquisition.

After hearing this, Ma Liang couldn't help but asked curiously: "Jennifer, how did you deal with them?"

"It's very simple. I first deal with Mikael Hed, buy all his shares, and then encourage Niklas to go to Kaj Hed, the chairman of the board of directors, to complain and ask for money.

If Kaj Hed still refuses to give, Niklas is ready to declare the company bankrupt.

After Niklas asked for money to no avail, I asked him to issue a false statement when he came back.

Then I went to visit Kaj Hed, the old-fashioned chairman of the board of directors, and coaxed and threatened him to buy out all the shares he held in Rovio for US$200 million.

Finally, we used options and cash to acquire Niklas’ shares.”

Jennifer briefly explained it. Although she said it lightly, she had to put in a lot of effort to achieve the purpose of the acquisition.

Kaj Hed is an old fox. How could he not be suspicious of someone acquiring him?

She could only use various words and provocations to fight back, even at the expense of her money-making ability, claiming that if she didn't agree, she would encourage Niklas to close the Rovio company and start a new one.

At that time, you can invest in new companies.The reason why they didn't do this was because Jennifer and Niklas communicated once, and Rovio still had some technical accumulation.

Game codes and patents cannot be bypassed, and it is really not as cost-effective to start new research and development from scratch as to acquire them.

In order to achieve her goal, Jennifer even did not hesitate to bring Mikael Hed in to make a bet with his father.

This bet is to see whose game concept is more correct, and the bargaining chip is the 100 million euros that Kaj Hed invested in Rovio.

Although the old guy didn't care about money, he was very interested in teaching the disobedient son a lesson.

In the end, he agreed to Jennifer's acquisition proposal and sold all his shares to Gale Capital for US$200 million.

You must know that Kaj Hed holds 80% of the shares of Rovio. The combined shares of his son Mikael Hed and nephew Niklas are less than half of his shares.

If you can't deal with this old guy, there will be no mention of the acquisition of Rovio.

Now, not only has the wholly-owned acquisition been successful, she has also invited Mikael Hed back to continue as CEO, giving the founders the same treatment as Niklas and allocating options.

Jennifer, who learned about Twitter's plan to change her life, now knows everything about Ma Liang's strategy.

That is to prepare to use the performance of each game company to increase Twitter's revenue, among which casual games are the top priority.

Therefore, Mikael Hed, the CEO who originally advocated that Rovio should focus its product development on casual games, is naturally the best manager.

Mikael Hed had a falling out with his father before because of their different game development concepts.

After all, Mikael Hed, an old stubborn man, has always insisted that large-scale games are the future of the industry.

Now that Rovio has been fully acquired by Gale Capital, it is naturally not the old guy’s turn to make the decision. The development of casual games is the top priority of Twitter’s plan to change its destiny.

It’s not that big games can’t make money. The key is that the development cycle is long and operation preparation takes a long time. Twitter can’t afford to wait!
Unlike casual games, they are not only simple to develop, but also easy to promote and popularize. They may sweep the world in minutes and create immediate benefits for Twitter.

After listening to Jennifer tell the story, Ma Liang was also very satisfied with her wonderful operation.

So he excitedly boasted: "Can you still play like this? You really are the one, Jennifer. I have to admit that you, the CEO, really made the right choice!"

"Thank you for your compliment, dear BOSS!" Jennifer was overjoyed, "I wonder how you plan to reward me?

How about we have a romantic one night stand..."

Ma Liang replied with a headache: "Don't make trouble, let's get down to business!"

"It's really sad. Boss, you've hurt my self-confidence too much. Do you think I have no charm at all?" Jennifer cried, pretending to be sad.

Ma Liang scolded with a straight face: "Jennifer, please, don't mess around anymore!

Now that you have acquired Rovio, there are more important things for you to arrange. "

"What's going on?" Seeing Ma Liang's serious tone, Jennifer finally stopped teasing him.

Ma Liang responded patiently: "I will send you a simple casual game plan later, along with the game's IP authorization document.

You leave it to Rovio to research and develop the first product as soon as possible.

This game is not complicated. I hope to complete it before Christmas and launch it on Christmas Day as a secret weapon for Twitter traffic. "

"What kind of game is it?" Jennifer was immediately curious after hearing this.

Ma Liang responded: "Actually, this game plan is not just one game, but a whole series, which I call "Crazy Birds"."

　I stayed up late and updated tomorrow's chapters in advance. I have to concentrate on writing a new book tomorrow. There will be no updates later. I will continue the day after tomorrow.

　　I really can’t stop thinking about the new book, so please bear with me, brothers!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)