Reborn: Billionaire in College

The speed of the evil wind was faster than Chen Pingjiang had imagined. It was obvious that someone was behind this.

The next day, after Ge Mengshi was discharged from the hospital and sent back to Zhongshan Villa, Chen Pingjiang returned to the company and saw that the matter was hotly discussed on the Internet.

Li Xi, who was in charge of the negotiations, had already returned to Dongjiang ahead of time. Cheng Congwu and Shen Nanpeng stayed in BJ and did not follow.

"We have kept the news of the merger very strict. Unless the people involved in the negotiations or the shareholders know about it, the outside world has no chance of knowing it. Considering that SoftBank's attack led to the suspension of the negotiation progress, there is reason to believe that it was leaked by the other party." Li Xi came back this time with a lot of rage. Originally, the merger was successful, Renren became the major shareholder of the new company and obtained controlling rights, and the stock price was going to rise again.

Ordinary people tend to have a general reaction to this kind of thing, but major financial news outlets come over like sharks, following the scent of something.

"Does Gaode and Didi need to pass two thresholds to become a monopoly?"

"Is the merger of Gaode and Didi suspected of monopoly? The merger accounts for 90.8% of the market"

"The merger between Gaode and Didi is mired in monopoly suspicion, and the negotiations between the two parties are temporarily suspended"

"The suspected monopoly of the merger between Gaode and Didi is a false proposition"

The merger between Gaode and Didi cannot avoid antitrust review

"If this wasn't a press release issued in advance, I would have chopped off my head. And they were very smart, calling on both sides to debate together." Li Xi said.

Chen Pingjiang took a quick look and found that some of the views made sense.

"Lao Ma may have changed his mind."

Hearing what Chen Pingjiang said, Li Xi also nodded, "Lao Cheng, Mr. Shen and I think so too."

This is not difficult to guess.

As a small shareholder of SoftBank, the merger will only benefit him, so why would he need to expose himself?

But considering the relationship between SoftBank and Alibaba, the only possibility is that Alibaba changed its mind, but it was not in a position to step forward on its own, so it let SoftBank take the lead.

Of course, there is no evidence at present and further investigation is needed.

"You should speak out first and explain it briefly."

That afternoon, Li Xi’s interview was on the news.

"I think the merger itself should be supervised by the authorities, which is good for the orderly development of the online car-hailing market. But at the same time, I want to emphasize that it is too arbitrary to judge suspected monopoly based solely on market share. First of all, the invoices requested by passengers are issued by the taxi company. The taxi fares collected by Didi are 'passing money' rather than revenue, and we at AutoNavi distribute the orders directly to the platform."

"Secondly, although the combined market share of AutoNavi and Didi exceeds 90%, the users of taxi apps account for less than 15% of all taxi-hailing users, while the other 85% of users are still accustomed to hailing taxis. When the first taxi app company was born, if it completed 10 orders a day and had a 100% market share, it would be considered a monopoly, and all innovations would violate antitrust laws!"

"Finally, the business model of taxi-hailing apps is still under exploration, and there is no question of obtaining excessive monopoly profits. For example, a station has 10 passengers every day, and two groups of people give away free roujiamo, and give a subsidy of 5 yuan for each one (perhaps for the purpose of promoting the app). As a result, 8 roujiamo are delivered every day. Now, the two groups want to merge. Can they be prohibited from doing so on the grounds of 'market share of up to 80%'?"

Li Xi is Chen Pingjiang's mouthpiece, and this is something everyone in the industry knows.

Li Xi's attitude represents Chen Pingjiang's attitude.

However, after the news was released, some people criticized Li Xi, while others supported him.

These people didn't dare to stroke the tiger's whiskers and only dared to attack Li Xilai.

"Li Xi's interview avoided many key facts. When Didi and Kuaidi spent 10 billion yuan on subsidies, they cut off the survival of other taxi-hailing apps. In essence, there was a desire for vicious competition. Apps without strong capital support had no choice but to withdraw from the competition. Moreover, AutoNavi's advantage was too huge."

"The two companies' practice of bypassing the review of relevant departments and "secretly agreeing on a lifetime contract" will, once it creates a de facto monopoly, plant the hidden danger of "inaction" by the national antitrust department, especially causing serious damage to the interests of consumers. According to the Anti-Monopoly Law, for those who engage in price monopoly agreements, the National Development and Reform Commission has the right to impose a fine of up to 2014% of the two companies' annual turnover in 10 and prohibit them from implementing monopoly agreements."

"Once the two companies merge, all other domestic taxi companies will die."

At this moment, Uber, Yidao and Shenzhou, which are hiding in the corner, are trembling.

Fortunately, SoftBank exposed itself during the merger process, otherwise they would have realized it too late and would have been in big trouble after the merger was completed and signed.

There was really no space for them to survive at that time.

Therefore, a number of small online ride-hailing companies also came out to be interviewed.

What’s even more interesting is that these people only dared to target Didi and Cheng Wei in the interview, and did not dare to mention Gao De and Chen Pingjiang at all.

They still rely on Gaode for their livelihood, and more than 50% of the orders are distributed by Gaode. It is natural that they dare not offend Gaode, but they are ruthless when it comes to scolding Cheng Wei.

It must be Didi that took the initiative to approach AutoNavi to discuss the merger.

Right, that is it.

Didi just acquired Kuaidi and now wants to curry favor with it.

Pooh!
It's really shameful.

This almost drove Cheng Wei crazy.

Do you guys have any serious illness?
Who wants to merge with whom, and who wants to annex whom?

You don't dare to offend Gao De, so you take it out on me?
Chen Pingjiang acted quickly and immediately asked the Ministry of Legal Affairs to review it from top to bottom.

The results of the review came out very quickly, and just as he thought, there was no monopoly at all.

Otherwise, when Didi and Kuaidi merged in the last life, their market share was almost 100%, so how did they pass the regulation?

"Mr. Chen, uh, although there are no major problems with compliance, there may still be some work to be done." The director of the legal department gave a subtle hint.

Chen Pingjiang nodded: "Well, I know, you go and do your own thing." Smart media interviewed Lu Chuanwei and Cheng Wei separately. Unexpectedly, when facing the interview, one expressed confidence in the final merger and said that it did not involve monopoly, while the other repeatedly evaded the question, saying that it was inconvenient to answer.

This is enough to leave the outside world to imagine.

Alibaba went back on its word and let SoftBank take the lead, but Chen Pingjiang didn't care who took the lead, as the responsibility would be put on Alibaba.

There is no need to go to Lao Ma now. Instead, he will be at a disadvantage and Chen Pingjiang will be begging for mercy.

"Ali's votes are no longer important. Now that the board of directors and shareholders' meeting have approved the merger resolution, what remains is to resolve the compliance issues at the legal level and let someone push it through."

Chen Pingjiang is about to start acting recklessly again.

Originally, Lao Ma was easy to talk to, and Chen Pingjiang really couldn't bring himself to do it.

After all, he had previously told Pony Ma that he would kick Alibaba out and then transfer Alibaba's shares to Tencent.

Now, I no longer have any psychological burden in dealing with Alibaba.

…………

Hangzhou.

Jack Ma was staring at the sky outside the window in a daze. He was the only one in the huge office. Peng Lei had just left.

The two just exchanged views on Chen Pingjiang's recent work.

Lao Ma felt very bitter. He really didn't do this, but now he had to admit it with a pinch of his nose.

Bearing the anger from Renren alone.

Naturally, he wanted to reconcile with Chen Pingjiang, but he did not expect such a change to occur.

The outside world is all speculating, and not many people know the real situation. Even if Lao Ma knows, he can't tell the outside world.

This matter was really caused by SoftBank.

Masayoshi Son himself has some opinions about Chen Pingjiang. It was Renren that killed Xiaonei, causing SoftBank's investment of more than 300 million US dollars to go down the drain.

Of course, this is not a big deal.

The reason why SoftBank turned against it this time was purely because Masayoshi Son had lost his mind.

The cause of the incident was that Masayoshi Son was optimistic about the future of Uber and had always wanted to invest in Uber to replicate the glory of his investment in Alibaba.

However, Masayoshi Son's investment style is bold and he is unwilling to pay small amounts of money. If he has to pay, it must be large amounts of money, and he must take a considerable stake.

Therefore, no agreement has been reached with Uber.

This time, Masayoshi Son took the news of the merger between AutoNavi and Didi and sold it to Uber. Uber was shocked and said they could talk to him, but he had to ruin the deal.

From Masayoshi Son's perspective, if he can successfully invest in Uber and get a considerable share, he would naturally be even more reluctant to see AutoNavi and Didi merge, which would affect Uber's valuation.

Historically, Masayoshi Son eventually successfully invested in Uber, spending a total of US$93 billion to acquire 17.5% of the shares and become the major shareholder.

This time, Ma was tricked by Masayoshi Son.

He couldn't say it directly yet.

SoftBank is Alibaba's major shareholder, so he has no way of offending it and can only accept it.

It is even more impossible to go against SoftBank.

That's too embarrassing. After all, it was Alibaba that persuaded SoftBank to invest in Kuaishou.

Even though Lao Ma has been in business for many years, he has never dealt with such a complicated problem.

A mere merger involves so many forces.

Domestic and foreign investors, investment institutions, business giants...

"Capital money is not so easy to get. To some extent, there is no difference between me and Cheng Wei and Lu Chuanwei, except that I am slightly stronger." Lao Ma thought with emotion.

On the other hand, Ma also wanted to take this opportunity to ease the relationship with Masayoshi Son.

The reason for this is the aftereffects of forcibly separating Alipay from the Alibaba Group.

Although that issue was resolved, it was promised that SoftBank and Yahoo would be compensated when Alipay goes public in the future.

But damaged relationships need to be repaired.

"Mr. Chen, it's a call from Mr. Sun." While Lao Ma was stunned, his secretary walked in from outside with a work phone.

Jack Ma suddenly realized what was happening, took the phone, thought for a moment and then pressed the answer button: "Hello, this is Jack Ma."

Soon, Masayoshi Son's voice came from the other end of the phone.

After hanging up the phone for a long time, it turned out to be just as Lao Ma expected.

Son directly expressed on the phone that he needed Alibaba's support to stop the merger of AutoNavi and Didi. The power of a small shareholder like him was not enough. If Alibaba was willing to stand on their side, the success rate would increase greatly. (End of this chapter)