"The scenery of West Lake is really beautiful."
"It happens to be the National Day holiday, so there are a lot of tourists here. If it were a normal day, there would be much fewer tourists."
At this time, Barron had already left Shenzhen with Wang Wanting and bodyguards and came to Hangzhou.
As for the purchase of Penguin Company shares, it was entirely left to Amber Sheehan. This time, his main purpose of coming to China was to have fun and get to know some entrepreneurs here. As for the specific matters, they were naturally left to his subordinates to handle.
In addition, with the increase of DS Capital's China business, DSIIC is also preparing to set up a China office in Shenzhen Stock Exchange, which will make it more convenient to handle future China investment-related business.
After arriving at the West Lake in Hangzhou, I saw that it was indeed crowded with people, because they happened to arrive during China's National Day Golden Week.
Since 1999, China has implemented the May Day and National Day Golden Week policies. Therefore, traveling during the National Day holiday has become the choice of many people. There are also many tourists in well-known attractions such as the West Lake.
It was also the first time that Barron's two white bodyguards saw so many tourists. They were frightened at first. They almost suspected that so many people from the entire city of London had come to West Lake...
This also caused them great trouble, because they needed to try their best to protect His Royal Highness the Duke and his personal assistant, but in such a dense crowd, this task was indeed very challenging.
Fortunately, Barron did not make things too difficult for them. He did not join the crowd, but instead admired the beautiful scenery of West Lake from afar.
Similarly, Barron and his group also attracted the attention of many Chinese tourists. After all, there were so many foreigners, and two of them were stern-faced strong men in black suits and sunglasses. They were obviously bodyguards guarding the handsome young man. It was easy to guess that he must be an important person.
As for the young man, besides a very beautiful Chinese woman, there was another man who was not very tall and looked a little... strange. He was talking and laughing with a confident smile. Almost all the tourists just found it interesting. They didn't know that the man's appearance would only mean one thing many years later, that is, "rich"!
Yes, the man who was talking to Barron at this time was Alibaba's founder, Boss Ma.
At this time, although Alibaba had received a $20 million investment from SoftBank Group, it was still not very famous.
This year, Alibaba's B2B business had just started to make a profit, and it had not even started to build its personal business website, which would become Taobao in the future.
It can be said that Mr. Ma's popularity will only be high after he completes the acquisition of Yahoo's China business. As for making most ordinary people recognize his face, that will have to wait until he becomes the richest man in China.
As we all know, Boss Ma is a person who is very good at "fooling people". This can be seen from the fact that many talented people who have come into contact with him give up their own high salaries and join him.
And he is also good at seizing opportunities.
For example, in the 1980s and 1990s, when he was a student, Mr. Ma often went to West Lake to translate for foreigners and practice his spoken English. By chance, he met his good friend Ken from Australia.
In 1985, Ken gave Boss Ma 200 yuan and invited him to travel to Australia. With this money, Boss Ma was able to travel abroad. It was this trip abroad that changed Boss Ma's view of the world and opened his "window to the world".
In 1994, Boss Ma went on a business trip to the United States as a translator. This trip to the United States allowed him to come into contact with computers and the Internet, which laid the seeds for his future Internet entrepreneurship.
When Barron and his team arrived in Hangzhou, the news that DSIIC, a company owned by a British duke, had bought Penguin's shares from South Africa's MIH Group at an astonishing 100% premium had spread throughout the entire Chinese Internet circle.
It can be said that at this time, when the Internet industry was struggling, Barron's image in the eyes of others was no different from that of a "rich man" who had no shortage of money.
Therefore, as soon as they met, Boss Ma showed great enthusiasm towards the young and handsome Duke.
While accompanying him to visit the West Lake, I described to him the grand blueprint of Alibaba in every way I said.
In fact, at that time, although Alibaba's B2B business had just started to make a profit, they were indeed short of funds - it was not until early 2000 that they received the US$20 million from SoftBank, which was more than two years and nearly three years ago.
The year 2000 was the year when the global Internet bubble burst. The turmoil in the stock market interrupted the booming Internet industry, and many Internet companies went bankrupt.
Alibaba was no exception. By 2001, there was only 7 million US dollars left in Alibaba's account, which could only support it for half a year at most. The worse news was that investors said they would no longer invest money. Faced with such a severe situation, Alibaba quickly shifted its overseas expansion strategy to mainland China.
"Mr. Ma, you said your mission is to 'make it easy to do business anywhere'. I really appreciate that."
Barron smiled and said to Boss Ma beside him:
"What I appreciate more is that you have the courage to stop all the profitable businesses and return to serving small and medium-sized enterprises. In this period of the Internet winter, few people dare to do this."
It was not until Mr. Ma specially invited Barron to a banquet at Louwailou near West Lake that Barron talked to him about Alibaba at the dinner table.
"Yes, Duke Barron. This decision was not easy. Almost everyone didn't understand why I did this, including the company's investors. But I convinced them in the end. Now, our B2B business has begun to make a profit and has earned 500,000. Although this number is small, it is a good start."
"Then I wonder how much investment Boss Ma needs now? And how many shares can he offer?"
Barron asked directly.
Although I didn't show anything when I heard his question, my mind was working fast.
"I hope to get an investment of $20 million, which will give me 15% of the company's shares."
Soon, Boss Ma replied to Barron.
Hearing his words, Barron smiled and said:
"Mr. Ma, as far as I know, SoftBank invested $20 million in Alibaba and got a 30% stake. But now the global Internet is in a cold winter. You doubled Alibaba's valuation in one fell swoop, which makes me feel insincere."
However, Mr. Ma's offer is also very interesting. Perhaps it is because he knows that Barron acquired Penguin's shares at a 100% premium, so he also made his offer at a 100% premium based on the original SoftBank investment price...
Don't be fooled by many articles later that said how optimistic Sun Zhengyi was about Alibaba in the beginning, how he invested $20 million in it and then continued to invest more, holding on to it until it went public before starting to sell.
In fact, Sun Zhengyi is a very casual person in investment. It can be said that SoftBank has invested in so many companies, but only Alibaba has emerged. In terms of the success rate of investment, it is still very low - it can be said that the money he earned from investing in Alibaba was almost lost in other investments later.
And when he invested in Alibaba, Sun Zhengyi actually invested in many projects in China at the same time, almost all of which received US$20 million. For him, this amount was more of a test of China's Internet investment.
Just like last year, when Alibaba was in urgent need of funds again, SoftBank rejected Boss Ma's request for additional investment.
It was not until 2004, when Alibaba's B2B business had become the leader in China and its Taobao business was also developing rapidly, that it participated in Alibaba's financing again.