Debuted right after graduating from high school

I originally thought it was just a formality, to cooperate with the arrangements made by the higher-ups.

Unexpectedly, during the Q&A session after the speech, Fan Wumian actually came across a good investment project.

An entrepreneur attempted to leverage the advantages of mainland China's garment manufacturing to incubate a fashion shopping website in overseas markets. In the first quarter of this year, its sales in overseas markets exceeded ten million RMB.

Fan Wumian only mentioned that one of his companies is also trying in this direction, and has also cooperated deeply with "Monster Mall" under the Monster Lady account. It has initially gained a foothold in the North American market, and its main products cover women's clothing, men's clothing, children's clothing, accessories and so on.

After the event, Fan Wumian chatted with the entrepreneur for a few minutes. Thinking that casting a wide net would make it easier to catch fish, Fan Wumian offered to acquire the entrepreneur's company and integrate it into his own project for independent development, while also promising to retain a small number of original shares for the founding team.

Other venture capital firms prefer to invest money in companies and have little interest in getting involved in the specific management of startups. They also invest in many companies at the same time, hoping that some projects can be successfully incubated to make up for the losses caused by other loss-making projects.

Fan Wumian was different.

He knew perfectly well that with the support of the mainland's supply chain, the "fashion shopping website" had a promising future. As long as it captured a high enough market share, it had the potential to incubate a behemoth internet company worth $1000 billion.

He has plenty of talent, capital, and resources, so whether or not he can retain the initial team after the acquisition is not that important to Fan Wumian.

Rather than having the founding team retain a large amount of equity, it would be better to find ways to incubate and develop the business themselves, and then involve some truly powerful allies to help protect and support the company, in order to prevent it from being squeezed out and suppressed in the European and American markets.

Fan Wumian has already captured half of the mainland internet market, and his share is likely to be even higher in the future. While this has blocked the upward path for a number of entrepreneurs, it has also not left many opportunities for foreign capital to pick up bargains, leaving the dividends in the mainland market.

Considering that some internet tycoons might distribute their profits elsewhere, while others might exploit their employees for personal gain and for the sake of the company's survival, Fan Wumian felt that instead of pursuing "a hundred flowers blooming," it would be better to take the lead in redistributing the wealth himself.

At the very least, he will actually pay social insurance and housing fund contributions for many of his lower-level employees, and he is also willing to give back a portion of his profits to the whole society.

For example, the "QQOS" operating system and the "Thor" mobile phone, jointly launched by Tencent and Fan Wumian, were just released and launched in March 2010, priced at 2499 RMB.

Since both Alibaba and Tencent are major shareholders of Fan Wumian, mainstream and commonly used software was developed to support this domestically developed operating system as soon as it was released. This attracted many domestic internet companies to develop software based on QQOS, instead of flocking to the iOS and Android camps.

Fan Wumian had been trying it out and felt it was pretty good. In addition, he controlled the Apple distribution rights in the entire Greater China region. With both sides joining forces, they were squeezing out the Android operating system. At least in mainland China, QQOS was currently much more well-known than Android.

Due to certain security concerns, this domestic operating system and Thunderobot mobile phone company have also received support from the government, including subsidies, tax exemptions, and promotions. After cooperating with telecommunications operators, people can get a free mobile phone by topping up their phone credit or enjoy discounted prices.

Once iOS and Android have completely divided up the market share and cultivated user habits, it will be difficult to compete with them. However, the mainland market is currently almost a blank slate, which means that both QQOS operating system and Thunderobot phones are on the same starting line as foreign brands, and even have an advantage.

Recently, Fan Wumian himself has been using a Thor phone with a logo of two hammers. It might be inconvenient to use abroad because it can't use foreign software, but most mainland consumers don't have this need. In the future, Android emulators and iOS emulators can be used to address the shortcomings of users traveling or doing business abroad.

Because the mainland market is not yet highly valued, the QQOS operating system is currently making great efforts to seize market share in the mainland market, but it is not valued much abroad. After all, companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Yahoo have not been able to develop in the mainland. Even a company as strong as Microsoft has less than 1% of its global revenue in China. Over time, it has been regarded by Silicon Valley as "unconquerable" and rarely thinks about it anymore.

These Silicon Valley companies cannot enter the mainland, and mainland internet companies also face exclusion when they go to the United States to develop. However, after the international version of Tencent Weibo, Microblog, completed its Series B financing and raised approximately $39 billion, Tencent's shareholding ratio has dropped to only about 58.8%, which has already faded the label of "outsider".

Many influential large companies and wealthy businessmen are shareholders of Microblog, so they certainly wouldn't sit idly by and try to restrict its development.

As the saying goes, when you're making a living on someone else's turf, it's better to earn less than to earn nothing at all. If Tencent can still hold around 35% of the shares after Microblog goes public, Fan Wumian thinks that's already quite good, and it might be worth tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars in the future.

The actual execution process was, of course, not so easy, with thousands of employees working overtime behind the scenes. However, in Fan Wumian's eyes, this hands-off manager, it was just like making a wish that would come true after a while.

The acquisition of Lucasfilm was similar. Disney originally wanted to get involved, but it was blocked by several Myth+ partners, including Paramount, Time Warner, and 21st Century Fox, as well as some Wall Street investors.

Both Star Wars and Indiana Jones series are suitable for developing spin-off series and have countless fans worldwide. If Fan Wumian adapts them into TV series, it will have the opportunity to bring Myth+ video website a batch of new users.

When it comes to real interests, these allies, carefully selected by Fan Wumian, are naturally very willing to help.

With the successful launch of its streaming service, Myth+ has seen a significant increase in user numbers and market influence, driving a substantial rise in its valuation. Some institutions have predicted a value of $100 billion, but mainstream valuations are in the $70 billion to $80 billion range. This is mainly because producing original dramas is too expensive, and it remains uncertain whether this development model can be sustained in the long term.

However, with the release of hit shows like "Money Heist," "The Vampire Diaries," "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," "Stranger Things," and "Nightmare," Myth+ has already reaped the benefits of technological development. As internet speeds have become faster, watching shows online has become more popular among young people. Especially after the release of the iPad in January of this year, almost every user who tried watching movies on the iPad downloaded the Myth+ app, leading to a surge in the number of paid users.

American TV channels are too expensive, and the Myth+ membership fee of a few dollars a month makes many people feel that the price is very reasonable.

On the other hand, Tudou.com, due to the lack of competitors in the market, maintains an average membership price of around 10 yuan per month, and occasionally offers some quarterly or annual discounts.

While his business continued to thrive, Fan Wumian began to keep a low profile, spending a lot of time in the entertainment industry in order to reduce the probability of being targeted by certain people.

At the beginning of the year, Zuo Ziyan finally finished the establishment of her fast fashion brand. After graduating from Cambridge University, she had some free time. Fan Wumian persuaded her to partner with him to start an e-cigarette business in Macau. Their products included e-liquid, nicotine chewing gum, and low-temperature heated tobacco.

The so-called low-temperature heating refers to baking tobacco at 300 degrees Celsius without lighting it, evaporating nicotine and flavorings to achieve a taste closer to real cigarettes. While quitting altogether is certainly better for health, these products offer consumers another option if they cannot or do not want to quit.

By getting rid of Miss Zuo, Fan Wumian could have his own private space and also use her to set up new businesses. Although it was a bit unethical, it was the only option for managing time.

If Zuo Ziyan really succeeds in making this business a success, given the global market size, it might be able to incubate a large company with a market value of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Fan Wumian owns 80% of the shares, while the remaining funds are provided by Zuo Ziyan. He occasionally visits her in Macau. This girl is always busy and even wants to start another jewelry brand. Her aura as a strong woman is beginning to show.

In contrast, Fan Wumian already felt like his head was hitting the ceiling and he couldn't make any progress in the short term.

Sometimes I think it's pretty good that someone like Zuo Ziyan has ideals and aspirations.

Although he had entered a semi-retired state, he couldn't be idle. The monotony of day after day was torturous for Fan Wumian.

After he became financially secure, he took on several large projects.

For example, while heavily investing in BYD, it also raised funds from Tesla and invested in and incubated an electric vehicle R&D center under the Jaguar brand. In the future, it may spin off Jaguar to do electric vehicle business, saving the trouble of re-managing the brand image.

In Sanya, an island in the South China Sea, Fan Wumian also invested in a "Valentino" hotel resort through Xinhua Insurance, which includes hundreds of villas and several sea-view apartments.

In addition, there is the Bailutan Hydropower Station. The Yangtze Power Generation Group received 700 billion RMB in financing from Fan Wumian, but it was not enough, so they invited him to invest another 1000 billion RMB.

Fan Wumian packaged it as a wealth management and insurance product to raise funds, hoping to profit from the interest rate spread in the future. He also used a family trust foundation to secure a bank loan, with the intention of directly acquiring a 10% stake.
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Apart from the two newly built buildings, the renovation project of Gangcheng Daguan is not complicated.

In order to recoup some funds in advance, bars, restaurants, hotels and other establishments opened before the May Day Golden Week in 2010. They also put up oil paintings by Picasso and Monet in the gallery and sold tickets to tourists at low prices.

This project is only suitable for attracting locals to relax and have fun. If you're going to come all the way here specifically for this, it's actually a bit boring. There's also a "celebrity memorabilia" shop inside, which has collected a batch of items that are very meaningful to many celebrities. They also sell albums, autographed photos, posters and other related merchandise.

For the small project planned by Sheng Huo Miao Miao Agency, Fan Wumian also provided hundreds of autographed albums and posters. Once they were sold out, they would contact the celebrity himself to ask for them. On the opening day of May Day, the store was packed with people, who would touch the pure gold Pixiu and Jin Chan, fantasizing about taking them home.

There were too many people during the day, so Fan Wumian didn't get to meet up with Hua Zai, Chen Yisen, and others until after 9 p.m. to have drinks and a late-night snack.

During this time, a young man came up to him and said he wanted to find some time to go golfing together at Deep Water Bay. Fan Wumian only politely replied that he would make an appointment when he had time.

As Andy Lau ate the baby squid, he lowered his voice and asked:
"If I'm not mistaken, that person was a grandson of the Zheng family of the New Century Group, right? I seem to see him often in the newspapers, but I've never had any dealings with him."

Chen Yisen joked:
"Mr. Fan started from scratch and built the fifth largest family in Hong Kong. Of course, the heirs of other families have to be very polite to him when they meet."

Fan Wumian waved his hand and said:

"Whether you have money or not, you still live your life. It's not that exaggerated. This young master founded a shopping mall brand that combines museums with retail, art with commerce. He had previously sought funding from me."

"To be honest, I'm not very optimistic about this project. It mainly overestimates the purchasing power of mainland consumers. Most people go to shopping malls just to eat, shop, and buy clothes and small items. High-end shopping malls will have a hard time surviving."

"Wanda, which I invested in, is not bad, but its financing costs are too high and its expansion speed is too fast. It hasn't had time to settle and refine its operations, so it may run into problems in the future."

At the beginning of last year, Mr. Wang approached Fan Wumian and raised 100 billion RMB from him.

Fan Wumian's only requirement was to expand wildly for five years, and then to fully contract and proceed steadily. Otherwise, he would sell these shares, making the unpleasant situation clear from the outset.

Fan Wumian also cut the hotel and office building components of the commercial real estate project because the investment was too high and the return cycle was too long. Instead, he changed it to a "shopping mall + residential" positioning model, which means that while building a shopping mall, he would acquire land in the surrounding area to build residential buildings, instead of office buildings and five-star hotels.

This didn't quite align with Mr. Wang's strategic plan, but in order to get money from Fan Wumian and weather the financial crisis, Mr. Wang still agreed. He also helped his son get an opportunity to enter the entertainment industry.

Fan Wumian was worried that the other party would harass the female artists under his management, so he only arranged for him to work at Wang Jinghua's agency. This young master Wang did not disappoint him. In just over a year since he entered the industry, he reportedly managed to date two promising new actresses.

Looking back, I can't help but feel a little scared.

After all, Gulnazar, Dilraba Dilmurat, and others are all signed to Holy Fire Meow Meow Entertainment, and Fan Wumian had also heard rumors in his previous life that that young master Wang was eyeing Yang Mi. (End of this chapter)