Financial freedom starts with smiling at life

"Mr. Liu, the person in charge of the Shangcheng project has scheduled a meeting at 11 o'clock to discuss financing matters."

The secretary entered Liu Zhiping's office to report.

Liu Zhiping glanced at his watch. "It's almost twelve o'clock. I have another meeting at one o'clock."

"Let's postpone this for now. I'm going to have lunch and rest for a while."

The secretary continued, "She said she has already spoken with President Jiang and it will only take you twenty minutes."

Liu Zhiping raised an eyebrow, picked up his teacup, took a sip of tea to refresh himself, and instructed his secretary, "Bring it up."

For him, twenty minutes was already a precious time.

As the second-in-command, he can allocate resources in the billions. He doesn't even need to personally handle hundreds of millions, let alone tens of millions.

Even with Tencent as the lead investor, the "Shangcheng" project would only be worth around 70 to 80 million yuan.

Compared to that multi-billion dollar acquisition project this afternoon, it's nothing.

Now it's others begging Tencent, not Tencent shamelessly offering to invest in others and expecting them to wait.

To date, Tencent has only ever shamelessly invested in one project, and it was Ma Huateng who personally negotiated with them: ByteDance. However, Zhang Yiming didn't give in, which foreshadowed the later feud between the two.

If Wu Wen hadn't mentioned the name "General Manager Jiang," Liu Zhiping wouldn't have taken those twenty minutes of his break to see her.

Or you can simply have someone below handle the communication.

Whether Tencent Holdings Chairman Ma Huateng would give Jiang Beicheng face or not, Liu Zhiping didn't know, but if the second-in-command didn't, it would be a bit arrogant.

President Jiang is now a prominent figure in the business world, and his position is not something that I, as the second-in-command of Tencent, can question or shake.

Despite overseeing Tencent Investment, one of the strongest industrial capital firms in China, he still has to show respect to private equity moguls like President Jiang.

"Hello, Ms. Wu, Mr. Liu is waiting for you in his office." The receptionist informed Wu Wen by phone.

Wu Wen smiled.

It's true that the name of your lunch break lover works best.

She politely thanked him and went upstairs. She met Liu Zhiping's secretary at the elevator entrance, and the secretary took her to the president's office.

The secretary reminded him, "President Liu has taken some time out of his busy schedule to meet with President Wu to discuss financing matters. I hope that today's meeting between President Wu and President Liu will be successful."

This was a message for Wu Wen to convey to Jiang Beicheng, as President Liu had given him a lot of face.

"Thank you." Wu Wen understood, said her thanks, and walked to the door of Liu Zhiping's office.

The secretary knocked on the door, and after receiving a response from Liu Zhiping, Wu Wen walked into Liu Zhiping's office with a smile and said, "Mr. Liu, I'm sorry to bother you again."

Liu Zhiping smiled and shook hands with Wu Wen, inviting her to sit on the sofa to talk business.

"Have you spoken with President Jiang?"

Liu Zhiping immediately brought up Jiangbei City.

In the normal course of the process, angel investors still play a very important role in subsequent rounds of financing, especially those angel investors who have agreed to co-invest in the agreement.

Liu Zhiping asked this question, ostensibly to discuss work processes, but actually to probe Jiang Beicheng's attitude.

Wu Wen said directly, "Yes, President Liu, President Jiang provided valuable guidance on Tencent's lead investment in the Series B financing of 'Shangcheng'."

These are the relevant materials. Mr. Liu, please review them. An electronic copy has also been sent to your email address.

Liu Zhiping accepted it with a smile.

I flipped through it briefly.

Actually, there's not much to see. Shangcheng was willing to bring in industrial capital like Tencent as a strategic investor and reasonably allocate voting rights and the number of board seats. So Tencent invested in this project.

As a strategic investor, we will participate in the financing of "Shangcheng" in subsequent rounds with various forms of investment, such as cash, traffic, and channels, depending on the actual situation.

Jiang Beicheng's attitude demonstrated his strategic vision and expressed his respect for Tencent's investment philosophy. "Mr. Jiang's guidance is very much in line with our cooperation model," Liu Zhiping said with a smile, glancing at his watch. "I like this kind of efficient negotiation. Mr. Wu, you've saved me a lot of time."

It was said to be twenty minutes, but in reality, the cooperation agreement was reached in just a few minutes.

Next, we can just sign the contract.

Wu Wen once again felt the strategic value provided by angel investors.

These industry connections, as well as previously collaborated client channels... most of Shangcheng's key resources were brought by angel investor Jiang Beicheng.

Others might not have had access to industrial capital like Tencent.

"Mr. Liu, it's been a pleasure working with you. I hope this hasn't disrupted your work schedule." Wu Wen then relayed Jiang Beicheng's message: "Mr. Jiang warmly invites you to visit Jiangnan City. He says you are a senior he greatly respects."

Although the message was written by Wu Wen, it conveyed Jiang Beicheng's greetings to Liu Zhiping.

In Jiang Beicheng's eyes, he truly respected this senior figure in the investment industry.

In the era of mobile internet and the fierce competition among BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent), Ma Huateng would not have had the last laugh without Liu Zhiping as his right-hand man, and would have suffered many losses.

So even though Ma Huateng and Liu Zhiping had a rather intense disagreement about whether Tencent should get into e-commerce, he still chose to consider Liu Zhiping's idea and let Liu Zhiping try it again.

The e-commerce sector was also the only major loss Liu Zhiping suffered at Tencent.

In the end, they packaged all the traffic and resources and gave them to JD.com in exchange for JD.com shares, which can be considered as making up for the huge losses caused by strategic mistakes.

"I have long admired President Jiang. Thank you for your kind invitation. I will definitely make time to visit you," Liu Zhiping said modestly. "President Wu, I have another meeting to attend in a little while, so I won't keep you for dinner."

I'll see you off.

"Please wait, Mr. Liu. I'm honored and wouldn't dare to disturb your precious time any further." Wu Wen was flattered.

But I was overjoyed.

Before mentioning President Jiang's name, she almost couldn't even step into Liu Zhiping's office; now it was Liu Zhiping's turn to personally escort her.

"I'm going to a meeting at headquarters." Liu Zhiping followed him into the elevator.

Wu Wen nodded with a smile.

After saying goodbye to Liu Zhiping and leaving Tencent Investment, on the way back to the hotel, I couldn't help but share the good news with Jiang Beicheng.

Jiang Beicheng replied with a congratulatory emoji.

"The strategic value of Mr. Jiang, this angel investor, is too exaggerated. After getting to know you, my career has become unbelievably smooth."

After waiting a while, he did not receive a response from President Jiang for his flattery.

Perhaps President Jiang's attention was focused on another woman at the moment, or perhaps he was too busy with work to notice, but that doesn't matter.

It would be enough if President Jiang could think of her, his lunch break sweetheart, whenever he had a spare moment.

……

Tencent headquarters.

Binhai Building.

The group has just finished its strategic development conference.

Liu Zhiping followed Ma Huateng to his office, mentioning on the way, "Mr. Ma, Mr. Jiang has invited you to visit Jiangnan City."

He relayed Jiang Beicheng's greetings to Ma Huateng, using them as a pretext.

In his eyes, Jiangbei City has a very high potential, no less than that of pioneers of the previous era like Ma Huateng.

"You've met?" Upon hearing "Jiangnan City," Ma Huateng immediately recognized the name of the Jiang General Manager. He muttered, "I've been following Jiang General Manager for a long time, but I haven't had a chance to meet him." (End of Chapter)