Reborn as a landlord in Shanghai

Chapter 125 The Meeting Between Zhang Lei and Ma Huateng

When Zhang Lei received the call from Ma Huateng's secretary, he had already been waiting for more than a week. If he hadn't been broke and had nothing to do, he would have given up long ago.

When Zhang Lei heard Ma Huateng's secretary ask him to schedule a time, he didn't hesitate and immediately scheduled it for tomorrow, which is the 9th.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is on the 18th of the lunar calendar.

Ma Huateng didn't care about this, since Tencent was still making money from QQ, so there wasn't much to it. Therefore, he directly agreed to Zhang Lei's request and arranged to meet in the afternoon.

On the afternoon of the second day, Zhang Lei arrived at Tencent Company early with his secretary and finally met Ma Huateng.

Inside the conference room of Tencent.

In the entire conference room, only Ma Huateng and his secretary received Zhang Lei and his secretary.

"I really didn't expect Mr. Zhang to be even younger than I imagined." After exchanging polite greetings and sitting down, Ma Huateng praised him.

"What are you saying? I'm only a year older than you. You look so young, can't I look younger too?" Zhang Lei said with a smile.

"I've heard that Mr. Zhang graduated from Renmin University of China, and also holds a master's degree from Yale University, and is the chief representative of the NYSE in China, and studied value investing under investment master David Swensen. Since I learned that you bought shares in Tencent, it seems that Tencent has value for your investment," Ma Huateng said with admiration.

"Of course, since I founded Hillhouse Capital, Tencent is the company I'm most optimistic about. So this time I directly invested US$20 million in Tencent. And I also wanted to meet you, so I spent ten days in Hong Kong just to meet you," Zhang Lei said earnestly.

"I don't know what brings Mr. Zhang to see me. If it's about the more than 1000 million Tencent shares you hold, then I am very grateful for your trust in Tencent. Tencent will certainly live up to your investment in the future," Ma Huateng said calmly.

"I'm the owner of an investment company and a value investor. Since I've invested in Tencent, I need to understand Tencent better. That's why I wanted to meet with you to discuss Tencent's future prospects and path, and to talk about Tencent's current value," Zhang Lei said frankly.

"Oh, I wonder what insights Mr. Zhang has? You could share them," Ma Huateng asked, adopting an attentive expression.

"After my investigation over this period of time, I am very certain that Tencent has enormous potential. In the domestic Internet communication industry, no company can compare with Tencent."

Moreover, the level of cohesion among the staff is extremely high, so I think we can build Tencent's business around the QQ chat software." Zhang Lei said, emphasizing each word with a pause in his voice.

"So, what kind of business can we do around QQ?" Ma Huateng asked with great interest.

"It's very simple. Whatever appears on the market now, we QQ can imitate it with our powerful user base. For example, Taobao is now doing very well in the domestic market, and it has made eBay in the United States unable to compete."

Therefore, I think that Tencent can also create a website similar to Taobao, and then use our huge user base to drive this shopping website, thereby giving Tencent a new profit growth point.

Of course, besides opening this online shopping website, we could also open a portal website like Sohu, NetEase, or Sina. You know, portal websites can make quite a bit of money by charging Google Ads fees. If we open one, it could be a source of profit growth.

Besides portal websites, we can also start a search engine, just like Baidu in China and Google in the United States. If a search engine is well-made, it can also be listed on NASDAQ in the United States. Just look at Baidu and Google now to see how valuable they are.

As for games, there's no need to elaborate; Tencent already has games. My suggestion is to invest more in games going forward, and we need to develop our own flagship products so that Tencent can earn more money.

"In the future, Tencent will be like an octopus, with each tentacle representing a profitable company. This way, Tencent can dominate the Chinese market, achieving a winner-takes-all scenario, and any other internet company that emerges will have to submit."

Zhang Lei's persuasion was quite effective; he directly outlined Tencent's vision, forcing Ma Huateng to follow Zhang Lei's lead and imagine things in a positive direction.

The more Ma Huateng thought about it, the more he felt that he could actually do the things Zhang Lei mentioned, and that with the huge user base of his QQ account, he could really boost the profits of these internet companies.

Thinking that if Tencent were to develop according to this plan, he could simply imitate any new company that appeared on the market and, with its massive user base, directly bankrupt it.

Once the other party goes bankrupt, you can absorb their best personnel to make your own company develop better and faster.

Thinking of this, Ma Huateng's gaze towards Zhang Lei softened considerably. He prepared to have a good talk with Zhang Lei, as today's conversation might very well be of great help to him in the future.

"Mr. Zhang, I'm quite interested in what you've said. Let's discuss Tencent's future development in detail." Ma Huateng's expression softened considerably.

Zhang Lei could sense that Ma Huateng's attitude towards him had improved considerably, which boosted Zhang Lei's confidence. So Zhang Lei spoke up again, saying, "Let's talk about Taobao first. When the Internet in China was just starting out, eBay was the first shopping website in the country. It took several years for eBay to capture more than 1 percent of the online sales market share in China."

When Taobao started using free methods to open up the market in 2003, many sellers flocked to Taobao. According to recent data surveys, Taobao may surpass eBay this year to become the largest online shopping platform in China.

If we want to surpass or even rival Taobao, we need to speed things up. We need to create our own shopping website before eBay collapses, take over eBay's market share, and thus compete with Taobao.

Ma Huateng slammed his hand on the table, a hint of excitement on his face, and said, "Good, it's better to do this sooner rather than later. Secretary Wang, write this down and we'll discuss it at the company meeting tomorrow. If possible, let's get our shopping website up and running as soon as possible."

"Understood, boss," Secretary Wang quickly replied.

"Next, let's talk about portal websites. China has three major portal websites: Sohu, NetEase, and Sina. If we consider Tencent..."

If you want to create a portal website, it's actually very simple.

After all, other people's portal websites are already built; all you need to do is copy them, modify the layout, add some content, and you'll have your own portal website.

As the saying goes, once you have your own portal website, you can use a large influx of traffic to overwhelm others. Once you have that traffic, you'll naturally earn Google Ads fees. Portal websites make their living from Google Ads fees, and Tencent has a significant advantage in this regard.

"So I think as long as Tencent becomes a portal website, at least the fourth largest portal website in China, even if it earns less money than the top three portal websites, as long as it makes money, that's fine. After all, it's still a big profit center," Zhang Lei said.

After resting for a while, Zhang Lei said again, "The same goes for search engines. If Tencent can create a QQ search engine, then it will only be able to compete with Baidu in China. I believe that no matter how powerful Baidu is, it can't possibly block Tencent."

News company.

The music sector is also an emerging market. Although listening to music online has been around for many years, it's only in recent years that great songs have been released frequently. I believe there's still a lot of potential in the music sector, so Tencent could also set up a music company.

In short, no matter what, as long as our company is established, other companies without the support of QQ will be far behind us. We can quickly surpass these companies and defeat them. In the end, we will simply absorb them.

"Secretary Wang, write down everything Mr. Zhang just said. We need to discuss these matters thoroughly at the meeting tomorrow," Ma Huateng said, his expression seemingly calm.

But deep down I was already a little shocked and regretful. If I had known that QQ would have such great potential, why did I sell so many shares in July?

I believe that after my conversation with Zhang Lei today, Tencent's development will definitely be on the fast track in the next year or two. When I sell my shares then, I will definitely make more money.

Last time it only sold for HK$62 million, which was really too little. I kind of regret it!

Thinking of this, Ma Huateng felt even more heartbroken.

"Boss, I've written it down," Secretary Wang said quietly.

Hearing Secretary Wang's words, Ma Huateng suppressed his sadness and smiled at Zhang Lei, saying, "You truly deserve to be called a master of value investing. To be able to see such a long-term plan from a chat software like QQ, Mr. Zhang, this investment in Tencent will definitely bring you a rich return in the future."

"As long as Tencent develops well in the future, it's normal for me to receive investment profits. Of course, I also hope that your company will get better and better, so that I can make more and more money," Zhang Lei said modestly.

"Don't worry, Tencent will only get better and better under my leadership," Ma Huateng said.

Seeing Ma Huateng's expression, Zhang Lei's eyes flickered, and then he smiled and said, "I believe that under your leadership, Tencent will only get better and better, and right now Tencent's stock price is really too low."

This is completely inconsistent with the value of Tencent as a listed company. I have also seen Tencent's financial report last year. Last year, Tencent's annual revenue was 11.44 billion yuan and its net profit was 4.41 million yuan.

It can be said that Tencent has already developed its own revenue-generating capabilities, yet its stock price is only six or seven yuan per share. This is quite unfair to Tencent.

The news definitely had a negative impact.

Therefore, I think the best thing Tencent would do to announce publicly is to acquire Tencent's listed shares within a certain period, which would help boost Tencent's stock price.

Moreover, this would reduce the number of shares on the market, allowing Tencent to issue additional shares internally to reward employees for outstanding contributions, making the company more attractive to them.

"You mean you want us to acquire Tencent shares on the market, then destroy them, and periodically issue new shares internally to increase employee cohesion?" Ma Huateng asked, frowning.

"Yes, the benefit of doing this is that it increases the stock price on the market. Internally, the stock you issue to your employees will also be valued by them. More importantly, if the company acquires stock on the market, it will deter those who stir up trouble in the stock market every day."

"You know, recently there's been someone specifically manipulating Tencent's stock, causing it to go up and down repeatedly, which is really damaging investor confidence. If this continues, it will dampen enthusiasm for stock growth," Zhang Lei said.

Zhang Lei can't take revenge on Mao Xiaoyu right now, but he can use someone else to do his dirty work. Since Mao Xiaoyu sold him so many stocks, he definitely wants to buy them back on the market.

In that case, I certainly can't let him buy back the shares so easily. If I want to acquire Tencent's shares, I need to at least raise the price. As for how to raise it, the company can do that.

So when I came up with this plan last time, I brought it up directly when I saw Ma Huateng this time.

When Ma Huateng heard Zhang Lei say this, he kept it in mind and felt that this matter could be discussed at the meeting. After all, his company was already profitable, and if Tencent's stock price was cheap on the market, the company could spend some money to buy back the cheap Tencent shares and raise the company's stock price, which would actually be good for his company.

When that time comes, if all shareholders want to sell their shares, they will definitely get more money, unlike now, where 1,000 shares were sold for 6.2 yuan.

Ten thousand shares, that's too much of a loss.

Thinking of this, Ma Huateng felt even more distressed and felt that this matter must be brought up at the meeting. He believed that spending one or two hundred million to acquire stocks on the market would still benefit the shareholders.