The director starts by learning from the abilities of renowned directors.

Chapter 172 Layout

On April 28th, Shen Qing suspended filming of "The Martian" and, accompanied by Gao Yue, assistant general manager of Shenqi Investment, traveled by car to Wangyin Online Company on Zhichun Road. Chairman Zhao Guodong and a group of senior executives of Wangyin Online Company personally greeted them at the entrance. Shen Qing shook hands with everyone, and Chairman Zhao led them to the conference room.

Negotiations had been ongoing for months. Even after the company's legal department had reviewed the contract and confirmed its accuracy, Shen Qing insisted on personally reading it word for word. Today, after a brief exchange between the two parties, Shen Qing quickly reviewed the contract again. Once he confirmed it was correct, he signed his name on it.

After the signing ceremony, the acquisition was officially completed.

Shen Qing and Zhao Guodong stood up and shook hands, inviting the media reporters who came to witness the event to take photos of the two shaking hands in front of the oval table amidst the clicking of camera flashes.

With this, Magic Investment Company officially acquired 100% of Netbank Online Business Company, with a contract value of 2.5 million yuan.

From the moment Shen Qing decided to create Douyin, acquiring a third-party payment license became an urgent matter. For more than half a year, Gao Yue, under Shen Qing's instruction, contacted several companies that were among the first batch of companies to be granted payment licenses. Among them, the three companies with the most in-depth contact were Kuaiqian Payment, Wangyin Online, and Shouxin Easy Payment.

Kuaiqian Payment has the most complete qualifications and the highest market share, ranking fourth in the country in this field. Therefore, it is only natural that it asks for the highest price, starting with 8 million yuan.

Online banking is much smaller in scale and does not have the same complete qualifications as 99Bill, yet it is asking for 300 million yuan.

Shouxin EasyPay's qualifications are even worse than those of Netbank Online, and its asking price is also the lowest, at 1 million yuan.

At this time, the average valuation of payment license companies on the market was only 30 to 50 million yuan, and all three companies had a high premium issue.

However, if we look at it in 2014, this price wouldn't be considered expensive.

In 2014, the People's Bank of China tightened the issuance of licenses. Coupled with the fact that 2013 was the first year of Internet finance and the explosive growth of P2P lending, the value of payment licenses will increase several times in a very short period of time.

By 2014, Wanda had acquired a 68.7% stake in Kuaiqian Payment for a contract value of $3.15 million.

From this perspective, 8 million RMB, which Kuaiqian Payment asked for at the time, does seem like an astronomical price now, but it is not actually too outrageous. That is why Shen Qingcai never completely gave up on communicating with Kuaiqian Payment.

If the price can be negotiated down to 5 million yuan, given Kuaiqian Payment's complete qualifications, market share, and user base, it would definitely be more suitable than spending 3 million yuan to acquire Wangyin Online.

Shen Qing would accept even 6 million.

Having already spent 500 million, it seems there's no need to worry too much about spending another 100 million.

However, 8 million yuan doesn't seem entirely unacceptable, given the example of Wanda. But Shen Qing can't just agree to whatever the other party asks for, right? Wouldn't that be being taken advantage of?

While Kuaiqian was still holding firm on its 8 million offer, Wangyin Online suddenly approached Shen Qing, saying that JD.com's CEO, Mr. Liu, had already offered 2 million. If Shenqi Investment Company could offer 2.5 million, then the deal could be finalized immediately.

Shen Qing really didn't want to delay any longer, so he made the decision to agree, which led to today's signing ceremony.

From the perspective of early 2012, Shen Qing definitely overpaid for this deal, but from the perspective of future planning, 2.5 million yuan basically solved the payment license problem, so it was actually quite worthwhile.

After the signing was completed, Netbank Online officially became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Magic Investment.

At the same time, Shen Qing instructed Chen Zhixi and Shen Li, the vice presidents of Maoyan Movies, to expedite the process of integrating online banking into the Maoyan Movies system.

Maoyan Movies collects ticket money from viewers first and then transfers the money to cinemas. In principle, this is already suspected of violating the "second clearing" rule. However, at this point in time, the supervision is relatively lax, and no one is doing anything about it. Historically, Maoyan Movies' violation of the "second clearing" rule was not brought up until 2017.

Shen Qing, a top-tier celebrity and director in the country, lives in the spotlight every day. Now, he has suddenly spent 2.5 million...

The acquisition of the payment company Netbank Online by 100 million yuan is bound to be widely discussed by netizens.

For Shen Qing's fans, it seems that everything Shen Qing does is something they can be proud of.

"Has everyone seen the news? Shen Qing has made another big move, acquiring a company called Netbank Online for 2.5 million yuan. What's he up to now?"

"A business genius whose talent was wasted on making movies! Look how long Maoyan Movies has been around! I heard that one out of every five tickets sold nationwide is sold through Maoyan Movies. Some experts estimate that in the future, 5% of ticket sales will go through online channels. With just this one move, Shen Qing went from passively waiting for cinemas to recoup their investment to cinemas passively waiting for him to recoup their investment, completely overturning the cinema ticket sales model. Amazing!"

The claim that "one out of every five movie tickets sold is from Maoyan" is outdated. Some media outlets predict that now it should be one out of every four movie tickets sold is from Maoyan.

"The two apps under Shen Qing's Ciyuan Rhythm Company, Quanmin Daka and Quanmin K Ge, are quite fun. I just checked, and Quanmin K Ge is number one on the Apple App Store's free app chart, while Quanmin Daka is number two. Awesome."

"Do you know what's even more impressive? So far, Shen Qing hasn't used any of his celebrity resources for promotion, yet he still managed to reach number one on the free app charts on WeSing. Shen Qing's entrepreneurial success rate is top-notch worldwide."

"With Netbank Online now under the name of Magic Investment, I suddenly have a premonition that Shen Qing is about to make some big move, and this Netbank Online is the key to it all, the central hub connecting multiple projects."

The transaction, which was only 2.5 million, should not have had much impact. However, Shen Qing's exposure was too high, so the news of Shenqi Investment's acquisition of Netbank Online spread all over the internet. With the help of Shen Qing's fans, the transaction was portrayed as a brilliant business operation by Shen Qing.

Yang Mi made a special call to Shen Qing from the set of "Bad Genius" to marvel at Shen Qing's generosity before hanging up. Fan Bingbing, who was promoting her movie out of town, also called Shen Qing after seeing the news, begging Shen Qing to include her in any profitable business opportunities.

Shen Qing was unknowingly labeled as a "business prodigy".

However, an "insider" soon revealed that Netbank Online initially asked for 3 million yuan. According to him, Liu Qiangdong of JD.com was only willing to offer 8000 million yuan. At this time, Mr. Shen from Shenqi Investment suddenly stepped in. When Zhao Guodong, the chairman of Netbank Online, saw that JD.com was unwilling to raise the price, he planned to use Shen Qing to put pressure on JD.com. However, Mr. Zhao never expected that when he tentatively offered 2.5 million yuan, the "business genius" Chairman Shen Qing couldn't wait to agree.

After the news broke, the entire Chinese internet was in an uproar.

Yes, Shen Qing does have a lot of fans, but there are never as many fans as there are casual observers. And Shen Qing is so famous. Now some people are saying that something that could have been bought for 8000 million yuan was spent by Shen Qing for 2.5 million yuan. This is hilarious to casual observers.

"I burst out laughing! A business genius like Shen Qing! Hahaha!"

"I heard that Shen Qing has earned billions from making movies over the years, so spending an extra 1.5 million this time is not a big deal. He can do this kind of business 40 more times."

"40 times? You're hilarious, hahaha!"

"Does Shen Qing really need to buy a payment company?"

JD.com.

Looking at the widely circulated news on the internet, Liu Qiangdong felt a bit annoyed.

JD.com started contacting NetEase Online last year. It's true that the other party initially asked for 3 million yuan, and it's also true that JD.com was only willing to offer tens of millions of yuan at first. However, last month, Liu Qiangdong actually offered 1.5 million yuan. At that time, he had already made up his mind that, to avoid any unforeseen complications, he would accept any final transaction price within 2 million yuan.

But just then, Zhao Guodong suddenly told him that Netbank Online had decided to sell itself to Magic Investment. Mr. Shen of Magic Investment offered 2.5 million yuan and asked Mr. Liu if he could raise the price to 3 million yuan.

Upon hearing this, Liu Qiangdong was not only caught off guard, but also felt very upset. After all, he had been in contact with them for more than half a year, only to have them suddenly snatched away by Magic Investment.

Honestly, 2.5 million isn't too expensive; it's a price Liu Qiangdong could grit his teeth and accept. But 3 million is absolutely impossible.

And is 3 million enough to secure the NetEase online banking platform?

Who in the country doesn't know that Shen Qing might have billions of yuan in cash at his disposal? Who would have thought that making movies could be so profitable?

And what about JD.com?

We are currently facing enormous financial pressure.

With years of losses, a financial black hole in expanding logistics, and encirclement by Gome and Suning, JD.com has to spend every penny wisely. Compared to Shen Qing, who has huge amounts of cash at his disposal, JD.com is indeed somewhat powerless to spend money.

When media outlets contacted JD.com to verify the veracity of the "insider's" report, a disgruntled Liu Qiangdong refused to mention his previous offer of 150 million yuan, only stating that without Shen's involvement in the bidding, JD.com would indeed have had a chance to complete the acquisition for less than 100 million yuan. However, this could be seen as a blessing in disguise, as the payment license companies JD.com is currently contacting are all asking for around 30 to 40 million yuan, and this failed acquisition likely saved JD.com a significant amount of money.

Liu Qiangdong's words almost confirmed that Shen Qing was the one who had been taken advantage of.

Some media outlets also followed Shen Qing to the China Film Digital Production Base for interviews.

"Mr. Shen, what is your opinion on the so-called 'insider' revelations, and Mr. Liu Qiangdong's statement thanking you for saving JD.com a lot of money?"

Shen Qing also addressed Liu Qiangdong remotely, saying, "In the future, Mr. Liu Qiangdong's biggest regret might be not getting into payment sooner. It's too late now, so Mr. Liu shouldn't worry about the price of the payment license. It's already a step too late, but we can't let it get any later. We should try to make amends as soon as possible, otherwise we'll only have regrets in the future."

Then Shen Qing's advice to Liu Qiangdong to learn from his mistakes became a hot topic online again, with countless netizens joining the discussion.

Shen Qing has privately registered the Douyin trademark under his personal name. When a person owns a sole proprietorship license, they can choose to register the trademark under either the sole proprietorship license or their personal name when applying for a trademark. If the trademark is registered under the personal name, it will not affect the trademark registered under that personal name even if the sole proprietorship license is cancelled in the future.

If the Douyin trademark is registered under an individual's name, and the individual later authorizes Douyin Company to use it, then as long as Shen Qing does not sign to transfer the trademark to the company in the future, the trademark will always belong to him personally, and no one can take it away.

Even if he is kicked out of Douyin (TikTok) by various unforeseen circumstances in the future, he can still demand that Douyin stop using the trademark once the authorization expires.

At that time, the issue of trademark use will become a powerful bargaining chip for Shen Qing.

Of course, Shen Qing wouldn't rely solely on this one tactic to ensure he would never be ousted from the company he founded. Other methods included a series of defensive measures such as company bylaws and board seat election procedures.

In early May, the first run of the TV series "Let's Get Married" officially ended, and the complete viewership data during the first run was also released to the internet by the media.

从首播当天的四台破1和苏省卫视的1.95%，到最后的苏省卫视平均收视率3.15%、浙省卫视和京城卫视双双破2.3%，以及徽省卫视最终平均收视率1.9。

With four channels broadcasting simultaneously, one channel broke 3, two broke 2, and one broke 1, a truly phenomenal achievement.

The show also performed exceptionally well on Youku and iQiyi. Gong, the CEO of iQiyi, privately told Shen Qing that "Let's Get Married" attracted a large number of users to register and recharge on iQiyi.

Dai Ying suddenly reported to Shen Qing that Zhou Xingchi had come to the capital and said that he was preparing a movie called "The Mermaid" and asked Shen Qing if he was interested in investing in it.

"How much will it cost to make?"

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"2 million."

"Who voted?"

"China Film Group has invested a sum, but it's far from enough. There are actually quite a few companies willing to invest, but Stephen Chow seems to prefer our funding. He hinted in his words that he might need to discuss the plot with you."

"Want to discuss the plot with me?"

"Yes, from what he said, it seems that he feels that you two have surprisingly similar ideas in many aspects, such as 'Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons.' He said that after watching the movie, he began to believe that you could provide him with the inspiration he needed most during the filming."

"so what?"

"He wants you to be both the producer and executive producer of this film."

Shen Qing pondered for a moment after hearing this and said, "Then let's invest a sum. You can discuss the share. Don't worry about the amount. You can tell Zhou Xingchi how much funding he needs, and our Magical Film and Television Company can cover it."

"it is good."

After hanging up the phone, he began to ponder.

Meituan Movies has already been established, and historically, it would officially launch a ticket subsidy war in 2014. However, Shen Qing cannot simply assume that this time-traveling ticket subsidy war will not start until 2014.

In the original timeline, Meituan Movies, backed by Meituan, quickly captured a large market share after its launch. Therefore, Meituan Movies didn't actually feel any sense of crisis in the previous life, as Che Guevara was no match for it.

However, in this life, Maoyan Movies, under Shen Qing's name, has already become the dominant player in the online ticketing industry. If Meituan Movies in this timeline continues to develop in the same orderly manner as in the original timeline, it will always live in the shadow of Maoyan Movies.

Maoyan Movies is developing extremely rapidly. If Meituan Movies chooses to develop normally, the gap between it and Maoyan Movies will only widen.

So, will Meituan Movies launch a ticket subsidy war even earlier in order to disrupt Cat Movies' development pace?

Starting this year, Shen Qing will prepare three or four blockbuster films with sufficient box office potential for Maoyan Movies every year as a defensive measure. No matter when Meituan Movies launches a ticket subsidy war, Shen Qing will have exclusive blockbusters to fight back.

Stephen Chow's "The Mermaid" is an excellent choice.

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