In mid-August, a major news story dominated the front pages of major financial media outlets.
This event occurred suddenly, without any prior warning.
Dianping.com and Renren Gou jointly issued a statement announcing the acquisition of the former through a combination of equity and cash, with the specific amount not being disclosed to the public.
This transaction received strong support from shareholders of both sides, including Tianyuan Capital, Tencent, and Sequoia.
Huaxing Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor for both parties in this transaction.
Subsequently, Renren Gou issued a statement to the public, stating that the two companies would maintain their staffing structures, retain their respective brands, and operate their businesses independently, including high-frequency in-store services.
At the same time, they would strengthen complementary advantages and strategic synergy to promote industry upgrades.
Dianping CEO Zhang Tao stated:
"Over the past years, the two companies have experienced both competition and differentiation. Helping 10 million merchants serve 1 billion consumers is a common pursuit of both teams. We highly anticipate the upcoming cooperation between the two parties. The O2O industry has immense prospects.
After cooperation, everyone will leverage their respective strengths, accelerate product innovation, deepen services, and expand industry reach, creating more value for consumers and merchants, promoting the construction of the O2O ecosystem, and driving industry development."
Renren Gou CEO Gao Songbin stated:
"We are very pleased to partner with Dianping. This allows us to dedicate more effort to providing better services to consumers and merchants in the O2O sector, and also more energy to developing new businesses and innovating products. This cooperation meets the expectations of both teams and investors, and it will create a 'chemical reaction' post-cooperation. I am full of confidence in jointly creating a bright future."
This news was no less than dropping a small nuclear bomb on the group-buying sector.
Oh my goodness!
Renren Gou itself is ridiculously strong; now that it has acquired Dianping, doesn't this mean the group-buying war is about to end?
In the past year, Nuomi and Meituan could still compete with Renren Gou, but from today onwards, things are truly going from bad to worse.
With the capital winter approaching, these two companies don't have much cash on hand.
Everyone with a clear eye can see that Renren Gou has revealed its king-like potential, and no one is willing to throw money into this pit.
Late last month, Renren Gou announced its partnership with Gaode, with the latter providing GIS services.
Nuomi.com, backed by Baidu, also has Baidu Maps' GIS.
In contrast, Meituan found itself in a difficult position and hastily went to Siwei Tuxin to discuss cooperation.
Before the cooperation could even be finalized, shocking bad news followed one after another.
First, after the release of WeChat version 3.0, Renren Gou was the first to launch its mini-program system on WeChat and integrate it into WeChat pages, allowing users to place orders within WeChat.
WeChat is a natural traffic portal; human interaction is a basic need, and users open WeChat dozens or even hundreds of times a day.
Most critically, Renren Gou was the first to capture smartphone users.
Secondly, Renren Gou announced its merger with Dianping.
Chen Yizhou, far away in the capital city, shook his head with a bitter smile upon seeing the news:
"I never expected Tencent to choose to reconcile with Renren Network. Our Xiaonei no longer has a chance, no chance to go public."
After years of entrepreneurship, fraught with twists and turns, missing opportunities time and again, he had moments of youthful vigor and confusion, but never felt as lost as he did now.
Xiaonei Network had a beautiful start, once capturing the entire national university student market.
At that time, Chen Yizhou still scoffed at the nascent Renren Network, but he never expected things to take a huge turn in the following year.
Renren Network first overtook its competitors with two social games, then dominated the market, capturing the white-collar user base.
However, Chen Yizhou was not yet desperate at that time; at least there were only their two companies in the SNS sector.
But with the emergence of Weibo and WeChat, the situation changed once again.
Under the dual pressure of "Shuangwei" (Weibo and WeChat), even their own Renren Network struggled to survive, let alone its rival Xiaonei Network.
The most anxious person had to be Meituan's Wang Xing, who was under particularly immense pressure.
The current group-buying market is truly divided into three major players: Renren Gou, Nuomi, and Meituan.
However, even Meituan and Nuomi combined weren't enough to fill a gap in Renren Gou's teeth.
Nuomi, at least, had Baidu's backing, with money and resources.
What did Meituan have?
In this situation, Meituan quickly finalized a strategic investment of 400 million US dollars with Alibaba.
In fact, this investment had been delayed for a long time.
If Chen Pingjiang hadn't been so aggressive, the two companies probably wouldn't have reached an agreement so quickly.
Yes, Ali's Mr. Ma was very unhappy with Chen Pingjiang! Unhappy with Renren Network!
All of it was because Tianyuan Capital, under Chen Pingjiang's name, invested in JD.com and put JD.com on WeChat, effectively creating a traffic portal for JD.com.
Ali was naturally very sensitive to traffic portals.
All along, Ali had been desperately pursuing traffic portals, always feeling its traffic wasn't large or abundant enough.
Acquiring UC was for online traffic portals, and acquiring Fenzhong Chuanmei was for offline ones.
What is Fenzhong Chuanmei?
It's those video advertisements we usually see in office building elevators; those are all Fenzhong Chuanmei's industries.
At the last internet conference, Jack Ma and Chen Pingjiang could still joke around and even Jack Ma invited Chen Pingjiang to a private gathering, precisely because the two companies didn't have much entanglement.
But who would have thought Chen Pingjiang would actually backstab him?
Could Mr. Ma tolerate that?
Faced with the increasingly aggressive Renren Network and Chen Pingjiang, Ali had to fight back.
After seeing this news, Chen Pingjiang merely raised an eyebrow and didn't take it too seriously.
The cooperation between these two companies had long been within Chen Pingjiang's expectations.
This acquisition of Dianping was also the result of discussions with Xiaomage and Shen Nanpeng.
Although Dianping's CEO Zhang Tao was very reluctant, he had no say in the matter; capital would exert pressure.
Rather than letting Dianping suffer continuous defeats and losses year after year until it eventually closed down, it was better to sell it to Renren Gou while it still had some value.
These investment institutions could still get a share, even if their stake in the Renren Gou Group was minuscule.
...
Jia Yueting: "Some of our domestic giant enterprises want to do everything. When they see others doing well, they also want to get involved, and then, relying on their powerful ecosystems and abundant funds, they almost crush other small and medium-sized enterprises. Wanting to do everything, will they monopolize food, clothing, housing, and transportation in the future?"
Reporter: "Are you referring to Chen Pingjiang, Chairman Chen of Renren Network?"
Jia Yueting: "That's what you said; I never admitted it."
Chen Pingjiang smiled playfully and turned off the video.
This was a recent news clip of a reporter interviewing Jia Yueting.
Although Chen Pingjiang was not mentioned explicitly, every sentence alluded to him, practically pointing him out by name with an ID card.
What was even more heinous was to pin labels on Chen Pingjiang.
In fact, Chen Pingjiang had been very restrained; otherwise, doubling the size of Renren Network would not have been an issue.
"Mr. Chen," Guan Yifeng reported, "I analyzed Jia Yueting's reasons for saying that. It's likely because we invested in Kuaibo and are pursuing a streaming media route, which conflicts with their business direction. There are also rumors that Ali has recently been getting closer to Leshi, seemingly considering an investment in Leshi."
"Hmm, I see."
There was a distinct feeling that a storm was brewing.
Although Chen Pingjiang had been trying his best to avoid negative comments about Renren Network, it was ultimately impossible to completely eliminate them.
Before, everyone criticized Tencent.
Now that Tencent's development is mediocre, the target has shifted to Renren Network.
He who desires the crown must bear its weight.
As the number one internet enterprise in China, Renren Network cannot avoid these things.
But then again, Chen Pingjiang felt a psychological burden striking others, but dealing with a Jia Yueting like you would simply be doing justice on behalf of heaven.
Speaking of Jia Yueting, Chen Pingjiang sometimes had to admire this guy; he was truly a master at raising investments, and his vision was not bad.
He almost successfully built Leshi's seven major ecosystems.
The key to Leshi's collapse still lay in its blind expansion and crazy spending to achieve scale.
Engaging in mobile phones and also manufacturing cars, with supply chain expenditures often reaching tens of billions, and the core business of Leshi TV also having poor sales, it would be strange if it didn't collapse.
Sun Hongbin, Xu Jiayin, quite a few people were tricked by Jia Yueting.
Each acted as a white knight, but while you were calculating others' interest, they were calculating your principal.
The worst was Boss Xu, who invested 2 billion US dollars in FF cars and didn't even see a single hair.
Speaking of FF cars, this was another business card for Jia Yueting's eloquent persuasion; he truly mastered capital operation.
"I'll be back next week"—didn't they later say that Leshi's debts were all resolved?
In reality, they were resolved, but it was equivalent to not being repaid.
Jia Yueting directly told creditors to repay with FF cars' shares, whether they wanted them or not.
As a result, creditors were forced to hold FF cars' shares, but FF cars eventually dropped to $0.01 per share.
The shares in the hands of shareholders were virtually worthless.
FF Faraday Future: Tricking others once feels good for a moment, constantly tricking others feels good forever.
How scandalous can FF be?
To pay off 80 million US dollars in arrears, compensation, and other expenses, the headquarters building was sold for 40 million US dollars and then leased back after the sale.
A strategic press conference was held in the Middle East, obtaining only over 300 orders in 72 hours.
However, it's important to know that these were "zero-yuan pre-orders," meaning verbal agreements that required no deposit and could be canceled at any time.
After ten years of car manufacturing and spending tens of billions, only a few cars were built.
Jia Yueting's FF was either raising funds or on its way to raising funds.
In its most desperate moments, it could even sell its car manufacturing factory and then rent it back.
You tell me if you're convinced by this operation.
Li Xi looked at the pensive Chen Pingjiang and asked, "Chairman Chen, are we just going to let him spout nonsense, set the narrative, and smear us?"
"What's the hurry? Leshi isn't going public until the 12th. Now is his time of youthful vigor; let him show off. Don't rush to deal with him; let him go astray first, and then we'll deliver the final blow. Watch him build towering mansions, watch him feast guests, and watch his buildings collapse. That day won't come quickly."
Right now, Jia Yueting hasn't lost his head yet; he's just focusing on Leshi Network and buying copyrights.
When he starts manufacturing TVs and mobile phones, Chen Pingjiang will hit him hard.
"I'll be back next week? I'll make sure you can't even leave the country."
Chen Pingjiang grinned.
(End of Chapter)