In the headquarters of Tengxun, Ma Teng sat on the balcony of his office, basking in the sun and enjoying a rare afternoon break. Starting his business in his twenties, he was now approaching fifty. Creating such a vast internet business empire certainly made him a winner in life.
He once had a dream, to bring his company Tencent onto the world stage and make it the largest internet company. However, with giants like Microsoft, Apple, Banana, and Cashew ahead, it had become challenging to lead internationally.
As he aged, his ambitions waned gradually, leaving many of the company's affairs to his vice presidents. He planned to sit stably in the chairman's position for a few more years before retiring.
"Mr. Ma," Ma Teng's assistant suddenly approached with a thick report.
"How's that game 'Fatal Action' doing recently?" Ma Teng asked. He poured a considerable amount of resources into this game, believing it would bring a massive benefit to the company.
"Just as you expected, the results are excellent! This is the report for this month!" The assistant handed over the documents.
This quarter, Tengxun's total revenue reached 20 billion Renminbi, with Tengxun Games accounting for over seventy percent of it, reaching a staggering 15.2 billion. Mobile games and computer games each held half the share, with just 'Fatal Action' alone bringing in 2.7 billion in quarterly revenue.
"Not bad, not bad!" For three months, monthly revenue kept a growth rate of over thirty percent, and it was estimated this increase could last several more months. Eventually, the monthly income might bring the company close to two billion US Dollars, which was quite an impressive figure.
Ma Teng continued reading. Tengxun's leading role-playing games were also doing well. For instance, the game 'Beautiful Ghost' had shown remarkable results both on mobile platforms and online.
"Mr. Ma, there's another piece of news I want to tell you!" The assistant hesitated, unsure whether to reveal the information.
"What's the matter? Speak up, don't be so hesitant, that's not your usual work style," Ma Teng chuckled.
"It's , starting from three days ago, someone began gradually acquiring our company's shares on the market."
"What's the ratio?" Ma Teng inquired, as he alone held sixty-two percent of the shares. Regardless of how others acquired shares, he remained the largest shareholder, and nothing could change his status, so he wasn't concerned at all.
"By the time the stock market closed yesterday, nearly 11.2% had been acquired."
"That much!" Ma Teng was surprised. Tengxun's current market value was nearly 300 billion US Dollars, so 11.2% equaled over 30 billion, something not anyone could easily come up with. If he remembered correctly, 30 billion US Dollars would even make it into the Forbes top ten, wouldn't it?
"Who exactly is it? Can it be traced?" Ma Teng asked. Though he wasn't very worried, he was curious about who could come up with such a large sum all at once. Had such a wealthy person appeared domestically?
"The shares have changed hands many times, making the final destination untraceable." The assistant shook her head. The opposing side's tactics were very sophisticated, clearly a person with rich experience.
"Strange, what could be their purpose?" Ma Teng was curious. Although Tengxun was a publicly-listed company, it was privately held with the largest portion under his control. As long as he didn't sell his shares, the company was forever under his say.
With such a large amount of capital, why invest in Tengxun? There were plenty of other ways for those three billion to create even more value.
"Ring, ring, ring!" At that moment, the phone in Ma Teng's office rang.
He waved his hand, signaling the assistant to answer it. He hadn't finished enjoying the lovely sunbath yet!
The assistant picked up the phone. It was a call from the game planning department, but the voice on the line was a very young one, obviously not the director of the planning department.
"Mr. Ma, there's an intern in the game planning department who wants to see you!" the assistant said.
"An intern?" Ma Teng was taken aback. Tengxun was such a large company, there were countless supervisors above a little intern, how could it warrant a meeting with the chairman?
"What a joke," Ma Teng said, "there are thousands wanting to meet me every day, including those who want to kill me, run me over, and throw rotten eggs at me, all because Tengxun's drop rates are so unreliable."
If he had to meet these people every day, he assumed he'd have been verbally 'killed' countless times by now.
"But Mr. Ma, that intern said if you don't see him, he'll mess up all our games!"
"Lunatic, ignore him!"
"Bang!" The assistant hung up the phone directly, also finding the person a bit crazy. Did they really think Tengxun's games could be messed up by some random intern?
"Damn you, Ma Teng, you dare hang up on me?" Fang Jueyu had secretly used the department director's phone during his break, sporting a sly grin. "Don't believe I can mess up your games, huh?"
It was undoubtedly Fang Jueyu who was acquiring Tengxun's shares. While the 11.2% looked significant, the company's control remained with Ma Teng.
Fang Jueyu's game plan was an enormous project, and even as the second-largest shareholder, it was unlikely Ma Teng would agree to the game's overhaul. A supercomputer alone would cost tens of billions of US Dollars, which would be burning money.
Hence, there was no other way. Fang Jueyu had to acquire enough shares to have enough say, so he needed to play some clever tricks!
After several months of high-profile behavior, Fang Jueyu had amassed tens of millions of fans online, and they were very active. Who wouldn't be encouraged by a big guy who regularly gave out hundreds or even thousands of ten-thousand-yuan red envelopes weekly? If lady luck smiled at them every time, working wouldn't even be necessary.
During his downtime, Fang Jueyu had joined several of his fan groups. Initially, those fans were skeptical of his identity, but after a few hefty red envelopes, everyone's concerns were quickly put to rest.
He opened one of the groups and without a word, sent out a hundred red envelopes of 200 yuan each. The group had two thousand members, and within moments, everyone came flooding out, with all one hundred envelopes gone in just two seconds.
"Whoa, Dean, so you finally remembered your account password!"
"Love you Dean, mua!"
"Guys, help me out!" Fang Jueyu typed on his phone, "Don't worry, you'll be paid!"
The fans exploded after reading his battle plan.
"Dean, are you going head-to-head with Boss Ma?"
"Dean, are you planning to acquire Tengxun? With what you're doing, this game's gonna be ruined fast!"
"Wherever the Dean sets out, no blade of grass is left standing!"