America's Road to Fame

Chapter 378 Crazy Financing

It is impossible to completely hide the matter between Yang Mi and Chen William from his parents.And before she graduated, her family still managed her quite strictly. After she graduated, she filmed by herself and earned a lot of money, her autonomy gradually increased.

Therefore, she didn't intend to really hide it from her parents. Therefore, not long after she was with William Chen, her parents felt the difference in her daughter. She told her mother about Chen William.

Although I knew before that there are many such things in the entertainment industry, but when it comes to my daughter, it still takes time to accept this kind of thing.Fortunately, it was Chen William's own conditions. He was a dragon and a phoenix. If his daughter followed her, she would not be a middle-aged rich businessman with a big belly, and would not wrong her daughter. If you think of it as a normal love, it's just The man is really too good, so it is easier to accept.

It's just that after William Chen married Ivanta and had a daughter, Yang Mi's parents inevitably worried whether her daughter would be treated well after she followed him. After all, in their opinion, such an unknown Divided, there is no guarantee.

However, with William Chen pointing out and helping Yang Mi to start a business, HEYTEA Company has gradually grown to its current scale. Now the value of Yang Mi’s own shares in HEYTEA Company alone has reached more than one billion Chinese dollars. William Chen now He also took out tens of millions of dollars for his daughter to invest. Now, Yang Mi's parents changed their attitude.

Although money cannot be used to measure feelings, but being able to give so much wealth to her daughter also shows how much William Chen attaches importance to her, which is also the main reason why they can rest assured.

At this time, William Chen had already arrived in the United States.

When I came to the United States at this point in time, there was a sudden change, and this change was related to Groupon.

From the last time Zoom became a shareholder of Groupon, holding 40% of the company’s equity, to Groupon’s B round of financing, William Chen’s Meta Investment Company participated in the main investment and got 20% of the equity, while Zoom continued to follow the investment and maintained 40% of the shares, and related parties Zoom and Meta Investment Company hold a total of 60% of the company's shares, which has reached the controlling stake.

However, it seems that Andrew, the founder of Groupon, is not reconciled to losing control of the company. Originally, in January of this year, he planned to conduct another round of financing and introduce new investors.

At that time, Google wanted to acquire Groupon, from the initial price of 25 billion US dollars to 50-60 billion US dollars, but Andrew finally rejected it, which also shows his confidence in the company Groupon.

This is no wonder because of his self-confidence, because in the previous year, Groupon had developed too fast. Up to now, through acquisitions and rapid promotion, the number of Groupon's global users has exceeded 1 million. With more than 8000 employees all over the world, it is the fastest growing company in the world this year.

It is precisely because of Google's ever-increasing purchase price that Andrew, who was preparing to raise funds to introduce new investors in January, postponed the financing plan. Until the end of May, he actually started to contact Amazon, intending to introduce Amazon as Groupon's new investors.

Andrew’s decision annoyed Zoom’s Rick Walton, because Amazon is currently the biggest challenger to the Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart Group, not only in the retail field, but also in the e-commerce field. The company's competitor, so he immediately objected to Andrew's decision. After all, Zoom owns 40% of Groupon's shares, which is equivalent to the shares held by Andrew's entrepreneurial team. If William Chen can be persuaded to support him, then In terms of the shares he owns, it is enough to veto Andrew's decision.

William Chen can also see clearly the purpose of Andrew's decision. Of course, one of them is to introduce the e-commerce giant Amazon as a shareholder to counter Zoom and William Chen's Meta investment company, so as to maintain Andrew's control over Groupon.

In addition, as the global economic situation has fallen to the bottom, it has begun to show signs of recovery. Andrew can't see the crisis that the group buying industry will face in the future, so he intends to transform Groupon's business. The easiest direction to transform is naturally e-commerce.

This is a problem. In an online supermarket like Amazon and a grocery store alliance like Zoom, in the current situation of Groupon, the most likely direction is precisely the model of Zoom’s online grocery store alliance.

However, Zoom is the major shareholder of Groupon, and William Chen, one of the shareholders of Zoom, whose Meta investment company also holds 20% of the shares of Groupon, the two want to join, and they can completely veto the operation of Groupon to Zoom. The proposal to change direction and form a competition with Zoom, in this case, the result of Groupon can only wait for the trend of group buying to pass and fend for itself.

This kind of result is definitely not what Andrew wants to see, so the method he thought of was to drive away the wolf, introduce Amazon to Groupon, and then get the support of Amazon to get rid of Zoom and William Chen through transformation. Take control, and even go a step further, displacing Zoom's current market share.

Now it seems that even though Andrew didn't think of this step, he already had the idea of ​​this direction.

Amazon, on the other hand, will certainly be happy to enter the game.Because Amazon is currently competing with Wal-Mart Group for users; now, as the world's largest e-commerce company, Amazon's market value has exceeded 750 billion U.S. dollars, but they also feel more and more strongly that in the United States, Zoom's Rapid development has created competitive pressure on them.

Moreover, one of the founders of Zoom is a child of the Walton family. If Zoom develops and eventually merges with Wal-Mart Group, it must be the biggest threat to Amazon.

Even if they can't prevent this merger from happening, it must be what they want to see if it can cause some trouble for Zoom.What's more, Groupon is indeed developing rapidly. The field of group buying can also supplement the business of Amazon Group. If the control of Groupon can be snatched from Zoom and William Chen, Groupon can be used to fight against Zoom. No matter how you look at it, it is a good business for Amazon.

Therefore, normally, William Chen should agree with Rick Walton and reject the proposal to introduce Andrew into Amazon as the main financing investor, so as to prevent Amazon from entering Groupon and posing a threat to them.

Shanzi Chen William has his own plans, he did not oppose too fiercely, nor expressed his support, but has been delaying Groupon's financing this time, and said that in order to ensure his own interests, the financing Groupon's valuation this time Value, must be a reasonable price.

Because with the popularity of group buying, coupled with the rapid development of Groupon, and they also have a plan to conduct an IPO before the end of the year, even after this financing, they will immediately start the IPO process. The current news about Groupon’s IPO, It has spread all over the world.

In fact, if Groupon wants to continue to maintain this momentum of development, it will inevitably need to continue to burn money, so capital is crucial.And Andrew understands very well that his move to introduce Amazon is definitely a very risky gamble. As long as Zoom and Meta Investment Company are still sensible, they will most likely try to veto it. It is also very important.

But to be on the safe side, he still prepared an alternative plan, which is to raise funds through an IPO.It is not an option, because with the current development momentum of Groupon, an IPO is inevitable. The difference is whether it can conduct another round of financing with a high valuation to lay a better valuation foundation for the IPO, or conduct an IPO directly.

Therefore, in this situation of the other party’s game, plus the fact that Groupon was rejected by Google at a sky-high price at the beginning of the year, and Amazon is eager to enter Groupon to fight against Zoom. On the whole, the valuation of Groupon’s current financing The value has been raised to more than 200 billion US dollars by the deep-pocketed Amazon.

(End of this chapter)