Chapter 147 First Round of Negotiations

Chapter 147 First Round of Negotiations

Chapter 147 First Round of Negotiations
When Wen Caiyuan called An Rushong, the latter was having a discussion with six foreigners in the company's conference room. These foreigners were all from the GC Fund, and the leader of them was An Rushong's "old friend" Macaulay.

After joining the NGN Farm project, the development of NGN software has gained wings. After the English upgrade package of the software was officially available for download on the company's website, the software's applicants have gone beyond South Korea and Japan, and a small number of users have begun to appear in Southeast Asia.

Currently, more and more venture capitals are optimistic about NGN companies. In addition to some local venture capital funds in South Korea, there are also venture capital giants from Japan, such as SoftBank Group owned by Mr. Sun. The first round of offer was to invest US$1500 in exchange for % of the shares of NGN companies.

SoftBank Group has been very popular in the past two years. Its subsidiary SoftBank Asia has successively invested in Bocom, Shanda, Oaknut, Mingwan, etc. Each move has been big and eye-catching.

However, SoftBank Group's investments are relatively stable, and it generally only participates in the second phase of basic investment, which is the second round of financing for a company or a project. In this stage, the companies that receive financing generally have achieved certain results and have seen prospects, so the investment is relatively stable and the risk is not that great.

Although the investment in the second phase of Basic Fund is stable, it also has its drawbacks. The entry conditions are relatively harsh. Compared with those high-risk venture capitals, the profit that SoftBank can get is naturally lower. SoftBank's response is to spend a lot of money and use high-value investments to hedge the low profits caused by late entry.

Therefore, SoftBank's investment has a notable feature, that is, investors are willing to spend money. As long as a company is targeted by it, all they have to do is wait to receive the check.

When it comes to NGN, the situation seems a little special. After all, NGN has not experienced the first round of financing before. To be precise, NGN has not accepted any form of financing so far. The company's equity structure is very simple, with Chairman An Rushong controlling more than 90% of the company's shares.

In addition to him, there is another equity pool that has only been agreed upon verbally and has not yet been reflected in the form of legal documents. The equity share of this equity pool is about 5%.

Finally, Han Meiyan's personal investment accounts for about 1% of the company's shares. The division of this part of the shares does have relatively complete legal documents. After all, when Han Meiyan paid the Zhao brothers for hiring a killer through An Rushong, in order to avoid being audited later, she deliberately signed a financing and stock swap agreement with An Rushong.

Although NGN has not raised any funds before, the company has actually passed the first basic stage, with a huge number of registered users exceeding seven million, and the user stickiness brought by the NGN farm game, NGN has demonstrated its vigorous development prospects to all potential investors.

This is the most direct reason why SoftBank Asia came to us directly and offered US$1500 million in exchange for % of the equity in the first offer.

US$1500 million in exchange for 7500% of the equity means that in the eyes of SoftBank Asia, the market value of NGN has been raised to the benchmark of US$ million.

This may be a direct price-raising tactic used by SoftBank Asia to deter competitors, or perhaps those Japanese devils are making some shameful calculations. But no matter what SoftBank's real purpose is, the reality is that with this offer, An Rushong's value can be marked so high, even if it is only temporary.

The most important thing is that SoftBank Asia has no idea what it means to be low-key. After making the offer, they immediately announced the relevant news to the public. Its president, Yan, claimed that NGN Company is obviously playing a big game. As a fund focusing on investment in the Internet field, SoftBank is very optimistic about the future development of NGN.

This move by SoftBank Asia put An Rushong in a passive position. He seemed to have become a celebrity to some extent overnight. Fortunately, the so-called market value was not real money. People who really knew the business could see that SoftBank was suspected of hype. Otherwise, An Rushong would have encountered a lot of trouble.

Precisely because of this influence, An Rushong had no choice but to split a part of the full version update originally planned for the end of the year, and planned to add it to the NGN personal space in mid-November in the name of a version test.

This version test is very important to NGN Company, even more important than the launch of NGN Farm. An Rusong is confident that once this test version is launched, it will definitely attract venture capital companies with real strategic vision, because the content of this update is what can really create software user stickiness.

If measured in money, it would have been sold for a high price of $10 billion in An Rushong's previous life.

Probably influenced by SoftBank Asia, just yesterday, when An Rushong was still waiting to see the financial report released by Daiwa Securities, Macaulay called him. The American directly proposed on the phone that he hoped to have a formal meeting with An Rushong on investment and financing, and GC Fund would send representatives to participate.

Since An Rusong met Macaulay through Mike, the two sides have held two informal talks about investing in NGN. The first time, Macaulay offered a symbolic $100 million investment in exchange for 1000% of NGN's equity. Soon after, the price was increased tenfold to $ million in exchange for % of the equity.

Now, with the public offer from SoftBank Group, Macaulay certainly can't just use the $1000 million offer as an excuse. He has to raise the price further.

In fact, Macaulay's attitude towards NGN Company has undergone a fundamental change. If he did not attach so much importance to NGN Company, he would not have asked for a formal meeting, let alone a meeting attended by representatives of the GC Fund.

From An Rusong's personal perspective, he would certainly prefer to accept investment from DFJ, that is, investment from Macaulay. This does not mean that he has any negative opinion of SoftBank Group. After all, he is a businessman now, and businessmen do not care about anything else but the pursuit of profits.

If SoftBank offers a higher price, An Rusong will naturally choose SoftBank, but if SoftBank and Defeng Jurvetson offer the same price, he will definitely choose the latter.

why?
Because in South Korea, an abnormal country, a company with American capital behind it is like having an extra layer of amulet. Since his rebirth, An Rusong has had a sense of insecurity deep in his soul, and it is still the same now, so he urgently needs to add more amulets to himself, which is the most fundamental reason why he hopes to introduce American investment to NGN.

The meeting place with the GC Fund negotiation team was in the small conference room on the third floor of the company. There were five people in the negotiation team led by Macaulay himself, six in total including himself.

Among these six people, Macaulay is the one who can make the final decision. In addition to him, there is an assistant who provides him with professional advice, a legal advisor, an assistant in charge of financial issues, an assistant in charge of technical issues, and a backup translator.

This is a very complete and professional negotiation team, which also shows how much importance Macaulay attaches to this negotiation.

As for the NGN company, there were only two people who actually attended the negotiations. The decision-maker was naturally An Rushong, and the other person was an old Russian. He was not responsible for the negotiations, but was just an assistant in handling technical issues. At the same time, he was also the person who answered technical questions for the other party when necessary.

Although An Rushong is a reborn person, even in his previous life, he had never participated in any formal business negotiations, so he is a complete layman in this regard.

However, this did not matter much because he grasped two fundamental conditions: first, his own valuation of NGN's first round of financing, and second, his absolute control over the company's operating rights.

On the first fundamental condition, An Rusong's own valuation of NGN Company is much higher than the valuation given by SoftBank Group. However, this condition should not become a key point in this round of negotiations, that is, it will not become the main issue of contention between the two negotiating parties.

The reason why An Rushong was so confident was that he had a trump card in his hand that could be used to convince Macaulay, and this trump card was the new NGN personal space application that he was going to update and launch in mid-November.

What An Rushong was really worried about affecting the progress of the negotiations between the two parties was actually the second fundamental condition he was going to offer. This condition was the strategy of equal shares but different voting rights that he planned to adopt in the equity structure of NGN Company in order to safeguard his absolute control over NGN Company in the subsequent financing and even the listing of the company.

Taking his cooperation with GC Fund as an example, no matter how much money GC Fund finally paid out or how much equity of NGN Company it took away, this part of the equity controlled by GC Company will not enjoy the voting rights of NGN Company, or in other words, the proportion of voting rights it enjoys is very low.

For example, when NGN Company grows bigger, An Rushong may only hold 1% of NGN Company's shares. However, according to the equal shares but different voting rights strategy he formulated, this 10% of shares has : voting rights, that is, % of the voting rights.

By that time, even if he had lost his position as the largest shareholder of NGN Company, the management rights of the entire NGN Company would still be firmly in his hands.

(End of this chapter)