Rebirth of the Wild Age

Shen Si spent the past two days very happily, having fun in the Crystal Park, playing roller coasters, go-karts, and Ferris wheels, making up for all the regrets of her childhood. Then we went on vacation in the water village. Although the Brunei water village was not planned by the government at this time, everything seemed primitive and messy, but stepping in the sea and blowing the wind still made people feel relaxed.

When he was about to return to China, Shen Si suddenly received a call, and after a few words, he passed it directly to Song Weiyang: "Boss, Mr. Cai's call from Ali is about the second round of financing."

"Hello, Lao Cai!" Song Weiyang took the phone and said.

"Hello, Boss Song," Cai Chongxin said straight to the point, "Mr. Ma has persuaded Masayoshi Son of Softbank that the other party is willing to invest 30 million US dollars and ask for a 30% stake."

Song Weiyang smiled and said, "Sun Zhengyi hasn't woken up, has he?"

Cai Chongxin explained: "Alibaba's current situation is not very good. Its foreign business has shrunk across the board. The domestic headquarters of Shenghai has been withdrawn. Wall Street's valuation of Ali is declining every month. Sun Zhengyi is obviously very optimistic about Ali. It also bullies us that we are at the bottom and cannot get financing from other investors, so the lion will speak up."

"I'm surnamed Sun, and I'm still shitting!" Song Weiyang said.

Kingston is such a dynamic company, Sun Zhengyi sold 80% of Kingston's shares this year in order to raise funds. This transaction can be said to be a huge loss, because Sun Zhengyi bought it for 1.45 billion US dollars at the beginning, but now the selling price is only 450 million US dollars, and the book has a direct loss of 1 billion US dollars, not to mention that Kingston has become more expensive in recent years. valuable.

There is only one explanation, Sun Zhengyi is poor and crazy, so poor that his capital chain is about to break, he can only rely on selling properties at a low price to get cash back.

But even in such a situation of extreme lack of money, Masayoshi Son is still willing to invest 30 million US dollars in Alibaba, which shows how courageous and visionary this person is.

Song Weiyang asked: "What do other shareholders say?"

Cai Chongxin said with a smile: "All other shareholders are opposed. In view of Ali's financial difficulties, they agreed to Sun Zhengyi's capital injection. But they only agreed to Sun Zhengyi's capital injection of 20 million U.S. dollars, and they also brought in a new investment institution, and several joint injections increased by 5 million. U.S. dollars. I called this time just to ask Boss Song if he would like to increase the capital injection?"

Song Weiyang said: "Of course, I can invest another 8 million US dollars."

"Okay, I will report the situation to other shareholders immediately, and then we will discuss a reasonable financing plan." Cai Chongxin said a few more words before hanging up the phone.

Three weeks after returning to China, it was almost New Year's Day, and Alibaba's second round of financing plan was finally finalized.

Sun Zhengyi invested 20 million U.S. dollars, Song Weiyang invested 8 million U.S. dollars, and the other six institutions jointly invested 5 million U.S. dollars. Alibaba’s shares became: Ma Xiaoyun’s team (42.8%), Jinniu Capital (14.8%), Softbank (10.9%) %), Song Weiyang (9.1%), and the total of the six major investment institutions (22.4%).

Song Weiyang is still the largest individual shareholder, Golden Bull Capital is the largest corporate shareholder, and Sun Zhengyi's shareholding is far lower than in another time and space.

But this doesn’t mean anything. If you want to keep your shareholding ratio, you have to continue to spend money. Otherwise, after Ali’s third, fourth, and fifth rounds of financing, the original shares will be diluted miserably.

...

After Song Weiyang returned to China, he has been continuously invited by the media for interviews, because the news that China Science and Technology has sued BENV of the United States and many domestic companies for infringement has spread.

This kind of news was very novel in 2000, because more than 99% of the companies didn't even know how to go abroad, and it was even more impossible to go to the United States to file a lawsuit.

Major newspapers called this lawsuit "the first case of transnational commercial litigation", and even the top official media were alarmed. Joining the wto is already an inevitable move... After China joins the wto, more and more companies will go international, and commercial disputes will inevitably arise, so it is necessary to understand the laws of other countries and protect their legitimate rights and interests through legal means. The patent infringement case filed by Shenzhou Science and Technology Company against the United States BENV can be said to have set a good example for domestic enterprises..."

"Chinese Entrepreneur" issued an article saying: "Chinese enterprises should pay attention to patent protection. At the beginning of the reform and opening up, many Chinese patents were maliciously robbed by overseas companies. At that time, there was a special organization that collected invention patents around China. Then take it abroad to apply for registration, which will bring huge losses to Chinese scientific research institutions and companies...Now we pay more and more attention to patents, which is a good development trend. Shenzhou Science and Technology sued BENV, It is a microcosm of the normalization and internationalization of Chinese enterprises."

Anyway, this matter caused a lot of trouble, and Shenzhou Technology became famous because of it.

Many ordinary people don't even use computers, they may not even have used PHS, and they don't even know what a USB flash drive is. As soon as the news came out, everyone felt that China's technology was particularly powerful, and the USB flash drive must be a very high-tech invention, so powerful that American companies would infringe upon it. From this point of view, Shenzhou Technology is also a powerful company, because their lawsuits have all gone to the United States.

The sense of national pride is immediately there. I only heard that Chinese companies spend huge sums of money to introduce foreign technology, but there is still a day when foreign companies come to China to steal patents!

Let's put it this way, the brand awareness of Shenzhou Technology in China has skyrocketed without knowing when the small patent infringement lawsuit will start. The sales volume of USB flash drives exported by BI to China plummeted to the point where no one bought them, because everyone has better choices, so why buy a "notorious" product?

Due to the long-term preparations for the patent lawsuit of Shenzhou Technology, this time the complaint was submitted to the "U.S. Federal Court of Appeal" (this court specializes in patent and international trade cases), and the lawyer submitted the notice of prosecution to BNW Book.

As the defendant, BENwei must respond within 20 days, otherwise it means giving up the right to defense.

At first, PENW ignored it, but suddenly found out that Kingston had obtained the USB flash drive patent authorization, and the Chinese agent also reported that PENW’s USB flash drive was unsalable. These two pieces of news directly confused BP. The former means that the lawsuit may be lost, and the latter means that BP may lose the Chinese market.

Therefore, BIEN quickly contacted the U.S. attorney of China Science and Technology, requesting China Science and Technology to withdraw the lawsuit, hoping to reach an out-of-court settlement.

American companies are very fond of out-of-court settlements, because commercial lawsuits are protracted, and the trial process is long and expensive. It is possible that a lawsuit will last for ten years, and the law firm will become the biggest winner.

The two parties quickly started negotiations and reached a settlement agreement: BIEN will pay Sinotech a one-time compensation of US$1 million, pay U-disk patent fees to Sinotech at a rate of 0.3%, and join the U-disk patent alliance initiated by Sinotech.

The reason why the negotiation went so smoothly was that Shenzhou Technology was easy to talk about. The idea of ​​not letting PENV bleed a lot. The compensation of 1 million US dollars is only a small amount, and the 0.3% patent royalty is far lower than the market price of 0.5%. acceptable. Otherwise, BNV would definitely choose to litigate or engage in protracted out-of-court negotiations.

And Shenzhou Technology is not a bad person, and has its own considerations.

After reaching a settlement with BP, China Technology immediately took the settlement agreement and the patent licensing contract signed with BP and Kingston, and sent a lawyer's letter to all the infringing manufacturers who can name the brand around the world.

In the past, there was no response to the lawyer's letter, but now there are the top two U-disk manufacturers in the United States to prepare documents, and the patent royalty is still very low. In an instant, more than a dozen manufacturers are willing to sit down and negotiate.

As of March 2001, China Science and Technology has granted 18 overseas manufacturers the right to use the U disk patent, and it can earn a lot of money every year just by collecting patent fees.

At the same time, Shenzhou Science and Technology hyped up the victory, and the major media also cheered and celebrated, reporting one after another: American BENV did not dare to respond to the lawsuit, and took the initiative to seek an out-of-court settlement. Chinese companies won a big victory!

Then it will be cool, there is no need for Shenzhou Technology to say anything, those U disk manufacturers in China who are pretending to be dead, have voluntarily handed in the patent fees. Anyway, the price is not very expensive. For a USB flash drive worth 500 yuan, you can pay only 1.5 yuan to Shenzhou Technology.

Of course, those who do this are all big brands, and small manufacturers don't care so much about you. They can make a fortune, and they don't know when they will go bankrupt, and they are not afraid of being sued by China Technology.

What's more, because the popularity of the Shenzhou USB disk has soared, it even directly counterfeit the Shenzhou brand, which is like a mouse that can't be caught, so we can only rely on the public security organs to crack down on counterfeit and shoddy products.

Shenzhou Technology is completely popular, and even the sales of computers are increasing.

PHS, repeater, USB flash drive, and computer are the four pillar products of China Science and Technology, and each product is rich in wealth. Some insiders estimate that the total assets of China Tech may have exceeded 10 billion yuan, and some financial institutions value China Tech at 20 billion yuan.

It's a pity that these are all speculations, because China Science and Technology is not a listed company, and a large amount of information will not be released to the public at all.

The financial institutions in Hong Kong City come to their door several times a year, hoping to help Shenzhou Technology to go public, but Song Weiyang has never had any intention of going public. Because the company is not short of money at all, PHS is like a money printing machine, the cash flow can no longer be described as healthy, and it is almost getting fat!