Chapter 180: Chapter 180: The Man Behind the Successful Woman
Huang Guangyu, the legendary man of Huaxia during the first decade of the twenty-first century, single-handedly founded Gome Electronics.
With Gome Electronics as the foundation for his initial capital accumulation, Huang Guangyu was already finding great success by the early to mid-1990s.
By the mid to late-1990s, Gome was expanding nationwide on a massive scale, and Huang Guangyu began venturing into multiple business sectors, just as his idol, the Chaoshan Merchant leader Li Ka-shing, once said: "Business has no boundaries." This was his development phase.
In 1999, Huang Guangyu founded Pengrun Investment Co., Ltd. with total assets of about 5 billion yuan to conduct capital operations. He subsequently carried out a series of commercial activities, including acquisitions and mergers, and ventured into numerous fields.
In 2004, Huang Guangyu’s Pengrun Group acquired a 65% stake in the assets of 94 Gome stores across 22 cities for a price of 8.3 billion Hong Kong dollars.
On June 7, Gome Electronics successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange via a backdoor listing, becoming Huaxia’s first home appliance chain to be listed overseas.
Successfully becoming a publicly traded company not only granted it financing capabilities but also marked the transformation of Chinese home appliance chains, with Gome as a prime example, into public companies.
That same year, the Huang Brothers both appeared on the Hurun Rich List. Huang Guangyu’s assets surpassed ten billion yuan, and he became the richest man on the Continent for the first time.
By the end of 2008, Gome had fulfilled its historic mission of a core strategy centered on large-scale expansion. Following his success in 2004 and 2005, Huang Guangyu himself was once again named the richest person on the Hurun Rich List for a third time.
However, a capitalist’s process of initial or ongoing capital accumulation is more or less fraught with borderline or outright illegal activities.
But the good times didn’t last. In November 2008, Huang Guangyu was imprisoned for commercial crimes.
In 2010, the first-instance verdict sentenced him to 14 years in prison, with a fine of 600 million yuan and the confiscation of 200 million yuan in assets.
According to rumors, Huang Guangyu had since become the man behind the successful woman, controlling the massive Gome group from prison through certain channels.
He quickly reviewed the information on Huang Guangyu.
’Wu Yun already had a plan.’ He said, "Manager Yang, I won’t make things difficult for you. Just relay this to the owner: I can pay in full, and the entire amount will be in their account within one day! The price is also negotiable."
"But!"
The male agent’s heart tightened. He sat bolt upright, waiting for Wu Yun to continue.
"I have one condition: I want to meet Ms. Du Juan. Go contact them first. Let me know when you hear back."
The male agent took out his phone and walked onto the balcony.
Wu Yun then turned to Qi Fei. "Qi Fei, why don’t you and the saleswoman here go check out the details of the house? Take a good look and think about what furniture might need replacing."
Qi Fei was incredibly sharp. She knew Wu Yun must have something to discuss that he didn’t want outsiders to hear. So, she called over the saleswoman and asked her for a full tour of all the rooms.
Pinduoduo’s app was scheduled to launch in early November. High-end brands were one of the directions for this pilot phase, but the plan was not to involve too many. The guiding principle was one of mutually beneficial partnerships.
Gome Electronics was one of the potential partners that Zhou Shen and his team had identified. However, based on their reports, contact with Gome had not yielded much progress.
After all, Gome had launched its own e-commerce website back in 2011. While it had a history of collaboration with companies like Dangdang and 360, those were well-established, big-name internet enterprises.
Countless platforms and merchants came to negotiate partnerships with them every day, all vying for the chance to collaborate closely with Gome.
’Pinduoduo was an obscure internet company that didn’t even have a product yet. Even with a huge amount of registered capital, how could there be any talk of partnership without a product to show for it?’
’Do you have traffic? Do you have registered users?’
That’s why Pinduoduo kept hitting a wall when trying to contact these large corporations.
After all, a starved camel is still bigger than a horse. Even now, Gome was a behemoth compared to Pinduoduo.
That was why, after learning the apartment had a connection to Gome, Wu Yun had requested a meeting with Du Juan.
’Go straight to the top. Start the partnership talks from there.’
’Of course, it wouldn’t be too late to establish contact after purchasing the apartment either.’
"Hey! President Zhou!" Wu Yun took out his phone and called Zhou Shen, the general manager of Pinduoduo.
"President Wu, your orders!" Zhou Shen knew Wu Yun wouldn’t call without a good reason. Normally, he was the one calling Wu Yun to report on his work.
"I heard you say the marketing department hit a wall trying to negotiate with Gome?"
Zhou Shen understood immediately. Wu Yun must have made a breakthrough. "Yes, President Wu! Gome has our proposal, but they haven’t gotten back to us yet."
"Never mind them for now. Have the marketing department focus on securing other potential partners. Of course, the main priority is still the lower-tier markets!"
After acknowledging the order, Zhou Shen said nothing, waiting for Wu Yun to continue.
"Here’s the situation..."
Wu Yun briefly recounted his experience viewing the apartment that day, making sure to emphasize that it belonged to Du Juan, the current chairman of Gome.
Zhou Shen wasn’t surprised by Wu Yun’s financial means; he was far more interested in the information Wu Yun was relaying.
"Have your assistant, as well as the marketing and legal departments, get ready. First, they’ll negotiate the price of the apartment for me. Then, we’ll talk partnership."
"That’s it for now. I’ll come to the office this afternoon or tomorrow to discuss the specifics with you in person."
After saying this, Wu Yun suddenly slapped his forehead. "Oh, right. President Zhou, are you on vacation?"
Zhou Shen was a little speechless. ’This chairman doesn’t even pay attention to the company’s holiday schedule,’ he thought. ’He’s really something else.’
"No, President Wu. I’ve been at the office for the past few days. The tech department is still working overtime writing code, and most of the marketing team hasn’t taken a break either," Zhou Shen reported honestly.
Wu Yun chuckled. "Alright! Just make sure you pay out the proper overtime wages! We’ll talk more in person."
With that, he hung up.
Seeing Wu Yun hang up, the male agent came in from the balcony. "Mr. Wu, I just spoke with Ms. Du Juan’s secretary. She told me to wait a few minutes, as Ms. Du Juan is still in a meeting."
Wu Yun nodded, then stood up and ambled onto the balcony.
The male agent watched Wu Yun’s young figure from behind with an envious expression. ’Not just anyone can pull out eighty or ninety million in cash on a whim,’ he thought. ’This Eldest Young Master Wu is even richer than I imagined!’
Wu Yun stood there, quietly watching the ships on the river and the bustling Bund in the distance, lost in thought.
Just then, the male agent’s phone rang.
"Hello! Secretary Wang!"
"Hello, Manager Yang. President Du will be inspecting stores in Modu tomorrow morning, but she’ll be free in the afternoon. Please inform your client that we can meet at two o’clock for a detailed discussion. We’ll have several people on our end, so a conference room would be best."
The male agent immediately relayed the message to Wu Yun.
Wu Yun thought for a moment, then said, "Let’s do it in the Pinduoduo conference room, on the 28th floor of the Citigroup Mansion."
’Talk about perfect timing,’ he thought. ’It seems I’ll be able to resolve all of this tomorrow.’
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