Chapter 199 Personal Wealth: $65 Billion

The clear chirping of birds is melodious, the fragrance of flowers and plants is light, and the morning is fresh and vivid in the warm sunshine.

"Good morning."

The little girl who was lying on the balcony next door and watching the clouds greeted him lively. Xie Jingxing picked a few petals from the green vines surrounding the balcony and leaned over to hand them to her: "You too, good morning."

He drank the coffee in the cup, checked the time, then went back inside to change his clothes.

When I pushed open the door, I saw Cheng Sen standing in the hotel corridor. He was wearing a pair of waxed leather shoes and was dressed in a formal suit of trousers and a white shirt. A pair of creamy white collar stays could be vaguely seen against his collar.

"Nice collar." Xie Jingxing looked at him from head to toe.

Cheng Sen followed up the conversation and explained, "I went hunting in Africa with a friend and got some ivory. I didn't know what to do with it, so I made a pair of collar supports. I'll send the remaining ivory materials to Assistant Song later."

"Are you thinking about winning people's hearts now?" Xie Jingxing said with a half-smile.

Cheng Sen smiled awkwardly: "I wanted you to help me appreciate it, but I'm afraid you won't like it."

Xie Jingxing didn't say anything, but put on a pair of sunglasses that covered half of his face and walked forward. He said without being proud that his face was quite recognizable in the venture capital circles at home and abroad.

Today I have to dress up and act as a bodyguard. Mr. Cheng will meet with several investment projects in his capacity as the chairman of 'Dubai Vision Capital (Vsion Capital)'.

Another bodyguard, Li Yan, felt very puzzled after listening to the brief conversation between the two. Should the ivory be delivered to Song Anli?
Cheng Sen tried to find out how secretive the secret fund was, how many people were involved in it, and how he positioned himself in the new interest group.

Xie Jingxing asked him to guess carefully.

It's quite a mystery, ivory, and an African elephant!

Li Yan secretly laughed. A smart man like Cheng Sen who was good at maneuvering was difficult to control. Unfortunately, when the gap in status was too big, the role of scheming was infinitely suppressed.

Cheng Sen was not discouraged. He always needed to find the right position through running-in. Trial and error were part of the process. It was easier to make small mistakes within a controllable range than to make big mistakes without knowing the answer.

So not only should we give ivory, but also a truly thoughtful gift. It just so happened that I heard that Assistant Song’s younger brother wanted to study abroad.

Cheng Sen's mind was full of thoughts. Xie Jingxing was sitting in the passenger seat, watching him quietly through the rearview mirror.

Guess what, Su He, Tang Man, Song Anli, everyone was like this at the beginning, and now they can be controlled by one's own arm, at least on the surface.

Cheng Sen will not be an exception. If he is an exception, he will be thrown into the trash can.

We arrived at Sea Limited's office in Singapore in silence and met Li Xiaodong, the founder of this startup, in the cafe downstairs of the office building.

He is a Chinese American with a simple family background and a master's degree from Stanford. At the beginning of his business, he shouted the slogan of benchmarking Tencent and started his business by acting as the agent for the operating rights of games such as League of Legends in Southeast Asia.

Tencent invested in them in a round last year and wants to enter the mobile payment business this year, so it still has financing needs.

Grab entered the market from the offline local life perspective. They relied on online mobile payment methods such as game recharges, and the company has a good local promotion team.

I went to every Internet cafe in Vietnam and Malaysia to install the system, and placed the games represented by Sea in the most prominent recommended position on the system page.

Apart from this, there is nothing much to be said for the company. It relied on Tencent's rounds of follow-up investments and resources to create a Southeast Asian overlord with a market value of nearly US$1700 billion, covering multiple business areas such as gaming, e-commerce, and mobile payments.

At its peak, Tencent held a 40% stake in the company.

There is not much to talk about for a startup like this, the price is negotiable.

In fact, judging from the return on investment alone, many domestic Internet giants are not as profitable as their Southeast Asian counterparts, and they have the temperament of third world primitives.

Xie Jingxing's view of them is similar to that of European and American capital in the 1990s. Many high-quality projects have nothing to do with business. All they need to do is feed the local complex political and business relations, and there will be no enterprises that cannot be invested in.

This happens to be what Cheng Sen is good at, leaving professional matters to professionals.

The second project we looked at that day was also in the ride-hailing industry, the Indonesian local startup 'Go-jek', whose founders Makarim and Grab's Anthony Tan are both Harvard alumni.

However, he does not have the prominent family background of the other party, but he is an idealist. They were founded earlier than Grab, have done a particularly good job in localization in Indonesia, and have tens of thousands of "motorcycle taxis".

Because Makarim's idealism is naturally in conflict with big capital, he was forced to introduce big capital until he was overtaken by Grab and had to move into mobile payments from online car-hailing, food delivery, same-city express delivery and several other businesses.

For three consecutive days, Xie Jingxing took Cheng Sen to visit all the potential start-ups in Southeast Asia, covering all online and offline mobile payments.

…………

Time has quickly jumped into May, and Singapore is crowded with people. Domestic tour groups wearing Little Red Riding Hoods dominate the streets.

The long traffic jam near the Marina Bay Financial Centre blocked the road like a person holding their urine, so we simply got off the car and walked to the Singapore Taihe Family Office.

"Do you want to eat?"

Xie Jingxing bought some ice creams from a small street shop to cool off. Before Cheng Sen and Li Yan could speak, a middle-aged fat man holding a parasol almost trotted over.

"Master Jing, I am Zhang Ruilin, I am late!"

He quickly opened the parasol, wiped the non-existent sweat from his forehead with a towel, took a deep breath, and bowed slightly with sincere emotion.

The men and women following behind were well-trained in separating the passers-by from the door of the small shop. The whole process was smooth as if it had been rehearsed.

Feeling the curious looks from passers-by, Xie Jingxing stuffed the ice cream into his hand with a twitch in his mouth, and quickly left the scene.

Zhang Ruilin didn't care. He followed with a smile as bright as spring breeze, holding an ice cream in one hand and a parasol in the other, and at the same time gave his subordinates a look.

"Who is this young man? He looks like he is from China."

"He is afraid of meeting people or something, but he brings so many bodyguards with him. Even Wang Sicong is not as flamboyant as him."

Watching the group of people walking away, two girls with exquisite and fashionable makeup put away their phones while complaining.

I'll edit the video and post it on Weibo, it should receive a lot of likes, the guy is quite handsome.

The content is all thought out - I flew to Singapore with my sisters and happened to see my friend being surrounded by people, and I wanted to show everyone how embarrassed he was to avoid the crowd.

She is light-hearted, fresh, refined and yet dignified. She is just afraid that those ordinary men who follow her Weibo and only know how to post cheesy love words will not understand this editing.

"I'm sorry, the photo you just took violates my privacy and needs to be deleted."

One of the girls was thinking happily when suddenly a burly man in a black suit appeared in front of her.

Another girl was unwilling to give in and argued: "Why? We also have our legal rights."

“Hey, little girl, delete it. This is Singapore.” A local lady passing by with a basket of vegetables kindly advised that if things that the rich don’t want to be seen by the public are easily seen by the public, wouldn’t it be a joke that Singapore has spent decades to create the most livable capital environment?

The good thing about capitalist countries is that money really can make anything happen. In mainland China, a middle-aged corporate executive who wants to curry favor with his young boss has to pay attention to his own face and try to be as obscure as possible to cover it up.

In Singapore, the polar opposites are reversed. The more openly you flatter the young master and the better you serve him, the more face you gain.

"Mr. Jing, it's not easy for you to come here. Your colleagues are so happy from the bottom of their hearts that they insisted on holding a welcoming ceremony."

Arriving at Taihe's office, Zhang Ruilin closed the door and said sternly, "I wanted to encourage my colleagues' enthusiasm, so I didn't report to you in advance. This is my work error, and I must admit my mistake!"

"Let's get down to business."

Xie Jingxing threw down the bouquet of flowers in his hand and shook off the faint scent of rouge that stained his body.

This fat guy who is the same size as Liu Qiming just gave him a scene where the beautiful receptionist gave him flowers and hugged him. In China, he pretended to be approachable and smiled happily with his netizens every day. He forgot his real identity for a moment and was actually a little uncomfortable!
"This is the company's Q1 financial statement and my work summary report. The company's cash flow on the books is indeed low." Zhang Ruilin restrained his expression.

"Look at it."

Xie Jingxing did not comment, and threw a thick stack of materials to Cheng Sen, and then continued to instruct: "Select the key points and narrate orally."

"First, in the acquisition of Pony.com, we invested RMB 15 billion in Grapefruit Capital; invested RMB 20 billion in Meizu Group and allocated China Taihe Capital; and invested RMB 10 billion in Grapefruit Capital Securities."

Zhang Ruilin paused for a moment and said, "We plan to acquire 3% of Madison Square Garden Sports (MSGS) for $3000 million and repay the $7 billion loan pledged with 10% of WhatsApp."

"In addition, there are expenses such as the operation of regular mid- to early-stage venture capital projects, replenishment of long-term alternative investments, and public welfare and charity."

In less than half a year this year, Xie Jingxing spent 112 billion yuan from the Taihe office funding pool.

It was barely covered by a variety of income, including borrowing US stocks through loan leverage and pledging loans with shares of Didi.

As of now, Taihe’s funding pool only has US$5 million in cash for daily operations and risk capital reserves.

For Taihe Family Office, whose net investment value doubled from the same period last year to US$50 billion, this amount of money is not much.

Moreover, Mr. Xie from Yunshan Group is still waiting to buy up high-quality assets through capital operations and may need funds to turn over at any time.

"1 million US dollars was transferred to my personal name."

Xie Jingxing pondered for a moment and added: "Calculate my personal assets."

"Now?" Zhang Ruilin was confused.

"Work overtime and give me the results tomorrow morning. If you need any documents to be connected with the domestic department, please contact me for signature at any time."

Xie Jingxing roughly estimated that if he hired a few more financial lawyers to work overtime, he should be able to count the total number of hours.

Most of his wealth comes from his 40% stake in Taihe Family Office, which is worth about US$23 billion.

The remainder is that he holds 95% of the shares of Grapefruit Capital in his dual capacity as manager and investor, the remaining 5% of the shares are option pools, and Tang Man owns 1% of the shares as a junior partner.

Grapefruit Capital currently includes a US$2 million venture capital fund, a RMB 30 billion venture capital fund, and a RMB 20 billion securities quantitative investment fund.

Other businesses include proprietary investment, with early investment of nearly 15 million US dollars in projects such as Didi, later investment of 11 billion in the acquisition of Pony.com, and billion yuan in active securities investment.

Finally, he personally invested 10 billion yuan in a securities quantitative investment fund, and also had about 5 million yuan in miscellaneous assets such as real estate, collections, and film investments.

A conservative estimate is that it is at least US$45 billion. In the end, WhatsApp's valuation has already exceeded US$300 billion. The 7% stake he holds through Grapefruit's US office is worth around US$20 billion.

With a net worth of US$65 billion, he ranked among the top ten in the country according to last year's rich list, just surpassing Xu Jiayin.

Of course, if the leveraged liabilities of various capital operations are removed, the net assets would still be around US$45 billion.

The vast majority of them were contributed by the Didi and WhatsApp projects. If Xiao Cheng and Xiao Liu work hard, he is expected to surpass Lao Xie this year.

As for Lao Xie's personal wealth, it is more complicated and difficult to calculate, but the market value of Yunshan's listed subsidiaries is almost climbing to 500 billion. It is easy to estimate it to more than billion yuan.

The main reason is that Yunshan Group cannot be listed, and its valuation is actually not inflated. A bunch of its Internet companies have extremely high valuations in the capital market, which has no practical comparative significance.

"I'll give you $100 million first. If it's not enough, we'll talk later."

Xie Jing Xing pondered for a long time, and rarely took the initiative to light a cigarette in private.

Cheng Sen put down the information in his hand, raised his head and said seriously: "No, 5000 million is enough. The political and business environment in Southeast Asia is different from that in China."

"What do you mean?" Xie Jingxing asked humbly.

"The public relations teams of mining and energy companies in the Middle East have a special term for domestic political and business state-owned enterprises, which is called a "black hole". No matter how much money they put in and how much resources they waste on building connections, it will all go down the drain once the power is transferred in China. They only see money coming in but no money coming out."

Cheng Sen smiled and said, "The political and business systems in Southeast Asia don't have the control we have at home, and they can't maintain their independence. For foreign capital like us, the public relations costs are low."

"I just need to get through to a middle-level leader in a department. His family may have more than a dozen elders working in the department."

He couldn't help but radiate a light of confidence: "Simply put, if I can do public relations, I can get $100 million. If I can't do public relations, money can't solve it. I need political resources."

"For example?" Xie Jingxing continued to ask.

Cheng Sen smiled modestly: "For example, for Vietnam, it would be best to borrow resources from American officials or university alumni; for Thailand, media resources from European and American countries are very effective for them; the same is true for India and Malaysia. To be frank, it is nothing more than filling in the gaps."

Xie Jingxing took a deep puff of cigarette: "You don't have to worry about Taihe's funding issues for me. As long as you can do the work, it's my incompetence if I can't come up with the money."

"Boss, I'm not..." Cheng Sen sat up straight.

"No need to explain. I have indeed spent a lot of money recently. I asked you to look at the financial statements just to give you an idea of ​​the amount."

Xie Jingxing said with rare sincerity: "At this time last year, Taihe was only worth a few billion US dollars. I was a little anxious about making money so quickly. The Vision Fund is very important. Please help me do well."

Cheng Sen inadvertently and intuitively demonstrated his value. In Xie Jingxing's opinion, this set of "black hole" concepts is a perfect combination of experience and practical ability, and it is worth saying a few words to comfort him.

Grab has no shortage of financial investment and is confident in its future valuation growth, so this round of strategic financing is expected to release only 25% of its equity and raise US$2100 million.

The Vision Fund can get about 10% of the shares, after all, its competitors are Tiger Global Management and Temasek Sovereign Fund.

Go-jek and Sea are almost the same, so it doesn't cost much. $5000 million is just enough, and $1 million is more than enough.

Xie Jingxing could still hold on. If he needed Cheng Sen's understanding, what qualifications did he have to control the other party?

(End of this chapter)