Li Zehua had not been in Hong Kong for two days when a big commotion broke out outside.

A group of people from the mainland are looking for him.

That’s right, those guys in logistics and transportation are really anxious. So many cooperative manufacturers are making a lot of noise, and everyone in the industry who should know about it knows about it.

Except for Yunda, which is sitting firmly on the Diaoyutai, other companies are trying their best to cooperate.

“SF Express even came to our door?”

Li Zehua hung up the phone, feeling relieved, and casually instructed Xiao Chengdong, assistant to the president of the compliance department, to contact SF Express.

"Hummingbird business?"

Liu Zijie was reporting to him. After asking a question casually, he continued:

"Six fund companies have submitted their registration applications, the Hong Kong Research Institute is also going through the process, and all other matters are progressing steadily."

"Very good. You can arrange it and reserve an office in Hong Kong."

While Li Zehua was speaking, he signed the authorization document and handed it to him.

“From now on, any expenditure below $10,000 will only require the signature of Wei Kejian, General Manager of Southeast Asia Affairs.

If the amount exceeds 10,000 US dollars, it will take effect only after he and the financial director of the affairs department sign at the same time, and then report to the company headquarters for approval. "

He couldn't keep an eye on the specific business of overseas branches all the time.

In addition to financial power, personnel arrangements require all managers and scientific research project leaders to report to Shanghai once every six months.

You always have to see it with your own eyes and understand the progress of the project before you can feel at ease.

Liu Zijie had no objection to this, “In the early stage, Lin Wending was in Lijiapo to assist, and the company was near the Temasek headquarters, so it was convenient to control it at any time.

After I return to Shanghai, I will also arrange for someone to report the progress at any time."

"So much the better."

This is the good thing about Li Zehua. With so many businesses and so many complicated matters, it is impossible for him to take care of everything.

As long as we manage the source well, grasp a few key positions, and allow the overseas business to develop without deviating too much from expectations, we will be fine.

Before October, the total budget for overseas business was US$5 million. Any additional investment would only cost this amount and would not affect the overall situation.

After sorting out the overseas affairs, Li Zehua breathed a sigh of relief, "The company's affairs are too busy, I may have to return to the mainland tomorrow.

CEO Zheng and General Manager Lin have other things to do in Hong Kong and will stay for a few days. Please find an opportunity to treat them to a banquet on my behalf. Don't be reluctant to spend money."

Just as he finished speaking, Xiao Chengdong, who was out on a phone call, came in holding the phone and whispered, "Chairman, Wang Wei from SF Express wants to talk to you."

"Shunfeng King?"

Li Zehua was very surprised. He had contacted SF Holdings several times before, but the other party always ignored him.

After thinking for a while, he took the phone and said, "Hello, Mr. Wang, I am Li Zehua, the chairman of Hummingbird..."

The call was hung up not long after it started.

Liu Zijie suppressed his curiosity and said, "Chairman, if you have nothing else to do, I will go and do my work first."

"Wait a minute."

Li Zehua came back to his senses and said, "Let's make an appointment with CEO Zheng and General Manager Lin to see if they are free tonight. General Manager Wang of SF Express is hosting a dinner at his home. I invite them to come together."

Liu Zijie was confused: "Okay."

After receiving the accurate reply, I went back to the study again and saw Li Zehua writing and drawing with paper and pen. I had no idea what he was doing.

Then he whispered, "Director Zheng readily agreed. Director Lin is asking what it is."

“SF Express wants to cooperate.”

Li Zehua's expression was slightly solemn. Seeing his question mark on his face, he explained:
“…This is the current status of Hummingbird Express.

Yunda and ZTO have become real insiders, Yuantong and Shentong are still watching, and the dismantling and acquisition of Huitong is a foregone conclusion.

Since EMI is backed by Taotao, it is difficult for it to reach a real cooperation. Now ZTO Express in the north and SF Express in the south have come to it.

Just now, Mr. Wang from SF Express called me and invited me to his mansion in Hong Kong. His implication was that he wanted to take over Pinxixi's entire vehicle logistics business.

I don’t think it’s that simple. SF Express has always had a big appetite. We should call on people from Temasek to help avoid a falling out with SF Express and leave some room for future cooperation.”

Express delivery is LTL, which means that scattered parcels are put together into one truck before being sent.

The manufacturers that Pinxixi has signed contracts with all deliver full-truckloads point-to-point. The market share of full-truckload logistics is currently much larger than that of express delivery.

SF Express’ main business previously has been express parcels weighing less than five kilograms, but with the launch of Cainiao by Taotao E-commerce and Hummingbird by Qingyun.

The impact on the express delivery industry is obvious. Yunda started to operate directly, and Shentong began to recruit franchisees nationwide to invest.

Cainiao and EMI are bound to take up a larger share of the e-commerce express parcel market.

Even Qingyun’s ally JD Logistics is beginning to get anxious, let alone SF Express.

Be prepared for danger in times of peace and see the essence through appearances.

Every outstanding entrepreneur always maintains a keen judgment of market changes. Wang Wei saw this, so he changed his previous excuses and began to take the initiative to contact them.

Liu Zijie has only a vague understanding of the development of the express delivery industry. Based on the limited information he has, he analyzed:
“Is SF Express so important to Fengniao’s strategy?
As a directly operated company, it has an absolute advantage in the mid-to-high-end express delivery field.

Whether in terms of revenue, profit, service quality or strategic layout, there seems to be no need for them to intersect with Hummingbird.”

“So SF Express has not shown much interest in previous contacts.”

Li Zehua expressed his trust without reservation, "As you said, SF Express, which has its own unique system, is impeccable.

But for enterprises, the biggest crisis is to be satisfied with the insignificant achievements at present and to become complacent and complacent.

SF Express has obviously noticed this and is actively developing its own advantageous projects, for example, it is recently in contact with Yangtze River Airlines.

We plan to lease the latter's cargo airport and aircraft to improve service timeliness through convenient air transportation.

It is no exaggeration to say that in today's logistics and express delivery industry, SF Express is the only company that can compete with the post office in terms of service quality.

One-day delivery and next-day delivery are the goals that all logistics and express delivery companies strive for, but it is obvious that the service quality of the franchise system is worrying.

The express delivery company is simply unable to effectively manage its franchisees across the country, and the quality and timeliness of service are almost non-existent.

The delivery time of three to five days is not competitive at all.”

He knocked on the table, motioning Xiao Chengdong to sit down and listen.

“SF Express has only two most reliable development routes.

The first is to learn from Taotao and our Pinxixi, control upstream e-commerce, and ensure the stability of the source of express parcel quantity.

This is also the purpose of SF King inviting me to a banquet. His goal is to acquire a stake in Pinxixi or even completely acquire it.

As for the second one, which is to get involved in the point-to-point logistics of entire vehicles, there are too many and too strong competitors in this market, so SF Express has not made up its mind to enter the market for the time being.

Given its size and model, this path is easy to take, but it is not in our interest, so we have to find a way to ruin it.”

The two subordinates were stunned. Is it so direct?
Only Li Zehua knows that SF Express is so strong that if it is given some time, it will leave its competitors far behind.

In the field of e-commerce, SF Express has been trying it out, and it had already been doing it before its showdown with Jack Ma.

Unfortunately, SF Express does not have the Internet gene and has never been successful, or it can be said that most physical companies have no experience in Internet business.

The most typical examples are Su Ning Yiguo and Wang Gongzi’s live streaming platform.

The former has always attempted to replicate its offline success, and only uses the online mall as a supplement to sales channels.

How can this succeed?
If you don’t have the courage to burn your boats, what you need to do to run an online mall is to have the determination to open your own physical store as well.

Regardless of friend or foe, winning is the key.

But like a young wife with bound feet, even if she is full of affection and love, she still has to be criticized by offline shopping malls when doing an online promotion. It would be strange if she can succeed.

So in the end, only JD.com was successful. From the very beginning, it decisively discarded its offline stores as a burden and went into battle with a light load.

It is relatively easy to succeed from online to offline!

Because the goal is clear, which is to be an experience store and after-sales maintenance point, if you honestly do the subordinate cooperation, you can live a fulfilling life.

Prince Wang’s live broadcast further illustrates a problem: no matter how awesome you are offline, you still have to abide by other people’s rules online.

The Taishan Sect is certainly powerful. Its influence, which is based on the popular support system, is spread all over the country.

In the Internet industry, there is core support represented by Ali, which later supported a series of second- and third-tier Internet giants such as Didi Daida, Dishuichou, and Wuba.

But in the field of social networking and gaming, Tenda.com is the undisputed leader.

How can anyone sleep soundly in the territory of Chaozhou porridge? Brother Ma took action and sent Prince Wang back home to play in the mud in minutes.

SF Express’s e-commerce journey has been extremely bumpy from the very beginning.

It had a brief period of glory by relying on instant delivery of fresh fruits, but was quickly defeated by e-commerce companies that reacted quickly.

No one knows exactly how much SF Express has invested in the e-commerce sector.

However, the outside world generally believes that the five years from 11 to 15 are considered to be SF Express's lost five years, and the growth rate of its main business is lower than that of the three major express delivery companies.

It can be simply ignored.

SF Express, whose revenue exceeded 10 billion in 120 years and whose profits grew rapidly, has plunged into this quagmire and cannot get out.

It has always rejected foreign investment, and in 12/14 it even needed capital transfusions to save its life several times.

However, whether you do well or not depends entirely on the comparison with your peers.

SF Express is confused and its competitors are even worse.

For five whole years, not a single company was willing to provide services down to earth. SF Express, YTO Express, STO Express and EMI were immersed in the gentle embrace of the rapid growth of e-commerce and refused to wake up.

Ali's rookie looks more like a joke. What is the essential difference between the capital operation of collecting franchise fees and the expansion of a milk tea shop?
It’s just that the equipment sold in milk tea shops is more expensive.

JD.com, the only one that is making efforts, is constrained by the limitations of its main business as the scale of e-commerce sales continues to expand.

With limited funds, priority must be given to building the supply system, leaving no room for JD Logistics to expand overseas.

By the time they had established a firm foothold in 18 and turned back to support JD Logistics and SF Express in competition, the best opportunity had passed and no matter how much money they spent, they could not keep up with the development speed of their competitors. But who asked Li Zehua to come?

Hummingbird emerged, and with the development of express delivery business, its revenue scale began to grow rapidly.

There is no need to undertake the construction of warehousing and logistics bases, and the investment in heavy assets such as vehicles. As the collection and delivery volume increases, there is no place to spend the profits.

He had already figured out that if the express delivery company didn't do something, he would do it, which was just buying a cargo plane.

Once the QR code is promoted, we will immediately start to upgrade and improve the system to improve service quality step by step.

In short, even if SF Express is unwilling to cooperate, there are many companies that are willing to cooperate. In the future, there will definitely be a place for Hummingbird in the mid-to-high-end express delivery market.

There is not much time left for SF Express...

In the afternoon, I brought two bigwigs from Temasek to visit Wang Weishi for the first time.

He still maintained the same attitude, neither humble nor complaining, and responded calmly.

Because the future development direction of an enterprise can be traced.

Wang Wei also understood this truth, so he was very hostile to Hummingbird at the beginning and ignored the olive branch it extended.

As Pinxixi's e-commerce layout deepened, more and more factories began to cooperate, and SF Express was forced to seek cooperation.

The facts are here. If SF Express does not participate, it can only watch its opponent grow stronger little by little.

Isn’t that what business is all about?
In the competition with peers, I can earn less, but you can’t avoid losses.

And vice versa.

Originally, Wang Wei planned to use SF Express's channels and financial advantages to force Qingyun to make concessions as much as possible.

But when he saw the senior executives of Temasek arriving with Li Zehua, his moment of surprise was seen by everyone.

After a round of perfunctory business flattery.

No one was in a hurry to get to the point.

Wang Wei even deliberately ignored Li Zehua, the real owner, and instead chatted with Temasek's Zheng Weihong, seemingly trying to figure out Temasek's real intention of following him.

"What, you're disappointed?"

Li Zehua didn't care. He found an excuse to visit the villa and went to the balcony to enjoy the beautiful scenery around him.

In a place where every inch of land is valuable, having your own garden and swimming pool is really enviable.

Lin Wenhui walked up to him at some point and made a joking remark.

He smiled and responded casually: “Without hope, where does disappointment come from?
I envy them, they can buy villas worth hundreds of millions of dollars without any hesitation, they simply don’t treat money as money.”

He hadn't even remembered making a bet with Wang Tao and preparing to give him a mansion of ten thousand square feet.

Lin Wenhui was speechless, but quickly reacted, "You mean the cooperation is not very promising?"

“Cooperation is inevitable, but it is not a good deal to rush to ask for it.

SF Express, let’s wait and see.”

As he said this, he glanced into the room, and just in time Wang Wei's eyes drifted over, so he responded with a smile.

"What did you say he was talking about with President Zheng?"

Lin Wenhui shrugged: "How would I know?

Maybe SF Express plans to cooperate with Temasek?"

He joked again, "Speaking of which, I have to thank you for the opportunity. It's difficult for many people to meet the King of Shunfeng."

Wang Wei's name is not mentioned here. It seems that everyone around him has been influenced by Li Zehua and has started to call this express delivery giant the "King of SF Express".

"Verbal praise doesn't count."

Li Zehua declined the offer, saying, "Someone outside offered 10 million US dollars just to cooperate with SF King.

If you succeed, shouldn't you give me some money?"

Lin Wenhui was stunned. "You don't object?"

“What can I object to? I would welcome your investment in SF Express even in my dreams.

By becoming a shareholder, we have influence, which will open the door to future cooperation in express delivery business, which is a great thing.”

Then he added, "As long as it does not harm the interests of Qingyun Group."

"It's like I didn't say anything."

Lin Wenhui pursed his lips, "Xiang Zhuang dances with a sword, aiming at Pei Gong.

If the king of SF Express is willing to give in, it must be for Pinxixi and Fengniao. It’s no good feast.”

"That's why I brought you along. The triangular relationship is the most stable. With Temasek as the middleman, our SF King won't be too disrespectful, right?!"

This sudden banquet really caught him off guard.

It will take time for Pinxixi’s expected revenue to be realized. Even the most perfect business plan needs to be implemented before it can exert its influence.

SF Express chose such a time to discuss cooperation, which makes people feel uncomfortable as they are neither in a position to go up nor down.

Accept it? Not likely.

SF Express has a huge appetite, and Qingyun will suffer huge losses even if they hold shares in each other at the current valuation.

But if he doesn't cooperate and refuses outright, I'm afraid it will be difficult to meet him in the future.

If there are some unexpected events in the middle, such as Taotao and Cainiao launching an attack, SF Express's attitude will be very important, because the three major express delivery companies still have to rely on Taotao for their livelihood for the time being.

Fortunately, Temasek is here to support us temporarily.

We were chatting to kill time when we saw Wang Wei and Zheng Weihong coming out together.

Zheng Weihong was the first to break the silence. "Why are you staying outside, Mr. Li? You are the guest of honor today, Mr. Wang."

"Country people have never seen the world. It's their first time seeing such a luxurious villa. It's inevitable that they will be a little embarrassed and unable to move freely."

Li Zehua chose to give in temporarily, and expressed his attitude with modesty, "I see that the two of you are having a good conversation, I am sorry to disturb you."

SF King thought about it for a moment and understood it immediately.

I sneered in my heart, you are the only one who can't move freely. I asked you to have a meal, but you are dragged here to help fight in the ring. What else are you afraid of?

No one took it seriously. Given SF Express’s size, if Hummingbird wants to break through, it will come to visit sooner or later.

Unfortunately for Pinxixi, it seems like it will not be able to get involved for the time being.

I don’t know if I can create a similar e-commerce platform by copying others.

I was thinking, but I said the exact opposite, "Mr. Li, why are you being so modest? Each of your companies is doing better than the last.

Mr. Zheng and I were just chatting inside, and we really envy Temasek for its foresight in investing in several good companies.”

"I did something trivial by chance."

While watching Zheng Weihong's reaction, Li Zehua said politely, "It's all thanks to Mr. Zheng and Mr. Lin for their support. Without the support of Temasek, I wouldn't be where I am today."

"Where, where..."

After another round of careful probing, the King of SF Express gradually lost his patience, and all his plans were disrupted by Temasek's sudden visit.

When he was talking about Pinxixi with Zheng Weihong just now, the other party actually had his eyes on SF Holding's shares, which made him extremely vigilant.

As a result, interest in Pinxixi and Hummingbird has greatly decreased. These are just two companies that have not yet been fully developed.

It's not worth spending too much to acquire or control.

An e-commerce platform only requires hands. If he can do it, SF Express can do it too.

As for Hummingbird Network, he is not interested in it. If necessary, he can copy one in minutes with the help of SF Express's tens of thousands of direct employees.

There is no profit motive. Setting up an express delivery platform will not benefit SF Express much, and it will only enrich other competitors. He will not do something that will seriously aid the enemy.

But building a large-scale e-commerce platform, even for SF Express, takes a lot of time.

The transportation contracts signed by Pinxixi and major manufacturers and the whole-vehicle transportation business are also one of the future development directions discussed internally by SF Express.

After understanding what the SF King meant, Li Zehua also knew what his subtext was, so he smiled and said, “If SF Express wants to cooperate, we will of course open our doors to welcome you.

However, I hope Mr. Wang will understand that Qingyun Group is a comprehensive company after all, and Fengniao Express maintains good cooperative relations with various express delivery companies.

As a subsidiary of Qingyun, Pinxixi must prioritize the interests of its partners, so it can only take out a few full-vehicle logistics orders.”

Wang Wei knew this would be the result, but he still didn't mind. Having something is better than nothing.

The two sides also had a full exchange of views on the specific details of cooperation.

There's actually nothing to talk about.

Wang Wei's plan was not satisfied, and he wanted to use his power to try to snatch some e-commerce shares from Qingyun.

As a result, Temasek joined in midway and did not give him any chance at all.

Zheng Weihong’s meaning was very clear. If he wanted Pinxixi shares or even controlling rights, then sure, they could help.

As long as the King of SF Express is willing to give up part of SF Express’s shares.

Temasek’s logic is very simple. Qingyun Group currently has no money, but SF Express has money, and SF Express has the market resources that Fengniao Express wants most.

Then it's an equal exchange. SF Express invests in Pinxixi, and Temasek invests in SF Express in turn, and then brings Li Zehua in. The interests of the three parties are tied together, and it's just a matter of transferring money from one hand to the other.

Wang Wei would have to be crazy to agree to this. He will not mention the matter of mutual shareholding at all and is prepared to give the cooperation a try first.

Li Zehua did not refuse. There are still many areas where the three major express delivery companies do not have direct outlets. The post office cannot be relied upon for the time being, but SF Express can help.

In short, SF Express can take the point-to-point vehicle delivery business, but as for the city delivery after arriving at the destination, I’m sorry, because Fengniao wants the terminal service business.

Wang Wei is also a person who can take on responsibilities and let go of things. SF Express is unable to fully cover the delivery and collection business in counties and towns.

Just like that, putting aside those unrealistic fantasies, the basis for cooperation between the two sides finally emerged. (End of this chapter)