Chapter 107: Shares and the Fight Between Two Beauties

With a valuation of 12.5 million US dollars, Liu Zhou can get % ​​of Penguin shares by investing million.

After the dilution of Li Chaoren and IDG's shares, they each still had 17.5%, while the entrepreneurial team led by Pony Ma still had 52.5% of the shares.

Pony Ma's team still firmly holds control of Penguin.

After signing the contract, Liu Zhou also gave Xiao Ma Ge a surprise.

Liu Zhou entrusted the rights and interests of the 12.5% ​​shares held by Zhoushan Capital to Xiao Ma Ge, which immediately made him overjoyed.

Now Pony Ma really believes that Liu Zhou is optimistic about his company's software and this is just a financial investment.

What entrepreneurs like most are investment institutions that do not interfere with the company's operations.

The surprise Liu Zhou gave at the end made Xiao Ma Ge like him more, and he specially invited him to dinner.

Of course Liu Zhou gladly accepted Xiao Ma Ge's invitation.

During the meal, Liu Zhou did not give him any suggestions on the development of QQ based on what he knew about the future. Penguin developed so smoothly in the future that he didn't need to worry about it.

Both of them recalled the early days of their entrepreneurial careers, which was what resonated the most. After this meal, their relationship improved a lot.

The next day, Liu Zhou got up and left Pengcheng.

In order to invest in these companies, Liu Zhou spent almost two months in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, and it was already the end of May.

However, Ding Lei from Yangcheng somehow found out that Liu Zhou was at Xiao Ma Ge's place, so he called him and invited him to visit Wangyi on the way.

Liu Zhou couldn't refuse, so he went back to Yangcheng, which was a good opportunity to go home.

Ding Lei looked full of energy and spirit, no longer looking like the frowned man that was photographed by the media a few months ago.

At that time, he had not started raising pigs yet, and the scale of Wangyi was not very large, with its main business being the portal website.

However, Liu Zhou also saw the gaming team that Ding Lei recruited. Looking at his serious expression, he obviously regarded it as his trump card and was very confident in online games.

After visiting Wangyi Company, Ding Lei also invited Liu Zhou to dinner.

Liu Zhou was originally wondering why he was suddenly so enthusiastic towards him. Even though he was now a major shareholder of NetEase, there was no need for him to be like this, and the two of them were not very familiar with each other.

It was not until dinner time that Liu Zhou found out the reason after listening to his story.

It turned out that his large-scale purchase of NetEase's stock not only made the company's investors completely reassured, but also NetEase's stock price finally broke through one dollar.

The recovery of the stock price also officially shows that NetEase has passed the most difficult stage. As the founder of the company, Ding Lei is of course very grateful to Liu Zhou.

In addition, Liu Zhou, as the second largest individual shareholder after him, did not even arrange anyone to join the board of directors, which also made him feel very relieved.

So this time he was so enthusiastic towards Liu Zhou, not only to express his gratitude, but also to win over Liu Zhou. After all, Liu Zhou's voting rights were not authorized to Ding Lei.

After returning to Beijing, Liu Zhou received invitations from Sina and Sohu.

He did not want to favor one over the other, so he visited both companies and got to know the presidents of the two companies, Zhang Chaoyang and Mao Daolin.

Zhang Chaoyang can be said to be the founder of the earliest Internet company in China. Sohu has always been in his hands. He lived a very sober and free life in later lives, and Liu Zhou felt quite comfortable getting along with him.

As for Sina, this company is a bit complicated. It was established by the merger of three websites. Although it is known as the number one portal in China, the internal struggle is quite fierce.

In the following ten years, Sina's president changed every few years, and Mao Daolin resigned and left the year after next.

However, he had one identity that Liu Zhou took very seriously, that is, he was Hu's son-in-law.

However, Liu Zhou did not rush to lick the other person, he was just making normal friends.

After touring the headquarters of three portal websites, Liu Zhou finally had some free time.

During this period of time, a lot of things happened in the entertainment industry, but for Liu Zhou, he only focused on two things.

One is his good friend Liu Ye, who won this year's Golden Horse Award for Best Actor, becoming the third person to win the Best Actor award after Zhang Ziyi and Qin Hailu.

In addition, Yuan Quan won the Golden Rooster Award for Best Supporting Actress as early as 99, so the Class of 96 of the Central Academy of Drama has far surpassed the Class of 96 of the Beijing Film Academy in terms of awards.

However, because the film for which Liu Ye won the Best Actor award could not be released in mainland China, it had little influence on mainland audiences, but it did greatly increase his popularity in the industry.

Therefore, "Purple Butterfly", which was invested 30 million by Shanghai Film Studio and directed by the emerging director Lou Ye, invited Liu Ye to play the male lead and Zhang Ziyi to play the female lead, with Li Bingbing as the supporting role, which made this film quite popular for a while.

Liu Zhou is very happy that Liu Ye is doing well now. Liu Ye's acting skills are actually very good, but later on he became a bit formulaic, which is a pity.

Another thing that Liu Zhou was more concerned about was Zeng Li.

The news at the beginning of the year that Zhang Yimou was going to shoot a martial arts blockbuster was officially confirmed in April, and New Picture officially announced the news.

The investment was as rumored to be 30 million US dollars, equivalent to 250 million RMB, setting a record for domestic film investment.

The leading male actors of the film are confirmed to be kung fu superstar Jet Li and Liang Chaowei, who just won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Chen Daoming was also directly invited to play an important supporting male role.

There were still two female roles and one male supporting role to be decided, which attracted a lot of actors. However, in May, the role of the maid Ruyue was taken by Zhang Ziyi, a contracted artist of New Picture, and the male supporting role Changkong was also taken by Zhen Zidan.

The only thing left is the heroine Feixue.

As time went by, everyone realized that this role could only be played by Zeng Li and Zhang Manyu.

Through Zeng Li and Liu Zhou, we learned that this is no longer just a competition between the two of them, but also a competition between Hong Kong capital and mainland capital.

The movie "Hero" has three main investors: one is Zhang Weiping's New Picture, one is Jiang Zhiqiang's Edko Films in Hong Kong, and the other is Columbia.

Columbia had already started collaborating with Zhang Yimou on "My Father and Mother" a few years ago, and of course they were also involved in the investment of "Hero" this time.

Originally, Zhang Yimou had not thought of undertaking such a large project, but after bringing in Columbia Pictures and Edko Films, and confirming that Jet Li would be the male lead, he decided to go for it.

Jet Li's salary alone was 10 million US dollars, and the original investment of 10 million US dollars was not enough.

However, for this project, Columbia trusted Zhang Yimou and basically did not interfere with the selection of actors.

With Jet Li confirmed as the male lead, the selection of the remaining actors was done by Jiang Zhiqiang and Zhang Weiping.

Liang Chaowei and Zhen Zidan were both recommended by Jiang Zhiqiang, and then Zhang Weiping recommended his artist Zhang Ziyi.

For the role of Feixue, Jiang Zhiqiang again recommended Zhang Manyu, while Zhang Weiping recommended Zeng Li.

Zhang Weiping felt that there were too many actors from Hong Kong, and since the martial arts instructor was also from Hong Kong, their influence on the crew was too great.

If there is no suitable candidate in the mainland, he would just accept it if Jiang Zhiqiang recommended Zhang Manyu.

But now Zeng Li is much more popular in mainland China than Zhang Manyu, and even more popular in Asia.

As for other places outside of Asia, Jet Li is enough, and Zhang Manyu's contribution is minimal.

So Zhang Weiping strongly recommended Zeng Li, but Jiang Zhiqiang was unwilling and always felt that Zhang Manyu was more suitable, so the situation was stuck for a while.

The dispute between Zeng Li and Zhang Manyu has always attracted much attention from the outside world. The mainland media certainly hope that Zeng Li can win, while the Hong Kong and Taiwan media strongly support Zhang Manyu.

It was not a good idea to keep the stalemate like this, so the final choice fell to director Zhang Yimou.

After understanding the situation, Liu Zhou of course fully supported his girlfriend.

Liu Zhou first contacted Han Shanping and asked him to help speak up.

Then he called Director Xie of the Zhujiang Factory, Director Kang of the Xiaoxiang Factory, and Huo Jianqi, who was in the same class as Zhang Yimou, and asked them to recommend Zeng Li.

Although the Pearl River Studio and the Xiaoxiang Studio had little intersection with Zhang Yimou, there was frequent staff turnover in the major domestic film studios, and everyone knew each other every day, and there was always someone you could talk to in a roundabout way.

Not only that, Liu Zhou also personally approached Zhang Weiping, invited him to dinner, and expressed the hope that there would be opportunities for cooperation in the future.

The effect of Liu Zhou's actions is very obvious. In recent days, Zhang Yimou has asked Zeng Li to audition several times, and it is obvious that he has already made up his mind.

Although Zhang Yimou is a relatively pure person, he is also unable to avoid the ways of the world.

As for Zeng Li and Zhang Manyu, he felt that both of them were quite suitable, so he did not intervene. He was busy with the preparations for the film and left the selection of actors to Zhang Weiping and Jiang Zhiqiang.

Now they have put the decision-making power in his hands, and Zhang Yimou is unable to make a decision for a moment.

Afterwards, he received recommendations from his classmates, friends and former colleagues in China, and then Li An, Wen Jun and others called to praise Zhang Manyu's professional ability. The meaning was self-evident.

After pondering it over in his mind, Zhang Yimou made a choice.

It was the end of June. Liu Zhou was swimming in the swimming pool of the villa when Zeng Li and Zeng Jia suddenly walked in.

Seeing Zeng Li's happy face and Zeng Jiaxing's jubilant look, Liu Zhou knew that this matter should be successful.

Sure enough, before Liu Zhou could ask, Zeng Jia said excitedly:

"Boss Liu, it worked. Li Zi successfully got the role of Feixue!"

She was really depressed during this period.

As one of the most famous directors in China, Zhang Yimou's major project is being closely watched by people from across the Taiwan Straits and Hong Kong and Macau.

Zeng Li was so excited to be one of the candidates for the female lead in this movie that she couldn't sleep all night.

But after the excitement came worry. Zhang Manyu was also coming on strong. She had much more experience than Zeng Li and had won so many Best Actress trophies.

Zeng Li's only advantage is that she became very popular in Asia through "My Sassy Girl", and last year's Spring Festival Gala also made her popularity and fame in mainland China reach a new level.

But she was just a small agent and could not play any role in the matter. She could only watch her boss busying around.

Now that the dust has finally settled and Zeng Li has successfully gotten the role, she can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

(End of this chapter)