Chapter 215 Complete Control and Confrontation

The China Business Leaders Annual Conference is hosted by China Entrepreneur Magazine.

The first session was held in 2002, and now is the fifth session.

Top domestic entrepreneurs from various industries are invited to each annual meeting, and the scale of the event becomes larger and larger each time.

Liu Zhou took a look at the invitation letter and saw that the event was scheduled for May 8th, which was only a few days away. He couldn't help but ask:

"Did the Huaxia Enterprises send out invitations for their annual meeting two weeks in advance?"

"No, in fact, the invitation letter had already been sent to Sina, but the person invited at that time was Duan Yongji. The organizer saw that Duan Yongji was no longer the chairman of Sina, so they sent a new invitation letter."

Sina had originally decided that Duan Yongji would represent the company, but he was fired before the event even started, so they had no choice but to invite the new chairman, Liu Zhou.

However, after learning about this situation, the organizers made a special call to Duan Yongji to ask him whether he would attend as the chairman and president of the Soitong Group, but the latter declined.

He now feels very embarrassed as he was kicked out of Sina by a junior.

Old-school entrepreneurs like him pay more attention to their reputation, so he will wait until this wave of hype has passed before attending public events.

Hearing Wang Yan's words, Liu Zhou couldn't help but laugh:
"Is that so? Then please reply to the organizer and tell them that I will be there on time."

The venue for this year's China Enterprise Annual Conference is in Beijing, so it's just a matter of passing by, and he also wants to meet the current business tycoons in the mainland.

When Liu Zhou returned to Beijing, it was already April 26th, and there were only three days left until Sina's extraordinary shareholders' meeting at the end of the month.

An extraordinary general meeting of shareholders cannot be held whenever you want. Once it is held, you have to wait at least two months before the next one is held.

Sina’s last annual shareholders’ meeting was held at the end of February, and it has been almost two months now.

It was Duan Yongji who proposed to hold this extraordinary shareholders' meeting, but he has remained silent recently.

Now it is Liu Zhou's turn to hold this meeting.

In the past two months, Liu Zhou has been trying to win over some company shareholders and has achieved good results.

Otherwise, Liu Zhou would not have been in the mood to go to Hong Kong to attend the Academy Awards when the meeting was approaching.

However, in order to ensure that everything goes well, Liu Zhou checked again in the past few days to fill in the gaps.

On April 30th, Sina held an extraordinary shareholders' meeting, which also attracted much attention from the outside world.

Everyone knows that this time Duan Yongji will either make a comeback or be completely eliminated.

However, Duan Yongji had obviously run out of ideas, and he didn't even attend the shareholders' meeting.

So it was no surprise that with more than 60% of the votes in favor, Duan Yongji was stripped of his position as a director of Sina.

When the voting was finalized, Liu Zhou breathed a sigh of relief.

Now at Sina, Liu Zhou truly has the final say!

At this extraordinary shareholders' meeting, not only was Duan Yongji eliminated, but the entire board of directors also underwent major changes.

Seeing that Duan Yongji was kicked out and Sina had completely stabilized, Mao Daolin chose to leave completely and resigned from his position as director.

At the same time, Duan Yongji's staunch supporter Wu Zheng was also kicked out of the board of directors by Liu Zhou.

Finally, Liu Zhou re-set the number of Sina's board of directors to five, abolished the dual-chairman system, cancelled the position of co-chairman, and then re-voted to elect a new board of directors.

Liu Zhou still serves as chairman, and other board members are Jiang Fengnian, Chen Liwu, Zhong Lifang, and Wang Yan.

At the same time, Sina founder Wang Zhidong was also hired as Sina's honorary director.

Liu Zhou did this to appease people and show that he was not trying to seize Sina maliciously and that he had a good relationship with Sina's founding fathers.

Therefore, Liu Zhou also retained Jiang Fengnian, but like Chen Liwu, he is now just a figurehead and will not be in charge of anything at Sina.

Although Liu Zhou knew that what he was doing would not be very effective, people would only believe what they thought.

But no matter what, as long as it saves face, it can at least appease the people in the company to a certain extent.

After the results of Sina's extraordinary shareholders' meeting were announced, they immediately caused heated discussion.

As everyone knows, the expected Jedi counterattack did not occur, and Duan Yongji completely lost control of Sina.

Liu Zhou also became the youngest head of a major Internet company.

Liu Zhou now holds more than one-third of Sina's shares and is the absolute majority shareholder. No one will be able to challenge his position in the future.

If Liu Zhou can lead Sina to better development, Sina will also be deeply marked by Liu Zhou.

The outside world was also a little surprised that Duan Yongji was defeated so quickly, and Liu Zhou actually made himself the majority at the shareholders' meeting in just two months.

In fact, there is nothing to be surprised about. Although Sina experienced some turbulence in the early two months, it quickly stabilized afterwards.

Moreover, Liu Zhou did not mess around. He adjusted Sina's business in a very planned way, which gave people the impression that he was doing a good job.

Of course, the most important thing is that Liu Zhou holds 35.5% of Sina’s shares and has already taken control of Sina.

If he is pushed down again now, Liu Zhou will definitely not let it go and may even do something to the point of everyone's own death.

Everyone is here to make money, not to compete. Since Liu Zhou has such a big advantage and Duan Yongji has lost control of Sina, it is better to choose to support Liu Zhou.

At least he has so many shares in Sina that he will definitely not do anything rash, so their interests are better protected.

The Sina incident was lively for several days, and then slowly returned to calm.

This time, no one in Duan Yongji's circle of friends jumped out to speak up for him.

But Liu Zhou also knew that they must have regarded him as a thorn in their eyes, waiting to trip him up.

Liu Zhou is not too worried about this as his main career is in the Internet and film and television industries.

In the film and television industry, their relationship is not as good as his.

On the Internet, they do not have such a long reach, and their greatest advantage is in traditional industries.

Last time, Liu Zhou suffered from insufficient connections with the upper echelons, and recently he has been paying attention to building his own network.

It will not be so easy for them to put pressure on themselves from above in the future.

So as long as Liu Zhou doesn't touch the traditional industries, they can't do anything to him.

Besides, Liu Zhou is no longer an unknown person, and anyone can come and give him a kick.

If he really becomes famous someday, Sina will release negative information about him every day, or even make a movie to expose their ugly behavior.

The process of their group's rise and growth was not very glorious.

On May 8, the annual meeting of Chinese business leaders was grandly held in Beijing.

This time, China Entrepreneur Magazine made great efforts and invited many heavyweight guests.

Not only the relevant leaders mentioned above, but also Mao Yushi, Chairman of the W Institute of Economics, and Qian Yingyi, Dean of the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University.

In addition, domestic corporate representatives include Lenovo's Yanagawa Tsuyoshi, Fosun's Guo Guangchang, ZTE's Hou Weigui, TCL's Li Dongsheng, Ali's Jack Ma, Wanda's Wang Jianlin, and China Merchants Bank President Ma Weihua.

There were also foreign guests, including Sony Asia President Daichi Minamino, Greater China Presidents of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, and HSBC CEO Edwin Cheng.

More than one hundred guests who have confirmed their attendance are well-known business leaders from various industries.

With the rapid development of the Internet industry in the mainland in recent years, many companies have been listed in Hong Kong or overseas. The Internet has also become an important part of the mainland business circle, and the founders of enterprises have become frequent visitors on the rich list, and even Ding Lei and Chen Tianqiao have successively topped the list.

Therefore, no one dares to underestimate the Internet giants anymore. Almost all the leaders of major Internet companies have received invitations to this annual meeting.

On that day, after Liu Zhou signed in and arrived at the banquet hall, he saw a familiar figure at a glance.

Liu Zhou walked over, patted him on the shoulder and said:

"Mr. Chen, you're here so early."

Chen Tianqiao looked back and saw that it was Liu Zhou. He immediately smiled and replied:

"You're here so early too. By the way, congratulations on your success in taking over Sina."

"Haha, this is all thanks to your help, Mr. Chen."

"The most important thing is to rely on yourself. To be honest, I'm quite surprised that you were able to defeat Duan Yongji. I've personally experienced how difficult he is."

"I was just lucky. By the way, how is the development of your Shanda Box going?"

Chen Tianqiao's Shanda Box Project is well-known in the Internet industry. Some people are optimistic about it, but others think it is impossible to achieve.

However, Chen Tianqiao seemed to be very confident now. He smiled proudly and said:
"We have made great progress. It should be completed within this year. When the time comes, I will give you one for free."

"Okay."

The two hadn't seen each other for several months. Neither of them knew anyone in the hall, so they sat in a corner and started chatting.

"Boss Liu, I didn't expect you to come and grab a share of the gaming industry."

"What do you mean by grabbing market share? The gaming market is so big that it can accommodate a few more companies. But why do I think Shanda is still relying on its old business in gaming?"

At this point, Chen Tianqiao also sighed and said:

"Shanda's main energy has been put into Shanda Box, and I have been criticized too much because of the game, so I am a little uninterested."

"Now that you have money, you are pursuing fame?"

"Maybe. It seems that when you have money, you pay special attention to your image."

"Mr. Chen, Shanda's main business is games. If we fall behind in the game industry, then Shanda may be completely left behind."

"Don't worry, as long as Shanda Box is successful, the game doesn't matter."

Liu Zhou originally wanted to ask, what if Shanda Box also failed?
But seeing Chen Tianqiao's confident look, Liu Zhou held back his words.

Liu Zhou changed the subject and asked:

"What will you say on stage tomorrow?"

Chen Tianqiao shook his head and gave an answer that surprised Liu Zhou:
"I was not invited to give a speech. I will be studying in the audience tomorrow."

"..."

Liu Zhou was really surprised.

What do the organizers think?

Chen Tianqiao was the richest man in mainland China in the past two years and a leading figure in the Internet!
Even now Shanda is doing pretty well.

Is it really because Shanda is a gaming company and they are afraid of bad influence?
Liu Zhou was about to say something when Chen Tianqiao suddenly signaled with his eyes that something was happening behind.

Liu Zhou turned around and saw a group of people surrounding a person walking towards him.

The leader is Liu Lenovo, followed by Guo Fuxing, Lu Fanhai, Giant Shi and others, all of whom are important members of the Taishan Society.

His first reaction was that Duan Yongji’s brothers had come to seek revenge on him.

Liu Zhou did not dodge, but stared at Liu Lianxiang, watching them walk towards him until they stood in front of him.

Liu Lianxiang and others can be said to be the most important guests and the focus of the banquet.

They came in front of Liu Zhou as a group, and the two sides were in a subtle confrontation, which had already attracted the attention of everyone in the hall.

Most people also knew about the grudge between the two sides, so they just couldn't help but glance over there, wanting to see if the two sides would fight.

There are five or six people on Liu Lianxiang's side, and each of them is not a simple character. With their full aura, Liu Zhou seems alone and powerless.

But at this time Chen Tianqiao was very loyal. He took a small step forward and stood firmly behind Liu Zhou.

Liu Lianxiang does not have a head full of white hair like in later generations. He is relatively young now and his eyes are very sharp.

He walked up to Liu Zhou without saying a word, just staring at Liu Zhou.

Liu Zhou did not flinch or dodge, and looked him in the eye.

At this moment, the noise in the entire banquet hall seemed to be a little lower.

"Very good, it is true that heroes emerge from youth. You are the first young man who can look me in the eye for so long. You are worthy of being able to defeat Old Duan."

"You're not a scary thing, why can't I look you in the eye?"

"Haha, young man, don't be too excited."

"What kind of young man is he if he doesn't have a lot of temper?"

"Then I hope you can keep your temper. Doing business in China cannot be accomplished by sneak attacks or being aggressive."

After saying that, Liu Lianxiang took his people and left.

Liu Zhou's tense nerves gradually relaxed, and he suddenly discovered that his back was covered with a layer of cold sweat and felt wet.

Liu Lianxiang's aura was indeed very strong. If he had not been in a superior state for the past few years since his rebirth, and had not been supported by the strong momentum in his heart, he would have really retreated in front of him.

Lenovo Group has had its most glorious moments in recent years. Not only did it become the first private enterprise in the mainland to enter the Fortune Global 500, it also acquired IBM's PC division, making Lenovo famous.

At this time, Liu Lianxiang was praised by the common people, respected by his peers, and set up as a role model by his superiors. This period of time was the most glorious moment in his life.

Coupled with the aura he has developed over the past few decades, ordinary people really can't resist it.

"Mr. Chen, thank you for what I just said."

"It's just a small matter. I just can't stand them banding together to bully others."

Although Chen Tianqiao said it lightly, Liu Zhou also noticed that he had just breathed a sigh of relief.

But no matter what, Liu Zhou took note of Chen Tianqiao's small step today!

At that time, not everyone dared to stand by his side, let alone he took the initiative to express his attitude.

"Let's go. The opening ceremony is tomorrow anyway, and there's nothing to do tonight. I'll treat you to dinner out."

"That's great, Beijing is your home turf, take me to eat some special food."

After saying that, the two of them walked out of the banquet hall.

However, before the two of them reached the door, they were suddenly stopped by a voice.

(End of this chapter)