Becoming a Russian Oligarch After Rebirth
Chapter 1134 - 967: New Investment

Chapter 1134: Chapter 967: New Investment

In 2005, Tencent had already emerged, especially in the instant messaging industry within China, occupying the majority of the domestic market share.

However, many people still felt that this company’s future was worrying, and it definitely couldn’t compare to internet giants like Sina, Alibaba, and Baidu that had already grown!

Because companies like Tencent, that develop instant messaging software, faced a serious problem they couldn’t solve.

And that was how to monetize traffic!

Tencent’s "predecessor", ICQ, couldn’t solve this problem either, so it could only "sell itself" to another company.

Although the price was quite high, reaching two to three hundred million US dollars, this also indicated that the ceiling of the instant messaging industry was only so high...

No matter how you looked at it, Tencent couldn’t compare to ICQ.

Setting aside the issue of who copied whom and which appeared earlier, just considering popularity, ICQ was all the rage worldwide!

While Tencent could only "confine" itself to the domestic market...

Therefore, many people were not optimistic about Tencent’s prospects.

Only Wang Ye firmly believed in this company; indeed, every round of financing for Tencent was led by Polar Bear Investment, and they offered a higher valuation!

By the time Wang Ye arrived in Peng City this time, Polar Bear Investment had long become the largest shareholder of Tencent, holding nearly sixty percent of the company’s shares!

And this was after several rounds of financing had reshaped the equity structure...

So, when Wang Ye said he was the largest shareholder of Tencent, it wasn’t an overstatement at all.

Because Little Brother Ma and the other founders now held far fewer shares than Wang Ye.

Little Brother Ma now only had twelve percent of Tencent’s shares, and the other founders even less, with personal stakes not even reaching five percent!

The founding team together accounted for just about twenty percent of the shares.

The remaining twenty percent was allocated to other new investors.

Of course, this shareholding ratio would be further adjusted when Tencent actually went public.

Major shareholders like Polar Bear Investment would have to divest some of their stakes for employee incentives or public circulation, so it was possible that their share would reduce to below fifty percent then.

However, Wang Ye had made a request regarding this matter: Polar Bear Investment’s ownership in Tencent had to be at least forty percent; it could not fall below this percentage.

Because, at present, only he knew the terrifying scale to which Tencent would grow in the future!

To his knowledge, Tencent’s market value had peaked at the beginning of 2021, reaching over nine hundred billion.

US dollars!

Just a little short of entering the trillion-dollar club...

Looking at the companies that preceded Tencent in market value, there were Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, JPMorgan Chase, and that was it...

Oh, among these companies with a market value over a trillion US dollars, Wang Ye had already invested in four of them; including Tencent, that would be five...

So it could be said that of all the major group companies under Wang Ye, perhaps the most eye-catching currently were energy giants like Yukos and Russian Gas Industry.

Or it might be companies with political significance like Crimean Investment, United Aviation Group, and Russian Auto Group.

But only Wang Ye himself knew that his true "core asset" was, in fact, the unprepossessing and often overlooked Polar Bear Investment!

To say without exaggeration, the "gifts" Khodorkovsky had given Wang Ye, Wang Ye had already quietly returned them tenfold or even a hundredfold.

It was just that Khodorkovsky hadn’t noticed yet...

Of course, it wasn’t only Khodorkovsky who was unaware of the potential of the companies Wang Ye had invested in; Mayor Zhang was equally clueless.

So now, hearing Wang Ye assert that Tencent’s market value would exceed a trillion in the future, Mayor Zhang was nearly shocked speechless!

You should know, in 2005, there wasn’t a single company nationwide whose market value was that high, including those state-owned enterprise giants...

Wang Ye was afraid of scaring him, which is why he didn’t mention the words "US dollars"!

Otherwise, Mayor Zhang might have jumped up by now...

In his previous life, without Wang Ye’s involvement, Tencent had reached a market value of over nine hundred billion US dollars. Now with his push, it should be a foregone conclusion for Tencent to exceed a trillion US dollars in market value!

After all, Wang Ye had already arranged for Facebook Inc to give Tencent the operating rights in the Mainland, without even taking control of the joint venture company!

Of course, this was to avoid the relevant domestic regulations...

It’s as if he added an "insurance" for Tencent, almost monopolizing the internet social scene in China!

Tencent + Facebook, competitors must feel despair looking at such a combination...

... ... ...

"This... Mr. Mikhail really sees great potential in Tencent? It seems I still lack enough understanding of these emerging industries. I haven’t paid enough attention, and I should really catch up on learning about them,"

Mayor Zhang said repeatedly after coming to his senses.

He didn’t question what Wang Ye said because since the other party dared to assert it so confidently and had actually invested real money, it showed he truly believed in Tencent.

Plus, he knew about the giant companies under Mikhail’s control.

Anyone who can achieve such status in the business world, the smart ones at least, would not question his judgment...

Initially, Mayor Zhang wanted Wang Ye to invest more money in Peng City, but it turned out that the latter already had two significant investments.

Even though he wasn’t clear on how much exactly Wang Ye had invested in Tencent, it certainly wasn’t a small amount; otherwise, it wouldn’t match Wang Ye’s trillion-dollar valuation for Tencent...