Losing Money to Be a Tycoon c1-883

by Inebriation-seeking Blue Shirt, 青衫取醉

  Pei Qian continued, “Furthermore, the more important thing is these four locations have a rather substantial floor space. They are very vast and can give our customers more space; this kind of experience is very important.”

  Zhang Yuan was speechless.

  The four locations’ floor space was huge? Of course, that was the case! They weren’t in the heat of commercial districts, and the land was cheaper; it was natural that the space would be bigger.

  Zhang Yuan still thought of continuing with his explanation; however, Pei Qian had already returned to his seat. “This time, you two have done splendidly. We’ll settle on these four places, then.”

  Zhang Yuan swallowed the words that were about to come out from his mouth.

  “When you guys head back, let the few branch managers choose which ones they want to be in charge of. Let’s settle the shops that require more extensive renovations; those that do not require too many changes can be pushed to later on. When it’s time to transfer funds, contact Assistant Xin.”

  As these four branches’ locations were even more deserted than the current flagship store’s, the rent was naturally going to be cheaper.

  However, Pei Qian did not have that much funds on hand now; he could at most open two shops first. After he received some income from the existing games, he could then use the money to open the remaining two shops.

  However, this matter didn’t need to be rushed either. There were still two months left. As long as they all opened for business a week before the next settlement, that would be fine.

  Zhang Yuan looked at Ma Yang as he gave him a look, meaning to ask Ma Yang if the latter wanted to try and persuade Boss Pei further.

  Ma Yang nodded as if he took the hint and went in front of Pei Qian. “Alright, Brother Qian, we’ll go and work on this; nothing will go wrong!”

  Zhang Yuan, “…”

  Was this what the look I gave you meant?

  However, as Ma Yang had already said this, Zhang Yuan could only follow Ma Yang dejectedly out of the office.

  Zhang Yuan hugged his laptop as he grew dejected internally. For this proposal, he had worked very seriously on it, heading down for site visits and making comprehensives evaluations. It could be said that the first three locations had been repeatedly confirmed by him that they would definitely be profitable!

  The last four locations had just been to fill the numbers; he had not wasted much energy on them. In the end, Boss Pei had not even taken much of a closer look and had decided on those four.

  This was… really vexing.

  If it was another boss that decided on this, Zhang Yuan might actually have scolded and cursed this person for being unreliable. Of course, Zhang Yuan would only complain internally; he wouldn’t actually resign. After all, he wouldn’t be able to get this salary anywhere else.

  However, as Boss Pei had made this decision, Zhang Yuan actually didn’t nurse a grudge. He could only say that he wasn’t smart enough to comprehend Boss Pei’s intentions.

  Would Boss Pei not know how to choose locations?

  He definitely knew. As for why he didn’t choose the most obviously profitable locations, Boss Pei must have other considerations.

  Zhang Yuan was dejected for a while but soon shook that off as he went with Ma Yang to discuss the rent and make preparations to open the new branches.

  Pei Qian was very pleased with the chosen locations. If he kept up the good work, these branches would be able to make even more losses than the flagship store. This was also very logical. As the flagship store, the first location was definitely going to have the best business; if not, it wouldn’t be known as a flagship.

  After he relaxed and drank his tea for a while, Assistant Xin knocked and entered. “Boss Pei, I have gotten some preliminary information on Shang Yang Games; do you want to take a look?”

  Pei Qian immediately perked up, “Yes!”

  Pei Qian was paying the most attention to this recently. As long as he managed to buy over Shang Yang Games, he would have a second stable source of losses after Fish-Catching Internet Cafe; it was something that would be beneficial for a long time!

  Assistant Xin handed over a file to Pei Qian. Pei Qian read as Assistant Xin started to explain.

  “Shang Yang Games is a private company with fifty-two employees. At present, Shang Yang Games mainly has two games. One is called Romantic Taoist-a business venture game; the second is called Bloody Battle Song —it is a web-based war game.”

  Hearing the name of this game, Pei Qian couldn’t help by sigh appreciatively. Indeed, making lousy games also required some degree of gifts and talent.

  Look at this name, Romantic Taoist! The name itself was rather inappropriate; if a game with this name could become popular and sell well, that would be the biggest joke in the world! However, while he knew that this was obviously a sensational name, Pei Qian actually wanted to see what this game was about.

  “Romantic Taoist has presently stopped running; its income had been lower than fifty thousand for a long time; Bloody Battle Song, on the other hand, is the Shang Yang Games’s main source of revenue. However, after a recent uproar over certain changes to the game, its income had also fallen drastically.”

  Pei Qian knew about this uproar; Ma Yiqun had told him about it.

  Bloody Battle Song was probably the game where Old Liu had sold a saber at 888, resulting in the company being scolded bloody by players.

  Not bad. These are good options to take over.

  Assistant Xin continued, “Using a rough estimate, Shang Yang Games’ rental is around a hundred and fifty thousand monthly while wages are at two hundred thousand a month. They are currently finding it very hard to even maintain this, and rumors have it that they can’t seem to be able to even pay salaries this month.”

  While they had more employees than Tengda, there were many positions in that company and the average wage was also lower. Hence, the rent and salaries to be paid were much lower than Tengda’s.

  Pei Qian didn’t mind this; he could slowly tweak the situation after he took over in any case. As long as it didn’t have any hidden trouble lurking that could generate profits; then all would be fine!

  Chapter 141 - Acquisition!

  Pei Qian thought for a while and asked, “This is the first time I am acquiring a company. Are there any things I should take note of?”

  Assistant Xin flipped through her notebook and replied, “There are still a lot of risks involved. For example, such companies oftentimes have issues with their registered capital. We have to check if they have any false capital contribution or withdrawal of capital.

  “Furthermore, we also have to check their company assets, liabilities, and owners’ equity, etc., and take note of their fixed assets depreciation rate, amortization of intangible assets, non-recoverable assets…

  “However, this is a small-scale private enterprise. The owner is Du Ruijie. He and another partner hold all the shares to the company. However, in reality, Du Ruijie is the main person in charge of the operations of the company.

  “I suppose that he is currently begging to hand the company over. After all, the company has negative equity and has been suffering losses every month. If we wait a little longer, we should be able to lower the price and acquire the company with just a few hundred thousand yuan.

  “If you are patient enough, we might even be able to get it at a lower price.”

  Pei Qian was momentarily stunned. “Why is it so cheap?”

  That made him a little disappointed.

  He thought the other party would sell the company at least at a price of one or two million yuan. Yet, they could acquire it with merely a few hundred thousand yuan?

  Assistant Xin nodded and replied, “Of course, Boss Pei. This company was initially funded by Du Ruijie and the other partner. The startup capital was only a million yuan. However, because of their good luck, they had made some money from the games that they produced and thus expanded to its current scale.


  “Du Ruijie had earned buckets from that. If he could sell this mess that he had in his hands, he could earn another few hundred thousand yuan. He is dying to get that money. There is no way he dared to raise the price.

  “If no one takes over the operations of the company, he might only be able to sell his company assets at a cheap price. I heard that Du Ruijie even planned to give the computers that the employees used to them and deduct that from their salary.”

  Pei Qian was speechless. “…”

  So creative!

  On one hand, he could save the trouble of selling those huge numbers of second-hand business computers. On the other hand, he could solve the problem of delayed wages of the employees. This Boss Du is such a genius!

  Pei Qian did not want to raise the price. On one hand, the act of forcefully raising the price was too unnatural. It was way too obvious if he raised the price to a few million if he could have acquired the company for merely a few hundred thousand yuan. Doing so would draw suspicion to himself.

  On the other hand, Pei Qian wanted to pool his funds into opening more Fish-Catching Internet Cafe. Therefore, he did not have much working capital in his hands.

  Therefore, it was fine if they just went with the standard price.

  Assistant Xin also pointed out several other important things that he had to do, such as checking the company’s stakeholder changes and balance sheet, collecting the employees’ labor contract and information on their insurance and wages, as well as notarizing relevant documents…

  Pei Qian did not have to worry about those. He was only responsible for providing the money. These details would obviously be left to the professionals.

  Assistant Xin closed her notebook and said, “There should be all the information to take note of. Boss Pei, so you want to conduct an inspection under a disguise?”

  Pei Qian was stunned. “Inspect what?”

  “If you had confirmed the acquisition, Boss Du would definitely make some preparations when you went over to inspect the company. That prevents you from understanding the real situation in Shang Yang Games,” Assistant Xin explained. “You can conceal your identity and have a walk over there to observe the working state of the employees as well as the working environment. That will help us push down the prices at the negotiation table later on.”

  Pei Qian understood her meaning. Her suggestion was similar to a sudden inspection by the superior of the company.

  If the other hand caught wind about the inspection, they would definitely do some things for show. The superior would not be able to truly understand the situation there then.

  Pei Qian shook his head and said, “That is not necessary. Those changes done for show would be insignificant. There are some things that you can never hide.”

  Boss Pei appeared very confident as though he already had the company in his hands.

  Assistant Xin did not probe into that any further. “I will contact the other party to arrange for a meeting with Boss Du.”

  Pei Qian nodded his head. “The earlier, the better!”

  The next afternoon…

  Pei Qian arrived at Shang Yang Games. The moment he pushed the door of the Cayenne open, he was immediately greeted by a man who appeared to be in his late-twenties and was wearing spectacles.

  “Are you Boss Pei? Nice to meet you! I am Wang Xiaobin, the chief planner of Shang Yang Games. Boss Du is waiting for you upstairs.” Wang Xiaobin was very welcoming.

  However, Pei Qian was a little confused. “Isn’t Old Liu the chief planner?”

  Although he did not know a lot about Shang Yang Games, he was very sure that the chief planner was Old Liu. He was pretty familiar with him. Pei Qian met him once when old Liu interviewed at Tengda. He had also heard of his news from Huang Sibo and Ma Yiqun.

  Pei Qian was a little regretful every time he heard about the things that old Liu did. He had let a genius slip out of his hands during the initial interview! If he had hired Old Liu, he might have already caused the games to fail. Pei Qian would not need to go through so much trouble just to lose money then.

  The good thing was that he could still take precaution after suffering the loss. It was still not too late.

  Pei Qian wanted to keep the entire team in Shang Yang Games. As the chief planner, Old Liu was obviously a crucial member of this team.

  However, why wasn’t Old Liu welcoming him today? Why did a stranger come and greet him?

  Wang Xiaobin felt slightly awkward. “I didn’t expect that Boss Pei knew so much about our company. I will explain this to you in a while. Please head this way.”

  Full of suspicion, Pei Qian followed Wang Xiaobin into the office building and over to the company on the second floor

  They went past the office area first. The desks were clustered together. That made Pei Qian a little unaccustomed. He was used to the spacious layout of the desks in Tengda. Therefore, when he saw how cramped the working environment was, he felt a little suffocated.

  The overall working environment was nice. The floors were clean, and the desks were neat. All the employees were either typing on their keyboards in front of the computers or using the editor. They all appeared to be focused on their work.

  Pei Qian knew clearly that those were all facades that were temporarily displayed for the sudden inspection. Upon careful observation, one would notice that most employees were not truly working and were only pretending to be doing so.

  Many people only had a few words on their documents after staring at the screen for a long time. No one knew what they were thinking about.

  Pei Qian did not expose that facade. He and Assistant Xin followed Wang Xiaobin into the office space and headed towards Du Ruijie’s office. He was the boss of Shang Yang Games.

  Du Ruijie had been waiting at the door of his office.

  This Boss Du looks like he was in his thirties. He had a few strands of hair on his head and did not have a huge belly. He appeared especially smart and seemed like a middle-aged successful businessman.

  “Boss Pei! Welcome! Welcome! I have heard that Boss Pei is a promising youth. Those rumors were indeed true.”

  Du Ruijie stepped forward and led Pei Qian and Assistant Xin into his office. Wang Xiaobin went to make some tea hurriedly.

  Making tea was supposed to be the job of an assistant or administrative employee. However, Shang Yang Games did not have any administrative roles. Therefore, the employees had to cover those jobs themselves.

  In reality, this was a normal occurrence for some smaller games companies. After all, they had to pay the administrative employees for their work. When a company’s scale had not expanded to a certain extent, most games companies would choose to cut down on all the possible costs.

  Ordinary people would not choose to do what Pei Qian did and hire two beautiful receptionists before a game was even completed.

  Very quickly, Wang Xiaobin had returned with the tea. Pei Qian looked at the drinks with the corner of his eyes and thought that it was most probably not of high-quality. He lifted the cup, sipped it symbolically, and placed the cup down.

  “Take a seat, too, Xiaobin. You will answer the questions that Boss Pei will ask regarding the games.” Du Ruijie motioned Wang Xiaobin to sit down beside him.

  It was apparent that Boss Du was merely in charge of collecting the money and did not know much about his games.

  Du Ruijie heard that Boss Pei was not only the boss but also an incredible game designer. He was afraid that Boss Pei would ask things that he did not know about the game and thus wanted Wang Xiaobin to cover him.

  Wang Xiaobin could not help but be a little nervous as he thought that the company’s last hope lay on his shoulders.

  Chapter 142 - Chapter 142

  “I have long heard that Boss Pei and Tengda Games are black horses in Jingzhou City. Every game that you made became popular and would be on the popular searches on Weibo. This makes us so envious.” Du Ruijie sipped his tea and exclaimed.

  Pei Qian replied politel
y, “Actually, I am very envious of Boss Du, too.”

  Du Ruijie was momentarily stunned. “What are you envious of?”

  “Umm… I am envious of your luck.” Pei Qian originally wanted to say that he was ‘envious of his ability to lose money’. However, he suddenly realized that those words were not suitable to say out loud and changed his words suddenly.

  Du Ruijie laughed out loud. “Boss Pei, you are so hilarious. It seems like I am indeed pretty lucky. If other companies faced such a situation, I suppose that they will shut down in no time. I am indeed lucky that Boss Pei is willing to acquire the company.

  “Boss Pei, I am very thankful that you are willing to save Shang Yang Games. Therefore, I will save all those tricks and tell you the absolute truth.

  “In reality, I bear the greatest responsibility for the bad operations of the company. If you could truly save Shang Yang Games from its demise and give it a new life, I am even willing to give the company to you directly.

  “However…

  “Firstly, this company was opened by me and another brother of mine. We two had invested a lot of blood and sweat into it. Secondly, the employees of the company are all my brothers. I hope that I can try my best to find a good place for them to go to…” Du Ruijie sipped on his tea as he spoke.

  Although Du Ruijie said a lot of nice words, Pei Qian knew internally that Boss Du wanted to raise the price.

  The focus of his words was after the word ‘however!

  All in all, Boss Du wanted to emphasize his struggles when opening the company and how good these employees are. He also wanted to point out that there was still hope to revive those two games that were still operating and that they could profit again with just some effort.

  Pei Qian listened quietly and smiled.

  Du Ruijie talked for an entire ten minutes. He introduced the situation in Shang Yang Games and added a lot of personal opinions. He appeared very prepared and amiable.