Wang Yue, the former chairman of Kaiying Network Company, started a business at the age of 21 and was worth 6.6 billion yuan at the age of 33, but he was defeated by a choice and was eventually sentenced to 5 years and 6 months in prison.
Reading this, there may be many readers who are unclear, so what is Kaiying Network? And who is Wang Yue? What's the story behind that?
01, the power of dreams
In 1983, Wang Yue was born into a family of teachers in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province. Because his parents are teachers, he has been strictly tutored since he was a child, and his parents are also very concerned about his learning.
However, from middle school onwards, Wang Yue's studies began to appear partial, and compared with the confused liberal arts, his performance in mathematics and other science subjects was eye-catching. Especially in the computer, this teenager showed a talent that was different from ordinary people.
In 2001, at the age of 18, Wang Yue was admitted to the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering of Chang'an University.
It seems that he has created a trickster, and he has loved computers since he was a child and did not enter the computer major as he wished. He said: "I volunteered to fill in all the computers for the college entrance examination, and reading this major is completely wrong. ”
If you read a major you don't like, do something you like. Perhaps influenced by her family, although Wang Yue likes computers, she is not as obsessed with games as other students, but has a great interest in websites.
So during college, Wang Yue bought a general open source scripting language manual to study how to do a good job in website construction.
He was very serious about this matter, and what effect he needed to achieve, he looked at which function, and often stayed up all night for this.
In his sophomore year, after accumulating some experience, he began to register domain names and do popular websites. Perhaps he has a unique talent in business, he thinks more and sees farther than others.
"If 10,000 people use this, how can I stand out, be able to be different from others, and then I can only personalize or differentiate." 」
With such a sense of differentiation, when everyone's download site is generally version 3.6, Wang Yue launched a 3.7 green version. With its novel and reliable features, the website attracts more traffic.
In addition to the sense of differentiation, Wang Yue also threw herself into the boom of mobile phone ringtones at that time.
He independently developed a website for mobile phone CRBT, and through Baidu's analysis, all Baidu searches about mobile phone CRBT were imported into his own website.
When Baidu searched for mobile phone ringtones, Baidu had a total of 76 pages, and his website was downloaded from the first one on the first page to the last ringtone on the last page.
From sophomore year to senior year, three years of webmaster career brought Wang Yue two gains. The first is to grasp the needs of users and do a good job in user experience. The second is how to monetize and turn 100,000 IP into real access as soon as possible in 1 month.
When talking about why universities germinate entrepreneurial ideas, Wang Yue frankly said that this is because of the original impulse to make money.
At that time, it took dozens of hours to take a train from Xi'an back to jiangsu hometown, and train tickets were difficult to buy, so you could take a plane after making money and return home in a few hours.
During the three years of starting a business at the university, Wang Yue earned millions. By the time he graduated, because there were too many majors, he only got a diploma and did not get a degree certificate.
But this is not important to him at this time, and it is even less important for his future expansion of business territory, after all, the original accumulation of millions and three years of experience in making websites are much more important than a degree certificate.
02, fall asleep
After graduating from college in 2005, continuing to start a business or choosing employment has become a dilemma in front of Wang Yue. But starting his own business is risky and the road ahead is uncertain, so after careful consideration, he chose to go to employment.
Later, when he went back to school to share his experience with his students, he said: "Don't be impatient to do something, sink your heart to experience, understand and accumulate a certain amount of experience, and then start." ”
On the road of life, there will always be one or two people who have an important impact on their lives, and looking back a few years later, we call him a noble person.
At the beginning of the choice of employment, Wang Yue met his nobleman Pang Shengdong, at that time, Pang Shengdong, who was also a grassroots station manager, extended an olive branch to Wang Yue and invited him to join his 51 entrepreneurial team.
At the beginning, 51 was just in its infancy, and there were only more than a dozen people, and Wang Yue participated in the community product development and game team.
In the three years of 51, Wang Yue participated in various positions such as administration, product, planning, and operation, and finally became the director of the game business department.
Pang Shengdong
During this period, he witnessed the whole process of the company from small to large, and the users developed from more than 1 million people at the beginning to 150 million people, and also accumulated contacts and experience for his own company in the future.
In his work, he also learned a lot of communication skills for financing, as well as how to maintain various relationships, how to deal with problems encountered in the development of the company, and so on.
Three years of work experience also allowed Wang Yue to see more possibilities for himself, so he began to seek further development. So in 2008, Wang Yue founded Kaiying Network in Shanghai, focusing on the game industry.
At the beginning, the main business of Kaiying Network was small game websites. Under the meticulous operation of Wang Yue, it soon became a small game website second only to 4399.
With the explosion of the social game "Happy Farm", Wang Yue saw the prospects for the development of social games, so Kaiying Network set up a special working group and developed a social game with a female theme, "Building One Building".
Just a few months after the game was launched, the number of users reached 70 million, and the monthly profit exceeded 2 million yuan.
In a public interview, Wang Yue once attributed the success of "Building One" to the following aspects: First, during the period of 51, he had a lot of understanding of the concept of social networking, and he could see the development prospects of social games in the crazy period of "stealing vegetables for the whole people".
Secondly, 51's users grew rapidly, approaching 200 million at the most, providing a full guarantee for his accumulation of technology, in addition to the team, timing and other reasons.
Wang Yue feels that in the three years of 51, what he learned has made him pay a lot less "tuition": "I think the important thing about joining a startup is that your journey will be different. If we come out to start a business after graduation, you are the boss, and your perspective will always be the identity of the manager. But at 51, we started to make products, so my position is different, I can see how the company manages, how to be managed, which is very important. ”
Later, in order to focus on social games, Wang Yue sold the mini games to the 4399 mini game website.
Wang Yue has always said that he does not understand games, but under his leadership, the performance achieved by Kaiying Network is obvious to all. In the eyes of those who know him well, this is due to his business vision and grasp of opportunities.
In 2011, Kaiying Network once again entered the field of vision of more people with its first web game "Legend of Shushan", with more than 10 million registered users and a monthly income of tens of millions.
In 2014, Kaiying Network achieved a successful breakthrough to the Internet, and Kaiying Network imitated South Korea's "Miracle MU" and Pegasus Time and Space to jointly develop "National Miracle MU", with a single-day flow of more than 26 million yuan, becoming the most profitable game of Kaiying Network.
Such considerable economic benefits brought by the new game made Wang Yue realize that Korean game IP may achieve good results in the Chinese market.
Therefore, in 2016, Kaiying Network has signed IP licensing contracts with Yumeide twice, involving an amount of about 298 million yuan.
After signing this agreement contract, Kaiying Network has the IP right to produce 3 web games and 2 mobile games respectively.
It is not enough to obtain IP authorization, Kaiying Network also acquired 71% of the equity of Zhejiang Shenghe through two mergers and acquisitions in 2016 and 2017, with a total consideration of 1.807 billion yuan.
After the acquisition of Zhejiang Shenghe, in 2016, Kaiying Network developed "Legend of the Blue Moon", which broke through 200 million in a single month in October of that year, and exceeded 1.1 billion in the whole year, once known as "a brother of page games".
After holding Zhejiang Shenghe, the performance of Kaiying Network reached a peak in 2017, with the company's revenue of 3.234 billion yuan and net profit of 1.61 billion yuan in that year.
With the continuous expansion of the commercial territory, Zhejiang Jiuling, another manufacturer of legendary page games, has also broken into the vision of Kaiying Network.
So in June 2018, the acquisition plan for Zhejiang Jiuling began to promote, and finally Kaiying Network took 70% of the former's shares for 1.064 billion yuan in cash consideration.
The merger and acquisition of these two game companies allowed Kaiying Network to confirm goodwill of 2.082 billion yuan and 955 million yuan respectively.
In the wave of crazy listing in the game industry at that time, the capital market generally valued game companies high, and once successfully listed, they could get rich overnight. In the face of huge assets, Kaiying Network is also seeking to land on the capital market.
Therefore, at the end of 2015, Kaiying Network successfully listed Taiya shares with a valuation of 6.3 billion yuan. After the resumption of trading, the company pulled out 12 consecutive up and down boards, and the stock price rose 3 times.
With the company's listing and rising stock price, in March 2016, Wang Yue was selected into the "Hurun Global Rich List" with a wealth of 6.6 billion yuan.
Stimulated by the continuous stock limit and the wealth appreciation brought by the high stock price, in order to maintain the stock price of Kaiying Network at a high level, the company began to embark on the road of chasing the concept economy.
Big data, blockchain, consumer finance, etc. are the most emerging areas of the kaiying network are involved, and the development of the original game business is mainly through mergers and acquisitions.
On the 2016 Hurun Global Rich List, Wang Yue was listed with a net worth of 6.6 billion yuan, at the age of 33, becoming the youngest richest man in China at that time.
03. When you wake up from a dream
With the soaring value, Wang Yue gradually forgot his original intention in this game of capital.
In an interview, Wang Yue said that Kaiying Network is a company that seriously makes products, rather than a single hype concept. But in the actual operation of the company, he is getting farther and farther away from his original intention.
After the successful backdoor listing of Kaiying Network, although the stock price has risen all the way, all the wealth is only maintained on the books, that is to say, Wang Yue and other company executives have no opportunity to cash out directly.
So how do you solve this problem? Equity pledge financing has become a viable option.
According to the Securities Times, since February 2016, Wang Yue has obtained assets of 1.7 to 1.8 billion yuan through a series of pledge financings, of which 1 billion yuan is used to pay the pledge repurchase interest, and 500 million yuan is used to fulfill the commitment of the fixed increase and pay the principal and interest to the participants of the fixed increase.
The rest of the money is used to buy luxury houses, luxury cars, etc. to meet their own enjoyment.
From 2018 onwards, Wang Yue began to slowly fade out of Kaiying Network and resigned as general manager on July 31 of the same year.
On March 25, 2019, he resigned as the chairman of the company and has since held any position in Kaiying Network.
On March 27, Kaiying Network issued an announcement that Jinfeng would serve as the company's legal representative. Jin Feng was once the president and CEO of Zhejiang Shenghe Network Technology Co., Ltd.
Also since 2018, Kaiying Network's operating income and profit have declined significantly.
On April 29, 2019, according to the company's annual report on the previous year's operation and development, Kaiying Network said that the company achieved a total operating income of 2.28 billion yuan in 2018, down 27.1% year-on-year; a net profit attributable to the owners of the parent company of 170 million, down 89.2% year-on-year; earnings per share of 0.08 yuan.
In the conceptual economic sector of Kaiying Network, the company announced in June 2017 that it would invest 140 million yuan in five Internet financial platform companies. But then, the five companies were exposed by the media.
Judging from the reports at the time, one of the 5 mutual fund companies was insolvent, one had a sharp dive in performance, two shell companies, and the remaining one had only a small profit.
Whether it is stealing beams and changing pillars or bamboo baskets to hit the water behind this, we don't know.
From January to March 2018, Kaiying Network was in a continuous trading suspension period, suspending the listing of all securities. During this period, Kaiying Network has released blockchain-related messages to the outside world for many consecutive times.
However, after the resumption of trading, the stock price of Kaiying Network has moved towards an irreparable situation. By the end of 2018, Kaiying Network's stock price had fallen to 3.7 yuan per share, compared with the heyday, the company's total assets have shrunk significantly.
Obviously, the pursuit of the hot concept economy has not changed the downward trend of the stock price of Kaiying's main online game industry. So in May 2019, Kaiying Network announced its withdrawal from the blockchain business.
Stock prices that rely solely on the concept of hype and are not sustained by real performance can certainly not last. With the continuous decline of the stock price, Wang Yue fell into the quagmire of pledge explosion and capital chaos.
In this number game, not only Wang Yue is lost, but also Feng Xianchao, co-founder of Kaiying Network.
Feng Xianchao and others jointly invested in the establishment of Dingxi Company to operate the online lending business, because of the illegal absorption of public deposits, disrupting the financial order, the amount of money and violating state regulations, Feng Xianchao was sentenced to three years in prison, suspended for four years.
On May 6, 2019, Kaiying Network Company announced that Wang Yue was criminally detained by the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau on suspicion of manipulating the securities market.
Some analysts said that as early as 2017, Wang Yue's business map failure has begun to slowly show.
On July 26, 2017, Kaiying Network announced that it intends to invest 1.607 billion yuan to acquire 51% of the equity of Zhejiang Shenghe, and the core asset of Zhejiang Shenghe is the "Legend of blue moon" (also known as "Blue Moon Play") that many netizens are familiar with.
As soon as the announcement came out, the stock price of Kaiying Network rose in response, from 11.11 yuan / share on July 26, 2017 to 19.19 yuan / share on December 13, 2017.
However, with the sudden decline in the performance of Kaiying network stocks in 2018, the company's stock price has continued to fall since then, once falling to 2.67 yuan / share, compared with the high in 2017, it has fallen by 86.09%.
According to the 2018 annual report, Kaiying Network's revenue was 2.284 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 27.13%, and the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was only 174 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 89.17%. The net profit in the fourth quarter of 2018 alone was a loss of 318 million yuan.
Obviously, Wang Yue is suspected of manipulating the stock price to cash out.
In addition, after the successful listing of Kaiying Network in 2015, Kaiying Network introduced an equity incentive mechanism of 1.28 yuan per share subscription within the company in order to give back to the company's old employees, which were held by Shanghai Qifei Company and Shanghai Holy Grail Company.
When Wang Yue used equity to raise funds, he had already pledged the shares of the two platforms privately, and hundreds of millions of yuan of the two companies were transferred by Wang Yue.
In addition to Wang Yue, Chen Yongcong, director of Kaiying Network, Lin Bin, former supervisor, and others have also been investigated.
On the evening of October 8, 2019, the CSRC decided to launch a case investigation against Kaiying Network because of its suspected information disclosure and violation of laws and regulations.
At present, the chairman of Kaiying Network is Jin Feng, and Kaiying Network revealed in its 2018 semi-annual report that as of the first half of 2018, the cumulative flow of "Blue Moon Legend" exceeded 3 billion yuan.
A brokerage analyst said that in fact, the game fire of Kaiying Network in 2017 is inseparable from Zhejiang Shenghe's strong publishing capabilities.
In the past few years, the performance of Kaiying Network has been very eye-catching in the game circle. From 2015 to 2017, Kaiying Network achieved a net profit of 655 million yuan, 682 million yuan and 1.611 billion yuan, exceeding the three-year performance commitment.
But on December 15, 2020, with Wang Yue's imprisonment and the market changing dramatically, where will kaiying network go in the future? No one can see the future clearly in this fog.
From the original upstart in the game circle of Qingfeng Jiyue to the current frustrated and depressed iron window, no one knows why the same person has undergone such a big change in the past ten years.
Maybe it is the pursuit of fame and profit, or the desire for poverty and luxury, now it is like a gorgeous dream, slowly falling.
Bibliography:
1. Beijing Business Daily Kaiying Network: The company's actual controller Wang Yue was involved in the case and the original judgment was upheld in the final trial
2, the observer network Kaiying network actual controller Wang Yue is imprisoned behind: a game of capital that has been played
3. Southern Metropolis Daily Wang Yue, a prominent figure in the game circle, was sentenced! China's youngest self-made richest man