Original title: “Mysterious Enterprise” takes over! YOOZOO was deeply involved in rumors of prostitution and finally changed owners, Sina sneaked behind
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Youzu Network, which was deeply involved in rumors of prostitution, finally changed hands. It’s just that the final taker is not the big Internet companies such as ByteDance, Bilibili, and Sina that were previously speculated by the outside world, but a little-known “mysterious company”.
On the evening of January 2, Youzu Network announced that the company’s original controlling shareholder and actual controller Lin Qi’s three heirs and their legal guardian Xu Fenfen, signed a contract with Shanghai Jiayou Enterprise Management Partnership (hereinafter referred to as “Shanghai Jiayou”) signed the “Share Transfer Framework Agreement” and transferred 113 million shares (accounting for 12.34% of the total share capital) held by it to Shanghai Jiayou.
After the framework agreement is signed and becomes effective, all parties to the transaction will sign a formal share transfer agreement, and make an announcement and delivery, subject to the requirements of relevant laws and regulations and the completion of due diligence.
After the completion of this share transfer, the three heirs will no longer hold shares in Youzu Networks. Lynch will still have 71 million shares (accounting for 7.76% of the total share capital), and Shanghai Jiayou will become the owner of Youzu Networks. largest shareholder.
At the beginning of 2021, part of the shares under Lynch’s name were transferred to the names of three minor heirs, and his legal guardian Xu Fenfen became the new actual controller of the company. According to public reports, Xu Fenfen, who has no experience in the game industry, has been planning to carry out equity transfers. Many major companies such as ByteDance, Station B, and Sina have sought to purchase the control of Youzu Network, but they are limited by Lynch’s personal debts and inheritance rights. Lawsuits and other issues have yet to be finalized.
Among them, Sina was once regarded as the final receiver. In October 2021, the Beijing News reported that Xu Fenfen had accepted a deposit from Sina for the acquisition of shares, and Sina later stated that it “does not comment.” According to the “Shanghai Securities News” report, there are still senior executives sent by Sina in Youzu Network.
It is precisely because of this that the outside world is surprised by Shanghai Jiayou, which suddenly broke out halfway, and its background and origin have also become the focus of market attention.
The identity of the new major shareholder is mysterious, and Sina sneaks behind
This time, Shanghai Jiayou, which is the host of Youzu.com, seems quite mysterious.
Tianyancha data shows that the company was established on May 11, 2022, with a registered capital of 1.8 billion yuan, and has been established for less than a year. Its controlling shareholder is Shanghai Yuanfu Enterprise Management Center (hereinafter referred to as “Shanghai Yuanfu”), holding 75% of the shares, and the actual controller is Wanzheng, a natural person. However, in the online public information, there is little information about Shanghai Yuanfu and Wanzheng.
But it is worth noting that Feng Tao, a veteran of the VC industry and founder of Yongxuan Venture Capital, holds 48.9% of the shares and is the second largest shareholder of Shanghai Yuanfu.
In venture capital circles, Feng Tao is well known as an early investor in Sina. In 1997, during his tenure as the senior vice president of Ivanhoe Investment Group (Ivanhoe), he led the investment in the newly established Sina.com together with the well-known American venture capital institution Walden International. This investment is considered to be the first international VC investment in China, and Feng Tao also obtained a 50-fold return from it.
Subsequently, Feng Tao founded Yongxuan Venture Capital, and successively invested in Chongqing Sino, Dongjiang Environmental Protection, Western Animal Husbandry, Western Mining, Harbin Engineering Intelligence, Shanghai Xiba, Migang Finance, Tencent Music, Waterdrop Interactive and many other companies. However, after 2013, Feng Tao has gradually stayed away from the front line of venture capital and rarely participated in new investment projects.
In addition, the second largest shareholder of Shanghai Jiayou is Zhao Yuyao, the former general manager of Xindong Games, holding 24.44% of the shares. After leaving Xindong Games in 2017, Zhao Yuyao also joined Station B as the president of Chaodian Culture, its MCN agency.
However, Zhao Yuyao neither represents Heartbeat nor Station B. A person close to Youzu told Times Finance that Zhao Yuyao was the main force behind Sina’s investment in Youzu. He once joined Youzu on behalf of Sina and successfully joined the company’s core management. Now he appears behind the new major shareholder, which means that the acquisition still has an inseparable relationship with Sina.
Regarding the identity of the new major shareholder and other issues, YOOZOO Network responded to Times Finance and stated that the company’s announcement shall prevail for the content of the shareholder change.
In the announcement, Youzu Network stated: “In the future, the company will continue to adhere to the strategic route of ‘Global Cards+’, focus on the development of the main game business, enhance the company’s comprehensive strength, and share the company’s long-term value with shareholders. It is expected that the largest shareholder The changes will not adversely affect the company’s production, operation and financial status, and there will be no damage to the interests of the company and small and medium shareholders.”
The “card +” strategy was accused of being conservative, and Youzu’s performance fell short of expectations
In February 2021, Youzu Network announced that Xu Fenfen will serve as the company’s chairman, and Chen Fang, the company’s former deputy general manager, will be hired as the company’s CEO.
At the same time, Chen Fang issued an open letter, pointing out that the company made three mistakes in 2020: not focusing enough, focusing on marketing but neglecting R&D, and extensive operations. From this, she proposed a strategy of “focusing on the main business, the main track and the main project”. And start drastic reforms.
Under Chen Fang’s leadership, YOOZOO has divested non-main businesses such as e-sports and MCN, while adjusting the company’s R&D structure and distribution structure, upgrading its five major R&D studios to first-level departments, and establishing a global distribution business department, emphasizing ” Globalization card +” strategic route.
However, the changes brought about by the reform have not yet been reflected in performance. According to the financial report data, in the first three quarters of 2022, Youzu Network will realize revenue of 1.462 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 41.87%; realize net profit attributable to the parent of 74 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 79.1%.
In this regard, Youzu Networks stated that the decline in revenue is mainly due to the corresponding reduction in the amount of advertising in this period, and more attention to the efficiency of advertising; at the same time, the new product is due to optimization, and the launch is expected to be postponed to the fourth quarter, resulting in a certain impact on the revenue scale in the reporting period. With the successive launch of the company’s reserve products in the future, the company’s revenue scale is expected to gradually increase.
According to statistics from Game Daily, YOOZOO currently has 15 new products such as “Three Kingdoms: Pocket Battle”, “Mountain and Sea Mirror Flower”, and “Code J”, most of which are concentrated in the field of card games and are distributed globally.
Zhang Shule, an observer of the game industry, pointed out to Times Finance that cards, as the mainstream gameplay at the beginning of the rise of mobile games, were a compromise choice under the constraints of hardware performance and network speed at that time. After 5G, real-time synchronous games have become mainstream, and card games No longer popular. Focusing on cards is a steady move of Youzu Networks under the circumstances of insufficient research and operation capabilities, but it also missed the opportunity of the game industry to become more refined in the past two years.
“In the past two years, YOOZOO has generally maintained a mid-range level, relying on its old capital to continue operating, and lacking continuous explosive products. The overall performance is lower than the industry’s perception, and it is difficult to effectively obtain stable income.” Zhang Shule said.
The IP development of “Three-Body Problem”, which is regarded as the trump card of YOOZOO Networks by the outside world, is not progressing smoothly. Although its film and television adaptation rights are not within the listed company system, the game adaptation rights still belong to Youzu.com. After many years of preparation, in November 2022, Youzu Network still stated in response to investors’ questions that it is expected that the “Three-Body” series of games will take 3-5 years to be launched on the market.
At the end of the same year, after the “Three-Body” animation jointly produced by Bilibili, Three-Body Universe and Yihua Kaitian was staged, its modeling, plot logic, and dubbing level were questioned by the audience, and it undoubtedly gave Youzu.com a hit alarm bell.
Zhang Shule believes that it is extremely difficult for the linear narrative “Three-Body Problem” to become a game with a network plot structure. “If there is no “Three-Body” IP, Youzu still has games, and this is its foundation.” Return to Sohu to see more
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related events
- YOOZOO is deeply involved in rumors of prostitution and finally changed hands2023-01-05
- Youzu Network: The company’s largest shareholder plans to change to Shanghai Jiayou2023-01-03
- Youzu was fined 440,000 yuan for publishing false advertisements2022-03-10
- Hongta Securities filed a lawsuit against the children of Lin Qi, the former actual controller of Youzu Network, involving a lawsuit amounting to 267 million yuan2021-11-04
- Youzu Network received a letter: request to verify whether “Sina intends to acquire part of the company’s shares” is true2021-10-18
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