The online car-hailing market has stopped burning money without limit, allowing Toutiao's funds to quickly turn over, and the huge profits of overseas games will continue to gather, forming a huge amount of funds.

Toutiao first transferred back 100 million US dollars from overseas to the initial formation of a pure visual algorithm team. In addition to continuing to buy Apple and Google stocks, Tesla has also become another choice.

Tesla was listed as early as 2010, with the stock value of US$23 on the day of listing. However, the stock's growth in the previous few years was very average, and it was even worse than Apple Valley, which is already a giant.

However, since 2014, Tesla has been like a rocket igniting a tail launcher and began to soar quickly. There are many reasons for this. After ten years of hard work, Tesla has begun to form a strong advantage in the layout of electric vehicles. At the same time, under its leadership, countless consumers around the world have begun to become interested in electric vehicles.

Just in June this year, Tesla announced that all its patented technologies will be open to all competitors, and any competitor can use Tesla's patents for free.

In human history, this seems to be the first time that someone has played this kind of operation. No matter what Musk's real purpose is, it has brought great incentives to the development of the electric vehicle industry. As the number one in the field of smart electric vehicles, Tesla can naturally get the biggest cake.

In addition, various countries have successively issued bills to support electric vehicles and the carbon points trading market has made the capital market very optimistic about Tesla. In addition, its strong operating capabilities, technological advantages and Musk's achievements in various fields have led to an incredible stock increase in Tesla in the next few years.

Any stock will not have a lot of share in the secondary market, especially for such companies that have just been listed and favored by countless people. Most of the equity is in the hands of founding teams, venture capital funds and some financial institutions. In addition, Tesla's current market value is far from comparable to that of giants like Apple Valley. For Toutiao's overseas strategic acquisition plan, it is far from enough to acquire it in the secondary market.

However, just recently, a very good opportunity has emerged. A shareholder who holds 10% of Tesla's total shares is interested in selling the shares, and this holder is Mercedes-Benz.

As early as a few years ago, Musk faced a life choice. Tesla's R&D cost far exceeds expectations. SpaceX failed to launch rockets three times in a row, but his funds could only save one company.

In the end, he chose to take a big gamble and fired another rocket, which was successful.

SpaceX also attracted NASA's attention and obtained a loan of $1.6 billion + order, but Tesla's problem was not solved. In the end, with Musk's efforts, Mercedes-Benz invested 50 million US dollars and acquired 10% of Tesla's shares.

In terms of return on investment, even if Tesla is not profitable yet, its stock value has increased by more than ten times, and Mercedes-Benz's investment is very successful.

But Tesla's success has also put traditional fuel car companies in serious threats, especially luxury cars and Tesla's electric cars have accelerated at a speed of comparable to supercars, which poses a greater threat to Mercedes-Benz, the world's top car company.

So Mercedes-Benz is also preparing to enter the electric vehicle field, and the first thing is to sell its Tesla stock.

This is naturally the best opportunity for Zhou Yujie, although he doesn't quite understand why Mercedes-Benz sells its shares in Tesla when making electric cars, and Toyota, which owns some Tesla shares, also sells its shares because it is preparing to enter the electric car field.

Isn’t it nice to keep it in your hands? Or do they think that once they enter the electric car field, a company like Tesla with no foundation will definitely be finished?

However, Zhou Yujie didn't care about the reason. If he could acquire these stocks and wait until his driverless car needs to cost a lot of money in the future, then sell the stocks for research and development, wouldn't it be even more pleasant?

When it comes to overseas mergers and acquisitions, although it is not acquiring overseas companies, such a large amount naturally requires the guarantee of overseas resources. After the introduction of Sequoia Capital, Zhou Yujie came to Citibank's headquarters in Shanghai.

As an overseas bank, Huaqi itself can no longer operate general bank storage loan business in China, but it can provide international dollar financing for domestic companies. For example, a company signs a supply contract with a large overseas company, so it can use this contract to borrow from Citibank.

Of course, as a bank, these are just marginal businesses, and the real profit of the bank is still in the finance sector.

When he learned that Zhou Yujie was coming, Sanders, general manager of Citibank stationed in Shanghai, personally welcomed Zhou Yujie and his group of people. After visiting the non-core department of Citibank, he came to the foreigner's office.

After making some polite mistakes, Zhou Yujie said directly: "Mr. Sanders, I want to acquire Tesla's shares, and it involves a lot of funds, so I hope Citibank can provide a certain amount of mortgage."

"Tesla?" Sanders asked in surprise, "Mr. Zhou, don't know how many shares you plan to acquire?"

"10%, the Tesla shares in Mercedes-Benz's hands." Zhou Yujie said with a smile: "According to Tesla's current market value, these stocks should be worth around 700 million to 800 million US dollars. Considering that the acquisition will have a certain proportion increase, I hope Citibank can provide a loan of 1 billion US dollars.

As for the collateral, it is these Tesla stocks and some of the profits of my Toutiao’s overseas games. What does Mr. Cedes think?"

"Mr. Zhou, these collaterals are of course worth enough. However, if you want to acquire Tesla's stock from Mercedes-Benz, the biggest problem is not the funds, but the existence of many competitors." Cedes thought for a while and said.

Several of Toutiao’s overseas games are popular, with an estimated net profit of hundreds of millions of dollars per year. However, the risk of the game is too high, and banks generally do not accept such collateral. Even if they can, the ratio will be very low. However, Tesla’s stock itself is a very popular high-value item, and with Zhou Yujie’s own commercial value, $1 billion is not much.

However, there are many potential buyers who want to acquire Tesla stock, and it is not easy to get it.

Zhou Yujie smiled and said, "Mr. Cedes, I know Citibank has an auxiliary merger and acquisition business, so I also want to hand over this acquisition to your bank for negotiation. If it is successful, I am willing to pay intermediary fees according to international practices. The loan will naturally go to Citibank's account. At the same time, I also hope that in the future, Toutiao can form a better cooperative relationship with Citibank overseas."

Although it only acquires some of Tesla's stocks, it still has some adverse effects on a Chinese company to participate. Moreover, Toutiao's current business is heavy in China and does not have so much energy to negotiate the acquisition of shares of an American company in Europe.

Instead of spending this energy, it is better to contract it to a professional team. Besides, Toutiao will gradually develop overseas markets in the future, and it also needs an ally with strong strength overseas.

Citibank is naturally one of the best choices.

Cedes smiled and said, "Okay, since Mr. Zhou believes in our Citibank so much, I am willing to serve you with all my strength. I will report to the headquarters immediately, and a professional team will be arranged to communicate with you."

"Okay, thank you, then." Zhou Yujie said with a faint smile.
Chapter completed!