Produced by Radar Finance and EconomicsMeng Shuai, edDeep sea
China's former tycoons have now become "big landlords" in the United States.
According to the ranking published by The Land Report, a well-known landowner magazine in the United States, ***, who was at the helm of Shanda Games, has become the 82nd largest "landowner" in the United States, and at the same time, *** has also successfully ranked among the second largest foreign "landowners" in the United States.
In recent years, the rather low-key *** has left behind Ding Lei, Robin Li, Zhang Chaoyang and other Internet bigwigs and won the title of China's richest man.
What boosted *** to the throne of China's richest man is the grand game he founded. However, because the game was regarded by many people as "spiritual opium" at that time, and the "grand box" that was pinned on by *** failed to make a big splash, ** was once burdened with a lot of mental pressure, which also caused him to suffer from severe panic attacks. In the end, ** chose to abandon Shanda Games and immigrate to Singapore.
After saying goodbye to Shanda Games, ** focused more on the field of investment. In 2014, Shanda opened a new chapter as a private investment firm focused on discovering innovative technologies and business models that could change the world.
At present, Shanda, which is at the helm, is the largest shareholder of a number of listed companies, and its Shanda Capital, which invests in the domestic science and technology industry, also manages 5 companies, with a total investment of 156 innovation and entrepreneurship projects, with an annualized investment income of more than 40%.
It is worth mentioning that, perhaps because he has suffered from illness, he is also quite concerned about the field of brain science. In 2016, the company announced the creation of a $1 billion program to support brain science research, with the first donation to the California Institute of Technology in the United States1$1.5 billion. Because of the act of donating money to the American scientific community, ** once attracted a lot of controversy from the outside world. But in response to doubts from the outside world, ** believes that donations are borderless, and the ball should be passed to the person closest to the goal.
Revealed to be the second largest foreign "landowner" in the United States
With the latest ranking published by The Land Report, a well-known landowner magazine in the United States, ***, known as China's "godfather of online games", has a new identity. With 198,000 acres of woodland in Oregon, he became the 82nd "big landowner" in the United States and the second largest foreign landowner in the United States, after the Irving family from Canada.
According to The Land Report, the 50-year-old actually acquired about 800 square kilometers of woodland in Oregon from Fidelity National Financial Ventures through investment agency Whitefish Cascade Forest Resources LLC back in 2015.
In order to pocket this forest land, a huge sum of $85 million was spent. According to the December 2023 tax records released by the state of Oregon, the actual owner of the land is Shanda Asset Management (Shanda Asset Management), which has the same name as the holding group in Singapore.
The most valuable part of the land is called Bull Springs Skyline Forest, which belongs to Shanda's Crown Pacific Properties, adjacent to the Deschutes National Forest in central Oregon and just minutes from the emerging mountain town of Bend. This land area is 32,995 acres, which is only 20% of the total land area in Oregon.
It is reported that for the past century, Bull Springs Skyline Forest has been engaged in planting and logging, mainly planting yellow pine, which is used to make medium-density furniture panels. After the acquisition of this woodland, the ** of Bull Springs Skyline Forest once rose to 1$2.7 billion ($3,800 per acre) and then retreated to $95 million ($2,800 per acre). If the listing is successful, the proceeds will be sufficient to cover all the expenses of acquiring all the assets of Crown Pacific Properties.
The Land Report also mentioned in the report that ** not only owns land in Oregon, USA, but also owns about 500,000 acres (about 2,000 square kilometers) of forest land in Ontario, Canada.
Shanda also mentioned on its official website that in 2018, in order to enrich its asset portfolio and protect and manage natural resources in places such as the United States and Canada, Shanda purchased a total of 700,000 acres of forest land, mainly located in Oregon and Ontario, Canada.
In addition, ** has previously purchased several landmark U.S. properties. In 2018, he and his wife, Qianqian Luo, paid $39 million for the Vanderbilt Tower on East 69th Street in Manhattan. According to public information, in 2021, the Seeley Mudd Estate in the suburbs of Los Angeles was sold to an unnamed buyer for $25 million, and it was later confirmed that the buyers were Mr. and Mrs. ***.
It is worth mentioning that the recently hit TV series "Flowers" directed by Wong Kar-wai and joined by Hu Ge and other celebrities has given many viewers a taste of the gorgeous and dazzling customs of old Shanghai. On social platforms, the popularity of posts related to old houses in Shanghai has also soared, in fact, *** has also spent a lot of money to buy old houses in Shanghai.
In 2009, ** to 2800 million ** bought Yanjia Garden, located at No. 699 Yuyuan Road, Shanghai. It is reported that this property is a three-storey brick and wood structure garden house built in 1920, with a total area of more than 5,400, almost the size of a football field, of which the construction area is about 1,570 and the garden area is 4,900. And the former owners of this top bungalow are Yan Yutang, a famous business tycoon in modern China and the founder of Shanghai Dalong Machinery Factory, and his son Yan Qingxiang.
**After spending a lot of money to buy this property, it was repaired to a certain extent. By 2016, Yanjia Garden's external ** has jumped to a sky-high price of 1 billion yuan, which means that Yanjia Garden's ** has more than tripled in seven or eight years, and the average annual growth of nearly 100 million yuan is even more amazing to the outside world. According to the calculation of the construction area of 1570, the average selling price of Yanjia Garden is as high as 6370,000, which is much higher than the Hai courtyard house located in the north of Houhai in Beijing.
The ups and downs of the "Godfather of Online Games".
When it comes to the name of ***, many young netizens may not be very familiar with it. But in fact, in recent years, he has made such a generous move in buying houses and land, which can be regarded as China's "godfather of online games".
In the nineties of the last century, ** graduated from Yangjing Middle School and was admitted to Fudan University to study economics. Due to his excellent academic performance, he graduated from Fudan University one year ahead of schedule.
After bidding farewell to the campus, ** entered the president's office of Lujiazui Group, and successively served as the deputy general manager of the group's subordinate companies and the secretary of the chairman of the group company. However, ** chose to leave after a few years in Lujiazui Group. In 1998, **officially joined Jinxin** company, and this job, which seemed to pay a lot to the outside world, failed to stay
Only a year later, ** pulled his wife Luo Qianqian, younger brother and others to found Shanda Network and began to do *** Although *** got $3 million in financing from China.com at that time, Shanda was once in a state of "burning money and waiting for death" because the originally optimistic animation community had no considerable income.
It wasn't until 2001 that Shanda officially entered the ** game operation market, which also gave Shanda, whose fate was hanging by a thread, an opportunity to fight back. At that time, ** used the only 300,000 US dollars left in his pocket to exchange for the ** rights of "Legend" from South Korea's Actoz Company.
After the official launch of "Legend", it quickly topped the sales charts of various software, and also made Shanda make a lot of money. After only one month of operation, the online game was profitable. In just one year, the game once occupied about 70% of the market share of the online game market, with a monthly revenue of 50 million.
In May 2004, Shanda rang the bell for listing on the NASDAQ in the United States. In October of the same year, Shanda also included the leading domestic original entertainment literature portal **Qiqi Chinese.com. For a time, Shanda became a star company that was unrivaled in the limelight of Chinese concept stocks. Shanda once became the Chinese concept stock company with the highest market capitalization and the game company with the highest market value in the world.
With Shanda's outstanding performance in the market, the value of ** has also risen. In the 2004 "Hurun Report", ** ranked second on the list with a wealth of 8.8 billion yuan. In the same year, ** also won the title of the richest man in the "2004 Hurun IT Rich List", leaving behind Internet bigwigs such as Ding Lei, Robin Li, and Zhang Chaoyang.
In 2005, on the list of 500 richest people released by New Fortune magazine, ***, who was only in his early 30s, won the title of China's richest man in one fell swoop with a wealth of 15 billion yuan. At that time, Pengrun Group Huang Guangyu, CITIC Pacific Rong Zhijian, Wanxiang Group Lu Guanqiu and other bigwigs were ranked behind, and now NetEase, which has a leading position in the domestic game market, its founder Ding Lei's wealth of 7 billion yuan at that time could only rank 5th on the list.
However, ** admits that he has never felt a trace of happiness because of the title of the richest man, "I remember the first time I was on the Hurun list I was seventh, when I was only 29 years old, I found a friend who worked in Hurun and told him to remove my name."
On September 25, 2009, Shanda Games was spun off and listed on the NASDAQ, becoming the largest IPO in the United States that year and the largest financing scale of a NASDAQ listed company in China at that time.
Time came to 2012 in a blink of an eye, and ***, who was once the richest man in China, chose to retreat bravely. In February of that year, ** privatized the company, and Shanda Mutual Entertainment was officially delisted from the U.S. stock market. In July of the same year, Shanda also moved its global headquarters from China to Singapore. In November 2014, Shanda announced that Shanda Literature and Shanda Games would also step down as directors and chairman of the board of directors of Shanda Games.
Subsequently, ** revealed in an interview that the reason why he gave up his life's career was because he had a serious illness in his body at that time. It is reported that ** suffered from panic attacks in his 30s. Under the superposition of multiple pressures such as society, industry competition, and supervision, the condition of ** has gradually deteriorated.
When recalling this experience, ** bluntly said, "It was too stressful, too painful", and every night, when I watched the sunset, I felt like I would never wake up". In the end, ** chose to move to Singapore and let go of Shanda Games.
After leaving the game, he focused on investment, and once caused controversy because of his donation to the United States
After bidding farewell to Shanda Games, ** focused more on the field of investment. According to Shanda's official website, ** investment areas include public market investment, venture capital and real estate.
In the public market investment sector, Shanda is now the largest shareholder in a number of listed companies, such as Lending Club, Community Health Systems, Sotheby's and Legg Mason Group. In the venture capital sector, Shanda focuses on gene editing, robotics, anti-aging, brain-related and innovative artificial intelligence technologies, and has invested in 67 early-stage ventures** under 40 general partners.
Radar Finance learned through Shanda China's official website that Shanda Capital is the core sector of Shanda's investment in China's science and technology innovation industry. At present, Shanda Capital manages a total of 5 teams, which are Android**, Youjia**, Culture**, Dark Horse**, and Internet Finance**. At the same time, Shanda Capital's new venture capital** is also being raised.
According to Shanda Capital, it continues to focus on investment in early-stage start-up projects including TMT, artificial intelligence and financial technology, striving to discover cutting-edge science and technology, innovative business models, excellent entrepreneurial teams, and provide a series of unique value-added services after investment to help project growth, promote industrial development, and create rich returns for investors.
Looking through the investment record of Shanda Capital, you can see many star projects including Starting Point Chinese Network, Titanium **, i Dark Horse Network, Violent Comics, Ink Weather, Delicious Noodles, Gollum, Yisou, Winger Games, etc.
According to the data disclosed by Shanda Capital, in the past 20 years, Shanda Capital has invested in 156 innovation and entrepreneurship projects, with an annualized investment return of more than 40%. However, Radar Finance noticed that Guevara Films and Xiami**, which Shanda Capital had participated in, have now disappeared in the vast Internet ocean.
In addition to Shanda Capital, Shanda also owns Shanda Tiandi Asset Management Co., Ltd., which is the core sector of Shanda's response to the national "technology-driven development" strategy, based on the science and technology innovation industry, focusing on the investment and operation management of domestic and foreign science and technology innovation parks and commercial office buildings.
Radar Finance has learned that since its establishment ten years ago, Shanda Tiandi Asset Management Co., Ltd.'s business has covered Shanghai, China, Silicon Valley, Tokyo and other regions, with a total area of nearly one million square meters and an asset valuation of nearly 10 billion.
In addition, many of the bigwigs who now have high visibility and influence in the business world have had a good relationship with Shanda, such as Daniel Zhang, former chairman and CEO of Alibaba, Tan Qunzhao, founder of wifi*** and founding partner of Rich Capital, and Chen Shaojie, founder of Douyu.
Shanda affectionately called these industry bigwigs "Sheng Fighters", and *** also said, "I prefer to be a king maker, through the way of capital, through the support of strategy and resources, to help entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs to succeed!" ”
In addition to the aforementioned projects, ***, who has experienced the torture of illness, has also put some of his energy into human brain research. In 2016, the ** couple donated 1$1.5 billion to launch a university-wide brain science research initiative at Caltech to provide an environment for interdisciplinary research in brain science. In December last year, the Tianqiao Brain Science Research Institute, which was founded by **, announced that it would invest an additional 1 billion yuan in "artificial intelligence (AI) + brain science".
It is worth mentioning that because of the huge donation of money to the American scientific community, ** was once questioned by the outside world, and many people believed that *** should donate money to China to support the development of China's scientific cause.
But in the opinion of ***, donations are borderless, "We can't say that if we see foreign aid standing by the goal, we won't pass it on to him." Don't tell me there are Chinese players standing 30 meters away. Know that once the ball goes in, all of humanity benefits." *also said to **, "It's not my fault that Chinese science is short of money!" We are also very serious about cooperation with Chinese universities. ”
Frankly, "I don't want to put any label on myself, and I don't care if people say I'm an entrepreneur or a philanthropist." I only do what I think is right, and now I am engaged in research in the field of brain science, revealing the most essential mysteries of human beings. For this, I am willing to donate all my money because in the process, I feel a sense of joy and accomplishment that I have never felt before."
Although today's *** is much more low-key than in the past, last year, the couple still appeared on the "2023 Hurun Report" with a wealth of 53 billion yuan, ranking 77th on the list.