China ** newspaper Taylor.
Brothers and sisters, let's take a look at some news tonight.
Billionaire*** became one of the largest foreign landowners in the United States
China's "godfather of online games", who has faded out of public view for many years and has been investing in a low-key manner, has been swiping the screen in the past few days.
According to the latest ranking by the American magazine Land Report, ** owns 198,000 acres (80,127 hectares) of woodland in Oregon, making him the 82nd largest landowner in the United States.
The 50-year-old *** bought the land from Fidelity National Financial Ventures in 2015 for $85 million. Oregon's tax records last month disclosed that the beneficial owner's name is Shanda Asset Management, the same name as ***'s holding group in Singapore.
His land in Oregon makes him one of the most non-American citizens who own the most U.S. land, behind the Irking family in Canada, who are sixth on Land Report's list with more than 1.2 million acres of Maine woodland.
In recent years, the super-rich seeking a hedge against inflation and real estate have increasingly turned to invest in farmland and other rural properties. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average value of arable land in the U.S. was 81%, which has been more than a third since 2020.
Twenty years ago, China's best-known internet company was not Alibaba, nor Tencent, but the game developer, Shanda Network. The founder of Shanda is called ***, and he has already become a billionaire by the time he is 30 years old.
Born in 1973 in Zhejiang Province, China, he graduated from Fudan University a year early with a bachelor's degree in economics. This was followed in 1999 by the founding of Shanda.
At the time, many Chinese entrepreneurs were eager to start portals**, similar to Yahoo in the United States. However, the then 26-year-old *** chose to go his own way, relying on about $60,000 in savings to start an online game company with his wife Luo Qianqian and his younger brother.
At that time, *** got $3 million in financing from China.com and started a business. The originally optimistic animation community had no income, and Shanda was once in a state of "burning money and waiting for death". In 2001, the troubled *** decided to "gamble" on life and death. He took the ** rights to "Legend" from South Korea's Actoz Company with only $300,000 left, thus starting a grand "Legend". After only one month of operation, the online game was profitable. A year and a half later, Legend has captured 68% of China's online game market. At that time, Shanda Network became the online game operator with the largest number of users in the world, with a total of nearly 100 million registered users, and was listed on NASDAQ.
The grand listing set a lot of records. It was the Chinese concept stock company with the highest market capitalization at that time and the game company with the highest market capitalization in the world. At the same time, it also created the youngest richest man in China.
However, just when his career was booming, ** chose to retreat bravely.
Later, in an exclusive interview, ** explained what made him give up his life's work - at that time he had a serious physical illness.
In his 30s, he developed panic attacks. His condition deteriorated amid increased competition and regulatory pressure. Eventually, ** decided to save his health.
These experiences eventually led him to a new path. His own mental struggles and his Buddhist beliefs convinced him to devote his energies to the study of the human brain. To that end, he has taken $1 billion out of his personal fortune of at least $2.4 billion to fund human brain research, including the one he and his wife have donated to the California Institute of Technology for the establishment of the Brain Science Institute$1.5 billion.
In 2010, ** immigrated to Singapore and moved the headquarters of his holding group from China to Singapore. In February 2012, Shanda Games was delisted from NASDAQ and completed privatization, cashing out 8.8 billion yuan. On November 17, 2014, ** stepped down from all his positions at Shanda. After the privatization of Shanda Games, Shanda Asset Management in Singapore became the main investment vehicle of the company. According to Shanda Games' official information, the investment covers listed and private equity, venture capital and real estate.
U.S. stocks
U.S. stocks generally slipped tonight, with the Dow Jones down nearly 300 points.
Later this week, investors will analyze two key inflation data pieces to clarify the future path of the Fed's rate cuts. The December consumer index will be released on Thursday and the producer index on Friday.
On the economic data front, the National Federation of Independent Business reported on Tuesday that small business owner confidence improved in December, but remained below the long-term average.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index rose to 919, up 13 points, better than the market estimate of 908。While the index has improved, this is the 24th consecutive month that it has been below the long-term average of 98.
While still on the pessimistic side, the proportion of small business owners who expect business conditions to improve over the next six months improved to net minus 36%, up 6 percentage points from the previous month and up 25 percentage points from a year ago.