Bright Pearl City.
During this period, aside from the sensational major events that occurred on the streets, several other matters successfully made it onto the local trending lists, and were even reported in domestic financial news and major portal websites.
That is the group-buying project, formerly known as Wanlong Group-Buy, now officially renamed Wanhui Premium, which has successfully completed its Series A funding round.
This round of financing was led by Qixing Capital and AEG Capital, with Bright Pearl Capital, Zhaosheng Capital, Yunrui Fund, and Changxing United Holdings participating. By giving up 10% of equity, they raised 50 million in funds, achieving a valuation as high as 500 million.
That's right, a valuation of 500 million.
It's worth noting that not long ago, this figure was only 40 million, and even that was considered an overvaluation at the time.
In fact, for this Series A round, Ji Zhe, Chu Hai, and others had originally estimated a valuation of at most 150 to 200 million.
But they simply couldn't hold back the newcomers like Zhang Zhaoyuan and others from driving the price up.
That evening, Liu Yutong, the daughter of the Wanlong Society, merely treated them to a meal at a restaurant. Before Ji Zhe and Chu Hai could even expend much effort persuading them, Zhang Zhaoyuan and the other two directly pushed the valuation up to 500 million.
Under the guise of: Wanhui Premium is currently undergoing massive expansion; raising this 50 million is actually considered low, might not even be enough to spend, so the valuation is very low.
Hearing this, Ji Zhe and Chu Hai were absolutely thrilled inside.
In just about a month, the value of their shares had multiplied several times. Although this was currently just a paper gain on the books, as long as someone was willing to take over their shares later, it would mean real, substantial profit!
With the 50 million in funding secured, Wanhui Premium officially launched its major strategy to expand into first-tier cities. Taking advantage of the lack of similar competitors in the market, they began aggressively capturing territory.
Simultaneously, this suddenly emerged juicy piece of meat also attracted the attention of some interested parties.
............
After resolving the matters with Zhao Tianxing, more and more people came to visit Liu Yutong at the Wanlong Group during this period, mostly consisting of gang leaders operating on the streets.
Of course, compared to the already swept-away East Sea Alliance, these people were far inferior in both strength and scale.
They could be directly described as insignificant.
Their purpose was easy to guess: they wanted to latch onto the Wanlong Society's coattails.
The Wanlong Society's influence in Bright Pearl City was now at its peak, unrivaled in momentum.
There was no more promising path than following the Wanlong Society.
In the future, just being able to shout outside "I know so-and-so from the Wanlong Society" would allow one to swagger around Bright Pearl City.
Unfortunately, they got one thing wrong.
The Wanlong Society was not some street gang or social organization at all, but a proper, legitimate corporate group.
Regarding these individuals who came to pay their respects, Liu Yutong had only one attitude: turn them all away at the door.
For anyone who dared to pester relentlessly, or commit misdeeds under the banner of the Wanlong Society, she would not be polite and wouldn't mind offering them an all-expenses-paid "iron rice bowl" (imprisonment).
Having dealt with some bothersome matters and found some peace and quiet, Liu Yutong began sorting through the group's business.
The supermarket business, originally the most developed and largest under the Wanlong Society, had essentially stopped expanding and was gradually being surpassed by the Wanhui Premium project.
This was mainly due to Liu Yutong's philosophy being different from the norm.
The supermarket business could certainly continue expanding outward, but if they blindly raced to grab territory, they definitely couldn't achieve the ultimate service and reputation they had in their Bright Pearl City home base.
Just like the highly reputable Laidong Supermarket from her previous life, its expansion was very slow. Often, wanting to do things well was easier said than done.
Therefore, the expansion of branch stores had to be extremely cautious: better slow than sloppy. They couldn't lose their hard-earned reputation just for the sake of scale.
Moreover, once they lost the advantage and reputation they had painstakingly built, venturing to other regions could easily lead to a failure to adapt.
She had seen far too many instances in her previous life of large chain supermarkets closing stores in large batches during later stages.
Although online shopping impact was also a reason, ultimately it came down to an unsteady foundation.
Wanlong Supermarket still needed to advance steadily and securely, hold its basic market, and develop slowly for the long term.
Before that, they could first focus their efforts on the Wanlong Shopping Center, also called Wanlong Plaza, which would open soon.
This commercial plaza would be the model for Wanlong Supermarket's future outward expansion, similar to the Qianda Plaza of her previous life.
Only, she intended to do it better, more refined, more perfect, and more successful than the Qianda of her previous life!
"I'll need to discuss this with Yu Mo," Liu Yutong thought.
Currently, Yu Corporation had secured the land plot in the northern part of the city, planning to develop it into a large-scale trade mart.
Although that project had a long payback period, Liu Yutong knew that it would indeed become a landmark wholesale and retail center for the northern district of Bright Pearl City in the future, following a path of good quality and low prices.
Wanlong Plaza, on the contrary, would take a relatively high-end route, aiming to become a comprehensive commercial complex integrating fashion department stores, brand flagship stores, boutique dining, and entertainment experiences.
One north, one south; one affordable, one luxury — they happened to form a complementary pair, becoming two future business name cards for Bright Pearl City.
Of course, the trade mart model wasn't easy to replicate further, as it held no advantage compared to Wucheng in that regard. If it weren't for Yu Mo's father having previously secured connections in Wucheng to arrange things like the trade mart's five-year naming rights, they might not have been able to develop it at all.
Apart from this project, Yu Corporation basically had no potential for outward development afterward.
Aside from funding issues—after all, the trade mart project required massive investment, completely tying up Yu Corporation and causing them to stagnate—there was also the lack of follow-up development plans.
Liu Yutong planned to collaborate with Yu Corporation to establish a commercial management company.
Both Yu Corporation and her Wanlong Group had tight cash flow. Independently developing and holding more pure commercial plazas would be very difficult.
This heavy-asset model occupies capital to a terrifying degree, with long development cycles and slow returns.
If they learned from certain giants of her previous life who relied on high leverage for crazy expansion, they would be highly likely to fall into a debt quagmire when the real estate market declined a few years later. The final outcome would be nothing other than cutting off an arm to survive, frantically selling assets to repay debts, or even worse.
However, there was one direction they could completely pursue: skip the heavy-asset stage altogether and directly adopt a light-asset output model.
