At around 2 p.m., January 9, Jason Jiang (Jiang Nanchun) and David Yu (Yu Feng), shoulder by shoulder, showed up in front of the public for the first time at Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai, where clickings of shutters and flashes interleaved one after another. A handshake between Jiang and Yu, an occasional whisper to each other, or even a casual eye contact would become impressive shots to press-photographers.
Almost everyone present was knocked back as the former rivals at sword’s points stood simultaneously before the public for the first time. Focus Media Holding Limited (NASDAQ: FMCN) announced on this day that it signed a definitive share purchase agreement with Target Media Holdings Limited and its shareholders. Under the terms of the agreement, Focus Media will acquire 100% of the equity interest in Target Media for US$94 million in cash and US$231 million in the form of Focus Media ordinary shares. Focus Media CEO Jason Jiang and Target Media CEO David Yu will become co-chairmen and the two biggest shareholders of the merged company.
Target Media, meanwhile, had been planning its own initial public offering on NASDAQ before the merger. As Jiang and Yu inked the deal at 2 a.m., January 8, Yu lost the chance to strike the bell at NASDAQ for ever.
No sooner had the news was released when the stock price of Focus Media rocketed to US$42 per share, up from its US$30 per share when the two sides were negotiating by the table. It became another summit Chinese concept stock just inferior to Baidu.com and NetEase.com with the market value of nearly US$1.5 billion.
In October 2005, Focus Media acquired Framedia, the largest community apartment elevator flat-panel advertising carrier in China, at a price of US$110 million. Investors observed that with regard to Focus Media, the two acquisitions were not completed with a favorable price. But Jiang simply ignored such voices. What he cared more about were the approaches to the speediest capture of strategically valuable things, but not prices.
“It is my greatest pleasure to persuade customers to buy advertising time slots, to provide them with better ideas, and to have them place more advertisements,” says Jiang. In his dictionary, there seems to be no words other than “persuasion” and “advertisement”. He is always delivering the concept of Media Group in Outdoor Life Circle to others whenever it is possible. On stepping into the advertising circle, just like a duck to water, Jiang could never pull himself out.
While Jiang was indulged in the pleasure of his occupation, his rival Yu was also up to his ears with his own business. Having noted and accurately captured the market vacancy of commercial location television advertisement, Yu, who was 10 years older than Jiang, brought up Target Media swiftly in two years and became a leader in the new media industry. Such an enterprising experience made him more excited and agitated than any other occupations that he had performed over the past two decades, such as university lecturer, civil servant, manager of some state-owned enterprise, etc.
Born almost at the same time, Focus has constituted a direct competitive threat to Target all along. And so unveiled the rivalry between the two Shanghainees, Jiang and Yu.