220 million yuan, China's former richest man starts bottom-fishing

At No. 233 South Shaanxi Road, Huangpu District, Shanghai, an 11-storey building is hidden among the shadows of plane trees.

It is not towering, nor does it have the imposing grandeur of skyscrapers. For people who pass by here every day, it is even just an ordinary building in the Hengfu Historical Conservation Area. But recently, this small building called Mia Hotel has re-entered the public spotlight because of its new owner.

This owner is Chen Tianqiao.

According to reports from multiple media outlets, Shanda Group under Chen Tianqiao recently completed a hotel asset transaction, taking over this property located in the core area of Shanghai at a price of about 220 million yuan.

After the news came out, many people's first reaction was: Is Chen Tianqiao back?

This name once represented one of the earliest wealth legends in the Chinese Internet industry. More than 20 years ago, he pushed Shanda to the center of the Chinese Internet stage with the online game *Legend*, and became the richest man in China at the age of 31. But later, he gradually faded out of the public view.

As waves of mobile Internet, short videos, artificial intelligence and other tides swept across the Chinese Internet industry, Chen Tianqiao seemed to become more and more low-key. He did not chase every hot trend, and rarely appeared in business news.

It was not until this Shanghai property transaction that people realized: the person who once stood at the forefront of the Chinese Internet has not left. He just changed his way to continue observing the world.

The Disappeared Richest Man

If you unfold the history of the development of the Chinese Internet, Chen Tianqiao is definitely a name that cannot be avoided.

In 1999, 26-year-old Chen Tianqiao founded Shanda Network. That was the era when the Chinese Internet had just started. At that time, portal websites were just emerging, e-commerce was still in the exploratory stage, and the Internet business model was not yet fully mature. No one knew where the Chinese Internet would go in the next decade. Chen Tianqiao chose a direction that was not favored by everyone at that time: online games.

From today's perspective, games have become one of the most mature digital industries in the world, but 20 years ago, online games were still a controversial emerging market in the eyes of many people.

However, Chen Tianqiao saw another side. He believed that the most important value of the Internet is not just information transmission, but creating new connections between people. Games just provide a new way of socializing.

In 2001, Shanda obtained the license to operate the Korean game *Legend*. This decision became an important node in the history of the Chinese Internet. In the following years, Shanda grew rapidly. More and more Chinese users entered the virtual world for the first time through online games, and experienced the brand-new experience brought by the Internet for the first time. Shanda became one of the most influential companies in the Chinese Internet industry at that time.

In 2004, Shanda was listed on NASDAQ. 31-year-old Chen Tianqiao became the youngest richest man in China. That was the early golden age of the Chinese Internet.

Companies such as Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu were growing, and a new generation of Internet enterprises began to enter the stage. And Chen Tianqiao was one of the first people to stand under the spotlight. But the business world never stays in one era. As the Internet industry entered a new stage of development, Shanda gradually faded out of the public view. Chen Tianqiao also began to reduce his public appearances. Unlike many entrepreneurs, he did not continue to participate in industry discussions frequently, nor did he keep chasing new business outlets. He chose a quieter way, stepping out of the spotlight to rethink the future. Over the years, he has focused on long-term fields such as technology and life sciences, and carried out asset allocation on a global scale.

The public can hardly see his figure anymore. But an interesting phenomenon is that people who have really experienced the business cycle often do not stay in the busiest part of the market all the time. They pay more attention to when the next opportunity will come.

Chen Tianqiao is such a person.

He once seized the opportunity brought by the popularization of the Internet, and also experienced the adjustment brought by industry changes. Therefore, many years later, when he appeared in the news again, people who paid attention to him did not only focus on this small building in Shanghai. More people want to know: what is a person who once stood at the top of China's wealth looking for now?

The Hunter in the Cycle

Chen Tianqiao's purchase of the Shanghai property this time took place in a special market environment.

Over the past few years, China's real estate industry has undergone profound changes. During the period of rapid growth, a large amount of capital poured into the real estate market; as the industry entered the adjustment stage, some assets began to return to value evaluation. For ordinary investors, cyclical changes often mean uncertainty. But for long-term capital, cycles also mean opportunities. Many excellent investors share a common feature: they do not chase the hottest time in the market, but look for long-term value when the market cools down.

Chen Tianqiao's past business choices have always had such characteristics.

In 2001, when the dot-com bubble burst and industry confidence declined, he chose to bet on online games. Later, when many people had not realized the value of digital content, Shanda deployed in fields such as online literature. Behind these choices is essentially the judgment of long-term trends. Now, his focus on properties in the core area of Shanghai also conforms to this line of thinking.

As one of the most important economic centers in China, Shanghai has natural scarcity of land and building resources in its core areas. Especially under the background of the continuous advancement of urban renewal, buildings with historical value and location value are irreplaceable resources in themselves. The special feature of this transaction is not just buying a hotel. More importantly, it reflects an asset selection logic: when market sentiment changes, look for things that still have long-term value. For Chen Tianqiao, 220 million yuan may not be a huge sum of money. But an entrepreneur's investment action often reflects his judgment of the future.

The Internet industry has experienced rapid changes in the past few years.

Artificial intelligence has become a new technological wave, new energy vehicles have transformed the automobile industry, and fields such as robotics and life sciences have continuously attracted capital attention.

A lot of capital is looking for the next growth story. But at the same time, another type of capital has begun to pay attention to long-term assets that are ignored by the market. They do not necessarily have the most popular concepts, but have a stable value base. That is why Chen Tianqiao's transaction has attracted attention.

Because what people see is not just a real estate transaction, but the choice of a person who has experienced multiple business cycles in the new cycle.

New Choices of Old Money

If you observe Chen Tianqiao's trajectory over the past 20 years, you will find that he has always had a characteristic:

He likes to make early layouts in directions that are not yet fully mature. When he was young, he bet on the Internet. Later, he focused on long-term fields such as life sciences and brain sciences. Now, he re-entered the public view because of a Shanghai property transaction. Behind these seemingly different choices, there is actually a common logic: looking for fields that may generate value in the future.

This is also a common feature of many long-term investors. They do not necessarily chase the hottest topics in the market, but look for certainty amid changes. In the business world, the real difficulty is not seeing opportunities, but making judgments when there is no consensus. When the Internet first emerged, few people believed that online games could become a huge industry. In the early stage of technology investment, few people could accurately judge which technologies would eventually change the world. But those who are willing to bet for the long term can often get the rewards brought by time.

Chen Tianqiao's story is essentially a microcosm of the growth of China's entrepreneur group. Many of the first-generation Internet entrepreneurs once changed the industry by relying on traffic and technology. But as they grow older, they have begun to transform from entrepreneurs to long-term capital managers. What they focus on is no longer just the next company or the next product, but how to allocate resources in a longer cycle.

This is also the biggest impression Chen Tianqiao has left on the outside world in recent years: low-key.

He no longer frequently appears in the center of the business stage, nor does he participate in public discussions. But being low-key does not mean leaving the market. Truly experienced business people often do not keep chasing the voice of the market. They prefer to wait, waiting for prices to return to rationality, and waiting for new opportunities to emerge. This small building on South Shaanxi Road may just be a small footnote in Chen Tianqiao's asset layout.

But it reminds people: those who have changed the era will not disappear just because they leave the spotlight. They just move from the center of the stage to a quieter position, and then continue to observe the next cycle.

And when the opportunity comes, they will still choose to place their bets.

END

This article is from the WeChat official account "Rongzhong Finance" (ID: thecapital), written by Lü Jingzhi, and authorized by 36Kr to be republished.