From Arsenal to the Ball God

”Rose, a British investment banker, representing Facebook in negotiations with you.”

A middle-aged man with white hair, wearing a black suit, extended his right hand to him, with two consultant-looking people wearing glasses beside him.

This is actually a very high-level acquisition; if it weren’t for Ma’el’s tight schedule and the fact that he’s only 18, they wouldn’t have chosen such a hasty conversation approach.

Thinking of this, the three of them curiously observed Ma’el closely while shaking hands.

As if they wanted to see what kind of person he is, actually holding shares worth 100 million US Dollars at the age of 18.

”Hello.”

Ma’el completed the handshake greetings with them, then sat down, waiting for them to speak.

Rose exchanged a glance with a consultant wearing gold-rimmed glasses, nodded, then looked at Ma’el and pulled out several documents from his bag.

”This is our acquisition plan.”

Rose was very polite, at least on the surface, placing Ma’el at the same level as himself, ”The details are marked above, you can take a look first, then we can chat.”

Beside him, another consultant with a slim build showed a smile, ”We admire Mr. Ma’el’s achievements in the football world very much, and we all know the potential and future you have, you possess an enviable life.

”And, after learning that you actually hold 10% shares of Ins and made significant contributions during its development, everyone in the investment banking sector was surprised.

”In France, there’s an investment banker who just handled the Nestlé acquisition case, also a big name, originally wanted to replace us in the negotiations this time.

”But Facebook suspected that he had been in contact with you earlier, so finally they chose us...well, that banker seems to be preparing to leave this industry, intending to enter politics.”

Ma’el roughly knew who he was talking about, nodded to indicate to the man, then roughly scanned through the contract in his hand.

Nothing special, just a bunch of analysis and data comparisons, and their basis for calculating market value, etc.

He quickly handed the document back, ”I’ve finished reading it, um...well written.”

The scene fell into a brief silence, Rose packed the document into his briefcase, then sat up straight, placing his hands together on the table, ”We’ve figured out before that you seem quite unwilling to sell Ins shares.

”As an Arsenal player, you must know about the matter between Kroenke and Usmanov, right?

”Both want to fully acquire the team, making it entirely their own, then reinvest and develop.

”If they cannot fully acquire it, they will always have grievances in their hearts, and what this grievance might lead to... I’m sure we’ve all seen.”

Rose took a sip of coffee, his sharp gaze fixed on Ma’el, ”Back to us, if Facebook can’t fully acquire Ins, everything will go in a bad direction.

”This acquisition might not succeed, and even if it does, Mr. Zuckerberg won’t be able to unleash resources into it.

”By then, the shares you originally planned to sell at a higher price might instead become worthless, or even unsellable.”

Rose shrugged and spread his hands, looking regretful, ”So, we still hope you can be a bit flexible, then we can negotiate the price and other related issues.”

The consultant with gold-rimmed glasses added, ”Kevin Strom hopes you would sell the shares because their negotiations with Facebook are close to concluding.

”He was originally supposed to have internal negotiations with you, but... he seems very embarrassed about bringing it up to you.

”We understand the reason, he thinks you’ve contributed greatly in the process and really shouldn’t be sitting at the negotiation table meeting you.

”I think if he values your feelings so much, you should consider his opinions.”

Ma’el listened to the two, always nodding to show agreement.

Once they finished speaking, he firmly smiled and said, ”I understand the stakes involved, but I still stand by my choice, I’m not planning to sell Ins shares.

”I’m very sorry...”

This rejection of these investment bankers had the same reasoning as the previous refusal to Kevin; he felt it wasn’t the right time to sell Ins shares yet.

Firstly, this 10% stake certainly hasn’t reached its rightful value; and secondly, he’s not in a rush to use the money now, there’s no need to hastily sell, he can afford to wait.

When he needs money, and the value is slightly higher, then he will sell them all together.

As for their argument that not selling Ins shares might cause the acquisition to fail, possibly hindering Zuckerberg’s full investment, or making this 10% devalue or become unsellable.

He’s not worried at all; Ins has rapidly reached such a scale, proving its model and creativity are excellent, its hard strength is solid.

Silicon Valley elites like Zuckerberg can surely see this, otherwise, they wouldn’t have proposed a 1.5 billion US Dollar price.

Could they treat Ins like Kroenke and Usmanov did Arsenal?

It’s a tremendous joke, impossible to happen... It’s just a scare tactic from these investment bankers.

Too bad, they can’t guess that he actually knows what scale Ins will reach in the future, knows Zuckerberg would never abandon the remaining 90% just because of his 10%.

The scene was enveloped in silence, Rose and the other two consultants looked at each other, unsure of what to say.

Just when they thought up new persuasion tactics, ready to speak... Ma’el suddenly picked up his phone, sighed helplessly up at the sky, ”Fack, how come it’s already zero to two, are we going to lose the match?”