Meituan confirms full acquisition of Mobike, and Mobike says the deposit is guaranteed to be refunded at any time

　　"Wang Xing led Meituan to create a miracle of the internet, and I believe he will lead Mobike to new heights," Mobike’s founder team said in an internal email. "Employees’ salaries, options, etc. will also benefit from mergers and acquisitions and will be better protected."

　　Yesterday, Meituan and Mobike jointly confirmed that they have signed an agreement for Meituan to acquire Mobike wholly, but the acquisition amount has not been disclosed. Mobike said that the merger-related procedures will be completed in the near future, and Mobike will still maintain brand independence and operational independence. The position of the founding team of Mobike remains unchanged, and Meituan CEO Wang Xing will serve as the chairperson of Mobike.

　　Meituan Mobike will achieve resource sharing

　　Yesterday, Meituan and Mobike jointly announced that they had signed an agreement for Meituan to acquire Mobike wholly, but the specific acquisition amount was not disclosed. After the transaction is completed, Mobike will maintain its brand and operation independence.

　　"As an innovative green mobility solution, Mobike will be an important part of our ecosystem," Mr. Wang said. "Mobike is the most convenient tool to travel 3km in the city. It will become the best connection for Meituan to shop, home and travel scenes, providing users with a more complete closed-loop consumption experience and greatly enriching their consumption scenarios."

　　Mobike and Meituan share a common vision for promoting a healthy and better life, Mobike said. "In the future, we will optimize and share resources in technology, operation, marketing, Client Server and other aspects by integrating the respective advantages of Mobike and Meituan. We firmly believe that this will bring better experience and more convenient life to users of Mobike and Meituan."

　　Mobike will continue to operate independently

　　Meituan said that after the acquisition is completed, Mobike’s management team will remain unchanged, Wang Xiaofeng will continue to serve as CEO, Hu Weiwei will continue to serve as president, Xia Yiping will continue to serve as CTO, other members of Mobike’s management team will continue to hold existing positions, and Wang Xing will serve as Mobike’s chairperson.

　　"Wang Xing led Meituan to create a miracle of the internet, and I believe he will lead Mobike to new heights," Mobike’s founder team said in an internal email. "Employee compensation, options, etc. will also benefit from mergers and acquisitions."

　　"There is no such thing as a’exit ‘," Hu Weiwei wrote in Moments, referring to rumours that the "founding team of Mobike will be out after being acquired by Meituan". "In my opinion, everything is a new beginning." However, analysts believe that Hu Weiwei and the founding team of Mobike may soon leave Mobike. Internet observer Ge Jia believes: "Although Hu Weiwei continues to serve as the president of Mobike, the founding team continues to work independently, but from the historical experience of mergers and acquisitions in the Internet industry, Hu Weiwei and the founding team left Mobike only one day earlier and one day later."

　　Mobike says the deposit is refundable at any time

　　After Mobike was acquired, many users left messages saying that they do not care about who Mobike belongs to, but whether the security of the deposit can be guaranteed. At present, users must pay a deposit of 299 yuan before using Mobike bicycles. A previous Mobike balance sheet showed that Mobike currently has more than 9.80 billion yuan in user deposits. In this regard, Mobike told the Beijing Youth Daily reporter that "Mobike always guarantees the safety of user deposits and can be refunded at any time".

　　In 2015, Mobike was officially launched. Currently, Mobike has entered more than 200 cities in 12 countries around the world, with more than 200 million users and more than 30 million rides per day. Mobike is known as one of China’s "New Four Great Inventions".

　　Financial Observation

　　Meituan Mobike’s deal is to get what you want

　　Several industry insiders said the Meituan and Mobike deal was a "win-win situation".

　　Ge Jia, an internet observer, told the Beijing Youth Daily that for Meituan, the acquisition of Mobike can bring a dual effect of business synergy and capital spillover. "Meituan is laid out according to the scene. Meituan believes that all life scenes in the city will involve travel needs. There are midway, short-distance, and ultra-short-distance. Mobike’s market is ultra-short-distance travel within 3 kilometers, and this market, combined with Meituan’s life scene, will play a certain business synergy effect. In addition, Meituan’s current business line is relatively complicated. Before, it was only long-distance travel with food, drink, and machine wine, but there was no city travel." For Mobike, Ge Jia believes, "Selling is a very good choice. Shared bicycles are facing many problems such as excessive cost expenditure, excessive vehicle loss, and unsmooth revenue growth. It is quite appropriate for a company with a rich business scenario like Meituan to take over Mobike." Internet analyst Zhang Jiangjian also believes: "Transportation is an asset-heavy industry. At present, no giant is really profitable, whether it is online car-hailing or shared bicycles, and they are all in the stage of burning money to cultivate the market. For Mobike, instead of continuing to burn money and fight fiercely with peers, it is better to find a giant with capital strength and synergy effect to make the life service market bigger."

　　Wang Ruchen, founder of Quake Media, told Beiqing Daily that Meituan and Mobike’s deal was "each taking what they need". "Meituan needs companies like Mobike. First of all, the latter has a lot of data on short-distance travel, and these data portraits are closely surrounded by the’localization ‘part, which can be naturally integrated with the new retail scene, which is exactly in line with what is now called the’decisive battle of 3 kilometers’. Secondly, Meituan is currently a platform company, the transaction attributes of the business are weak, and the data of its own retail sales is relatively small. On the contrary, Mobike is a company with heavy assets, and its cash flow and monthly flow are relatively stable, which can just make up for some of Meituan’s shortcomings."

　　This group article/reporter of this newspaper, Wen Jing