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Produced by Radar Finance | Edited by Mo Enmeng | Deep Sea

Just when the outside world thought that "True Return" had ended, Luo Yonghao "spoiled" the new and important plot of the second season of "True Return" on Weibo.

Luo Yonghao, who had self-deprecatingly said he had been “quietly paying off his debts” in the past two years, has now “revealed his cards”.According to Luo Yonghao, "True Repayment" has already repaid 824 million yuan, far exceeding the previously announced "debt of more than 600 million yuan".

Luo Yonghao also said that the 300 million yuan investment and 300 million yuan loan provided by state-owned capital when Smartisan Technology raised funds have been quietly repaid for more than a year. Among them, the 300 million yuan investment originally had no repayment obligation, but it will also be treated as a debt and will be fully repaid in the next few years.

In another long article published on the same day, Luo Yonghao also responded to the repeated "bombardments" launched by Zheng Gang, an investor who once participated in Smartisan Technology. Luo Yonghao said that it was true that Smartisan Technology borrowed money from Zheng Gang's institution and did not repay it after maturity, but the failure to repay the money was related to Zheng Gang's "condemnation" of him on the Internet. The fact that Zheng Gang persuaded more than 20% of investors to ask for a repurchase was far from the 50% required to trigger a repurchase as stipulated in the legal agreement.

On August 26, Radar Finance contacted Zheng Gang himself regarding this matter. The other party said that he would make a corresponding response, but it would take time.In a circle of friends posted on the same day, Zheng Gang mocked Luo Yonghao's "brilliant article" as a "bear article."

While publishing two long articles, Luo Yonghao, who had previously "quit the Internet", will officially return to social media: "It's been more than two years... With these 15,000 words, I will return to the social media world, open accounts on a total of nine platforms, and go all out..."

In order to help complete the second season of "True Return" as soon as possible, Luo Yonghao revealed that he will repay his debts by recording variety shows, accepting advertisements and endorsements, inviting cultural celebrities and film and television stars to the live broadcast room to communicate and sell goods, and even repaying his debts by hosting weddings and funerals, and fully resuming the creation of the commercial comedy blockbuster of the same name and the serious documentary "True Return".

As for Luo Yonghao's new entrepreneurial project, which he has been working hard on in a low-key manner, the domestic official website of Xihongxian has not disclosed much information. However, on the company's official website and Xiaohongshu official account, Luo Yonghao's team is recruiting talents for Xihongxian, and some of the positions are for overseas markets, which means that although Luo Yonghao's AR project has not yet been officially launched, he has already regarded overseas markets as an important part.

Luo Yonghao has already repaid 824 million yuan, and there will be a second season of "True Return Story"

On August 26, the first day of the new week, Luo Yonghao published two long articles on Weibo, one of which revealed many inside stories of the second season of "True Return". According to Luo Yonghao, as of now, "True Return" has actually repaid a total of 824 million yuan, far exceeding the "debt of more than 600 million yuan" previously announced to the public.

Luo Yonghao explained that the actual repayment amount was larger than originally announced because of the additional compensation caused by various lawsuits and disputes during the repayment process and various fines caused by overdue payments, which increased the total debt by nearly 100 million. In addition, some situations that occurred at the end of 2022 also generated new debts.

Luo Yonghao gave further explanation on Weibo regarding the 824 million yuan that has already been repaid.The first is the 548 million yuan he paid back in cash after tax after he started his live streaming e-commerce company in April 2020. The second is the 180 million yuan he received from transferring his mobile phone team and intellectual property rights to ByteDance in 2018.

In addition to the two major parts mentioned above, it also includes the 66 million yuan debt paid when Luo Yonghao signed a personal unlimited guarantee to enable the factory to resume work after the funding chain of Smartisan Technology was cut off and the production line was shut down in 2018, and the remaining materials were made into complete machines to repay the debt; and the debt settlement team of Smartisan Technology sold the remaining assets of Smartisan Technology in various ways from 2018 to the end of 2019 to repay the debt of nearly 30 million yuan.

At the same time, Luo Yonghao also added that the list of debt repayment data and bank statement details had been submitted to the state tax authorities during the tax review this summer.

Although 824 million yuan of debt has been repaid, the "True Repayment Story" has not come to an end. According to Luo Yonghao, when Smartisan Technology raised funds, it received 300 million yuan in investment from state-owned capital and 300 million yuan in loans, totaling 600 million yuan.

The reason why this part of the debt was not included in the first season of "True Payback" is that the contract for this part of the debt expires at the end of 2022. When "True Payback" just started in 2018, this part of the debt had not yet taken effect and would not occur until 4 years later. There may be new variables in between.

In addition, there are other considerations for this part of the debt not being included in the first season of "True Return", namely, Luo Yonghao considered using capitalization to repay this part of the debt, that is, after the live e-commerce business is listed, the public market securities will be used to repay the debt. Therefore, this part of the debt was not included in the original task of repaying the debt in cash.

After that, Jiaogepengyou became a Hong Kong-listed company. Luo Yonghao said that because their creditors are state-owned capital, it is not convenient to hold shares outside the mainland. Secondly, since the trading volume of Hong Kong stocks has been relatively sluggish in recent years, if a large number of shares are sold to repay debts after listing, it may cause a sharp drop in stock prices, seriously damaging the interests of Jiaogepengyou's investors and entrepreneurial team.

For this reason, Luo Yonghao decided to transfer his equity interests to his partners and the founding team before the live streaming e-commerce was incorporated into the listed company, and then continue the live streaming cooperation with Jiao Ge Pengyou through other interest exchanges (in simple terms, to obtain more cash income), and ultimately repay this part of the debt directly with the cash earned.

Luo Yonghao further explained that of the 600 million yuan in the second season of "True Return", 300 million yuan is debt and the remaining 300 million yuan is investment. According to normal business logic and relevant laws, investment must have gains and losses, otherwise it is called borrowing rather than investment. However, Luo Yonghao said that due to the public's feelings towards "state-owned capital", the needs of the company's brand and personal brand for long-term development in the future, and many other cautious considerations, "all drove us to try our best to handle things better and more safely."

The specific approach proposed by Luo Yonghao in this regard is that before the actual date of incurrence of the state-owned capital debt, just like in the first season of "True Return", he once again took the initiative to give up the debt restructuring negotiations and directly promised to the state-owned capital creditors: in addition to the 300 million yuan borrowed, the 300 million yuan lost in investment will also be treated as debt. This means that Luo Yonghao needs to repay 100% of the 600 million yuan principal in cash.

According to Luo Yonghao, so far, this part of the debt "has been quietly repaid for more than a year, and will be fully repaid in the next few years." In addition, due to various complex historical reasons,There is still about 14 million yuan of debt in the supply chain of Smartisan Technology that has not been settled, and this part will be fully repaid in the first half of next year.

However, Luo Yonghao denied that he was not "addicted to making money to pay off debts" as some of his friends joked, and that he insisted on doing this largely for what Maslow called "self-realization in life."

According to the financial report previously released by Hong Kong-listed company Jiaogepengyou Holdings, in 2023, the company recorded revenue of 1.074 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 152.4%. During the same period, the company recorded a net profit of 114 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 795.3%.

On the same day that Luo Yonghao published two long articles, Jiaogepengyou Holdings released its financial results for the first half of the year. In the first half of this year, the company recorded a revenue of 622 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 43.8%; in the same period, the company recorded a net profit of 84 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 93.8%. In the first half of the year, the total amount of commodity transactions completed by the company on the new media platform reached 5.96 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.2%.

In Luo Yonghao's view, he has caught the trend of live e-commerce, but he thinks that this is the opportunity of the times that has given him the so-called "huge wealth". Although all of this is a normal business activity that is legal and compliant and creates value, he actually doesn't like this matter very much, and he doesn't really think that all of this is 100% deserved.

Luo Yonghao said with emotion, "I am grateful to fate for giving me this opportunity to win the turnaround battle when I was in the most difficult time. Accordingly, I also want to do more and better to live up to this arrangement and gift."

Former investment partners turned against each other, and the "Luo Zheng War" reached a climax again

After sorting out some inside stories of the second season of "True Return", Luo Yonghao published another long article on the same day titled "Clarifying the Truth about the Long-term Rumors and Defamation of Zheng Gang, the Smartisan Technology Investor", in which he "counterattacked" Zheng Gang, the Smartisan Technology investor who had "bombarded" him many times before.

Radar Finance noted that Luo Yonghao had responded to the dispute between himself and Zheng Gang on January 7 last year. At that time, Luo Yonghao responded to Zheng Gang's allegations that he had not held shareholder meetings or board meetings for three years, that he had kowtowed to dollar funds such as Li Feng and Zhang Ying, and that he had given investors an unfair agreement to give up billions of yuan in repurchases and accept compensation for minority stakes in his new company.

Luo Yonghao also mentioned that when he spoke out again, he responded and clarified in a timely manner in a calm and peaceful manner. Although Zheng Gang has continued to make unreasonable demands and abuse online until today, he has not paid any attention to it.

Luo Yonghao said that until this year when his involvement in the Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui incident once again became a hot topic of public opinion, Zheng Gang "re-dug out the dirty water that had been thrown for more than a year and threw it again intensively", causing great negative impact on the company and his personal reputation.At present, the company’s legal department has completed the collection of relevant evidence and materials, and will then formally prosecute Zheng Gang for his long-term rumors, slander and defamation.

In this long article, Luo Yonghao also selected several main points to respond accordingly. Luo Yonghao first pointed out that the venture capital agreement at that time had a clear clause in black and white that if the investment shareholders of Smartisan Technology wanted to force it to repurchase the shares of Smartisan Technology, more than 50% of the investment shareholders must sign and agree to trigger the repurchase. However, Zheng Gang only brought in more than 20% of the investors, which was far from the 50% explicitly stipulated in the legal agreement.

Luo Yonghao said that Zheng Gang's behavior of forcing him to repurchase the shares was completely untenable in terms of emotion, reason and law. If a lawsuit was forced, it would never succeed unless Zheng Gang and his accomplices were capable of creating legal shady dealings and false cases, but Zheng Gang still launched a rogue lawsuit to force him to repurchase the shares.

As for the fact that Smartisan Technology borrowed 15 million yuan from Zheng Gang and did not repay it when it was due, Luo Yonghao said that it was true that Smartisan Technology borrowed money from Zheng Gang's institution and did not repay it when it was due. However, Luo Yonghao pointed out that before the loan from company to company was due, Zheng Gang, who claimed to be his friend, had filed a rogue lawsuit to force him to repurchase the money, and had been spreading rumors and slandering him online for several months to insult and defame him.

In Luo Yonghao's opinion, if Zheng Gang wants to talk about friendship, then he can pay the money back to Zheng Gang's company out of his own pocket, but the other party cannot "file a rogue lawsuit to force me to repurchase the company when there are clearly written terms and conditions, and cannot insult me ​​online every day." If friendship is not a matter, everything should be handled impartially, and if it is a public-to-public loan, he should not be asked to repay the company's debt personally.

Luo Yonghao also said that with his usual kindness, he had taken on the company's debt of more than 1 billion yuan and had paid more than half of it, so he would not be short of paying Zheng Gang back for the company. If Zheng Gang wanted him to pay back the money, he would need him to shoot an apology video and promise not to commit such rogue acts against any entrepreneur again. If Zheng Gang "wants face but not money", he would not only give him a thumbs up, but also donate the money for charity.

As for Zheng Gang's accusation that he did not share the benefits of re-entrepreneurship with the old shareholders of Smartisan Technology, Luo Yonghao sorted out a timeline. When Smartisan Technology was on the verge of collapse in 2018, Luo Yonghao tried to save himself through the Bullet SMS project incubated by the internal team. Because it was an internally incubated project, Smartisan Technology directly accounted for 25% of the original shares.

After Smartisan Technology and Bullet Messenger failed, Luo Yonghao wanted to make quick money to pay off his debts.I went to work for Xiaoye Technology in 2019. But I only worked there for half a year. Because of the huge uncertainty in industry policies, I chose to fade out of this industry before I had time to complete the equity plan for the old shareholders of Smartisan Technology.

After that, the live e-commerce company was launched to repay debts after the Spring Festival in 2020. At that time, when designing the company's equity structure plan, Luo Yonghao said that he and his partners made a 5% original stock plan for the old shareholders of Smartisan Technology. Due to policy compliance and process, as well as some binding agreement issues, this part of the equity will not be fully implemented to these old shareholders, old partners and old colleagues until around January 31, 2025.

When Thin Red Line Technology Co., Ltd. is launched in 2022, because Thin Red Line is a company started with investment from the beginning, 5% of the original shares will be reserved for the old shareholders of Smartisan Technology on the first day.

Luo Yonghao believes that professional investors must understand that investment involves both losses and gains. Investment is not borrowing, and one must admit failure when a venture capital investment made by oneself fails. He also emphasized that as long as entrepreneurs have done their best with the investment of funds, they have no legal or business ethics responsibilities after losing money. If entrepreneurs are willing to compensate investors who lost money in the previous project when launching the next entrepreneurial project, it is a very loyal practice, but it is not the obligation and duty of entrepreneurs, nor is it a common practice.

As for the requirement that old shareholders of Smartisan Technology who voluntarily received the original shares of the thin red line sign a statement giving up their claim for repurchase, Luo Yonghao explained that it was because of the risk control requirements of professional investment institutions. "When a new company is established and raising funds, investors require entrepreneurs to disclose and eliminate their financial risks and hidden dangers. This is a common practice of professional investment institutions. Otherwise, if the new company succeeds in the future, some of the old shareholders of the old company initiate malicious lawsuits, the new company and the founder will suffer huge losses."

Luo Yonghao also revealed in this long article that the original 5% equity plan made by Jiao Ge Pengyou for the old shareholders of Smartisan Technology will be distributed to the old shareholders of Smartisan Technology in accordance with the investment ratio of Smartisan Technology that year when it is implemented at the end of January next year, but it will not include Zheng Gang and those shareholders of Smartisan Technology who colluded with Zheng Gang and jointly initiated rogue lawsuits.

Regarding Zheng Gang, Luo Yonghao admitted that they "can't say that they have no personal feelings at all", but Luo Yonghao commented that Zheng Gang "has always been confused and illogical, but he has always been a very active and enthusiastic person". Because of their old relationship, he could have tolerated it, but as the matter has become so serious, he can only publicly refute and clarify it.

Facing Luo Yonghao's long article, Zheng Gang did not choose to remain silent. At noon that day, Zheng Gang responded in his circle of friends, "Is that all the energy you have? The trick is as shown in the picture: the moon only lets you see one side, and you can never see the other half. The focus of the 15,000 words is the clarification of "True Return Legend", right? The first article only had 1,000 words, and many words were omitted. This redefines "brilliant article"... It can be called "bear article", score: negative points, go away."

At the same time, Zheng Gang also said that he had read Luo Yonghao's second article, "very good, Luo's logic is clearly written, I give this article 90%." Zheng Gang also said, "Wait until I can explain the facts and reason with evidence, pictures and texts, and also post a video to convince normal people (I don't care about you and me)."

Luo Yonghao ends his "quit from the internet", and "Niu Hulu" returns in a high-profile manner

In fact, Luo Yonghao's two consecutive long articles are just the beginning of his full return to the Internet.

Back to June 12, 2022, Luo Yonghao said goodbye to the outside world on Weibo, "It's been almost thirteen years in the blink of an eye. Time flies. Tomorrow I will officially quit Weibo and all social platforms, and concentrate on starting a business again."

It is worth noting that when he announced his “quit the internet”, Luo Yonghao changed the name of his personal social account to “Make Friends Live Room” and quit the management of “Make Friends”. Afterwards, in order to have a “formal place to refute rumors and clarify things”, Luo Yonghao only kept an account called “Luo Yonghao’s rumor refutation account”.

Although Luo Yonghao announced his "quit the Internet", he has not completely left the public eye since then. In addition to appearing in the live broadcast room of "Make Friends" from time to time to sell goods, Luo Yonghao once responded to the incident of "Make Friends" being exposed for underpayment on Weibo, and also became an off-site commentator to defend Dong Yuhui when Dongfang Zhenxuan was caught in the "small composition" storm.

Now, with Luo Yonghao's high-profile official return, the "Luo Yonghao's rumor-busting account" has been renamed "Luo Yonghao Niu Hulu". As of press time, the number of followers of the "Luo Yonghao Niu Hulu" Weibo account has exceeded 460,000.

After "Niu Hulu" officially "returned to the palace", Luo Yonghao and his team decided to go all out and stir up trouble, using all legal, compliant and business ethical means to "hype" the situation, and working at full capacity to increase cash income in various ways and pay off the remaining 500 million yuan of debt as soon as possible.

The plot of the second season of "True Return" will include, but is not limited to, Luo Yonghao's full resumption of updating and operating social media accounts, and this time it will be operated on nine online platforms simultaneously. At the same time, Luo Yonghao will also partially resume recording variety shows, fully resume accepting commercial advertisements and endorsements, and fully resume inviting cultural celebrities and film and television stars to the live broadcast room to communicate and bring goods...

In order to repay his debts, Luo Yonghao even stated on Weibo that his repayment methods also include partially resuming his wedding and funeral hosting business; and fully resuming the creation of the commercial comedy blockbuster and serious documentary "True Return" of the same name.

However, with Luo Yonghao's high-profile return, the progress of his entrepreneurial project "Red Line" has also attracted widespread attention from the outside world. Tianyancha shows that Beijing Red Line Technology Co., Ltd. was established in July 2018 with a registered capital of 100 million yuan. It is an enterprise mainly engaged in technology promotion and application services.

In November 2022, Xihongxian announced the completion of an angel round of financing of approximately US$50 million, with a post-investment valuation of approximately US$200 million. It is reported that this round of financing was led by Meituan Longzhu, followed by investment institutions such as BlueRun Ventures, Lenovo Capital, Matrix Partners, DJI Innovations, and ATM Capital, as well as Li Wanqiang, Wu Yongming and others.

It is worth mentioning that at the beginning of this year, Sohu Technology reported that it had learned from multiple sources that Luo Yonghao's thin red line AR business software and hardware development had slowed down, AR-related business layoffs, or would turn to the large model industry. In response, the company said: The report is untrue, Luo Yonghao is still focusing on AR software and hardware.

In the blink of an eye, more than half a year has passed. At present, I have not seen any specific introduction of Luo Yonghao's new entrepreneurial project on the official website of Xihongxian in China. The content displayed on the official website is mainly the recruitment notice of the Xihongxian team. From the recruitment page, it can be seen that Xihongxian has at least several departments, including software engineering department, software product department, strategic planning department, supply chain management department, and overseas e-commerce department.

Radar Finance noticed that words such as AI and smart hardware were mentioned in the recruitment descriptions of multiple positions in the aforementioned department.

Not long ago, Luo Yonghao also said on his official account on the Xiaohongshu platform that due to the gradual expansion of business in Singapore and the United States, the two companies, Jiaogepengyou and Xihongxian, continue to recruit talents. Among them, the positions recruited by Xihongxian's overseas branch mainly include the company's president assistant and product after-sales customer service supervisor. However, since the company is still in its infancy, it cannot apply for local work visas for many people, so job seekers are required to have a long-term visa or identity.

According to Lei Technology, according to the information previously revealed by Luo Yonghao in the live broadcast, Thin Red Line will officially launch two new products in September, priced at US$199 (approximately RMB 1,426) and US$299 (approximately RMB 2,144). There are also reports that these two new products may be an AI headset and an AI native hardware.

When Luo Yonghao made a full return to the social media platform, a netizen left a message in the comment section of his Weibo account, "Why didn't you announce it when you promised to?" In response, Luo Yonghao said, "Which project are you asking about? Oh, that one, well, we have our process... We will consider announcing it at an appropriate time... I forgot the other words," apparently responding to the progress of the new company's project.

What new stories will Luo Yonghao, who calls himself "the source of traffic", bring to the outside world next?