The president of Chinese tech and entertainment giant Tencent Martin Lau has outlined why the firm isn't planning on reducing its investment strategy.
Speaking at the firm's Insight and Forecast Conference in Beijing - as reported by China Channel - the company top bod said that questions had been raised about Tencent's plans, but Lau insisted that there are no plans to reduce its investment strategy.
Some of the content of this talk was already in the wild, with Tencent saying that 2018 was its best year yet for investments, but this is the first time we have the actual quotes and content.
"Investment is a core strategy of Tencent," Lau said.
"Why do I say this? Before we started investing, we wanted to do everything and anything. Some horizontal expansions were a waste of overall manpower and we weren’t the best in many of these areas. The core of our investment strategy is to allow us the choice to do the most important things, and at the same time give the things that we can’t do well to the invested companies to do. By investing, we can now collaborate with a larger ecosystem with a variety of expertise. Over the years, investment has allowed us to enter many new areas, not through ourselves entering, but through investment in companies, which has given us new opportunities."
Lau went on to give its positions in the games industry as an example of Tencent's strategy working.
"Investment allows us to focus on our platform and business, and when our platform and business are stronger, we can provide better services for partners and invested companies," he said.
"The game industry is a very clear example. We did our own research, operations, and investments. In the end, we found we’d done a good job on each of them. Many of the companies that we invested in have also achieved extraordinary results."
He continued: "Finally, I want to tell you that although Tencent is a strategic investor throughout the investment process, what is different from the general strategic investors is that we will always focus on the invested company’s interests, not on our own. This is our commitment to you. When the environment is difficult, I promise everyone, we must be the ones delivering coal when it’s snowing (雪中送炭 a Chinese idiom). we must be the ones standing next to you when you are making the most important decisions. At the same time, we believe that at the worst time, it is actually the best temper for the excellent team. We will always accompany you in experiencing these trials. Through long-term companionship, we’ll wait until you get your breakthrough. Therefore, I hope that everyone will also give us confidence and support."
