2004 Bentley Power List
Timothy Chen Tianqiao - 2004 Bentley Power List:No.8
| personal info: | This year’s biggest news for Shanda was its spring listing on Nasdaq, today China’s largest Nasdaq-listed company by market capital (US$1.5 billion) and the world’s largest online games company, also by market capital. One of 31-year old Chen’s secret weapons was the appointment of Tang Jun, Microsoft’s former head of China, as his president. With a war chest now of US$150 million, Shanda is now on an acquisition spree to consolidate its leading position. With sales last year of US$76 million (2002:US$30 million), tax US$11 million, Shanda now has three games with more than 500,000 online players at any one time on average and has 1,100 employees. Graduating a year early, Chen started out in a listed property company, before leaving to set up a cartoon website in 1999 at the height of the internet boom. Chen quickly built up a million registered users, which helped him attract US$3 million of venture capital, and in 2001 switched to online games, licensing a South Korean game, which has since settled a dispute with Shanda about ownership of the game licence. |
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