Chapter 298: One light and one dark
At this time, restrictions on foreign investment in China emerged, because although Argos Holdings wanted to take advantage of the listing of Supor Company to subscribe for the public shares issued by it, because of the foreign investment The company is restricted from purchasing A-shares, so subscriptions are not possible.
However, the advantage of Barron’s previous acquisition of Standard Chartered Bank is also reflected. As one of the first batch of 12 qualified foreign investors (QFII) announced in July last year, Standard Chartered Bank can directly purchase A shares listed stocks.
In this IPO, Supor will publicly issue 34 million shares, of which 13.4 million shares will be subscribed by Standard Chartered Bank, which will account for 9.9% of the total share capital of Supor after the listing...
Because according to China's regulations at this time, a single QFII institution cannot hold more than 10% of the total share capital of an A-share listed company.
In this way, based on Supor's issue price of 12.21 yuan per share, after spending another 164 million Chinese dollars, after Supor's listing, Argos Holdings and Standard Chartered Bank will hold a total of 21.15% of the company's shares.
At this time, the Su Zengfu family, which controls Supor Company, will have its shareholding ratio diluted to 41.25% after the listing.
Although Argos Holdings and its affiliated companies have further increased their shares through the listing of Supor Company, Barron's is not prepared to complete the battle for control of Supor Company through a hostile takeover.
After all, Supor itself is one of the partners of Argos Retail Group. If they use hostile acquisition to drive away their original founders, it will inevitably have negative consequences for other companies that cooperate with them. Influence.
In fact, Barron knew from the memories of his previous life that the Su Zengfu family did not intend to hold Supor Company for a long time. In the original time and space, in 2006 - just two years after Supor Company was listed, they took over the company's shares. A majority of the shares were sold to France's SEB Group, giving up controlling interest in the company.
And after that, their family continued to reduce its shares in Supor Company. In the end, its shareholding was less than 0.01%, and it almost completely withdrew from the company.
In this case, Barron can also acquire the shares of Supor Company held by the Su Zengfu family at the appropriate time.
The purpose of their current increase in shares in Supor is to have more say in this company to prevent it from being acquired by the French SEB Group like in its previous life.
......
When Barron came to Shanghai in February, he bought a mansion here, the Yan Family Garden located at No. 699 Yuyuan Road.
Before leaving the Magic City last time, he had completed the transaction and hired a professional decoration company to carry out an overall renovation of the Yan Family Garden.
Four months have passed now. When Barron and his party visited the construction site of Yanjia Garden again, they could see that the renovation work was in full swing.
“It’s really rare to have such a bungalow in Shanghai. I can only imagine how grand it will be after the decoration is completed.”
“When it is completed, I will definitely Please come as a guest."
Barron smiled and said to the rather unattractive man next to him who looked to be in his early thirties and wearing glasses.
"Then I'll take note of it, Your Highness the Duke."
"I welcome all capable people to get my respect, Martin."
Barron extended his hand to the other party Come and said kindly:
"In addition, you are welcome to join, Martin. You know, because of this matter, Mr. Blankfein called me specifically and complained about it. He said that you are Goldman Sachs Asia’s most potential employee, I shouldn’t steal you away...”
He raised his eyebrows, showed a happy expression, and continued:
"I told him, unfortunately, I think so too..." The man who won Barron's praise is named Liu Yanping.
Liu Yanping, 31 years old, is from Hong Kong, China. He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan and two master's degrees from Stanford University and Northwestern University.
After graduation, Liu Yanping worked as a management consultant at McKinsey, and later became the Chief Operating Officer of the Telecommunications, Media and Technology Industry Group of the Asian Investment Banking Department of Goldman Sachs.
Now he has been appointed as the vice president of Rich23 Capital, responsible for the equity investment affairs of this investment company, including Penguin and other Chinese Internet companies in which Rich23 Capital holds shares at this time, as well as Pioneer Sports Group and Standard Chartered Liaison with banks, Apple and Argos retail group.
Chen Fuyang, who was previously appointed CEO of Rich23 Capital, told Barron’s that he hopes to focus more on the operation of Avago, rather than having to take care of Rich23 Capital’s investment in China as before. Therefore, Barron's makes adjustments to Rich Capital.
For example, Chen Fuyang still serves as the president of Rich23 Capital, but is mainly responsible for the operation of Avago. As for other equity investment matters, Vice President Liu Yanping is specifically responsible for it and reports directly to Barron's office.
In fact, in the original time and space, Liu Yanping had another identity, that is, the future president of Penguin Company.
It's just different now, because the sponsor and underwriter of Penguin's listing has become Standard Chartered Bank, not Goldman Sachs Asia in the previous life.
Originally, Liu Yanping came into contact with Goldman Sachs Asia when he was working on the Penguin Company's listing project. Pony Ma admired his talent very much. In the process, Liu Yanping also felt the excellence of Penguin Company, so he worked in Penguin Company. In 2005, he accepted Pony Ma's invitation and served as Penguin's chief strategic investment officer, responsible for strategy, investment, mergers and acquisitions and investor relations.
Prior to this, Penguin rarely used external investment methods in its development. It all incubated projects by investing in internal R&D and other departments. It can be said that what is popular is what to do, and the overall strategy is not too clear. planning.
Although Penguin is still the largest Internet company in China in terms of user scale, products and profitability at this time, its growth has slowed down significantly - it cannot compete with NetEase in games, Baidu in advertising, and Even the most important telecommunications value-added services in terms of revenue have become the last supper.
In Pony Ma’s view, how Penguin can continue to maintain high growth in the next step becomes a question.
So in 2005, in the original time and space, Pony turned his attention to Liu Xiping, who worked at Goldman Sachs and had previously worked at McKinsey & Company. Both in terms of ability and experience, he was the talent Pony needed.
In the end, under Pony's inspiration, Liu Yanping was willing to give up his tens of millions of annual salary and joined Penguin Company, taking over the capital operation and strategy work. Later, he gradually succeeded Pony and was fully responsible for the company's business management. .
As for now that Liu Yanping has joined Rich23 Capital, will Penguin be able to develop smoothly in the future? Barron is prepared to wait and see before making any moves.
After Liu Yanping joins Rich23 Capital, they will establish the Asia-Pacific headquarters of Rich23 Capital in Hong Kong, China, to fully radiate the investment business in the region.
This will be another investment empire of Barron’s besides DS Capital.
......
On June 25, Liu Xiping first went to Hangzhou to visit Boss Ma - in the last financing, Rich23 Capital held 20% of Alibaba shares, and took advantage of the opportunity When Taobao became unsustainable in the face of competition from eBay, which had strong financial backing, it invested an additional US$50 million and acquired a total of 50% of Taobao's shares.
Yes, at this time, Taobao does not belong to Alibaba, or in other words, it is not a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alibaba...
(End of this chapter)