Rebirth of England

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, it was unable to do so because foreign-funded companies were restricted from purchasing A shares. Subscription.

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-share listed stocks.

In this IPO, Supor will issue 34 million shares to the public, 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 that controls Supor Company will have its shareholding ratio diluted to 41.25% after the listing.

Although Argos Holdings and its affiliates have further increased their holdings through the listing of Supor, Barron's is not prepared to complete the battle for control of Supor through a hostile takeover.

After all, Supor itself is one of the partners of Argos Retail Group. If they use hostile acquisitions to drive away their original founders, it will inevitably have a negative impact on other companies that cooperate with them.

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 - only two years after Supor Company was listed, they sold most of the company's shares to The French SEB Group gave up its controlling stake 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's can also acquire the shares of Supor held by the Su Zengfu family at the appropriate time.

The purpose of their current increase in Supor's shares is to have more say in this company to prevent it from being acquired by the French SEB Group like in its previous life.

…

In February, when Barron came to Shanghai, 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.

Now four months have passed. 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 this place is completed, I will definitely invite you to be my guest."

Barron smiled and said to the rather unattractive man next to him who looked to be in his early thirties, wearing glasses.

"Then I'll take note of it, Your Highness the Duke."

"I welcome all capable people and have my respect, Martin."

Barron stretched out his hand to the other party and said kindly:

"In addition, you are welcome to join, Martin. You know, because of this matter, Mr. Blankfein called me specifically to complain. He said that you are the most potential employee of Goldman Sachs in Asia, and I should not rob him. Let's go..."

He raised his eyebrows, showed a happy expression, and continued:

"I told him, unfortunately, I thought 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 is appointed as the vice president of Rich23 Capital, responsible for the equity investment affairs of this investment company, including Chinese Internet companies such as Penguin, which Rich23 Capital holds shares at this time, as well as Pioneer Sports Group, Standard Chartered Bank, Apple and Argos Retail Group Liaison.

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 him when he was working on Penguin's listing project in Goldman Sachs Asia. His talent made Pony Ma appreciate it very much. In the process, Liu Yanping also felt the excellence of Penguin, so in 2005, he accepted Invited by Pony Ma, he 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\u0026D 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 size, products and profitability at this time, its growth has slowed down significantly - it cannot compete with NetEase in games, cannot compete with Baidu in advertising, and even its most important revenue is Telecom value-added services have also become the last supper.

In Pony Ma's view, the next step for Penguin to maintain high growth 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 \u0026 Company. 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 for Barron’s in addition to DS Capital.

…

On June 25, Liu Xiping first went to Hangzhou to visit Boss Ma. In the last financing, Rich23 Capital held 20% of the shares of Alibaba, and took advantage of Taobao to face eBay, which has strong financial support as eBay. When it became unsustainable due to competition from Taobao.com, it invested an additional US$50 million and acquired a cumulative 50% stake in Taobao.com.

Yes, at this time, Taobao does not belong to Alibaba, or in other words, it is not a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alibaba...