Rebirth of the Wild Age

Anyone who is a little familiar with the history of Internet development knows that Google finally adopted the "Dutch Auction" to go public, which wiped out all the old Wall Street morons.

This is a shocking choice, making Google an instant enemy of Wall Street.

As the underwriter designated by Google, Credit Suisse, based on the option agreement signed by the two parties at the time, those Credit Suisse employees who participated in the listing operation can buy stocks at a low price through the "green shoe option" - 40 US dollars cheaper than the market price. Each person is limited to purchase 100 shares within the specified time.

Let's make it more clear, if I am an employee of Credit Suisse and participated in Google's listing operation. Then I only need to invest $4,500 and buy 100 shares at a price of $45. The money can be turned into $10,000 on the opening day and $20,000 in three months.

However, no one bought it.

Because these insiders are scared

Yes, the gossip is flying everywhere, and Wall Street is expressing that Google will fail.

Can one company, Google, stand against the entire Wall Street? Obviously not. As a result, relevant practitioners unanimously bad-mouthed Google, and did not believe that Google's stock price would rise sharply, thus losing a great investment opportunity.

However, at this moment, that is, when Song Weiyang flew to the United States at the beginning of the year, Google did not have any crazy plans to "list at auction".

Just last month, Google suddenly terminated negotiations with Microsoft, saying that we did not plan to sell ourselves to Microsoft. Then it announced the hiring of two banks, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, as underwriters for Google's IPO listing. The estimated fundraising amount is US$4 billion, and investment institutions estimate that US$12 billion of Google shares will be marketed.

Before the IPO goes public, the founders, shareholders and underwriters of the company will negotiate for several months. Everyone sat together to discuss how many shares should be publicly offered, which ones should be sold to internal employees, which ones should be sold to major shareholders, and how to sign the underwriter's option contract. Anyway, the whole process takes a long time and is very cumbersome.

When Song Weiyang came to the United States for a meeting this time, he didn't even mention the above key content, and was directly suppressed by the five shareholders.

All the shareholders want to take advantage of the opportunity of the IPO to increase their holdings, but they don't let Taurus Capital participate in it. The reason is that it is for the long-term development of Google... In fact, it is all nonsense. With Google's current situation, it has no right to let the US government stare at it. It doesn't care about the shareholding ratio of Chinese shareholders.

Obviously, they are teaming up to bully Song Weiyang, a Chinese!

Sequoia Capital even wanted to acquire the founder's stock in Song Weiyang's hands, which is the kind of stock in which 1 share counts as 10 voting shares, because the two founders must implement the ab share model if they are killed.

Song Weiyang kept smiling the whole time, and cheerfully said yes, now we will sign the option contract. According to the relevant laws of the United States, I will sell Google to you half a year after IPO, no matter what the market price is, and I will sell you $300 per share.

The negotiator of Sequoia Capital stopped talking for a moment, and the ghost knows how much Google's stock will rise in a year. Google's current valuation is only more than 2 billion US dollars. Even if the IPO is about to be listed, the price of 300 US dollars per share is purely crazy about money.

This is not four years ago, the Internet bubble has been squeezed out long ago!

The negotiation broke down, Song Weiyang didn't bother to waste time, and directly asked the negotiators to attend the meeting in the next few months.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin specially chose a Chinese restaurant for dinner in order to welcome Song Weiyang. After ordering, Larry asked with a smile, "Song, are you particularly angry now?"

"How come? I regard those guys as clowns, will you be angry because of the clown's performance on stage?" Song Weiyang said with a smile, "I just feel funny."

Sergey said, "Sequoia Capital not only wants to buy your stock, but also our stock. If we don't sell it, they don't agree with the ab stock model. These capitalists want to get control of Google. "

It is true that there have been companies listed in the AB stock model in the United States for a long time, but they have disappeared for many years. Larry and Sergey are challenging the authority of capitalists.

Song Weiyang shrugged, "I am also a capitalist. If they can afford the money, I would be happy to sell them the shares, but unfortunately they are too stingy."

Sergey laughed and said, "That's because your bid is too outrageous. If Google's stock price can reach $300 after six months of listing, do you know what that means? It means that the entire Nasdaq will be popularized by Google!" "

Larry said rather worriedly, "The Nasdaq index rose too fast last year, and it continued to fall after New Year's Day this year. The entire Internet stock market is in a recession. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have insufficient confidence in Google. The green shoe options they gave The list price is only $80, and I'm now looking to change underwriters."

Sergey said, "This is the usual pattern on Wall Street. The investment bank as an underwriter joins forces with the original shareholders to severely underestimate the value of the company to be listed, and even deliberately releases negative information to lower the company's issue price. The original shareholders take advantage of the A large number of IPO holdings were increased, and insurers also bought at low prices crazily. They could get a profit of more than 50% on the first day of opening, and even a profit of 200% when the Internet bubble was severe. They made a lot of money, but the company and its founders suffered huge losses. .”

This is the reason why Sequoia Capital does not allow Song Weiyang to increase its holdings during the IPO stage. To Wall Street, Song Weiyang is always an outsider, and he is not entitled to a piece of the pie at a critical time-the company's IPO listing, of course, hopes to raise more money The better, but it will dilute the stock a lot, and the existing shareholders may not be able to maximize the benefits.

The United States is an inclusive society, but also extremely closed, unless you can bring greater benefits to them.

Song Weiyang asked, "In your mind, what should Google's issue price be?"

"Over $120," Larry said.

The three of them were chatting about business, when the waiter of the Chinese restaurant brought the tableware, he looked dumbfounded at those plastic chopsticks—let's call them chopsticks.

One end of the chopsticks is a dinner fork, which can be used directly by Yankees. The other end looks like chopsticks. Americans who don't know how to use chopsticks can also use this thing as tweezers. Of course, you can also choose to break it off, then it is the American version of disposable plastic chopsticks.

Seeing Shen Si fiddling with chopsticks, Larry took the initiative to introduce, "Miss Shen, the Li Hongzhang chop suey in this Chinese restaurant is very delicious!"

"Li Hongzhang... miscellaneous?" Shen Si was quite surprised, thinking that Li Zhongtang was miserable enough to be cursed by Yankees every day after his death for more than a hundred years.

Larry smiled and said, "Yes, Li Hongzhang's offal is the signature dish here, and General Tso's chicken is also very delicious."

Well, a pair of political enemies in the late Qing Dynasty are still fighting non-stop in the United States.

With great anticipation, Shen Si finally saw these two famous dishes. In her opinion, one is stewed and the other is glutinous rice. "Zuo Zongtang Gu? K Meat" is sour and sweet, and it should be delicious, but unfortunately it is too sweet, and it tastes instant.

Therefore, "Li Hongzhang's offal" became the main target, and Song Weiyang and Shen Si devoured most of it.

Sergey, however, ate the meat with gusto with relish, and said, "We still want to strive for the ab stock model as much as possible. If it doesn't work, we have to give up. Anyway, we can hold a controlling stake in the short term. If there is a hostile takeover in the future, we will start the 'poison Project Pill, it's not going to let anyone else control Google anyway."

"The Poison Pill plan is too passive. Killing one thousand enemies will cost you eight hundred." Song Weiyang said.

Let's not give a professional explanation of the so-called "poison pill plan". Let's use a more vivid analogy. A tiger wants to eat me, and I swallow poison in front of the tiger, then I become a poisonous person. As long as the tiger eats me, I can kill it without poisoning it. So the tiger had only two choices, either to give up the plan to eat me, or to risk his life to eat me.

Don't try to kill me, the worst is to die together!

Historically, Shanda once wanted to acquire Sina, and it has been put into practice. Sina managed to escape through the poison pill plan, but it was also severely damaged in the short term.

Larry asked, "Song, do you have any good suggestions? How to force other shareholders to agree to the ab share plan?"

"It doesn't matter what they are." Song Weiyang said with a smile.

Sergey said, "But they teamed up with the underwriters to lower the price too seriously, especially Sequoia Capital, which is simply the biggest obstacle to Google's listing."

There are specific reasons for the two founders' vigilance and hatred of Sequoia Capital. Sequoia Capital has a large investment in Yahoo and wants to turn Google into Yahoo's flank protector, and even handed over Yahoo's search business to Google, which made Google involved in a very troublesome patent lawsuit two years ago. At the same time, Sequoia Capital also forced Google to replace the CEO, trying to control Google through administrative means.

Song Weiyang smiled and said, "Find a few more underwriters and replace the current underwriting agency. There are so many investment banks in the United States, and they are not monolithic."

"I have this plan too." Ali smirked.

Historically, while Ali and Sergey were disgusted by investment banks, they also disgusted those investment banks.

Because Google's performance is so good that it stands out among unlisted Internet companies, and investment banks urgently need such companies to stimulate the stock market. So Google never signed the underwriting contract. First, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley announced their cooperation, and then flirted with Credit Suisse, and were still seducing other investment banks to enter the game.

In order to obtain Google's listing business, those investment banks first teamed up to put pressure on Google, and soon they fought on their own. Under normal circumstances, the underwriter has to charge a financing commission of 7, which was abruptly lowered to 3 by Google. When it came to the second round of IPO financing, Merrill Lynch directly announced its withdrawal because the commission paid by Google was already so low that they had no money to make.

Song Weiyang happily said, "Why don't we just auction it off and list it on the market."

Ali and Sergey looked at each other, and suddenly burst into laughter. Ali even slapped the table and said, "This is a genius idea, let the capitalists on Wall Street eat shit!"

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