Hong Kong's new giants

Chapter 652 [Birth of a Big Bubble]

On November 11, Liu Songcheng, president of Netflix Software, announced that sina.com, an Internet site with the slogan "bring China to the world and the world to China," will be listed in Hong Kong on December 23.

Sina.com, listed in Hong Kong, plans to raise HK$8.2 million (25% equity) for technology development, marketing, business expansion, e-commerce, strategic investment, operating capital, etc.

Sina.com has issued more than 3 prospectuses and more than 50 subscription forms. If the subscription forms are sold out, they will reprint them.

For a time, it attracted widespread attention from the Chinese community and even the global information industry, and the market responded even more enthusiastically.

"Heung Kong's first Internet-themed stock, plus the Internet owned by Mr. Lin Zuhui, this is a proper new stock with a 'tenfold increase'. It is simply a profit if you buy it."

"That's right! Mr. Lin is a technology tycoon second only to Bill Gates (ranked in the United States this year). His ICQ software is said to have rejected Microsoft's offer of 30 billion US dollars. This Sina.com is also worth the price!"

"Brother, do you know what Sina.com does?"

"I don't know! I want to know what it does and what it does. I just need to know that it is a company owned by Mr. Lin Zuhui!"

"Elder brother is talking about it!"

For a while, relying on the hotness of American technology Internet stocks and Lin Zuhui's brand name, Sina.com became the "Tang Monk Meat" in the hearts of Xiangjiang citizens, and they all inquired there to send subscription forms.

The day.

Sina.com held a press conference. President Du Huide introduced the situation of Sina.com and answered questions from reporters.

Sina.com has been in operation for almost a year. It is the only super portal website across the Greater China region. It provides information on "knowing Chinese affairs" for the overseas world, and provides "Chinese fashion life" for global Chinese in the Greater China region and overseas Chinese-speaking communities. ” and e-commerce services.

The content includes tourism, culture, science, academics, art, fashion, games, news, sports, entertainment and other items.In addition, the company will operate three main portals offering content and services under the name sina.com.These portals will be localized and featured in key Chinese communities around the world, including Chinese Taipei, Singapore, BJ, Shanghai, Sydney, San Francisco and Vancouver.

"May I ask President Du Huide, how does Sina plan to make money in the future?"

"In the future, the company's main profits will be advertising revenue, expected product and service transaction and subscription revenue, commission revenue and content supply revenue."

"May I ask President Du Huide, what exactly is the business expansion of Sina.com?"

"Acquisition of advertising companies in the Greater China region, entry into the field of game development, and publishing."

"Game development? Doesn't it overlap with brother company Ninth City's business? Moreover, how does the little Xiangjiang absorb a large amount of game industry?"

"You have said that it is a small Hong Kong. According to the truth, even a game company cannot survive. How did The Ninth City achieve sales of tens of millions of sets? Naturally, it is exported overseas! The game industry is "culture revitalizes Hong Kong." ', has been included in the government-supported industry, so let's wait and see!"

The Ninth City has proved with facts that the game industry is a global field, and good products naturally have no worries about the market, which is recognized by Xiangjiang.

At this time, the Ninth City has assumed the role of the agent publisher of Xiangjiang Games. Even the products of other studios can still enter overseas through the distribution channels of the Ninth City. Dozens of countries have established distribution channels.

In fact, in Lin Zuhui's plan, Sina.com will never repeat the mistakes of TOM.com in the previous life, and become a website that is "smart and sidelined".

Therefore, Lin Zuhui did not expect the portal website to become the only business of Sina.com, but had other plans.

For example: game development.Although the businesses of the ninth city industry and the game department of ATV Group overlap, Lin Zuhui has already distinguished them; among them, the ninth city specializes in the development of games played by Lin Zuhui in his previous life (mainly developed by South Korea); while the other two companies The game department of the company relies on the development strength of Xiangjiang's overall games to independently develop games.

This is like a circle of conscience. Lin Zuhui has already laid the foundation of talent and environment for the Xiangjiang game industry. Even without him intervening in the establishment of game projects, I believe that the strength is very competitive; of course, if Lin Zuhui projects some classic games, it will be even more exciting. The whole environment has benefited a lot.

With only one game development, Sina.com can have great prospects. After all, three of the top ten richest people in Korea in the previous life were the owners of game companies. Among the four major portal websites in the mainland, NetEase far surpasses Sohu and Sina relies on games.

The reason why the development of online games is so profitable is because online games are represented abroad and in the mainland, and developers make profits based on commission, not just an agency fee.This commission is not only stable for a long time, but also generally as high as 25%, which is very profitable.

In addition to the game business, Lin Zuhui also formulated a series of Internet businesses such as "cloud computing" and "video network" for Sina.com in the future.

In short, Sina.com is Lin Zuhui's Internet signboard.

As for ICQ, although it is very promising, it is still aimed at selling at a high price.

From the next day, sina.com started distributing application forms for subscription of new shares. A large number of citizens queued up for two consecutive days, and 50 application forms were sold out.

Some securities firms have described that retail investors are entering the market almost insanely, and some large retail securities firms have even suspended the registration of new customers because they cannot cope with the sudden increase in new registered customers.

People in the securities industry pointed out that sina.com's IPO activity was so crazy. Apart from the fact that it was a technology stock, the major shareholder had a prominent background and the number of shares offered for public sale was limited, which naturally caused a sensation.

It is not surprising that the oversubscription multiple is estimated to be thousands of times.

In this IPO, sina.com sold a total of 4.28 million new shares, but only 10% were subscribed by retail investors (15% were institutional).

On the second day after the distribution of application forms, the underwriter Peregrine (which has been privatized by Barings Bank) printed another 50 copies after sending out 50 the previous day.

Outside the branches of Octopus Bank, which is responsible for distributing the application forms, long lines of people formed early on.Outside a branch, there was a queue at 3 a.m., and there were more than 400 people before the official opening.

Since the branch once declared that it would not distribute new forms, which caused dissatisfaction among shareholders, the branch decided to distribute forms again and asked the police to maintain order.

At the head office of Octopus Bank in Central, there was an unprecedented crowd of people waiting to pick up watches. They took a few "snake cakes" in the basement of the head office, turned into Queen's Road Central, and then turned back to Des Voeux Road Central via Bank Street. There were as many as 5000 people at one time. people.Among the watch-leaders are the elderly, Filipino maids, women with babies, and many messengers assigned by the company to pick up the watches.

Many citizens who returned empty-handed asked whether there was still an application form, and the bank staff hurriedly reassured them, saying that the relevant institutions were in the process of printing them.

As of Saturday, there was another frenzy of subscription for sina.com stock. About 30 Hong Kong citizens braved the rain and flocked to 10 designated Octopus Bank branches to deliver subscription forms.

Due to the large number of people at the scene, the police were dispatched urgently to maintain order. This is an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of Hong Kong stocks.During the period, some accidents naturally broke out, causing traffic jams, and some people were even admitted to the hospital because of fights.Therefore, the SFC also issued a warning to the sponsor Peregrine and the beneficiary bank Octopus Bank.

People in the Hong Kong securities industry are delighted to believe that this subscription frenzy can bring prosperity to the Growth Enterprise Market, whose enthusiasm has cooled, and attract other Hong Kong consortiums to spin off their technology businesses and list on the Growth Enterprise Market.

The headquarters of Sina.com is in Xiangjiang, and the regional headquarters are in Beijing and Taipei.

On this day, Lin Zuhui participated in a high-level meeting of Sina.com, including Wang Leilei, general manager of Huaxia District Operations, and Sun Gaoyin, general manager of Taiwan Island Operations, all came to Xiangjiang for a meeting.

Seeing Lin Zuhui walk into the meeting room, everyone's first reaction was to stand up and say respectfully, "Hello, boss."

This is also due to the lack of contact with Lin Zuhui. In the group meeting, Lin Zuhui did not allow everyone to stand up, which seemed unnecessary.

"Sit, sit, be less polite!"

Having said that, everyone waited for Lin Zuhui to sit down before sitting down one after another.

Lin Zuhui looked at the group of high-level executives. There was also a high-level executive from the mainland who was born in the third generation. TOM.com will always operate the portal in the mainland. is a good choice.

This is not about caring, but that others are relying on their real skills; if it is about caring, Lin Zuhui naturally took care of the descendants of big families who came to Hong Kong to do business, but it was just a matter of saying something.

"President Du, come to the meeting, let me listen first!"

Du Huide nodded quickly, then organized the language, and formally held a meeting in front of the big boss.

"Sina.com raised 8.2 million yuan in its listing, which was actually used to expand its business. After all, we have invested hundreds of millions of funds in the early stage to lay a solid foundation in the technology field, and Sina.com has also been in operation for nearly a year. The portal website with the highest traffic in China, even in the mainland, is NO.1."

"However, we are short of profits and need to turn losses into profits! Therefore, the first step of Sina.com's listing is to acquire print advertising companies in various provinces in the Mainland. The time to dominate outdoor advertising in the Mainland must be completed within one year. The acquisition method It is cash and stock that acquires and integrates these fragmented print advertising companies to form a cash cow."

This is a strategy formulated in the early days. Lin Zuhui knows that as overseas companies enter China to develop their business, outdoor advertising in the mainland will enter a booming morale, and there will be at least a decade of bonus period.

Of course, what Internet companies pay attention to is beautiful financial reports, which also requires such a development path.

The initial development model of Sina.com was indeed similar to TOM in the previous life, but it was actually very different. At least the layout of Sina.com was similar to that of the mainland portal, and it was the layout model of the later period of the previous life.

Lin Zuhui said: "Okay, this plan must be fast and accurate, and more consideration should be given to stocks and a small amount of cash when purchasing!"

"Yes, boss!"

In the previous life, TOM once had a market value of 300 billion U.S. dollars. This is the reason for this investment. You must know that the market value of Clear Channel, the world's largest outdoor advertising company, has already exceeded 500 billion U.S. dollars.

The reason why Lin Zuhui said to think more about stocks is that after all, Sina.com did not have any accidents, and it will soon open for more than 300 billion Hong Kong dollars; and next year will be the year of the Internet boom, and it will not be a problem for the market value to exceed 1000 billion.

And after 2000, the market value will definitely plummet again, why not use stocks!
It was originally a bubble!
Then, Du Huide said: "The next step is to expand the business of Taiwan Island. We have already investigated and plan to acquire the four major printing and publishing groups in Taiwan Island, including PChome Publishing Group and Chengbang Cultural Enterprise Co., Ltd."

Lin Zuhui added: "It's just a merger and acquisition of magazines, don't get involved in the newspaper industry, remember!"

"Yes, boss!"

Not to mention, it wasn't that Lin Zuhui couldn't enter Taiwan's newspaper industry, but that he didn't want to.

This year, the boss of a large Taiwan newspaper group offered to invite Lin Zuhui to become a shareholder, but he declined the invitation.

At the same time, recently Hu Xian also wanted to sell the equity of Sing Tao Press to him (retaining the management right), but he also declined; To Xiangjiang Tourism Bureau.

The reason why Hu Xian is so miserable is because he lost more than one billion in real estate speculation, and now owes the He family of the tobacco company hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars.And the He family wanted to buy Sing Tao Daily and hand it over to their son to run it as a business inheritance.

Analyzing from the economic level and policies and regulations, the competition in the Hong Kong market is very fierce among the newspaper industries in various parts of the country. It is not easy to break into the Hong Kong newspaper industry. The operating conditions of the newspaper industry seem to have entered into an adjustment environment.

Then, Lin Zuhui asked: "Manager Wang, what about you, do you have any suggestions?"

Wang Leilei was shocked immediately. When Lin Zuhui looked at him, he felt that this was a kind of pressure that only he had contacted with high-level officials before.

"That's right. I think Sina.com can increase its development efforts in wireless value-added services."

After listening, Lin Zuhui said: "Yes! But as the general manager of the mainland business, you can't be biased, and you have to offer advice and suggestions for the overall development of Sina. Moreover, you have to communicate and learn with the headquarters. You know, the business of Sina.com will become better and better. It's getting bigger and bigger."

Wang Leilei said quickly: "Okay, boss!"

Du Huide is a Taiwanese American, and he is the president of Sina.com, which Jingwei Capital is looking for, so Lin Zuhui is very relieved that he takes care of the overall situation.

The Sina.com of this life is by no means the Tom.com of the previous life.

Some of the businesses just mentioned are just preliminary development, which only drives up the stock price.

Of course, the basic business is still a portal website. News, entertainment, sports, tourism, culture, science, academics, art, fashion, games and other information are what netizens are willing to see.

The games here are just game information, reviews, and strategies, not real games, and foreign capital is not allowed to operate games in the mainland; therefore, games developed by Sina in the future can only be released through agents in the mainland.

Fortunately, Jinshan Software's game department - Jinshan Games, is the layout of Lin Zuhui.

Although Jinruan Software is not currently listed in Xiangjiang, its development is better than that of the previous life. It has thousands of technicians, which can be said to be strong.

After a meeting, the development plan for Sina.com for the next year was determined.

Lin Zuhui is somewhat looking forward to how much Sina.com's market value will break through before the bubble crisis.

You should know that Sina.com is just a subsidiary company of Wanhui Media and a subsidiary of Netflix; and Netflix not only has Sina.com, but also ICQ and Stone Intelligence. Netflix’s own business also includes "software outsourcing". , Proxy website (Yahoo and other American Internet).

If things go on like this, to what extent will Wanhui Media gain market value?

And to what extent will Lin Zuhui's wealth grow before the Internet bubble crisis?
I'm afraid he has more than 30% of the market value of Xiangjiang stock market, right?
If Hong Kong Telecom is acquired, wouldn't he hold 35% of the market value of Hong Kong?

Too high profile!

Of course, it is still not as rich as Bill Gates, because Bill Gates' wealth next year will exceed 1000 billion US dollars.

But if after the Internet bubble, Lin Zuhui believes that he will have no problem returning to the richest man in the world.

Don't forget, his New Times Group is Industrial!

(End of this chapter)