Chapter 256 Series B Financing

According to Bernie Ecclestone, he has negotiated a price of 350 million pounds for his 50% stake in SLEC held by Germany's Bayerische Bank.

It can be said that this price cannot be lower, because the price of 350 million pounds, although currently, other bidders have not bid higher than this price, but the problem is that this is only the first round It's just a bid. Those people's reserve price will definitely be much higher than this price. According to estimates, according to the normal market price, the price of 50% of SLEC's shares will definitely be higher than 400 million pounds.

You must know that the remaining two SLEC company share holders, the two American banks, will never be willing to sell their shares at such a low price, and they have also been contacting the Bavarian Bank, hoping to obtain from Bernie In their hands, they will take back the commercial operation rights of the F1 event and let them operate it themselves.

This is why Bernie must find partners to carry out sneak attacks. After all, he cannot be willing to hand over the event he has developed by himself to others, let alone the benefits that mastering the operation of the F1 event can bring to him.

Of course, just like in the original time and space, the reason why Bernie was able to take over the shares of SLEC from the Bavarian Bank was because he bought the person in charge of handling the shares of SLEC at the Bavarian Bank, Gribkovsky.

To buy out the shares in Bayerische Bank, they also need to give each other certain benefits privately - Bernie gave Barron an offer, which was US$35 million.

This offer is actually smaller than the amount in the original time and space when Bernie was sued by the German court.

Of course, this is understandable, after all, time has just crossed 2004, and in the original time and space, Bernie started this plan much later, between 2004 and 2005.

At that time, there were more bidders. If you wanted to conduct such a private transaction, it was understandable that the other party would take greater risks and ask for a higher price.

Even if these additional funds are required, it is very suitable for Barron. After all, adding this money is far lower than the actual value of these shares.

Bernie is willing to sell 25% of his shares to Barron's, but his asking price is as high as 200 million pounds, and he also has to ensure that he continues to be in charge of the company. In comparison, Barron's has spent a total of 370 million pounds. It is very appropriate to acquire 50% of SLEC's shares at a reasonable price.

Therefore, the plan continues to be implemented. Pioneer Sports Company, controlled by Rich23 Capital, will acquire 75% of SLEC's shares for a total of 570 million pounds, becoming the absolute controlling shareholder of this company.

After this, the two banks, Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan Chase, felt a little uncomfortable because they only had 25% of the shares in SLEC left. Not only were they unable to control the company, but they continued to hold on to it. If they have shares, they will have to watch Bernie, whom they originally wanted to drive away, continue to run SLEC, which will definitely give them a lot of "sweeteners" in the future.

Moreover, the shares of SLEC were obtained through their bonds after the bankruptcy of the German Kirsch Group. It seems that it would be best for them to sell the shares of this company to Pioneer Sports and cash out and leave. The choice was made.

…

The time came to 2004. Shortly after New Year's Day, Woaw Technology announced that they had completed Series B financing.

In this round of financing, Blackstone Fund will invest US$100 million and hold 8.33% of the shares of Woaw Technology; Sequoia Capital will invest US$50 million, and together with its previous shares, it currently holds a total of 13.17% of the shares of Woaw Technology. .

DS Capital still holds 78.5% of its shares and firmly controls Woaw Technology.

This shows that Woaw Technology’s pre-money valuation for this financing has reached US$1.05 billion, making it an emerging network technology company.

It was also because the competition for previous financing was fierce, so in the end Blackstone Fund and Sequoia Capital obtained the qualification for financing by giving it a higher valuation.

Investment companies such as Goldman Sachs, which are relatively conservative in Internet technology, missed out.

After receiving the US$150 million in funding, Woaw Technology will continue to expand the scale of its two companies in London and Silicon Valley, and will next build two data centers in continental Europe and Lijiapo in Asia to provide users around the world. better service.

And their R\u0026D center in Silicon Valley will continue to increase investment and conduct more research and development in algorithms and streaming media.

It is worth mentioning that before this financing was completed, Yahoo had approached Woaw Technology and hoped to acquire the company for US$1 billion.

This reminded Barron of his previous life, when he initially purchased Facebook for US$1 billion in 2006, and Zack already agreed. When signing the contract, Yahoo lowered the price to US$850 million. He thought he had been insulted and refused angrily.

Barron is not Xiao Zha. He naturally knows the potential of social networks in the future, so he did not hesitate to let Woaw Technology reject Yahoo's offer.

From now on, Yahoo will begin to decline, and Google will gradually erode its share in search and online advertising, and eventually rise.

Speaking of Google, since December last year, there have been constant reports in the media in the technology sector that Google, an upstart Internet company, may be about to undergo an IPO.

In response, Google did not make any response.

But Barron knows that in August this year, Google will go public, which will also be a major event this year. By then, the company's market value will exceed US$23 billion.

DS Capital currently holds 20 million shares of Google, accounting for about 7.7% of its total share capital. Barron tried his best to poach this from two companies, Yahoo and America Online.

Google will no longer raise funds before going public, so even if Barron wants to get more of its shares, there is nothing he can do...

Unless he is willing to let Google acquire Woaw Technology in exchange for shares, this can increase his Google shares.

But this is absolutely impossible. Rather than holding more shares in Google, Barron hopes to have an Internet public opinion platform under his control, which is more important to him.

In addition to Google, Penguin will also be listed this year. They will start the listing process earlier than Google in April this year, and will be officially listed on the HK exchange in June.

As the largest shareholder of Penguin Company, Boss Pony also communicated with Barron about these matters.

In terms of choosing HK to list, it also received support from Barron's.

Although it is said that AB shares cannot be used when listed in Hong Kong, Barron has entrusted all the voting rights of the shares he holds to the pony boss, which also relieves him of too many worries in this regard.

After all, the shares they hold, plus those held by DS Capital, can fully guarantee Boss Pony's control over the company even after the listing.

"Glad you could come today, Barron."

For some reason, Barron always feels that when Colin Hall smiles, although he looks kind, his face feels elongated...

By the way, his face seems to be slightly longer than ordinary people...

"Mr. Hall, I wonder why you made an appointment with me today?"