Chapter 351 Financing Completed

In early January, the EUR/USD exchange rate had dropped below 1.35...

Previously, in early September, DS Capital received more than $600 million in funds from the Mars fund. After adding more funds, it went long EUR/USD at an average price of less than 1.20.

Since then, the total amount of funds invested by DS Capital in long EURUSD has reached US$1 billion!

At the end of last year, after the EUR/USD exchange rate exceeded 1.36, they successively closed these long futures positions.

In the end, the US$1 billion in funding turned into US$2.5 billion.

Of the US$2.5 billion in funds, US$1.5 billion was transferred through layers of transfers, of which US$1 billion went to IC Capital, a company managed by Ivanta, for the acquisition of DoubleClick; the other US$500 million was Entered Zeuss Investment Company, and together with Goldman Sachs Group, increased the total assets of this investment company to US$2.5 billion!

The remaining US$1 billion began to short the euro at a price above 1.36.

Because in 2005 this year, the EUE/USD exchange rate will fall from a high of 1.36 until November to a low of 1.16, a drop of nearly 15%!

…

Even after arriving in the United States, Bonnie was not idle while Barron was at work.

She summoned the filming team of "The Shining Life" from London to the United States, and also took advantage of this time to go to Sacramento, California...

What is different from what many people think is that the capitals of many states in the United States are not large cities with relatively developed states or relatively well-known cities.

Just like California, the capital is not Los Angeles or San Francisco, but Sacramento, a city that is not well-known.

The guest invited by "The Shining Life" this time is California Governor Schwarzenegger, who has just been in office for one year.

Because he was once a well-known Hollywood movie star and can be said to be the representative of Hollywood's "tough guy", Schwarzenegger's popularity in the UK is also extremely high.

Now that he has entered politics, he has become the governor of California. Different from the "rich" status of Barron and Prince Walid before, Schwarzenegger's current daily life must be what the audience wants to know.

Of course, being able to invite Schwarzenegger as a guest star in "The Shining Life", in addition to the other party's own publicity needs, is more based on Barron's friendship - after all, "The Shining Life" is still only in It is played in the UK and has not yet been introduced to the United States.

But it is only a matter of time. The Sinclair Group is also very interested in the program "The Shining Life" and is negotiating with Summit Media to introduce it. If everything goes well, I am afraid that this program will appear on American TV within this year. The show is on.

Barron also came to California, but he went to Silicon Valley.

In the end, between Microsoft and Google, Barron chose Google.

In Woaw Technology’s Series C financing, Google will invest US$353 million and hold 10% of Woaw Technology’s shares; Goldman Sachs Group will invest US$176.5 million and hold 5% of Woaw Technology’s shares.

In the end, after coordination, in order to obtain as many share quotas as possible, Google's Sequoia Capital and Blackstone Funds no longer participated in Woaw Technology's Series C financing.

In this way, Woaw Technology completed this Series C financing with a pre-money valuation of US$3 billion, a post-money valuation of approximately US$3.53 billion, and financing of US$530 million.

After the C round of financing, the original shareholders, Blackstone Fund's shareholding ratio was diluted to less than 7.1%; Sequoia Capital's shareholding ratio was diluted to less than 11.2%; DS Capital's shareholding ratio was reduced to 66.725%, still Controls the majority of shares in Woaw Technology.

After receiving up to US$530 million in financing, Woaw Technology will not only increase investment in hardware and R\u0026D centers, but will also begin to try to acquire some complementary start-up companies to strengthen itself.

"Your Highness the Duke, the amount of investment we have received is still a little small..."

At the celebration banquet after the successful financing, Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs Group, walked up to Barron with a wine glass and said to him.

"There is nothing we can do about this, Mr. Blankfein. After all, we still need Google to guide us through the search portal."

Barron said to Lloyd with a rather regretful expression.

What he said is true, which is why he finally chose Google to join Woaw Technology’s Series C financing, even though he knew that in the past life and later, Google launched Google+ and competed fiercely with Facebook.

However, in order to prevent Google's Google+ from also posing a threat to Woaw in the future, for Google's financing this time, at Barron's insistence, both parties were also required to sign an additional agreement, that is, if Google's future business is similar to Woaw's If technology forms a competitive relationship, then Google will either spin off relevant businesses from its parent company, or it will need to withdraw from the ranks of shareholders of Woaw Technology, and Woaw Technology will repurchase its shares.

"I can understand this, but I think based on the current development of Woaw, I am afraid that it will be ready for an IPO in the near future. By then... our Goldman Sachs Group will be very powerful in terms of listing."

The implication of Lloyd Blankfein's words could not be more obvious. He is interested in the brokerage business of Woaw Technology's future listing.

"This will definitely prioritize you..."

Now, Barron will definitely not make a promise in advance. At most, he will just give the other party this sentence.

"So, do you have any plans for the listing of Woaw? Your Highness the Duke..."

Hearing Lloyd mention this, Barron just smiled lightly:

"We will definitely advance it at the right time, but it's too early to say now. After all, Woaw Technology still has a long way to go before the financial scale of Google's listing last year..."

Although technology companies like Woaw Technology do not necessarily have to generate profits when conducting IPOs, it is certainly more beneficial to the overall valuation if they can make profits.

So for Woaw, in terms of advertising revenue, it still needs to continue to be strengthened.

Barron continued to Lloyd:

"But it won't be too far away. I personally hope that Woaw technology can be launched within two to three years..."

What he said was indeed his true thought.

Because three years later, the subprime mortgage crisis will break out in 2008, and the impact on the global economy will be far-reaching.

If Woaw Technology waited until after the subprime mortgage crisis to go public, then I am afraid that even two years after the crisis, it is still in the recovery period, and the effect of going public will definitely not be much better.

Therefore, the best result is to be listed within two years, before the subprime mortgage crisis. By then, affected by the extremely expansionary economic situation, Woaw's market value performance will also be satisfactory.

Just like Facebook in the original time and space, in the financing before the subprime mortgage crisis, its market value was as high as 15 billion U.S. dollars. However, after the subprime mortgage crisis broke out, it encountered a "taken advantage of" such as DST Capital. A valuation of US$10 billion is considered to be far overvalued...