Vol 4 Chapter 357: Another great thing that came here

Goldman Sachs' investment in Ali, judging from the results, it is really a heartbreaking story.

When Ali was mentioned later, everyone thought of it for the first time, except for the richest man in the horse, who was innocent and ancient-looking, and that was another famous short, Korean-Japanese, Sun Zhengyi.

Everyone knows that in January 2000, he spent 6 minutes to finalize the US$20 million investment in Ali. What you don’t know is that he led the investment in Ali several rounds afterwards, and persisted until the end, and obtained the contract. Buffett is an investment achievement that pales in comparison.

In fact, Goldman Sachs could have done better.

This one of the five well-known investment banks on Wall Street is the first venture capitalist to favor the richest man in Ma and Alibaba.

A lot of success seems to be accidental, but in fact it is inevitable, but sometimes, it seems inevitable, and think about it and feel quite accidental.

In March 1999, it should be said that he was the richest man in Ma who failed to start his own business several times. He led or encouraged him. In fact, it can also be said that he once again fooled the well-known "Eighteen Arhats". Most of them were his students. Alibaba.

It should be said that his accidental choice happened to happen at a good time.

This year’s Chinese Internet companies,

It can be said to be extremely hot, attracting many international venture capital institutions including Tigerund to throw money at will.

Among them, Sina received an investment of US$16 million from Walden International, and Sohu also received US$6 million and more than US$30 million in financing.

International venture capital's optimistic view of the domestic Internet naturally also led domestic related institutions to be optimistic about this field. At least at that time, our Internet companies generally adopted follow-up strategies. Domestic venture capital was not strong. Follow the pace of international giants.

Although he hadn't made a lot of fame on the Yellow Pages project before, the richest man in Ma at that time was at least one of the well-known figures in the domestic Internet field, and was as much known as the three major portals and the founders of Baidu, Tencent, and 3721. Well known.

So in fact, at the beginning of the establishment of the group, many investors threw an olive branch to the richest man in Ma, but he was cautious and was not immediately swept away by this investment fever, and rejected as many as 38 mainland investors in a row. His goal is bigger and his vision is farther.

The richest man in Malaysia hopes that Alibaba's first venture investment will not only bring money, but also more non-financial elements, such as further venture capital and other overseas resources.

Later, he did what he wanted.

The first time Alibaba and Goldman Sachs joined forces can be said to be very accidental, or it can be said to be very inevitable.

One of his founding team was born as a venture capital manager, and that was Cai Chongxin.

Before joining Ali, he worked as a vice president in Rab, Sweden, and was closely related to the venture capital circle.

He soon brought good news to the richest man in Ma. The Hong Kong investment manager of Goldman Sachs, who had been with him, revealed to him that Goldman Sachs also intends to enter the Chinese Internet market.

Under his efforts, after conducting a field visit, in October of the same year, Goldman Sachs, together with Fidelity Investments, Singapore Government Technology Development Fund, i-woman estab, etc., injected US$5 million in Alibaba, and obtained equity, and Yahoo's investment in 2005. The equity acquired by billions of dollars is a consistent 40%.

Compared with the performance of Ali later, this investment is not worth mentioning, but it is very critical. It injected new blood into this new startup with only 500,000 yuan in founding capital.

Among them, Goldman Sachs invested $3.3 million and was the largest shareholder besides the founding team at that time.

However, until now, many senior executives and partners of Goldman Sachs are less and less optimistic about the prospects of this investment.

The main reason for this is Taobao, which was founded by Ali this year.

Prior to this, the Alibaba platform allowed many domestic companies to directly deal with international buyers. In fact, it developed quite well although it was still not profitable.

However, the establishment of Taobao has attracted the fear of eBay, an e-commerce giant that has acquired eBay in China.

eBay is a company with a market value of several tens of billions of dollars. They know that the best time to defeat an opponent is not to give him a chance to grow and grow. When he is freshman, he will hit ko.

Therefore, they formulated a very specific strategy this year: a small investment of 100 million US dollars to contain Taobao in all aspects.

The president of eBay more than once confidently asserted, "It can only survive at most 18 months."

Supporting his thesis is that they throw money everywhere.

This can be seen from the propaganda.

They first signed a strict exclusive advertising agreement with the most well-known domestic portals: they can only accept our advertisements.

Resolutely not accept Taobao.

Forced to be helpless, Taobao can only spend money on some small websites to make pop-up advertisements with a rogue nature.

But soon even this road will not work.

Taobao just reached an agreement with a website, and eBay immediately rushed over with a checkbook, "How much does your website's advertising revenue? I'm all inclusive!"

After being forced to do so, Taobao could only be pitiful and helpless, advertising on subways, buses and billboards in a very traditional way.

So we were impressed by Taobao's very down-to-earth publicity at the time. Hehe, in fact, it was really forced to choose.

How can such a traditional way compare with eBay?

Especially, at present, this is actually a competition about burning money. How does Taobao compare to eBay?

Especially, this happens when they have invested in Ali for more than four years, but still have no profit.

It has been ineffective for many years, and now it has provoked such a powerful opponent. Now, based on the current situation, in Goldman Sachs, the previous supporters who promoted "our investment in China are based on the long-term" comment on Ali. It's also a bit similar to "no/zuo/no/die" meaning, and it also kicked off.

So when the market resumed at the end of this year, no one opposed this proposal.

Paulson looked at the head of the Asian region who asked the question from the top of the glasses, "When will our investment period expire? Do they have a clear listing plan?"

Under normal circumstances, each venture capital will set up a period for each investment in advance, usually 3 years, the longest will not exceed 5 years.

"Our investment will expire at the end of next year. As for the listing," the person in charge shook his head. "We still don't see hope yet."

He understood what the big boss meant.

The return on investment of venture capital is generally derived from the transfer of the shares held by the company in which the invested company is listed. In the years of investment, whether dividends can be distributed is not the key, the key is whether you can be listed. .

However, what we all know, as well-known as the ability of the richest man in Ma, is his big mouth.

"How did they plan to go public?" Paulson asked, after all, there is still nearly a year before it expires. If the front foot here withdraws, the back foot will be listed there? Isn't that a very faceless and ridiculous thing?

"We and several other investors have discussed this issue with Mr. Ma many times. His opinion is that at least until his company can create 1 million yuan in profits and taxes every day, it is the right time to go public. "

"RMB?"

"Correct,"

Paulson made a rough calculation, that is, it is not too difficult to go public when the tax is 365 million yuan, which is about 45 million US dollars.

"What is their average daily revenue this year?"

"It is far less than 1 million per day~www.wuxiaspot.com~ It is estimated that next year, it can achieve 1 million revenue per day,"

Paulson immediately shook his head. Until next year, the daily revenue will reach 1 million, but you told me that you have to wait until the 1 million profit tax is paid every day before listing. Now you are acting to provoke a giant like eBay. We can wait until there. One day?

"Sell," he said immediately and simply, turning that page, "Next item,"

"Okay, we will look for potential buyers right away," the person in charge of the Asian region continued to report. This is not a sad thing. The initial investment can at least be several times the return if it is sold now. "We invested SMIC, if not unexpected, will be listed on both NYSE and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the first quarter of next year."

This is good news, but Paulson didn’t mean to be too happy, frowning, “Wait, the buyer of the last investment,” he thought for a while, “We are the consultants for the acquisition of Netflix. ?"

Not to mention the previous ones, Feng Yiping's acquisition of Netflix is ​​still in his eyes. The young Chinese man is indeed a surprising guy.

"Yes, what do you mean?"

"Don't waste time, let the person in charge over there contact Yiping Feng first to see if he has the intention to take over,"

"Ok,"

…………

Shenzhen, who is about to fly to the capital, is having dinner with the top executives of Tongcheng.com, and Feng Yiping, who is having dinner with Fuyunning and Xiang Xiaofang. After putting down the phone, his face is strange, with mixed feelings.

"How about a leveling?" Huang Jingping asked with concern.

"Nothing, come and drink,"

I just mentioned the richest man in Ma a few days ago, and now he has such a good thing on his head, he really can't believe it. (To be continued.)