Chapter 107 The Listing

The current CEO of tvt, Roger Kruiff, beckoned a waiter and ordered a bread-wrapped hot dog.

This guy could be considered lucky.

He jumped ship to work under Su Yehao, and in less than a year, he encountered the company going public and directly cashed in his stock option rewards.

Once Yanwenzi Group successfully landed on Nasdaq, not only would he receive 600,000 shares as a stock bonus, but he could also subscribe for the same amount of shares at an internal price.

The three market makers, led by Goldman Sachs, initially set the issue price at eight U.S. dollars.

Which meant...

As long as the price didn't fall after the opening, CEO Roger would earn at least four or five million U.S. dollars.

The news had slowly spread in Silicon Valley, making many people envious. Unfortunately, it was too late to switch jobs and join now. Even if they signed a long-term contract to guarantee several more years of work, they could only get an internal subscription price, and the amount of shares available for subscription was limited, lacking appeal for true tech gurus.

As a company "veteran," John Zhou received 50,000 more shares as a stock bonus than Roger Kruiff, due to his longer tenure.

Similarly, he could also subscribe for a certain amount of shares at an internal price.

However, the internal subscription price wasn't cheap, temporarily set at six U.S. dollars per share. Even so, the employees of iCQ and tvt were going crazy, even mortgaging their properties to subscribe for more shares, feeling that buying was making money. Compared with the issue price, they would get at least 25% of the profit at once. If the stock price rose, they could earn even more!

Putting aside the reward stocks, Su Yehao actually felt that something like "internal low-price subscription" seemed to be tricking his own people.

It would be fine in the short term, but if everyone held onto the shares and didn't sell them, the Yanwenzi Group's stock price would likely fall below five dollars after the bubble burst.

However...

Other companies usually gave profits back to their employees. If he didn't do this, his employees might think he was greedy, and he would end up being scolded for doing a good deed.

So Su Yehao didn't interfere. He even thought that if the employees lost money, it might be a good thing.

Because if they wanted to make a comeback, they would have to work hard, develop better products, win more markets, and work together to push the stock price up again.

Since the news of the preparation for listing came out.

From the end of last year until recently, whether it was iCQ or tvt, the internal atmosphere was full of energy. These two companies were now working together, with the former focusing on the enterprise office and adult market, while tvt, relatively speaking, seemed more fancy and playful.

Obviously, wasn't this a copycat version of a certain WeChat and QQ...?

He hadn't been to Silicon Valley for a while, and occasionally communicated via email, not calling often.

Su Yehao spoke at this time, telling them, "The market maker has basically been settled, and the information has been sent to the Nasdaq Stock Exchange for approval. How is your side recently? Is there anything you need me to help with?"

If it were in the past.

John Zhou might have grumbled a few words, muttering about how it was all hindsight.

But today he was in a particularly good mood, and said with a smile:

"Basically, we're done. The investment bank, legal counsel, and accounting firm have formed a listing team and have come to us and iCQ to conduct many investigations, and we have been cooperating with their work. According to their advice, we have reviewed the management, operations, finance, and legal affairs from beginning to end, to ensure that there are no flaws that can be picked on. We have registered with the Securities Regulatory Commission and provided the prospectus, and are now in the core stage of registration and approval. As long as this version passes, we can arrange the roadshow."

CEO Roger then stated:

"Yes, everyone has been busy recently. I often go to accept interviews from financial magazines, which is equivalent to promoting the roadshow in advance. Goldman Sachs told me that the subscription volume will have a chance to exceed expectations. Lehman and Blackstone are also providing assistance, so there will basically be no problems."

Hearing the phrase "basically no problems," Su Yehao always felt unlucky.

According to the famous Murphy's Law, saying things too early can easily lead to being slapped in the face. However, this time Su Yehao sought stability and didn't skimp on spending money in the listing process. Whether it was the accounting firm or the legal counsel, he hired the best, and there was also a top team of consulting companies responsible for assisting.

Everything that should be done was done to the best of his ability, so the risk was indeed relatively small.

It must be said that after this preparation for listing, Su Yehao only felt that it was really convenient for high-tech companies to list on Nasdaq.

Given the Yanwenzi Group's situation, the hard requirements were only a market value of 75 million U.S. dollars, and it didn't even need to be profitable yet. In addition, there were at least 1.1 million publicly held shares; the value of publicly held shares reached 20 million U.S. dollars; the purchase price per share was not less than five U.S. dollars; and at least four market makers, and so on.

For companies with the strength to list, these conditions were not difficult.

The real difficulty was the roadshow, which required finding enough investors, which was equivalent to handing over the opportunity to screen potential stocks to the investors.

Given Yanwenzi Group's position in the instant messaging and social platform industry, it had proven its strong development potential through games, virtual goods, and advertising in recent months.

More crucially, a series of mergers and acquisitions had recently allowed people to see Yanwenzi Group's value in the field of venture capital and private equity investment.

At the end of last year, Su Yehao provided a sum of money, and successively acquired and participated in more than a dozen large and small game companies. Facts had proved that with the introduction of users, their development had progressed by leaps and bounds.

The same example also appeared in other companies, the most typical of which was Google.

Don't look at Google's user base, which was still very small, at least small compared to Yahoo, but its high-speed growth had already stood out from a group of startups.

Just last month, The Wall Street Journal also commented on it, saying that it had the opportunity to become the next Yahoo.

Su Yehao wasn't too concerned about this listing. From the beginning, he just wanted to hoard food for the winter. If he was lucky enough, he could also find a few suckers and sell some shares at a high price to make a killing.

According to Nasdaq's rules and regulations, there was a certain lock-up period for original shares, but it only restricted the secondary market, and there was still a possibility of trading in the primary market.

However...

People with the ability to take over often meant that they were relatively powerful, and once the shares were transferred, it would be more difficult to buy them back.

Su Yehao knew this well, so he only planned to take things one step at a time.

If he sold part of Yanwenzi Group's shares, held cash and waited for the stock price to fall, and then used the money to allocate some other high-quality stocks, such as Amazon and Apple, it seemed very good to be able to take the opportunity to expand his influence and diversify investment risks.

After eating.

He went to a pub and listened to the band play guitar and sing.

Yin Liuli's English level was really average. She dropped out of university, and wasn't even an English major.

Seeing Su Yehao chatting with his senior executives, she just sat there quietly listening to the music, without feeling bored at all.

Unlike drinking to the death with friends.

On the American side, you can sit with a bottle of beer for a whole night, mainly chatting...