Chapter 305: Summit Media Goes Public

 After several months of IPO process, on July 5, Summit Media officially landed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

  As the chairman of Summit Media, Barron has also returned to London to attend the bell ringing ceremony that day.

  Ultimately, Summit Media decided to set the issue price at £15, the upper limit of the adjusted issue price range of £13.5 to £15.

  It is worth mentioning that the recent hit "Dancing Miracle" on SDTV, the highest-rated variety show in the UK in the first half of the year, has made investors very optimistic about the prospects of Summit Media. The subscription of its shares has been extremely active, which also played a significant role in determining the final issue price of the shares at 15 pounds.

  Summit Media's stock code is SMC. It will issue 25 million shares publicly, all of which are newly issued shares, and there will be no shares sold by original shareholders.

  Based on this calculation, Summit Media's listing will raise 375 million pounds, and its market value will reach 1.875 billion pounds.

  On the first day of listing on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, Summit Media opened at 16.35 pounds after a call auction. During the morning trading, its share price once reached a high of 25.78 pounds.

  Finally, by the afternoon closing, the price was fixed at 23.25 pounds, a 55% increase compared to the issue price!

  Calculated based on this issue price, Summit Media's market value now reached 2.9 billion pounds, which is close to ITV's market value.

  The 90 million shares held by DS Holdings, accounting for 72%, are worth nearly 2.1 billion pounds!

  At this time, through the IPO, Summit Media has raised 375 million pounds.

  Soon, they announced that they had bought the five-year UK domestic broadcasting rights for F1 events from the F1 Group for 35 million pounds, an average of 7 million pounds per year.

  At the beginning, ITV's offer for the F1 broadcasting rights was 25 million pounds for five years, but later, Summit Media raised the offer to 30 million pounds for five years.

  Faced with the sudden emergence of Summit Media as a competitor, ITV has once again raised its offer, preparing to purchase the F1 broadcasting rights at a price of £6.5 million per year, or £32.5 million for five years...

  In the end, it was Summit Media that made the final decision and won the five-year F1 broadcasting rights for 35 million pounds.

  Next, SDTV is about to launch the SD Sports pay channel. In addition to broadcasting F1 events, they are now negotiating with the English Football Association to acquire all lower-level football leagues in England except the Premier League. The price for three years is expected to be more than 100 million pounds...

  This is also one of the reasons why they are conducting this IPO to raise funds.

  According to investigations and analyses by relevant agencies, in England, lower-level leagues below the Premier League can attract more paying subscribers than La Liga broadcasts. Therefore, Summit Media eventually gave up the fight for the La Liga broadcasting rights and focused on competing for the broadcasting rights of lower-level leagues in England.

  Most of the remaining funds from this round of financing will be used to purchase other content for the SD Sports Channel.

  At present, SD Sports is unable to compete with Sky TV for the broadcasting rights of the Premier League - this is the killer weapon of paid sports channels. However, as they accumulate funds slowly, they will always have the time to participate in the competition for broadcasting rights at this level.

  …

  Earlier, the Kolo delegation had completed visits to the European Union, the United States, Russia, China and other countries and returned to the capital, Loti.

  It can be said that these visits were somewhat fruitful, more or less.

  For example, during its visit to the European Union, the Kolo delegation, with the support of Britain, obtained partial debt relief from the European Union.

  So far, Colo has obtained a total of 550 million euros in debt relief from countries and organizations including Paris Club members, the European Union, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank.

  It also received a total of 200 million pounds in loan assistance from the British government and the International Monetary Fund. The annual interest rate of the loan was only 0.5%, and the repayment period was ten years.

  During the visit to China, representatives of the West African Ports Group who were traveling with the delegation signed a 500 million pound expansion project for the Port of Loti with port construction and equipment suppliers represented by China's China Construction Group. In the next five years, China Construction Group will build two new terminals for the Port of Loti and expand the two existing terminals to enable it to reach an annual throughput of 5 million tons.  

  At the same time, we will purchase corresponding port equipment, transport vehicles and related personnel training from China.

  China will provide Kolo with an interest-free loan of 2 billion Chinese yuan, which will be used by Kolo to purchase equipment and supplies from China.

  These purchases will include the equipment and construction of a large cement plant with a daily output of 5,000 tons, the purchase of medical equipment, drugs and vaccines, as well as other related purchases. In short, although these loans are interest-free, they all need to be used for purchases from China. All loans have a repayment period of 10 years.

  The cement plant mentioned above will be jointly invested by the West African Group and Kolo Development Investment Company, of which West African Holding Company will be the main investor and hold 60% of the shares of the Kolo Tablibo Cement Plant. Kolo Development Investment Company will invest in resources, land and equipment purchased from China and hold 40% of its shares.

  The Tablibo Cement Plant will be located in the Coastal Province, about 90 kilometers away from Loti. After completion, it will become the largest cement plant in West Africa. The cement products it produces will not only be supplied to construction in Colo, but also exported to other African countries.

  In addition, Colo has reached a number of cooperation agreements with China, including that Colo welcomes Chinese companies to invest and will provide tax incentives.

  China will help build a hospital and a nursing school in Kolo and provide some training staff.

  In fact, in the planning for Kolo, the key to ensuring Kolo's development is to transform Kolo's social environment.

  The most fundamental of these needs to be addressed first from the three aspects of education, medical care and public security.

  Education is definitely necessary. It can be said that education is the most basic. Without a certain scale of educated people, it is impossible to have qualified industrial workers. We can only engage in the lowest-end "coolie" industries. It is wishful thinking to want to get rid of poverty.

  If you don't have qualified workers, foreign capital will not even be able to invest in manufacturing industries that require a certain level of technology.

  In the future, only China will become the world's factory. This is also the result of their emphasis on education, which enables them to have the largest number of high-quality industrial workers in the world. Let's try India instead. Why can India equally cheat all "foreign capital"? It's because they know that they have no hope of developing by using these foreign capitals...

  In fact, in terms of education, Kolo can be considered pretty good, at least much better than China in the early days of the founding of the country...

  Kolo currently has a population of approximately 7 million with a literacy rate of 63.7%, of which 84.3% are youth and 78.4% are female youth.

  Due to French colonial rule, the education system before Colo was based on the French paradigm.

  In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the first schools were created to meet colonial rule and economic exploitation.

  The education system includes primary, secondary and higher levels, and children under the age of six have the right to free education.

  The primary education enrolment rate increased to 72% in 1980, then fell to 52% in 1985, and then rose slowly to around 75% currently.

  After that, the Kolo government will allocate special education funds every year to promote free basic education from primary school to junior high school.

  And when they visited England, they also received a promise from the British government that it would help Colos' education transform from French to English. To this end, England will provide Colos with a certain number of places for international students in the teacher training major and will send volunteers to help them improve their English education.

  Next, all children of school age in Colo will need to receive compulsory basic education, which will be written into the Education Bill that Colo is currently drafting.

  Previously, whether it was the low-interest aid loans that Colo obtained from the UK or the International Monetary Fund, it had promised to use part of them for universal education. These are also the implementation of this commitment.