Chapter 256 Round B Financing

According to Bernie Ecclestone, he has negotiated a price of £350 million for Bayern Bank's 50% stake in SLEC.

  This price cannot be lowered any further, because although other bidders have not offered any higher prices than 350 million pounds at present, the problem is that this is only the first round of bidding, and those people's reserve prices will definitely be much higher than this price. According to estimates, based on normal market prices, the price of 50% of SLEC's shares will definitely be higher than 400 million pounds.

  You know, the remaining two SLEC shareholders, the two American banks, would never be willing to sell their shares at such a low price, and they have been contacting Bavaria Bank, hoping to take back the commercial operation rights of the F1 event from Bernie and operate it themselves.

  This is also the reason why Bernie must find a partner to launch a surprise attack. After all, he would not be willing to hand over the event that he developed personally to others, not to mention 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 SLEC shares held by the Bavarian Bank was because he bribed the person in charge of handling SLEC shares at the Bavarian Bank - Gribkovsky.

  To buy the shares held by Bavaria Bank, they also need to give the other party certain benefits privately - Bernie gave Barron an offer of 35 million US dollars.

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

  Of course, this is understandable. After all, we have just entered the year 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, and it was understandable that the other party would take greater risks and ask for a higher price if they wanted to conduct such a private transaction.

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

  Bernie was willing to sell his 25% stake to Barron, but his asking price was 200 million pounds, and he also wanted to guarantee that he would continue to be in charge of the company. In comparison, it was very appropriate for Barron to acquire 50% of SLEC's shares for a total of 370 million pounds.

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

  After this, the two banks, Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan Chase, felt a bit uncomfortable, because they only had 25% of SLEC's shares left. Not only could they not control the company, but if they continued to hold shares, they would have to watch Bernie, whom they originally wanted to drive away, continue to be in charge of SLEC, and would definitely give them a lot of "sweet benefits" later.

  Moreover, the shares of SLEC themselves were obtained through their bonds after the bankruptcy of the German Kirch Group. So it seems that selling the shares of this company to Pioneer Sports and cashing out is their best option.

  …

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

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

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

  This means that Woaw Technology's pre-investment valuation in this round of financing has reached US$1.05 billion, making it an emerging Internet technology company.

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

  Investment companies like Goldman Sachs, which are relatively conservative towards Internet technology, missed out on this opportunity.

  After obtaining the $150 million in funding, Woaw Technology will continue to expand the scale of its two companies in London and Silicon Valley, and will then build two data centers in continental Europe and Lijiaopo in Asia to provide better services to users around the world.

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

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

  This reminded Barron of the other party's previous life. In 2006, Yahoo initially offered to acquire Facebook for $1 billion, and Zuckerberg had already agreed. However, when it came time to sign the contract, Yahoo lowered the price to $850 million. Zuckerberg thought he was insulted and refused angrily.

  Barron is not Zuckerberg. He naturally knows the potential of social networks in the future. Therefore, he rejected Yahoo's offer without hesitation.

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

  Speaking of Google, since December last year, there have been constant reports in the technology media that this Internet upstart may be about to go public.

  Google did not respond to requests for comment.

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

  Currently, DS Capital holds 20 million shares of Google, accounting for about 7.7% of its total share capital. Baron tried his best to get these shares from Yahoo and America Online.

  Google will not raise funds before going public, so even if Baron wants to get more shares, there is no way...

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

  But this is absolutely impossible. Compared with holding more Google shares, Baron would rather have an Internet public opinion platform under his own control, which is more important to him.

  In addition to Google, Penguin will also go public this year. They will start the listing process earlier than Google in April this year and will be officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in June.

  As the largest shareholder of Penguin, the Colts boss also communicated with Barron about these matters.

  Barron also supported the decision to list in HK.

  Although it is not possible to use the AB share method when listing in HK, Baron has entrusted all the voting rights of his shares to Boss Xiao Ma, which also means that he does not have too many concerns in this regard.

  After all, the shares they hold, together with those held by DS Capital, are fully capable of guaranteeing Boss Xiao Ma's control over the company even after the listing.

  "I'm glad you came today, Barron."

  For some reason, Barron always felt that when Colin Hall smiled, although he looked kind, his face seemed to be stretched...

  By the way, his face seems to be slightly longer than that of an average person...

  "Mr. Hall, I wonder what you want to ask me out for today?"