Chapter 632: On the Eve of Listing

Fang Hong paid no attention to the outside uproar, and had no intention of engaging with Xiao Wang — even if he did, it would be useless.

The moment you respond, that person can bicker with you day and night without stopping. When you can't physically eliminate them or take them down in one move to subdue Xiao Wang, there's no need to bother with this person.

This is someone who has even cursed Lei Bus, Dong Ge, and Sun Yuchen — completely not putting anyone in his eyes.

Lei Bus is now at least a mobile phone giant on his own turf; Dong Ge is at least an e-commerce giant on his own turf;

Sun Yuchen is even more impressive — reportedly this person cashed out 12 billion in virtual currency, reportedly investigated by bi, just rumors, specifics unclear.

But he's doing just fine, and even got into blockchain.

Anyway, he's also a big shot, belongs to the impressive-figures category.

These few have all been cursed, and the celebrities and artists cursed are even more numerous — Ju Jingyi, Feng Kuzi, Fan Xiaopang, Lin Genxin, and so on.

In just these few years, wildly arrogant beyond belief.

But it's understandable — these years were also Wanda's time at its peak.

Young people are bound to be hot-blooded and impetuous.

Fang Hong and Liu Tianxian came to Hong Kong for her birthday, to travel with her and see the sights.

The two had never gone out traveling together since getting married, so they took this chance. But they weren't only here for this one thing — there was another matter.

It was about Tu Piaopiao's listing and IPO.

Tu Piaopiao took four or five years to develop, and also spent four or five years preparing for the IPO, finally completing all listing preparations this year.

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange Listing Committee also passed the hearing, approving the listing for September 1st.

These past few days, besides sightseeing, the two were conducting roadshows with Tu Piao CEO Zheng Zhihao's team, pitching the company's value to institutional investors.

To lay the foundation for post-listing stock price stability and liquidity — after all, once you issue shares, someone has to buy them.

Another purpose was to determine the issue price — how embarrassing would it be if it broke below issue.

The roadshow is the final kick before listing; essentially it's about turning the company's story into value recognized by the capital markets.

Once the story is told, let's see how much it's worth!

But Tu Piaopiao has Jade Rabbit on the left, Chang'e on the right, a three-legged tripod — still giving capital plenty of confidence.

After all, with content it has content, with theaters it has theaters, with distribution channels it has distribution channels — this kind of company configuration is too complete.

With those, you don't even need to tell institutional investors a story — just lay out the strength directly.

Take other companies — some, before listing, get asked by institutions "what if your losses expand," leading to cold institutional subscriptions and ultimately breaking below issue after listing.

Of course, institutional subscriptions come with lock-up periods, generally 6 to 12 months — during this time you can't sell, you must maintain shareholder status.

This is to ensure post-listing stock price stability — if you sell right after placement, other shareholders would certainly lose confidence.

The mainland is three years, longer than Hong Kong.

Some people always assume investing is a very simple thing — pick the right company, wait to collect money, that's all there is to it.

Especially for a reborn person like Fang Hong — open your mouth and it seems like investing is just that simple.

They really don't understand the actual situation. Back then, Fang Hong held Tesla stock for nearly three years before selling.

Take Meituan — it only turned profitable in 2019, burning cash for 9 years; Didi only turned profitable in 2023, burning for 11 years; JD. com only turned profitable in 2018, burning for 14 years.

JD. com was founded in 1998, and only got its mall in 2004.

Any company, no matter what company, burns cash in its early stages — basically no exceptions.

As a reborn person, in the early stage Fang Hong had limited funds and limited resources. With only 100 million, this 100 million faced two choices.

Self-develop, or invest it out to others!

But others also need a few years to develop before showing results — initially there's no effect, because newly developing companies have very fuzzy valuations, you can't estimate how much this company is really worth.

He knew this company would rise later, but the initial valuation — that couldn't be judged.

So either wait a few years for the company to rise — only when it picks up and improves can you make money — or wait for it to list.

But during this process, why wouldn't Fang Hong take this 100 million to self-develop? If he self-develops, it wouldn't be slower than investing in others, would it?

Others need three to five years; he might see results in two or three. Why hand the money to others to develop their business?

He has his own business too, which needs massive capital — wouldn't turning it into his own strength be better?

Giving money to others means using your money to develop someone else's business. How to choose — isn't it obvious enough?

Like when Fang Hong bought a house back then — by paying in installments he could handle two things at once; without installments he could only handle one. That's the logic.

And when investing in others, initially they're burning cash, still developing. When you need money and want to exit —

You say exit and you exit? You want to exit so you exit?

There are lock-up periods, there's a time dimension. To exit, first someone has to take over; second, you can't get the money right away either.

You have to wait at least half a year or a year before they give you the money, and some exits even require shareholder approval — it's really not that easy to exit.

Wait until listing, and it's another round of lock-up period.

Given this time span, with only so much money, why would Fang Hong still invest it in others instead of choosing self-development?

Buying Tesla and Nvidia stocks — those companies had already been listed for many years, you could buy anytime and sell anytime.

Angel investing — when others are in their development phase they don't have much money, and exiting to get money isn't easy either. With that much time, holding the money yourself, you could already have built something big.

Now Fang Hong's Chang'e and Jade Rabbit aren't slower than Meituan. Meituan is still in large-scale cash-burning — this year it burned 10.5 billion, with a net loss of 5.9 billion.

Without a few hundred million in investment, it won't work — if you invest it in, are you still going to develop yourself or not?

And Chang'e and Jade Rabbit have Fang Hong's years of investment, they're almost on the right track — does he still need to invest in Meituan?

So this is one of the reasons Fang Hong didn't invest in Meituan, Didi, Xiaomi — back then he was developing himself too, short on money himself, why invest in others?

As a reborn person, deploying limited funds flexibly in your own hands is the greatest investment.

No one has the resources and capital to occupy every field without focusing.

Tencent is impressively strong, but it still focuses on music, IP, and games — film and TV content isn't very strong. Compared to Alibaba it's not strong, compared to Jade Rabbit it's not strong either.

Because he only has so much money, so many resources, and he still has other things to do — it's not only the big entertainment sector. To focus, you must give something up.

Every year, Tencent spends 10 to 20 billion on music copyrights, with cumulative fees exceeding 100 billion.

Few people can afford to play this game; even Alibaba would tremble.

Let alone Fang Hong — if Fang Hong can handle the content well and race against time to deal with the copyright war while building the platform, that would already be impressive.

But Tencent has spent heavily on music, so its layout in other areas is inevitably slower — this is beyond doubt.

After the roadshow comes the share placement allocation.

Tu Piaopiao will issue 264 million shares: 90% for international placement, 10% for the Hong Kong public offering.

That means 236.7 million shares will be locked in for institutions, and 26.4 million shares will go to Hong Kong retail investors.

The Hong Kong market is too small to accommodate so many heavyweight enterprises; Tencent and Xiaomi Group only grew up later.

There are five institutions locking in that 90% allocation: IMAX Hong Kong Subsidiary, Weiguang Venture Capital, Hylink, Oasis Capital, and Xiaomi Group.

Hylink is a digital marketing company that has participated in advertising placement for many films.

The founder of Weiguang Venture Capital is Lin Ning, who is also the founder of Weiying Times — a competitor of Tu Piaopiao. But now competition in the ticketing market is intensifying, and Weiying Times is running out of steam.

And Lin Ning used to be a Senior Vice President at Tencent.

As for any connection between the two — there isn't one. They just have abundant resources and happen to know Tony Ma. Are such resources impressive or not?

These five investors will, at the established share price, stabilize the stock price after the initial listing; the lock-up period is six months.

That means during these six months they cannot sell, to stabilize market confidence.

Additionally, the underwriters — that is, the securities firms — may issue an extra 39.6 million shares to stabilize the risk of a break below issue price.

Of course, these allocated shares come from an expanded share capital — that is, a 1-for-10 stock split. After this split, the shareholding ratios remain unchanged.

But the targeted placement has diluted Fang Hong and his partners' equity. However, no matter how the placement is arranged, Jade Rabbit remains the largest shareholder, and Chang'e Technology remains the second largest.

Once everything is prepared, they just wait for the listing. On the eve of the listing, several investors gathered: Fang Hong, Liu Tianxian, Tu Piaopiao CEO Zheng Zhihao, Chang'e Technology Chief Financial Officer Gao Zhun, Lei Bus, and Weiguang Venture Capital's Lin Ning.

There were also auditors, lawyers, industry consultants, and sponsors — they were having a dinner together in a private room at The Peninsula Hong Kong.

The sponsor plays the role of coordinating the listing, supervising communication, and ensuring the information issued is true and accurate.

In any case, they guarantee legal compliance and no fraud.

The private room was luxurious, with the night view of Victoria Harbour outside the window — a blaze of lights.

"Everyone has worked hard during this period, and I thank you all for your support of Tu Piaopiao. Our efforts will see the dawn tomorrow. I raise this cup to you all!"

Fang Hong raised his goblet and stood up.

The others wore varied expressions — some joyful, some excited — and they too stood up and raised their glasses.

Liu Tianxian stood beside Fang Hong, her cheeks slightly flushed, her heart stirring with excitement as well.

"Clink!"

The glasses met with a crisp, pleasant sound, and everyone drank together!

(End of chapter)