Chapter 1405 LinkedIn Is in Hand!

As the saying goes, if you are frustrated in love, there is always a place to make up for it.

Wade of Citibank was entrusted by Xiao Qi to acquire LinkedIn, a social networking site that focuses on professional categories, but exhausted all methods.

Citibank's various connections and resources, Wade's own connections and resources, and some friends'... Anyway, he used all the available ones.

LinkedIn's largest shareholder has three people: PayPal's Reid Hoffman, an investment company social and former Yahoo executive Jeff Werner.

At the beginning, social was the easiest to deal with. After paying a price of 120 million US dollars, 30% of social's shares went to Xiao Qi's hands. Compared with the 500 million they invested in 5 years For ten thousand US dollars, there is a full 24 times the harvest.

Hoffman and Werner were hard to talk to.

Hoffman, who holds a 40% stake in LinkedIn, acquired a large fortune when eBay acquired PayPal in 2002, and then founded LinkedIn. He is not short of money now.

Another Werner from Yahoo is also a person who values ​​career more than money. He has not considered selling 30% of the shares in his hand.

Fortunately, Citibank, known as the most pervasive bank and one of the most famous banks in the world, gathered countless resources and spent a whole month. Finally, through various negotiations and promises, as well as constant communication with Xiao Qi, the acquisition of LinkedIn finally came to a rough result.

I have to give credit to Citibank here. Although they competed with Xiao Qi in betting against oil, they still put in all their efforts when it came to other irrelevant commissions. They deserved to be called "the most professional bank in the world".

Hoffman and Werner finally agreed to sell their shares, which was based on Xiao Qi's continuous concessions.

Originally, Xiao Qi bought shares based on 20 times their operating income of 10 million U.S. dollars last year, which is for a company that is not listed. A valuation of 20 times revenue, that is, 200 million US dollars, is already a very generous price.

However, because Xiao Qi was afraid of accidents, he even increased his revenue to a maximum of 40 times. That is 400 million U.S. dollars for a wholly-owned acquisition.

Social was defeated just before the price of 40 times revenue and sold 30% of its shares.

But the remaining two, Hoffman and Werner, even if they increased to 40 times revenue, or even 50 times and 60 times revenue after emergency communication. Neither impressed them.

After realizing that the two are not so easy to deal with. Xiao Qi began to give in.

After negotiating through various channels, Wade learned that the two really wanted to make LinkedIn a success, and they didn't just want money.

Then Xiao Qi decided to put his annual investment of no less than 100 million U.S. dollars, and directly raised the upper limit to 300 million U.S. dollars at the end.

In this way, Werner is very satisfied. The investment of 300 million U.S. dollars per year is enough for him to plan well. Develop linkedin to be more powerful.

The largest shareholder, Hoffman, didn't like listed companies very much because of the acquisition of PayPal before, and he didn't like the 10% shares given to them after the listing.

Then Xiao Qi simply gave him a promise. If the company's management hadn't requested an IPO, then he would never let LinkedIn go public. LinkedIn would exist as a purely private company.

And Xiao Qi promised that as long as the two want to continue working, then the status of the two on LinkedIn will not be changed.

Hoffman was also satisfied with this, and finally, together with Werner, sold most of the shares in his hand at a valuation of 600 million US dollars, leaving only a symbolic 5% each.

No matter how confident Hoffman and Werner are in the development of LinkedIn, they would never have imagined that their company would have a market value of more than 25 billion U.S. dollars in six years and become a giant in the social network industry that cannot be ignored.

Without knowing the future, it was impossible for the two of them to refuse such a sincere offer from Xiao Qi.

So, plus the handling fee, the commission to Citibank, and the thank-you fee to Wade, Xiao Qi obtained 90% of LinkedIn's shares at a high price of 560 million US dollars. And in the first time, Xiao Qi injected 300 million US dollars of funds through Citibank.

After the transfer of shares, Xiao Qi also made a guarantee to Hoffman and Werner, that is, within five years, all the funds invested by Xiao Qi will not dilute their shares.

In other words, Xiao Qi injected at least 1.5 billion into the entire company, plus the 560 million he bought shares, the actual value of LinkedIn should be at least 2 billion US dollars, and 5% of the shares are 100 million US dollars. Their 5% shares tripled in value out of thin air.

The crucial point is that Xiao Qi said it after the transaction was completed, not before the negotiation, as a condition of the transaction. This made Hoffman and Werner feel very good, and felt that Xiao Qi was indeed Xiao Qi. , It really has the courage that others can't have.

As a result, the hearts of the two became more at ease, and they wanted to concentrate on making LinkedIn a dazzling presence in the social network.

By the way, Xiao Qi gave Citibank a total of 58 million US dollars in commissions for this transaction, and Wade also received a 2 million US dollar reward personally.

The 2 million US dollars are all in U.S. bearer bonds, with a face value of 5,000 US dollars, that is, a large envelope can hold it, no need to calculate taxes, no need to be afraid of the tax bureau, and can be directly circulated in the global market when needed Cashing in is really the best weapon for bribery and black-box transactions! (to be continued..)

ps:  Brothers, Xiucai wrote a very important single chapter later, please read it, thank you! ! !