Chapter 247: The Secrets of Investment Giants and Continued Gap-Up Opening
What caught Li Xiaofan's eyes was that this in-depth report reprinted from Wall Street mentioned a company name that was very familiar to him: IDG.
IDG is the abbreviation of International Data Group in English. IDG is headquartered in Boston, USA. It is currently the world's largest information service provider integrating publishing, information network, exhibition, market research and consulting. Its business covers more than dozens of countries and regions in the world. Its turnover in 1994 has exceeded 1 billion US dollars.
This news report said: Last year, in the summer of 1994, by chance, McGovern, the founder and chairman of IDG, met Jim Clark, another founder of Netscape, on a business trip. At that time, Jim Clark had just angel invested in a browser project and founded Netscape Browser Company with Mark Anderson, the founder of this browser.
Jim Clark is the founder of the famous American SGI Silicon Graphics Company and was also a very influential figure in Silicon Valley at that time. When he was an assistant professor at Stanford University, he obtained a grant from the Department of Defense and began to engage in new research. He invented a dedicated computer system that can perform real-time three-dimensional graphics processing on a single microchip. The "geometry engine" he invented allows engineers to complete design models on relatively cheap computers, thus saving months of work time and thousands of dollars. Later, he founded SGI, and the high-performance computer workstations they produced changed the design methods from suspension bridges to jet aircraft, and achieved great success.
In early 1994, Jim Clark left SGI due to personality and other issues. At that time in 1994, the technology industry was focused on the bright prospects of interactive television, but the keen Jim Clark discovered the treasure of Mark Anderson. He took the initiative to send an email to Mark Anderson to get in touch. At that time, Mark Anderson was only 22 years old and invented the Mosaic browser like a genius. At first, Jim Clark wanted to use Anderson's wisdom to form an engineering and technical team to develop new interactive TV-related businesses. But after talking with Anderson, he was convinced that the Internet was the way of the future. So Jim Clark used his only $5 million angel investment in Mark Anderson's browser project to establish Netscape. In the end, this gamble was an unprecedented success!
After reading this in-depth report, what interested Li Xiaofan was the background of IDG.
He suddenly found that whether it was SoftBank Group or IDG, these two investment companies that later achieved great success, they had similarities behind them: they had information service industries such as publishing, exhibitions, market research and consulting, and big data as support.
At that time, IDG International Data Group published more than tens of thousands of market research reports and technology development forecast reports every year, published more than 200 related magazines in more than 20 languages; held nearly hundreds of international and regional academic conferences, market analysis meetings and product exhibitions every year; provided various propositions and directional information services. At that time, IDG's public opinion influence in the world information industry was unique. IDG was also the first American technical information service company to enter China. In 1980, it founded the Sino-US joint venture "Computer World" weekly in Beijing. Later, Computer World, Microcomputer World, IT Manager World, Communications World, Computer Business Daily, etc. were all media invested by IDG.
Similarly, another SoftBank Group published the Japanese version of PC Home Magazine in Tokyo in 1989, entering the professional computer and IT publishing field. In April this year, it spent a huge amount of money to buy the business of Comdex, the world's largest world computer exhibition, and recently it is negotiating the acquisition of Ziff-Davis, the world's largest IT publisher...
Li Xiaofan suddenly thought that the success of the two giants SoftBank Group and IDG in the investment industry was not accidental! They used their publishing, exhibitions and other world-class information service industries to not only master the voice in the global IT and computer fields, but also obtained a large amount of industry big data, which can easily pick out target companies and grasp the dynamics of the global high-tech industry...
Thinking of this, Li Xiaofan had to admire the strategic height of Mr. Masayoshi Son of SoftBank Group. At present, others only see the madness of Mr. Sun, and there are not many people who can understand his strategic intentions. Perhaps he can be counted as one of them.
But at the same time, Li Xiaofan also thought about why Yahoo should rely on SoftBank Group when it introduces strategic investors in the future. Maybe in the second half of the year, Yahoo should contact IDG more often.
Thinking of IDG, Li Xiaofan recalled some past events in his previous life. When he was working in a foreign-funded enterprise in Shanghai, the company's office building was rented in Antai Building at the intersection of Xianxia Road and Zunyi Road in Hongqiao Development Zone. When he first went to work in Antai Building, two things impressed him.
At that time, Starbucks' Shanghai headquarters was located on the second floor of Antai Building. Every day, a large number of interns learned how to make coffee there, and the aroma of coffee filled the entire building. Shanghai Starbucks often let users of the building taste coffee at half price or for free.
Another impressive thing is that on the company list display board in the lobby of the first floor of Antai Building, the IDG company on the 11th floor has the most brands: International Data Group, Pacific Technology Venture Capital Fund, IDG Technology Venture Capital Fund... Li Xiaofan didn't understand what this company was doing at the time?
Now looking back, he often squeezed into the elevator with Xiong Xiaoge and a group of IDG Chinese partners. At noon, they often had lunch together in the same restaurant next to the Parkson shopping mall opposite. They also lined up to eat kebabs in the Xinjiang restaurant on Maotai Road...
In the previous life, others achieved huge and unprecedented success, but I was so miserable...
In 1993, Xiong Xiaoge had cooperated with the Shanghai Science and Technology Commission on behalf of IDG Company to invest 20 million US dollars to establish China's first joint venture technology venture company and served as general manager. In the same year, he cooperated with Guangdong Bank to establish another technology joint venture company.
However, now, Li Xiaofan secretly made up his mind: President Xiong, in this life, I will not lose to you!
At 9:30 pm, the Nasdaq opened trading. Li Xiaofan continued to stay in the office to watch the market and pay attention to Netscape's stock performance.
Before the opening, Li Xiaofan was browsing Wall Street news and found that many articles were touting the significance of Netscape's listing.
Previously, Wall Street investment banks used to use three models to price a company: DCF discounted cash flow, relative valuation data such as price-to-earnings and price-to-sales ratios, and option stock price Black-Scholes model.
However, emerging Internet companies like Netscape have neither positive cash flow nor option characteristics. Netscape's model of free for users and charging for enterprises has never appeared. In the absence of precedents, Wall Street gave Netscape a PS valuation of more than 60 times when it went public. PS value is a method of stock valuation, called market efficiency valuation method = total market value/sales.
Strictly speaking, the lower the PS value, the better, representing a future bull stock.
Netscape's PS value has increased by 100 times. This number sounds exaggerated, but Wall Street investment banks have to convince themselves and promote Netscape through various media. Netscape has great potential. The number of users using Netscape browsers is increasing worldwide. This huge traffic is a huge foundation for Netscape to realize its value and achieve profitability in the future.
In a few years, Wall Street will derive an indicator to judge the value of Internet companies: eyeballs economy.
So under the hype of Wall Street media, Netscape's stock opened tonight and jumped high.
When Li Xiaofan left the company at around 11 o'clock, the price of Netscape's stock had exceeded $65, and the market value of Li Xiaofan's Netscape stock exceeded $4.5 million.
Damn, it's so cool. The market value has increased by another $500,000 so far tonight!