"Okay, our relationship doesn't need to be so distant. Lao Ma, I can do as you said and let Yahoo be the main investor in this round of financing, but our shareholding ratio also needs to be guaranteed..."
In fact, Baron also understood that even if he knew that Alibaba's market value would skyrocket in the future, after comprehensive consideration, he could not say that he held too high a proportion of shares.
On the one hand, it is Mr. Ma's feelings. On the other hand, if he holds too high a proportion of Alibaba's shares, even to the point of controlling a controlling stake, then the company's future development will be subject to many restrictions, and it is possible that it will not reach its later heights.
Therefore, this time, Baron doesn't mind taking a step back, but at least 40% of the shares, reaching the share of Yahoo in the previous life, still needs to be strived for.
At the same time, in order to reassure Boss Ma, Barron will also hand over the voting rights corresponding to his shares to Boss Ma until he reduces his holdings in the future...
In his previous life, when he invested in Yahoo, Boss Ma also had such concerns.
In order to ensure his own control over the company, Mr. Ma and Yahoo reached a special agreement at the time:
That is, Yahoo held a 40% stake, but entrusted 5% of the voting rights to Mr. Ma until October 2010.
On the board of directors of Alibaba, Jack Ma's management team held two seats, while Yahoo and Softbank each held one seat until October 2010.
And before October 2010, the board of directors could not remove Jack Ma from the position of CEO under any circumstances.
This is also the reason why in 2008, when there were changes in the senior management of Yahoo, Yang Zhiyuan resigned as CEO and was succeeded by the strong woman Bartz, Boss Ma began to raise funds to buy back the shares of Alibaba held by Yahoo.
This is because Yang Zhiyuan maintained a good personal relationship with Mr. Ma during his tenure as CEO of Yahoo, and Yahoo and Alibaba got along well as a whole at that time...
But IT woman Bartz had a different approach. When Jack Ma led his team to visit Silicon Valley, Bartz publicly accused Alibaba of not running Yahoo China well, and Bartz also showed her strong ambition to control Alibaba. So Yahoo's changes brought about a series of actions that made Jack Ma very worried about the other party's changes after October 2010, so he tried his best to buy back the Alibaba shares held by Yahoo before that.
In a subsequent conversation between Baron and Mr. Ma, they set the tone for Alibaba's next round of financing.
Barron agreed to inject Rich23 Capital's 50% stake in Taobao into Alibaba to make it a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alibaba, but the valuation needs to be further negotiated, and Rich23 Capital also needs to exchange it for Alibaba shares at the same price as Yahoo.
Of course, the upper limit of share exchange is to lock the proportion of Alibaba shares held by DS Capital and Rich23 Capital at 40% after financing.
As for how many Alibaba shares Yahoo can get by investing its Yahoo China assets and cash, that depends on how much Mr. Ma is willing to give...
But no matter what, in this way, Alibaba can at least get more funds than in the original time and space.
…
On March 15, the board of directors of Marconi announced that they had accepted Rich23 Capital's offer to acquire the remaining shares of Marconi at a price of £3.5 per share.
This price is more than 80% higher than the lowest price of Marconi's stock price before. Even compared with the extreme price that plummeted at that time, it is still nearly 40% higher than the average stock price of Marconi in the previous 30 trading days!
At this price, the corresponding market value of Marconi will reach 800 million pounds!
When Rich23 Capital was determined to complete the acquisition of Marconi, Barron was also in Shanghai and met with Ren Laoban, the chairman of Huawei, who came to Shanghai.
"Mr. Ren, have you just returned from London?"
In the living room of Cavendish Gardens, Boss Ren did not see the Hearst sisters this time, because just yesterday, the two sisters had returned to America contentedly.
"It's a coincidence that you happened to be here when I returned to China..."
After Alia personally served tea to the two of them, Barron gently stirred his current coffee and said to Boss Ren:
"I haven't congratulated you yet. Huawei has entered British Telecom's priority supplier list. This will be a big order."
"The person we should thank the most for this is Your Highness the Duke. O2 Telecom was the first to give our company an opportunity and is our most valued partner."
"We at O2 Telecom also attach great importance to the cooperation with your company. At the same time, I personally admire your professional attitude in the cooperation. Now there is another opportunity for cooperation. I wonder what Mr. Ren thinks?"
"What do you mean?"
Barron smiled faintly and said to Boss Ren:
"Marconi Company..."
In fact, at the beginning, Huawei was indeed quite interested in Marconi and also hoped to acquire it.
They even did so in the original time and space, but were blocked by Ericsson at that time.
Of course, the situation is not much better now. Rich23 Capital, which suddenly emerged and already holds a 30% stake, has become a huge obstacle for all companies that want to acquire Marconi.
This includes Huawei, Ericsson and other companies.
After all, with Marconi's shareholding distribution, a 30% stake already makes it a major shareholder. Even if it were to forcibly join in and offer a higher bid to block the other party's first tender offer, it would inevitably be at a disadvantage due to the share issue later on.
Moreover, Rich23 Capital's bid itself was higher than Huawei's expectations.
As for why Ericsson did not raise prices to compete?
In fact, in the previous life, when Ericsson joined the acquisition of Marconi, it was mainly targeting Huawei, which was the most likely to acquire the company at that time.
You should know that at that time, both Ericsson and Huawei were on the priority supplier list of British Telecom's "21st Century Network Plan".
Therefore, the two parties are in a competitive relationship, and both hope to obtain as many projects as possible in this plan.
It turned out that when Huawei wanted to acquire Marconi, Ericsson, as its competitor, would naturally compete at all costs to snatch Marconi, which had more experience in British Telecom's networks and equipment, from it.
But when Rich23 Capital, an investment company that was not on the list of excellent suppliers of the "21st Century Network Program", acquired Marconi, although acquiring Marconi was also beneficial to Ericsson, the other party was not Huawei, so their willingness to bid far higher than the actual value of Marconi was greatly reduced.
It was precisely because of these subtle mentalities that Rich23 Capital was able to successfully complete the acquisition of Marconi.
"I know you were also very interested in Marconi before. After all, as a long-term supplier of many British telecommunications companies, including British Telecom, Marconi has rich experience in this area and knows its network better."
Barron said calmly,
"But with all due respect, even without Rich23 Capital, the possibility of you being able to successfully acquire Marconi is slim..."
Now that he has Marconi in his hands and the other party is cooperating with O2 Telecom, Baron can also talk to his boss about deeper cooperation.