"Boss, where are you going to have the computer park company go public? is it the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ?" asked John Martin.

"Let's determine the underwriter first, and when the time comes, the underwriter will communicate with the two exchanges, and we will go to the listing whichever gives the more lenient conditions!" Li Xuan replied.

Generally speaking, the NASDAQ exchange has more lenient requirements for listed companies in terms of capital, finance, and other aspects, so many high-tech companies will choose to list on the NASDAQ.

John Martin also found that his problem was a bit amateurish, and shrugged his shoulders in embarrassment. Although he was trusted by the founder William Millard at the beginning of the establishment of the computer park company, he became the second person in the company. But he didn't come from a professional manager's background, he only earned an associate's degree from a community college, not a business school from a prestigious university, so it was inevitable that he would appear unprofessional in some aspects.

In the past two years, with the rapid expansion of the computer park company, the company's senior management has also undergone a major change, and many people whose management ability cannot keep up with the pace of the company's development have been eliminated. Li Xuan has hired a number of senior professional managers to serve as COO (Chief Operating Officer) and CFO (Chief Financial Officer) to strive to improve the company's overall operational level.

But for CEO John Martin, Li Xuan still gives full trust. Martin's biggest advantage is that he can implement Li Xuan's various decisions without reservation. If you change to another CEO with better ability, you may have many ideas of your own, but Li Xuan may not be obedient to Martin when he uses it.

And under the helm of John Martin, Computer Park has developed well in the past two years. When Li Xuan communicated with him before, he also found that Martin was not without ideas, but also had his own enterprising spirit. He proposed the transformation from monopoly computers to diversification, and become a chain hypermarket of electronic household appliances with a complete range of categories, and this plan may not be the next development outlet for the computer park company!

"I think Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are more suitable for Fairchild's M&A project, after all, both investment banks were involved in Fairchild's first resale three years ago. But let's put the news out first, presumably the two projects together can generate enough attraction, see the reaction of all investment banks before making a final decision!" Li Xuan thought for a while and said, "Okay, that's all for today's meeting, and the rest will be handed over to you!"

Don't think that Wall Street's investment banks are pure white rabbits who will wholeheartedly consider their clients. In fact, they are the most murderous vampires in the world, and if you don't have an extra heart, you may be sold and laughing for money. These sanctimonious financial elites have always done a lot of things to defraud customers.

In particular, in the large-scale financing operation of IPO, on the surface, investment banks make money based on the underwriting rate signed with listed companies. For example, if the rate is 10, then the listed company raises 1 billion funds, and the actual amount received is only 900 million, and the remaining 100 million is directly deducted in advance as the stock issuance expenses of the investment bank.

In this way, the higher the financing amount of listed companies, the higher the income of investment banks, they and listed companies should be of the same mind, but the actual situation is far from so simple. Listed companies naturally hope that the higher the stock price at the time of IPO, the better, which is directly related to the amount of actual financing of the company. But an investment bank is just an underwriter, and after it takes shares from a listed company, it eventually sells someone else.

For investors, the higher the share price, the greater the risk. If the issue price breaks through the bottom line of investors' psychological tolerance, the investment bank is likely to be unable to sell the shares in their hands after obtaining the shares from the listed company. In this case, the investment bank can only bear the loss and issue at a discount. Of course, like a certain country in later generations, "playing new" has become a lottery game that must be won without losing money, which is also the only strange thing in the securities markets of all countries in the world.

From this point of view, investment banks and listed companies are naturally opposed, and the two sides will have a fierce game on the issuance and pricing of stocks. In another time and space, at the end of the 90s, when the Internet bubble in the United States was at its craziest, countless Internet companies that only burned money but did not have any profit support were listed one after another to make money under the operation of Wall Street.

At that time, the entire Internet industry had fallen into madness, and as long as there was enough Internet click traffic, it represented a brilliant future. However, these companies with empty traffic have not yet achieved profitability after all, so investors are reluctant to accept excessively high issue prices in order to reduce their own risks.

At that time, many investment banks united with their own investment customers to frantically squeeze the IPO issue price of various Internet companies, taking advantage of the pursuit of the concept of Internet networking in the entire market, and making a lot of money. In this case, the Internet companies, although they are also customers of Wall Street investment banks, are still betrayed.

Of course, this qiē is all due to interests, and the rate of investment bank underwriting IPO is generally between 5 and 10, and generally speaking, when star stocks with large financing scale and high sought-after Cheng dù are listed, they can get the most favorable rate from investment banks. And for those riskier companies, the underwriting rate may even reach 15.

In the dot-com bubble, investment banks sold off their clients, many of the Internet companies, because they made far more profits from other sources than they lost in stock underwriting fees. The initial public offering of shares of a listed company is not directly sold to the market, but the shares are sold to investment banks at an agreed issue price, and then the investment banks distribute them to their investment customers at an equal price, and these investment customers are then sold to the market on the day of listing.

Therefore, if investors can cooperate with investment banks, first lower the issue price, and then sell it at a high price when the market is enthusiastic about the concept of the network, they can make a huge difference in the price. The investment bank guò has a private profit sharing with these investment customers, and the income obtained far exceeds the issuance fee.

Of course, investment banks do not directly ask these investment clients for profit rebates, but in more subtle ways. For example, investment clients must invest a part of their profits in an investment fund designated by the investment bank. And this fund often charges huge management fees, and investment banks use this way to unknowingly grab their own part of the profits, and others can't find any handles.

Of course, this practice is unethical, but when the profits are large enough, morality can be trampled on altogether. When Aikang went public in the UK last year, although the underwriting fee was not high, only 6.25, the two underwriters of Aikang, Barclays Bank and Credit Suisse First Credit, set a somewhat low share issue price for Aikang at that time.

The company's short existence, frequent management changes, etc., a series of excuses given by the two investment banks forced Aikang to set the issue price of the shares at 6 pounds. But during the global roadshow, investors from all over the world frantically chased Aikang's shares. Relying on the oversubscription of many times, Aikang finally succeeded in forcing the two investment banks to back down at the last minute and raise the issue price from £6 to £8.

When Aikang went public, Dongfang Electronics was far from its current popularity. Although Aikang's sales figures are very good, the reasons given by the two underwriters are indeed objective, so Li Xuan pinched his nose and admitted it.

Because Li Xuan has certainly suffered certain losses, but the benefits brought to him by Aikang's listing are even greater. Just after Aikang's listing, Fleet Street's hype on Li Xuan's personal wealth news made the entire Oriental Group show its face in front of readers around the world, and the resulting advertising value is incalculable.

After owning a listed company, the popularity of Dongfang Electronics Group has really begun to move from a corner of Hong Kong to Europe and the United States. With the hot sales of Aikang computers all over the world, the name of Dongfang Electronics has also frequently appeared in the financial section of mainstream newspapers in Europe and the United States.

But this time, the computer park company was listed in the United States, and Li Xuan was obviously unwilling to suffer this kind of secret loss. He deliberately released the rumor, in order to get through the competition between a number of investment banks, so that he could reap the benefits of the fisherman. And in order to increase the attractiveness of these investment banks so that they do not compromise in private, he is ready to throw out a merger and acquisition case.

Even Li Xuan himself felt that Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, which had participated in the first sale of Fairchild three years ago, were naturally the preferred choice of Dongfang Electronics' advisers in the acquisition of Fairchild. In this way, other investment banks such as Merrill Lynch and Salomon Brothers want to get a piece of the pie from Li Xuan, and they must vigorously strive for the listing of computer park companies.

And Li Xuan is unlikely to pay two sums for the acquisition of Fairchild Semiconductor, and only one of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will eventually become a strategic advisor to the merger and acquisition. In the case of not being sure that they can definitely pocket the M&A project, these two investment banks will certainly not directly withdraw from the competition of listing and underwriting.

In the case that Merrill Lynch has little hope for mergers and acquisitions, it is bound to strive for the dominance of the listing project. In this way, it is much more difficult for several companies to privately coordinate their interests with each other and form a united front. Li Xuan can sit firmly in the Diaoyutai and get the most favorable conditions from the competition of these investment banks.

Since it was acquired by Li Xuan, the computer park company has been expanding rapidly, and it has never achieved profitability on the books, and has been relying on shareholders' continuous capital injection to support its development. But a fool can also see that under the premise that the personal computer market in the United States is about to explode, the prospects of the computer park company are extremely broad, so Li Xuan must let it get a high valuation.

After Li Xuan finished the meeting, he assigned all the tasks, and started to be the shopkeeper. Previously he might have been personally involved, but now he prefers to enjoy life. Leave it to someone else to do the hard work, as long as he knows the result. R1152