Almost all newspapers in Hong Kong sent reporters to report on the roadshow at The Peninsula Hotel, and ATV and TVB both TV stations sent news trucks.

But Li Xuan didn't have time to stay and enjoy the pomp and circumstance of the headlines in Hong Kong's newspapers the next day. After the second investment promotion meeting in the afternoon, Li Xuan and the roadshow team had a delicate and sumptuous Chinese working meal, and then hurried to Kai Tak International Airport to take the charter flight prepared by Aikang to return to the UK.

The roadshow team has almost circled the world in the past two days, and everyone is physically exhausted, but still mentally excited. Looking at the enthusiasm of investors from all over the world, everyone believes that the next listing of Aikang will be a complete success.

The most important factor that makes investors enthusiastically pursue Aikang's shares is undoubtedly Aikang's financial statements in the first quarter of this year. In the first quarter of 1981, Aikang sold a total of 122,000 ABC-1 computers and 78,000 ABC-2 computers, achieving an after-tax profit of 10,000 pounds.

Based on this calculation, even if Akon were to price it at a maximum price of £8, the stock would only trade at a price-to-earnings ratio of 9 times, well below the average of 15 times the price-earnings ratio for an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange.

Of course, it cannot be said that Aikang's price was low when it negotiated with the brokers, because if you look at the financial figures of the past four quarters, the price-to-earnings ratio is around 15 times when the issue price is set at £6. However, it was clear that the company was in a period of rapid growth, and its revenue in the first quarter of 1981 was more than 30 percent higher than in the last quarter of last year.

Especially for U.S. investors, when they value Aikang. My favorite reference is Apple, which went public at the end of last year. Both companies are well-known brands in the PC market, but Apple's financial statements for the first quarter of this year. On the contrary, it is not as good as Aikang. Although Apple's stock price has been falling in the past few days, its market value is still more than $2.5 billion. That's about £1.1 billion.

Even at the issue price of £8, the total valuation of Aikang is only £800 million, which is far less than Apple's market capitalization. How can the value of a company that is better than Apple's value be lower than Apple's? No one is a fool, and the issue price of Aikang is obviously lower than its actual value.

Among the several companies in the Oriental system, Li Xuan's influence on Aikang is the weakest. One is that Aikang's headquarters is located in London, far away from Hong Kong, and the executives of Aikang are not the same people who followed Li Xuan to start from scratch. Among the current directors and senior executives of iKang, except for Han Peng, who is also the chairman of the board. and Currie, one of the three founders of the original Aikang Company, who has been appointed as executive director and chief technology officer, and the rest of the senior management are newly hired in the past year or so.

Li Xuan had had a lot of communication with the executives of Aikang Company in the video conference call before, but there were far fewer opportunities to sit together. And only when we really sit face to face together, this kind of communication can truly penetrate the soul and there is no barrier.

Aikang's global roadshow team includes CEOs, CTOs, COOs, CFOs and other senior executives. Li Xuan took advantage of the rare time to travel with everyone, and everyone sat together to talk about the next development of Aikang Company. Of course, the most heated discussion was about the new computer that was about to hit the market, and Aikang was not prepared to choose another name for the new computer. Rather, it is directly called the ABC-3 computer.

Li Xuan took this opportunity to ask Hawke to greet the other executives about his intention to release the ABC-3 computer technical data. Everyone else had a surprised look on their faces, because the disclosure of the technical information of their own computers could easily attract imitation from followers, which would likely intensify market competition.

So Li Xuan gave him the reason he had previously persuaded Albert Hawke. I repeated it to the others. On the downside, the release of the ABC-3 computer's technical data may usher in imitation from other companies, which will make the ABC-3 computer have to face more fierce competition.

But on the bright side. Aikang can take this opportunity to quickly promote its own computer standards into industry standards. So as to become the person who sets the rules of the game and seize the commanding heights of the market in the future competition. Generally. The pros still outweigh the disadvantages, and Li Xuan used this analysis to convince most of Aikang's top executives.

"Personal computers are different from other consumer electronics, and their specialization is even higher! In the past, before the personal computer market matured, most of the mainstream consumers were computer enthusiasts, and they themselves had good computer knowledge.

Therefore, like the best-selling Cowherd Star computer in the early United States, it adopts the method of mail order. After receiving the customer's remittance order, the mits company directly sent the unassembled Cowherd Star computer parts to the user to assemble it by himself! Chris should have a lot of say about this, and Aikang's early system1 computer also adopted this model, and most of the buyers were electronic enthusiasts!

Li Xuan pointed at Curry and said with a smile, Curry nodded in agreement with his statement. Li Xuan continued: "But with the continuous development of computer technology, personal computers have long ceased to be toys for computer enthusiasts, but as a mature electronic consumer product, into the field of commercial applications.

This is reflected in the fact that ABC-2 sales are growing faster than ABC-1. Most of the ABC-1 computers are purchased by individual users and school users, but the majority of ABC-2 buyers are business users.

The East-DOS operating system developed by Dongfang Software Company allows ordinary people who are not proficient in computers to skillfully control ABC computers by memorizing various commonly used operation instructions! The development of application software such as East-Word and East-Table has greatly promoted the application of personal computers in the commercial field.

And when a large number of ordinary users with poor computer knowledge become the mainstream of buying personal computers, the importance of professional computer sales stores is highlighted. Because ordinary consumers, when faced with the processor frequency, memory size and other performance numbers of various models of computers, most of them are half-understood, and the sales promotion of store guides to them can directly affect their purchase choices.

This is also vividly reflected in the ABC computer sales of computer park companies and other computer sales companies. The result is that under the same conditions, the sales volume of ABC computers of Computer Park Company is much higher than that of other channel providers! This is why I have been emphasizing that we should fully support the expansion of Computer Park Company!

Li Xuan used a long paragraph to explain his views on the establishment of a strategic cooperative relationship between Aikang Company and Computer Park Company. One of the purposes of the fundraising disclosed by Aikang to investors includes that it will next conduct a large amount of financing to the computer park company to obtain a 30% stake in the computer park sales company. Aikang's shareholding in the downstream sales network is also beneficial to itself, which can make the company's marketing channels more smooth and insured.

After receiving the capital injection from Aikang, the computer park company will accelerate the construction of its global sales network. In fact, since Dongfang Electronics acquired the computer park company, Li Xuan has been investing heavily to support it to accelerate the opening of branches. As of May 1981, the total number of branches in North America, Asia, Australia and Europe has increased from 170 before Li Xuan's acquisition to 235 now.

After a long journey of 13 hours, the Boeing 747 plane leased by Aikang finally landed at London Heathrow Airport. Li Xuan stayed at the famous Langham Hotel in London.

The listing date of Akon is set for Monday, June 1. In the last moments before the listing, the issue price of the company's shares was finally set at £8 per share.

In the early forties of the beginning of the computer, Britain was not inferior to the United States in the field of computers, and the world's first commercial computer, LEO, was born in Britain. However, since the fifties, as the market focus of the world computer industry has shifted from military to commercial, British companies have not been able to keep up with the pace of market changes, and are still obsessed with the scientific and military fields supported by the government, gradually distancing themselves from their American counterparts.

By the early 80s, Britain's computer industry had long since completely declined, and there were very few companies that could independently develop general-purpose computers, and even the British home market had been completely occupied by American goods. The computer division of General Electric Company in the United Kingdom is already one of the top computer companies in the United Kingdom, but compared with computer giants such as IBM and DEC in the United States, it is no longer a company of the same grade.

Judging from the revenue figures in the first quarter of 1981, the newly emerging Aikang Computer has completely overtaken the few remaining computer companies in the United Kingdom and become the largest computer company in the United Kingdom. Therefore, Aikang's listing action has also attracted a lot of attention from the British mainstream media.

Early in the morning of June 1, Li Xuan freshened up early and took the high-end special car prepared by The Langham Hotel to the London Stock Exchange in the City. On the east side of London's famous St. Paul's Cathedral, there is a place known as the "squaremile" (one square mile). It is home to hundreds of banks and other financial institutions, and is seen as a replica of Wall Street in London, which is the City of Commerce. (To be continued......)