Decryption Ali 19 Billion HK Dollar Privatization: Ma Yun Chess Down To The Central Market

The two years of February 21st can be called the "billows day" of Alibaba.

In February 21, 2011, Alibaba (01688.HK) at that time, CEO Wei Zhe and COO Li Xuhui resigned and resigned because of the "fraud door".

In February 21, 2012,

The waves are rising again, but the climax is far from coming.

This account has its own algorithm.

Alibaba's investors are making profits, and different stakeholders have their own accounts.

Shortly after the publication of the "privatization notice", Ma sent an email to the company.

The main contents of the mail are two points: first, privatization is "responsible to shareholders"; secondly, "some people say we only get 1 billion 700 million dollars when we go public, but privatization costs US $about 2000000000. It looks like a losing business. Some people suggest that we can buy it back at a lower price.

But this is not the style of Alibaba. "

In fact, from a purely market perspective, the privatization premium of 60% did indeed make Alibaba pay more than HK $7 billion.

A recent case for comparison is that just a few days ago, Chen announced the privatization of NASDAQ listed companies Shanda, a premium of about 26%.

However, some opponents also have their way of accounts: more than 4 years ago, Alibaba shares returned to their original point, which means that if a person buys the stock at the time of issue, and has been holding until now, he has not gained any gains in 5 years. If he wants to calculate inflation again, the investor is actually losing money.

But supporters also have another algorithm: Alibaba listed on the same day,

In November 6, 2007, Alibaba opened at HK $30, up to HK $41.8, and with HK $3.48 in the financial crisis, the stock price was HK $9.25 before the suspension.

At the beginning of the listing, Ma Yun once had a heroic saying: "many investors told me that if they missed the Google, they could not miss the Alibaba again."

Some investors' strong interest in Alibaba is due to a hidden expectation, namely, the injection of high-quality assets such as Alipay (micro-blog) and Taobao.

However, shortly after the listing, Alibaba made clear at all shareholders' meetings that Taobao would not be injected into Hong Kong listed companies.

This expectation looks a bit like wishful thinking.

From 2007 to 2011, Alibaba realized a net profit of 6 billion 125 million yuan.

During that time, two companies in the United States and most of the shares of Wan Wan and Datong were acquired.

According to the Alibaba annual report 2011, its cash and bank deposits are as high as 11 billion 650 million, of which more than three months of time deposits are as high as 8 billion 200 million yuan.

Behind the abundant cash, it can be said that the efficiency of capital utilization is not high.

Before listing in 2005, Ma Yun once said to his business: "big brother Alibaba is a mud leg, and his younger brothers and sisters should rely on him to attend school. Taobao is a younger sister. He has a lively personality and can buy a flower skirt with the money of his elder brother. In the future, he wants to read Fudan, and the old three Fu Baocai goes to primary school, but he is the most ambitious. Big brother decides to go to Harvard in all costs at all costs."

There were market participants who questioned whether the money of Alibaba listed companies was used to support other enterprises in the group.

When other enterprises grow, the listed companies are delisting.

However, from the analysis of financial statements of listed companies, there is no evidence to point to this point.

YAHOO layout

Ma Yunhua went out 14 billion 700 million, but at the same time he got no less than this amount of free cash flow.

"B2B business is going downhill. If it is not privatized, the outcome will not be very good."

The chairman of an Internet listed company in Shanghai is straight to the financial weekly.

Zhang Yanan, an analyst at the clearing house research center, provided the following reasons for the start of the privatization: "first of all, Alibaba is going to be listed at the right time in the rising period of the B2B industry, supporting the development of other Ali enterprises through the two tier market financing. To date, its mission has been completed; secondly, the Big Ali department is facing the reorganization and integration of enterprises; once again, Ali's performance is general; in the process of restructuring, it may be short term even worse; privatization is no lack of better choice; in addition, as a major shareholder of Ali, it is also an interest bearing person".

But this can not fully explain why Ma chose privatization instead of other capitalization operations on the B2B platform, such as mergers and acquisitions, asset injection and so on.

Although the Alibaba announcement said that it was only for the long-term layout of B2B business, almost no one in the industry speculated on the move to deal with YAHOO.

In the current shareholding structure of Alibaba, YAHOO has close to 39% stake.

The key is what will ma win for himself?

According to the joint announcement, the Alibaba respectively borrowed $6 from the Bank of Australia, Credit Suisse Bank, Singapore Branch, DBS bank, Deutsche Bank Singapore Branch, HSBC and Mizuho Industrial Bank Hongkong branch and so on. The total amount of loans was 3 billion yuan, about 19 billion yuan, while the real repurchase share needed about 15 billion 300 million.

"Therefore, Ma spent 14 billion 700 million Hong Kong dollars this time, but on the other hand, he got the cash and deposits of 11 billion 650 million Hong Kong dollars on the Alibaba account, and some of the loan balances were still available.

You can prepare chips when you talk with YAHOO. "

Deng Jingjing, an analyst at Guotai Junan, said: "if this privatization is successful, Ma will most likely buy YAHOO's way of" cash plus sub group equity ", because YAHOO also has many assets in Asia. Given that YAHOO is in a bad position, they will not easily abandon Alibaba's stake.

"Assets plus cash" is still the ideal choice for both sides, said Feng Po, an analyst with the group.

For YAHOO, it still intends to hold the high-quality assets of Ali to gain long-term benefits, while holding group companies or subsidiaries have no substantive impact. For Ma Yun, in order to get control of the group company, a share option or a acceptable plan is to be sold.

Therefore, the privatization of Alibaba B2B will facilitate the smooth progress of YAHOO's repo pactions.

"Ma Yun looks pretty smart, but I think it's probably a way of Huashan," he said.

The chairman of an Internet listed company in Shanghai said.

"Alibaba has been solving two problems in the past two years, one is to regain control power, and the other is to pform business into two.

It is unnecessary to argue about control rights. Alibaba must ransom at all costs, and even save the country by curve.

There is a key problem, which is to grasp the initiative of asset valuation of Alibaba, otherwise it will be out of control.

"The second problem is that the B2B, C2C and B2C of the whole Alibaba system are also good. As the market continues to open up and competition intensifies, the challenge is bigger and bigger. We must let the customer experience upgrade.

Therefore, Alibaba urgently put forward to build e-commerce ecosystem.

Before that, he continued to split up the business platform.

"This involves two items of listed companies and unlisted assets. If this happens to the listed companies, it will be equivalent to sunshine all the assets. Facing YAHOO is just like getting the sheep into the tiger's mouth.

That is only the non sunshine treatment, so we have to withdraw the Alibaba. "

Ma Yun was not the first to rack his brains for the company's control and even fight.

In the growing process of Alibaba, Ma Yun has been diluting shares to employees, and early investors Softbank have also increased their voice. As a result, Softbank shares rose from 20% to 29.3%, and Ma holdings were reduced to below 5%.

On the Alipay control structure he regarded as "liver", Ma and Softbank Sun Zhengyi had a fundamental conflict.

In the end, Ma Yun pferred the Alipay to the top management team holding company on the grounds of "national policy", which triggered a heated controversy about the integrity of VIE (foreign capital agreement control).

"This time privatization will also hurt the credibility of Chinese capital stocks," the executives said. "But from a capital perspective, it is reasonable."

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