Cai Chongxin: No One Is Really Obsessed With Going Public.

Morgan chase made a phone call... Then Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. In this way, Cai Chongxin's phone rang. Of course, if you have never heard of him, you are excused.

In front of Amazon, Alibaba It's like a giant with unlimited potential. According to the data from the US research group, the total sales volume of Taobao and Tmall in 2012 exceeded 1 trillion yuan (US $160 billion), while Amazon's sales amounted to US $86 billion.

Its listing value will exceed $150 billion, exceeding the value of Facebook or Google IPO. For Wall Street, the lucky underwriter will get a multi billion dollar underwriting.

Cai Chongxin, a native born "Taiwan Zi Zi", was a former New York lawyer and graduated from Yale University. He is not the founder of Alibaba group, Ma Yun, but he has made a major decision because he followed the head office to prepare for the listing, making the name "Cai Chongxin" famous in the elite circle of investment banks.

The executive vice president of Alibaba group. Cai Chongxin, In a rare interview, he said, "when people say they like you, they really want to talk with you." However, he tried to downplay this feeling. "Listing is only a milestone, but the company is still developing, and there are many other things outside the listing."

The listing of Alibaba group is seen as a key turning point in China's local innovation, which may also indicate a wave of new concerns for other Chinese technology companies, such as Tencent.

Looking at the size of Alibaba, more than 300 million people visited Alibaba's website on the day of the "eleven double" huge carnival on the Internet. About 158 million express parcels were delivered smoothly.

Alibaba group's future list Success is not only crucial to the fate of Alibaba, but also important to YAHOO and its chief executive, Marisa Meijer. YAHOO currently holds a 24% stake in Alibaba group. YAHOO's share price rose 107% last year, largely due to a chain reaction triggered by the soaring valuation of Alibaba.

Listing is also important for Cai Chongxin himself, whose stake in the company is worth nearly $2 billion.

Ma first invited Cai Chongxin to join the company in 1999. This is quite a long story. Ma Yun asked Cai Chongxin, "I can only afford your salary of 50 dollars per month. What else do you want to do with me?"

"But I didn't think," he recalls the interview. "I was very surprised when he said he still wanted to join us."

This month, Cai Chongxin, who is going to enter the year of "knowing destiny", became a partner of Sullivan Cromwell law company in the early 90s of last century. He later became a private equity investor and worked with a Swedish investment company. At that time, Ma Yun invited him to consider the work of joining the Alibaba.

"We stayed in Silicon Valley for a week and were rejected by all venture capitalists." Ma Yun said, "then I asked him," do you still want to join us? "

Ma Yun disclosed that when Cai Chongxin's wife was pregnant, she asked her husband to go to Hangzhou to take a look at the company before giving him a reply to join Ali. Cai Chongxin's wife and Ma Yun put it this way. "I want to see it in person because I think my husband is crazy. If I acquiesce in him, then I'm crazy, but if I don't agree, he will hate me forever."

This is a lottery ticket for life. In Ma Yun's eyes, Cai Chongxin is a person who pays attention to details. He can help deal with a series of transactions until he helps the company become the leader of the industry.

Ma Yun explained their partnership to others: "we are two very different people. My special roots, but he has been professionally educated and well-trained, disciplined and very smart.

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Cai Chongxin said he left the law firm to pursue investment and entrepreneurship, inspired by a meeting with Goldman bankers. He was still working in Sullivan Cromwell law firm.

Cai Chongxin explained: I went to a meeting when Goldman Sachs sought offshore partnership. Because of tax problems, it must be established in the Cayman Islands.

Cai Chongxin went on to say that Goldman's bankers were told that they needed a real trading operation in the Cayman Islands. At this time, "a young man standing in the corner leaned slightly on his chair, as if to say," yes, I think I will move to the Cayman Islands to do the transaction. " He looks twenty-seven and eight years old, and at that time I was almost the same age. At the moment, the chief lawyer said, "we need a higher level of participation."

Cai said with emotion, "however, the man seems to be saying," I am a partner ", but this is only a 27 year old young man. This is a big blow to me. "

Of course, Goldman Sachs will also give him an olive branch, but part of Cai Chongxin's work is to maintain the image of the company's listing and ensure that the culture of the company is not affected by the rumours of distortion.

"Every employee's personal financial income is closely related to the company. It is obvious that everyone will solve the math problem in his mind." I have so many shares. " Cai Chongxin said, "nothing is more pleasant than seeing my employees improve their personal income. This is also the result of their hard work every day. On the negative side, people start to become complacent.

He also tried to pool all the bankers. When he helped Alibaba B2B a few years ago, he said, "I have to say to those bankers," you all need to work together to work. I don't want a IPO to let bankers fight each other, and that's easy for them to do. Second, we can't interrupt business, because we don't want people to be lost by IPO.

At present, it is not clear what time the Alibaba group will be listed. Cai Chongxin said that most of the time in 2013, the company has pressed the button for IPO, so the listing will not be as fast as expected this year. "We haven't made any progress on formal occasions," Cai Chongxin said. Those so-called speculation can continue to let banks and exchanges play.

One reason for the delay is that last autumn, the HKEx rejected the Alibaba listing plan, because the rules of the HKEx prohibit partner structure and allow minority shareholders to master the company. The founder of Alibaba wants to retain the mastery of the company. The architecture they put forward is unusual in Hongkong. This effort is also somewhat emulated by competitors such as Google and Facebook. The latter two are still in the hands of the founders after the company is listed.

The rejected deal has become a new highlight in the stock exchanges of various countries. Cai Chongxin argued that the board's refusal to go public was a "moral" argument, saying that the structure provided by Alibaba was not democratic enough.

"Nothing is more commercialized than listing, which is not the right time or place to really talk about morality." Cai Chongxin said, "we just ask that there is a framework that allows the company's managers, partners we call partners, to have a higher level of influence in the board."

In fact, in the United States, although some investors have taken a critical stance towards such a special equity structure, this structure has become the norm. Cai Chongxin said that what he most worried about was the judgement made by Hongkong lagging behind other parts of the world, so that its implication for the future may be self-evident.

"I think the whole of Hongkong needs to really rethink and focus on technology and other new issues in reshaping its economy." At the moment, Cai Chongxin smiles and denies the potential speculation around him. "No one is really obsessed with going public," he said.