After lunch with Bill Michanik, Eric boarded a plane to New York.
Today is already November 18th, Wednesday.
In order to have enough time to formulate a targeted response strategy based on the stock price trend on the first day, Yahoo’s IPO date was deliberately set on the day after tomorrow, which is Friday, the last trading day of the week.
Inside the cabin of a Boeing 767.
Although she grew up in a wealthy middle-class family, this was Anne Hathaway's first time flying in a private jet.
In order to avoid being regarded as an ignorant little girl, she stayed reservedly in the cabin lounge after the plane took off.
After more than half an hour, a magazine for entertainment in my hand was flipped through, but I didn't see anything. Looking up and looking around, Eric's female assistant seemed to be concentrating on flipping through the documents in her hand, as if she didn't notice herself at all. After hesitating for a while, Annie stood up and walked towards the front of the cabin.
Eric just said that he went to the study.
There is also a study on the plane
Hey, it's so strange that such a big plane has a study room.
As if worried that Mayer might spy on her mental activities, Anne Hathaway turned her head and glanced guiltily before tiptoeing out of the lounge.
Passing by a reception room and a washroom, and gently pushing open the third door, Annie saw Eric sitting behind a desk. Seeing the man looking up, the girl quickly revealed a harmless Smile: "Eric, I, um, I just check to see if you're here."
Eric gestured to the girl to come over, and said with a smile, "Do you think I have the ability to sneak away from the plane?"
"Of course not," Anne Hathaway realized that she had just said something stupid, and stuck out her tongue in a small excuse.
When he came to Eric, seeing the man reaching out to him, he naturally sat on Eric's lap.
Curiously looking at the content on the screen of the desktop laptop, she felt a powerful big hand around her waist, and Annie's body softened back. Thinking of an incident a few days ago, she stuck to the man and said softly: " Eric, I went to see Teddy Bear with some friends last Saturday, is that really your script?"
"Yeah," Eric covered the laptop screen casually, moved it aside, and said, "So, how do you feel?"
"Very," Annie thought for a while, then suppressed a smile and said, "Very interesting."
"Oh, that's not what a good girl should say." Eric smiled, picked up the girl's waist, put her on the opposite desk, and said, "I thought you would say that you could bear it after seeing it for 15 minutes." Can't stop running out."
Annie kicked off the small leather shoes on her feet, and gently rubbed her feet in black stockings on Eric's legs, with a little more charm in her eyes: "This is your movie."
Eric pressed the girl's restless calf, looked up, and found that she was wearing a magenta mid-length windbreaker today, with two long legs protruding from the hem, so he curiously stretched out his hand to slender the windbreaker on the girl's waist. The belt was pulled open, and there was only a light shirt and an OL-style black tube skirt inside. She couldn't help laughing and said, "Do you know what the temperature is in New York now?"
Annie thought that Eric was going to do something bad, so she leaned back slightly and put her hands on the desk. Hearing the man's question, she froze for a moment, but quickly said: "I know, but Eric will definitely not let me freeze, right?"
Eric nodded, looking at the girl's seductive appearance at this time, he found the zipper of the tube skirt around her slender waist and pulled it down, saying: "Hey, since you have watched "Teddy Bear", I also Come to test where is your tolerance limit?"
Annie raised her body slightly, obediently asked Eric to take off her tube skirt, but with a little resentment in her eyes, she said half-truthfully, "You have obviously tested it."
With a wicked smile on his face, Eric said, "Little guy, do you think that's the limit? It's so naive."
More than three hours later, the Boeing 767 landed at Eric's private airport in Long Island. It was already night on the east coast, and the temperature in New York was almost the same as that in London, and it was already winter.
There was a reception tonight that Eric needed to attend in person. After calling East Hampton, Eric boarded the helicopter to Manhattan again.
Around eight o'clock, the helicopter landed on the roof of Eric's high-rise mansion at the entrance of Sixth Avenue in Manhattan.
A group of seven people got off the still black VH-60. Mayer went downstairs with a few bodyguards to arrange a car. Eric took Anne back to his residence first.
Turning on the air-conditioning system in the mansion, Eric looked at Anne who was leaning softly on the sofa in the living room, and smiled. Although he said on the plane that he wanted to test the girl's tolerance, he didn't do anything excessive .
Walking over and pinching the girl's chin, Eric said, "Would you like to go to the reception with me later?"
"Is it okay?" Annie immediately cheered up, and realized in a blink of an eye that her reaction did not match the 'state' just now, she reached out and grabbed a pillow beside her to hold it in her arms, and said, "But, Eric, I don't care about anything. don't know."
"These receptions just need little vases that don't understand anything," Eric said with a smile, "hey, that's it, come with me later, and I'll take you back to Millburn tomorrow morning."
Anne is traveling with Eric this time, mainly to come back to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with her family at the end of the year. Her home is in Millburn, New Jersey. Eric is not sure about the exact location, but according to Anne’s description, it probably It is near Jersey City, which is across the river from Manhattan, and still belongs to the New York area.
Hearing Eric's words, Annie said with some expectation: "Eric, actually, I didn't tell my parents that I will be back in these two days. Can I spend two more days in Manhattan?"
Eric shook his head and said, "I've been too busy these two days, so I don't have time to accompany you."
Annie looked at Eric hopefully for a moment, seeing that the man was unmoved, she had to give up her thoughts.
After a while, Mayer came back with a few sets of clothes with a cold expression, and watched Anne change into the little dress that was actually very suitable for her. When Eric took the girl away, the female assistant seemed to be thrown away by the owner. The cat, who was full of resentment at home, frantically tossed around the apartment, and drank the most expensive bottle of red wine in Eric's wine cabinet by the way.
IPO, the usual translation is "initial public offering", but Eric feels that this translation is not appropriate, but the literal translation of the three words Initial-Public-Offerings is more in line with the correct meaning of IPO: supply to the public market for the first time (stock ).
Because, when the IPO is carried out, in fact, the company has completed the fundraising for institutional investors. After the IPO, it means that the stocks sold to institutional investors can officially be traded in the open market.
On the other hand, when people hear a company officially announce its IPO date, it already means that the company can basically be listed successfully.
What Eric took Annie tonight was Yahoo's appreciation reception for representatives of institutional investors who subscribed for the company's shares.
Driven by the recent hype of Yahoo's listed technology stocks, the Nasdaq index broke through 2,500 points on Monday this week, entering Eric's most dangerous and volatile range. As of today's daytime close, the Nasdaq index has reached 2567 points, which is not a small increase, but this has also further increased the uncertainty of the Nasdaq curve after Yahoo's IPO.
In the banquet hall of the Plaza Hotel, Eric took Annie to dinner with some important guests tonight, and Chris, Ian Grenier, Morgan Stanley President John Mark and others gathered around Eric .
After handing Annie to Emily, several men stood around the corner of the hall together, and the other guests also tactfully did not come over.
Although the acquired IPO means that Yahoo has completed its first public fundraising, but then, whether it is Firefly System, Morgan Stanley, which is responsible for the underwriting, or even several other banks, are facing more serious problems.
All of you have a large number of technology stocks in your hands. Although you don't know the exact number, Eric can be sure that the scale of technology stocks held by several major Wall Street investment banks at this time is definitely not less than that of Firefly Group's Clover Fund. Moreover, these investment banks entered the market much later than Clover Fund. If they want to ensure profits, they must ensure that after Yahoo's IPO, the entire Nasdaq market will not be affected by Yahoo's stock price fluctuations.
As a pure Internet company with the largest IPO so far, once Yahoo's stock is strongly pessimistic or short-sold after the IPO, it will definitely trigger a domino-like chain reaction more than any other technology company.
"Because the number of subscriptions after the roadshow was better than we expected, according to the green shoe mechanism, we sold a total of 172.5 million shares this time, of which 22.5 million were green shoe options, accounting for 15% of the established issuance. Once the IPO Afterwards, the stock price showed a downward trend, and Morgan Stanley could use US$735.75 million to support the market.”
In the crowd, John Mark once again briefly introduced some measures taken by Morgan Stanley to Eric.
The so-called 'green shoe mechanism', the scientific name is called the over-allotment option.
To put it simply, the issuer authorizes the underwriter to sell more stocks to institutional investors in the pre-subscription process, accounting for no more than 15% of the established issuance amount.
However, these stocks have not been officially delivered, but an option-like transaction by the subscribers. Moreover, since they have already paid cash like other equity subscribers, institutional investors cannot go back on this option subscription. It's like an adventure.
The greenshoe option is confirmed, and after the IPO, the company's stock price rises and is a great success. Then, the underwriter will get the batch of stocks from the issuer at the issue price and transfer them to the option subscribers. If the company's stock price falls, or even falls below the issue price, the underwriters will use the funds obtained from selling options to repurchase the stock from the open market, and then sell it to institutional investors who subscribe for options.
The green shoe mechanism can ensure that when the company's stock is very popular, it can flexibly raise more funds for the issuer, and also allow an additional group of institutional investors to obtain rich returns. But in fact, the most important thing is that once the company's stock price is not satisfactory after the IPO, the underwriters can openly and legally carry out the market support operation, so as to prevent the stock price from falling too much and harming the interests of all parties.
John Mark briefly introduced a few words, then looked directly at Eric, and continued: "However, Eric, I think that the funds of more than 700 million US dollars are still not very safe. I hope that the Firefly system can take more Measures. Although Firefly Investment has just acquired Sony’s film assets some time ago, this expenditure only accounts for a small part of the funds for the sale of AOL’s equity. "
Eric smiled and listened to John Mark finish, nodded and said: "If necessary, John, Firefly will definitely do it."
In all fairness, Eric is more worried about the chain reaction of Yahoo's IPO share price failure than investment banks like Morgan Stanley.
If several major investment banks lose money on technology stocks, the losses are actually those investors who entrust investment banks to manage their financial management. But for Firefly, a large part of the technology stocks held by the Clover Fund is Eric's own. If tens of billions of dollars are lost, even with Eric's current net worth, it will definitely be very painful.
Moreover, the most important thing is the 30% forward equity transfer agreement signed between Yahoo and Microsoft.
Microsoft has formed a very stable monopoly on the operating system. Even if the Nasdaq crashes, Microsoft's stock price will not fall too hard, but Yahoo, which is still in a period of rapid growth, cannot be so lucky, because there is no real profit support , the stock price drop will definitely be very shocking. Although after several years of operation, Firefly will not lose its absolute control over Yahoo even if it gives Microsoft another 30% of the shares after this listing, but in any case, Eric does not want to sell 30% of the shares at this time. Sold to Microsoft.
"There is also the media, which requires you to do it yourself, Eric." Although Eric's somewhat ambiguous promise did not satisfy John Mark, he continued: "I recently found out that there have been a few days in a row on CNN. Look at Yahoo’s remarks, and the Washington Post, they published a critical article on technology stocks yesterday, Eric, I don’t quite understand this matter, if I don’t remember Wrong, the relationship between you and Mr. Buffett should be very good."
Eric was also a little puzzled. Although the "Washington Post" was in the hands of the Graham family, Buffett had been a major shareholder and one of the important directors of the "Washington Post" for a long time. has a very strong influence. He turned his head and glanced at Chris beside him. Although Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is also one of the important shareholders of Firefly Group, in terms of personal friendship, Chris and Buffett are closer.
Chris shook his head: "I've been too busy these two days, so I didn't pay attention to this matter. I will talk to Warren myself on the phone tomorrow morning."
"I'll see if I can have a meal with Terry Semel at noon tomorrow," Eric also said, "I'll say hello to the other TV stations. As for the newspaper, Chris, it's up to you Be responsible, in short, make sure that there will be no messy remarks in the media during the period of Yahoo's listing."