Unlike the end-of-year blockbuster news that is concentrated in the media entertainment section, Yahoo's IPO is completely a news event at the level of the whole society.
While the Nasdaq index broke through 2,500 points this week, the market capitalization of major technology companies in the market also hit new highs.
According to the closing data when Eric arrived in New York on Wednesday, Microsoft, the well-deserved king of the Nasdaq market, has a market value of an astonishing $335.9 billion. In addition, among other star technology stocks, the market value of Intel is 157.2 billion US dollars, the market value of Cisco is 133.5 billion US dollars, the market value of AOL is 66.7 billion US dollars, and the market value of SUN is 38.6 billion US dollars...
Among them, even Microsoft, which has the most outstanding profit status, has a price-earnings ratio of more than 100 times the bubble level. Therefore, the Nasdaq market at this time can only be described as "crazy".
Although only in the first three quarters, Yahoo has achieved a revenue of 1.296 billion US dollars, more than double the 636 million US dollars in the whole year of last year. It is expected that the company's annual revenue growth rate will still be close to 200%. However, even if it is only calculated based on the single-share issue price of US$33, Yahoo's market value of US$33.7 billion, combined with the profit forecast given by Yahoo, will still bring about a price-earnings ratio of about 200 times.
Under normal circumstances, unless the company's development potential is extremely optimistic, it will be difficult for the company to attract investors if the price-to-earnings ratio exceeds 30 times.
It is conceivable that there are basically not many rational investors in the current Nasdaq market. Under the temptation of huge short-term arbitrage trading profits, everyone is betting wildly, and then secretly praying that they will not be the last receiver before the collapse of the Nasdaq.
Yahoo went public in this tense state of almost jitteriness, and the timing was extremely sensitive. Although the subscription of more than 15% of the issued shares was successfully achieved in the early stage of the IPO process, no one, even Eric himself, is quite sure whether the official listing and trading of Yahoo shares will be the last to crush the camel. a straw.
Therefore, everyone has the mentality of doing their best and preparing for the worst. As the last day of listing approaches, the entire Firefly system is still at full capacity making final preparations for Yahoo's listing.
After a non-stop busy day, in the evening, Eric originally planned to invite the executives of the firefly system company who came to participate in the Yahoo bell ringing ceremony to have dinner together, but he received a phone call temporarily and had to rush to Nasda in Midtown gram exchange.
Although there are still more than 12 hours before the listing and trading tomorrow, the outside of the Nasdaq Exchange on 42nd Street in Midtown has already been crowded with reporters from all sides.
As soon as Eric's car stopped outside the exchange building, sharp-eyed reporters immediately surrounded him frantically. Countless hands holding cameras and recording pens reached out to Eric over the bodyguards guarding him, with a voice The big reporter tried his best to stretch out the recording pen in his hand, and suppressed all the noisy voices around him and said loudly: "Mr. Williams, we just got the news that there seems to be an incident between the Yahoo team in the exchange and the top management of the Nasdaq Group. If there is a conflict, are you here to resolve this?"
Hearing the reporter's sudden question, other media people around were stunned for a moment, then gave up the question just now, and at the same time, they hoped even more frantically that Eric could answer the question just now.
After struggling through the crowd of reporters and entering the building, Eric pulled off his crooked suit, looked around, turned his head worriedly and asked his bodyguard captain Carter Moen, "Where's Mary?"
Carter said: "Miss Mayer is still in the car, the crowd is too chaotic, I just suggested that she come over after you come in."
Eric nodded, waved his hands to the assistant of Steve Mitnick who was coming up, and then stepped up and walked straight to the NASDAQ exchange hall.
Different from traditional stock exchanges such as New York Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange, NASDAQ is actually the abbreviation of "National Association of Securities Dealers Automatic Quotation System", which belongs to the world's first electronic stock securities trading platform. Stock trading is basically done by telephone and computer.
Therefore, the Nasdaq Exchange in the building on 42nd Street is more like a symbol. The exchange does not have the complete software and hardware securities trading facilities like the New York Stock Exchange. The photographic equipment and live broadcast facilities of the news, on the contrary, look more like a TV studio.
Unlike the New York Stock Exchange, which is a non-profit social and public service organization, although it has long been able to compete with the New York Stock Exchange in terms of the size of listed companies and trading volume, in fact, Nasdaq is a subsidiary of the Nasdaq Group. All, belonging to a profit-making private company.
Seeing Eric appear, the two parties who were confronting each other immediately came over together.
Nasdaq Group CEO Frank Szabo was very excited, waving his arms first and said: "Eric, I have a hard time understanding your thoughts, why do you want to temporarily conduct technical maintenance and stress tests on Nasdaq's trading system?" , This is simply unreasonable. I know you attach great importance to Yahoo's listing transaction, but the Nasdaq platform has been established for 27 years, and we have never delayed the listing of any company due to technical reasons. Your request is completely unnecessary. Moreover, taking a step back, even if we want to do this, it should be done by our company's own technical team, and it is impossible for us to open the server to outsiders for testing."
Eric listened to Frank Sabo's complaints, raised his wrist and looked at his watch, interrupted him and said, "How long does it take for your technical team to overhaul and test?"
Frank Sabo paused in waving his arms before saying, "Eric, it's completely unnecessary."
"I insist," Eric's voice calmed down, his eyes fixed on Frank Sabo: "Or, you continue to refuse, and then I cancel tomorrow's listing, there are a large group of reporters outside, and a press conference can be held to announce this news. So, how long does it take for your technical team to overhaul and test?"
Eric insisted that the Nasdaq Exchange conduct a maintenance test on the system equipment, which is naturally not unreasonable or unreasonable.
In the past, Facebook encountered a sudden failure of Nasdaq system equipment on the day of listing, which eventually caused Facebook stock trading orders worth billions of dollars to be unable to be completed smoothly, and even caused Facebook's stock price to fall on the day of listing to a large extent. The 'tragedy' of breaking the issue price, because of the unfavorable start, Facebook's stock price continued to slump in the following year. At the lowest point, the company's market value was only more than 30 billion US dollars, which was less than one-third of the market value on the day of listing.
Therefore, if Frank Szabo really insists on not compromising on this matter, Eric doesn't mind holding an impromptu press conference to urgently cancel Yahoo's listing operation tomorrow.
The pressure suddenly erupted by Eric made Frank Szabo's momentum suddenly soften. If Yahoo's listing operation is really temporarily cancelled, although Firefly may face unpredictable losses, he, the CEO of Nasdaq Group, will definitely To be kicked out by the board of directors.
Subconsciously swallowed, Frank Sabo finally did not dare to utter another hard word.
However, as the leader of the group, he really didn't know how long it would take to overhaul and test Nasdaq's trading system platform. After hesitating for a moment, he reported an inaccurate time: "Probably, it will take five or six hours."
"Since the market closed at four o'clock in the afternoon, you have been delayed for an hour and a half." Eric raised his hand and knocked on his watch, and said: "So, call your technical team immediately, and Steve and the others must also Assist from the side and conduct the necessary supervision, whether it is six hours or twelve hours, in short, before the transaction tomorrow, get this done for me, is there any problem?"
Frank Szabo shook his head with some difficulty: "No, no problem."
"That's it, let's start," Eric said, looked around, walked to a chair next to the camera and sat down, raised his arms and looked at the crowd in the field.
Frank Szabo didn't dare to be sloppy anymore, he took out his mobile phone and started calling on the spot.
Steve Mitnick waved the crowd to disperse, walked to Eric, pulled a chair and sat down, and said with a wry smile: "I quarreled with the original person in charge here for an hour, and Frank Sabo rushed over , and quarreling for another half an hour, I can only call you to come over."
Eric shook his head and said it was okay, and said: "I will have dinner with Ian and John later, you probably can only stay here."
"It's nothing," Steve Mitnick said with a smile, "I'm going to become a billionaire all of a sudden. I still can't believe it. My parents have always disliked me studying computers. I often worry that I will live on the streets in the future."
After the last stock split and the last equity incentive plan before the IPO, the two most important veterans of Yahoo, Ian Grenier and Steve Mitnick, each held 16 million shares. Just based on the issue price of 33 US dollars, the net worth of both of them has exceeded 500 million US dollars at this time. In addition, the number of shares held by Tina Brown is 6 million shares, and the value of this stock is also close to 200 million US dollars.
In other words, Yahoo has already created three billionaires before going public. In addition to the three core executives, there are another 48.5 million shares distributed in the hands of Yahoo's management and elite employees at all levels. Once listed, Yahoo will create more than a dozen multi-millionaires and hundreds of millionaires at one time. It is very rare in the history of the entire world's corporate development, and it is also called one of the signs of the technology stock bubble by some media.
Looking at Steve Mitnick with a somewhat emotional expression, Eric smiled and said: "Then, you can tell your parents about this now, and surprise them."
"My mother was taken aback." Steve smiled more teasingly, and said, "She thinks your boss must be out of his mind to distribute so much money to employees."
"Yeah, actually, I'm also very distressed," Eric said jokingly, covering his chest.
Having said that, Eric has never been reluctant about such a large-scale equity incentive plan, and high equity incentives will naturally be tied to strict non-compete agreement restrictions.
In this era when Internet companies are springing up like mushrooms after rain, the elites within the Yahoo Group who have been working in the Internet industry since Eric founded the three companies can easily be recruited if they lead the team away from Yahoo! Venture capital and quickly accumulate enough wealth through the IPO listing, and may even become a competitor of Yahoo.
But in fact, this situation has not happened. Yahoo has maintained the absolute dominance of mainstream Internet businesses such as portal websites, e-mail, instant messaging, browser software and even the most recent search engine. Except for Jeff Locke and others who left when the first equity incentive plan was launched three years ago, in recent years, few core executives have left within the Yahoo Group. The main reason is the company's generous equity incentives and strict rules Non-compete regulations.
Although the book value of the equity incentive plan totaling 96.5 million shares so far exceeds US$3 billion, Eric has gained US$30 billion. Enterprise investors with a little foresight can understand how to choose the pros and cons of this .
Chatted with Steve, and stared at the exchange for a while, until Mayer came over with his mobile phone and received a call from Ian Grenier and others from the Plaza Hotel. Banquet tonight.
Early the next morning, Eric woke up in the penthouse on Sixth Avenue, and it was already seven o'clock.
When I came to the restaurant downstairs, Mayer had already prepared breakfast. Seeing Eric sitting at the dining table, the female assistant handed over a stack of organized newspapers.
"I won't watch it today," Eric shook his head, and said, "We have to get to 42nd Street before eight o'clock."
Mayer put away the newspaper, served breakfast for the two of them, sat down opposite, and said: "Mr. Mitnick sent a message at four o'clock in the morning, they have completed the inspection and maintenance of the Nasdaq trading system. Testing, the technical teams of Yahoo and Nasdaq are still there to ensure that there will be no accidents during today's transaction. In addition, Mr. Katzenberg arrived in New York at nine o'clock last night. You were still there After eating with everyone, Katzenberg said that today he will go directly to the Nasdaq exchange.”
Eric added some milk to the porridge, nodded and said, "Well, is there any more?"
Mayer continued: "Mission: Impossible 3's midnight box office is about $9.2 million, which is lower than the summer release of "Charlie's Angels 3" and "The Matrix 2."
"It's not bad."
Eric didn't feel disappointed. North America has just experienced a large-scale cooling in recent days. It has snowed in many places on the east coast. Many people are reluctant to go out during the day, let alone go to a midnight movie in the early morning. Under such circumstances, the midnight box office of "Mission: Impossible 3" can still be maintained at more than 9 million US dollars, and it has even performed a little extraordinarily.
After listening to Mayer's report on a few things, Eric looked at the girl opposite and said, "Speaking of which, Thanksgiving is coming soon. I'll give you a day off after work. Go back and spend Thanksgiving with your family. Next week, Well, just come back next week."
Caroline was still recuperating, and Mayer subconsciously wanted to ask Eric what he would do if he left him, but suddenly remembered something, closed his mouth again, and just nodded slightly.
After breakfast, Eric took Mayer to the Nasdaq Exchange on 42nd Street. Compared with yesterday afternoon, although it is not yet eight o'clock, today's Nasdaq exchange is more lively inside and outside, and many guests who came to the Yahoo listing platform even came out earlier than Eric Now in the hall of the exchange.
Greeting everyone enthusiastically, Eric found two beautiful figures in the crowd by accident, and asked in surprise, "Why are you two here?"
Cindy picked up her badge and shook it at Eric, saying, "I'm a star user of Yahoo's blog, and Ms. Brown called me personally to invite me to stand for Yahoo."
Eric smiled and looked at Linda next to Cindy: "Where's your brand?"
Linda reached out to snatch Cindy's badge, but it was snapped open. She raised her chin depressedly, and said, "No, just kick me out."
Cindy came over and gently took Eric's arm, leaned into his ear and smiled and whispered: "She subscribed for 1.5 million shares, and all her savings in the past few years have been invested."
"Big customer," Eric stretched out his hand to embrace Linda, who was in a small mood, and said, "Okay, come up with me to ring the bell later. But let's say it first, I don't care if I'm locked up."
"I've seen through you a long time ago." Linda leaned over reluctantly, pinched Eric's waist lightly, and said, "Irresponsible man."