In the past few days of the Chinese New Year, the world's favorite investor is Masayoshi Son, the Japanese god of investment.
In three days, its two main companies soared by more than $100 billion!
Why is it so crazy?
SoftBank, as many people know.
is to single-handedly support Ma Yun and Alibaba, the Japanese god-level investment company.
What is this ARM in the back?
It may not be strictly to put it simply, it is a leading company in automotive chips.
This is a relatively old British chip company with a relatively long history, founded in 1991.
According to public reports, in terms of automotive chips, ARM is the absolute leader.
In the era of traditional automobiles, there is not much market for automotive chips.
After all, fuel vehicles don't use many chips.
But in the era of electric vehicles, everything has entered under intelligent electronic control.
Chips are definitely the lifeblood of the electric vehicle era.
So it stands to reason that ARM, definitely has a future.
But what he may mainly do is traditional car chips, with the decline of traditional cars.
ARM's chip business is also declining.
The chip business of smartphones is firmly occupied by Nvidia.
Shareholders and management entered a period of confusion at this time.
I just want to sell myself to find a pick-up man.
Ordinary shareholders and management sell themselves, which is a real pit buyer, especially a pit for retail investors.
But when it comes to the god of investment.
The boss and the management sell themselves, or they may be cheating themselves.
That includes Tencent and Mr. Li's sale of shares in South African Bank, which was made by Netdawei.
Jack Ma sold his stake in Alibaba, to Son.
While they did seem to be selling for a high price at the time and felt like they were making a lot of money, in hindsight, they were indeed one of the biggest losers in the world.
This time.
Once again, Son has demonstrated:
If you are not the majority shareholder or management, you must be the most savvy seller, and the key depends on who the buyer is.
In 2016, SoftBank spent $32 billion to fully privatize Arm.
Why is he already so excited?
Ma Yun, who was fighting with him at that time, was completely indifferent?
Invest in a bunch of garbage companies everywhere that consolidate their monopoly position?
Like Suning, a backward enterprise that has been by them, Ma Yun actually invested 20 billion!
In fact, Ma Yun's investment, from the perspective of human nature, is simply a blind self-maintenance monopoly, eager to have a little traffic, a little market space, all firmly grasped in his own hands.
Not at all a rational and advanced investment.
Moreover, it is necessary to use a set of "new retail" lies to deceive themselves in the past to cover up this monopoly regression.
Then.
Tesla was already on fire in 2013.
BYD is also on the rise.
The general direction is already clear.
Masayoshi Son has missed Tesla and has not kept up with BYD.
Moreover, whether it is Tesla or BYD, they are just players.
Players are at risk of falling behind at any time.
It's not good to bet on heavy positions.
Directly press the key lifeline of this track, the leading auto chip, then you can bet on heavy positions.
Anyway, no matter which player you are, you may have to consider the leading chip company first.
If you develop those yourself, you might be able to add a little bit of leftovers.
The logic is as simple as that.
So at that time, when Masayoshi Son acquired.
Many people wonder why they would want to buy a company that looks like it's going to fail.
I thought, it's totally fine.
This is the inevitable outlet of the new track blowout of electric vehicles.
A year later.
In 2017.
In the name of Son's investment.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Middle Eastern donors with a lot of money.
He co-founded the $100 billion World Super Investment Vision Fund.
Son generously ceded 25% of ARM's shares to the Vision Fund at a cost price of $8 billion.
But then.
It's weird.
Tesla, BYD and a group of new energy vehicle players broke out.
ARM didn't respond.
is still stuck on the line of life and death.
Why is this happening?
When Masayoshi Son was talking about this investment, I remember him talking about:
In traditional cars, dozens of chips are used in a car, but in electric vehicles, there are hundreds of chips.
That's roughly what it means.
That is, the amount of chips used in electric vehicles will be much more than that of traditional cars.
In line with such an advanced prediction, people abandoned me and took it, and he enthusiastically acquired Arm, a leading automotive chip company.
Logically, nothing is wrong at all.
As a result, the electric car outlet exploded, and ARM's business did not improve.
Is it really cheated by the seller?
At this time, including Son himself, there must have been serious doubts and wavering.
At the same time, what is skeptical and vacillating should be the Saudi Arabian financier of the Vision Fund.
Probably because fundamentally shaken.
And then.
Just in 2020, SoftBank and SoftBank Vision Fund, at a valuation of $40 billion, sold Arm to the chip leader, just like Nvidia.
Only earn 20% of US dollars in 4 years, that is, collect some interest money.
Definitely a friendship price.
Nvidia is also happy to laugh at it.
But it just so happened to be a coincidence.
This time, because of the negation of the three parties, the transaction was not completed.
The voluntary transaction of the two families, a $40 billion deal, was terminated by the interference of a third party.
This really deserves to be rich!
If you want to be developed, you can't send hundreds of billions of dollars in profits!
If ARM is really sold to Nvidia, then the floating profit of more than $100 billion is now NVIDIA's;
But it's just a matter of fact.
The profits of more than 100 billion US dollars were forcibly intervened by a third party and forcibly left behind Lao Sun.
Why should a third party intervene and why can it intervene?
Isn't Europe and the United States free markets?
This is the question of the market position of Nvidia and Arm.
One is the smartphone chip leader, and the other is the automotive chip leader.
Together, they are invincible.
In an absolute monopoly position, isn't it possible to blackmail suppliers and buyers at will?
So, they opposed the deal on the basis of monopoly law.
Antitrust of technology companies, the representative companies in the industry, and the major representative countries of the world, all have one vote.
China also has one vote.
At that time, it was for the deal to be closed.
Mr. Son has done a lot of work in China and invested heavily in companies.
China later gave it to him.
But the United States and the European Union, as well as the American technology, the giants Apple, Qualcomm, etc., all voted against.
The super profit of more than 100 billion US dollars was forcibly returned to Lao Sun.
It is estimated that Lao Sun can wake up with a smile in his dreams these days, and he may give the guys who voted against him the most hated in his opinion during the New Year, sincerely put on the pig's head, burn a bunch of incense paper, and bow down seriously!
Probably at this moment.
Only then did Son discover:
It turns out that the most hated person in the world is also the most lovable person to him.
At that time, it was a plan, and Lao Sun had another plan:
Direct secondary IPO financing.
Fortunately, the listing went smoothly.
It will be listed again in three years.
Valuations have also risen.
And before going public, Arm had only two shareholders, SoftBank and Vision Fund, both of which were controlled by Mr. Son.
Is that okay too?
Doesn't it mean that a listed company should be a public company?
But ARM is actually a controller and has also been listed.
It went public in September last year, selling 10% of its shares and getting $4.8 billion.
The post-investment valuation is close to $50 billion.
After listing, there are surges and falls.
The stock price is generally fluctuating around $50.
However, at this time the Saudi Arabian big financiers.
It's not enough for SoftBank to make money.
Because the Vision Fund has failed in a row, including Didi, which has invested tens of billions of dollars.
In my heart, the big Saudi financier is clamoring to withdraw from this investment.
In order to keep this big money owner.
Lao Sun can't help it.
It can only let SoftBank continue to sell Alibaba shares and buy back 25% of the ARM shares of the Vision Fund.
And in order to take care of the Middle Eastern tyrants, the price is about 20% higher than the market price.
Lao Sun is really interesting to the local tyrants.
Outcome.
This year.
When the EV bubble is starting to burst, why did ARM suddenly burst again?
The market value has risen by $100 billion in 3 days!
The market value of SoftBank's parent company, which holds as much as 90% of ARM's shares, soared by 50% in three days, about $50 billion.
It turns out that this arm is a skinny camel that is bigger than a horse.
His chips are not just in the automotive field, they are leading and first-class in many ways.
He directly released his patents, and began to come up as soon as he earned it.
Then I had the intention to plant flowers and flowers but did not pick them up, and I unintentionally planted willows and willows into the shade.
The main thing is to look forward to electric vehicle chips, and the business did not boom when the electric vehicle outlet arrived.
It may be mainly because the current electric vehicles are too functional, and the intelligence is not outstanding enough.
In the future, Arm's automotive chip business should still have great prospects.
If ARM can be good now, there will be a chance to be better in the future.
The prospects are still very broad.
This time.
The Saudi tyrant may want to sing the song he wants to sing the most, which is to sing the pessimistic ending theme song of the insincerity do not disturb in turn:
It's a pity that it's not me, I'll accompany you to the end
Lao Sun, this is really, lost in the east, harvested mulberry.
Seon lost his horse, but he didn't know if it was a blessing.
In Alibaba's market capitalization of more than $800 billion in revenue, Lao Sun did not reduce his holdings and did not short hedge.
He feels that Alibaba still has potential.
I felt like he was crazy.
That Pinduoduo, JD.com, Meituan, and Douyin are rising unstoppably.
Alibaba is clearly already like an aging lion king, and it is only a matter of time before it falls.
He even thinks that Alibaba still has a future!
I thought:
Lao Sun may really not be able to do it.
Investing in Alibaba and Yahoo in the past may have been just the right thing.
After all, hundreds of projects have been invested, and one or two of them are normal.
However, I soon found out that:
After all, he is a generation of investment gods, and when he finally understands the trend of Alibaba, his execution ability and decisiveness are still incomparable to ordinary people.
Son was slashed twice in Alibaba, when both Munger and Duan Yongping couldn't help but go to the bottom.
Jumped ship decisively and sold all the way.
The shareholding was sold all the way from 23% to 0.5%.
This is almost complete abandonment of ship.
Now many people may still not understand, why did Alibaba decline?
At the peak of Alibaba's glory, I wrote a lot of articles.
Including on the eve of Ant Financial's listing, they have also written articles speculating that they may not be able to get on in the end.
Because his business model has been completely blackened like Baidu back then.
One is the PPC of commodity advertising, and the other is online usury.
It's all bad money driving out good money, unscrupulous means in order to make money, forgetting the original intention of playing with fire.
On the other hand, the opponents have achieved the ultimate in speed, price and quality, and live broadcast experience from all aspects.
Whether from the perspective of justice or from the perspective of market opponents.
Alibaba has long been on the road to death.
I said so at the time.
The myth of Ali and Jack Ma has not yet been broken.
Many people don't understand and question what is the deep hatred between me and Jack Ma?
What hatred can there be?
I'm just trying to express some prescient ideas, and they're just fond of living in the belly of a gentleman with the heart of a villain.
However, the change came too quickly, and only two years have passed.
Everything turned out as I expected.
I didn't expect it to be so fast.
I thought it was slowly sinking.
Unexpectedly, in two years, it was surpassed by Douyin and Pinduoduo.
Also within these two years.
Masayoshi Son finally saw the problem and made up his mind, starting a fire sale model in Alibaba, with a market value of more than $200 billion.
Then at ByteDance's valuation level of $300 billion, he bought it with all his might.
Unknowingly, SoftBank has become ByteDance's second largest shareholder after Zhang Yiming, with a stake of nearly 10%.
At present, there is no authoritative announcement on the Internet.
According to the company's inquiry, SoftBank should hold 9.9%, but some articles introduce SoftBank Vision Fund.
It should be both, after all, Lao Sun is at the helm, and the data is combined and calculated, which is normal.
Initially, in 2018, SoftBank should have taken the first stake.
At that time, ByteDance was estimated at $75 billion.
SoftBank and Alibaba invested $4 billion for the first time, and got a total of 5% of the shares with Alibaba.
What is the proportion of Alibaba and SoftBank?
The announcement did not say.
At the time, there was an authoritative announcement on this one.
SoftBank and Alibaba got a total of 5% of the shares at that time, which is equivalent to a post-investment valuation of about $80 billion.
In the next two years, I didn't hear that there was any continued shareholding.
18 years, 19 years and 20 years are all the time when ByteDance is soaring.
Later, SoftBank and SoftBank's Vision Fund wanted to buy shares in ByteDance, at least after ByteDance valued it at $300 billion.
Judging from SoftBank's reduction of Alibaba's stake, as well as the loss of Vision Fund.
At the peak of 2021, they have not reduced their holdings.
And the Vision Fund is still losing a lot at this time.
It shows that there is no large-scale holding of shares in ByteDance at this time.
Otherwise, with the performance of ByteDance.
The benefits are certainly substantial.
There are rumors online that SoftBank acquired a 9.9% stake in its own beating for $3 billion.
That's pretty much certainly a rumor.
SoftBank took the first stake in ByteDance in 2018, and together with Alibaba, it only won 5% of the shares of $4 billion.
Later, it will successively win six or seven percent of the shares.
And the valuation is about $300 billion.
Whatever you invest, it will cost more than $20 billion.
Everyone can understand the prospect of ByteDance.
This kind of big buying tends to be more expensive, otherwise not many people are willing to sell.
So in fact, the valuation of SoftBank and Vision Fund to buy ByteDance's shares is likely to be more than $400 billion.
9.9% of ByteDance's shares, the cost should be about 300 to 40 billion US dollars.
Just about the last 23% of Alibaba's stock market value is consumed, excluding taxes and fees, it is not enough.
Some more money from the Vision Fund will need to be used.
It is almost possible to take close to 10% of the shares.
This investment.
It can also be described as a very large investment.
But there is no doubt that it will definitely be a very cost-effective classic investor.
Once ByteDance goes public, it is likely to hit a trillion-dollar market capitalization.
10% stake.
That would mean hundreds of billions of dollars in profits.
The two investments, ARM and ByteDance, were enough for Son to misjudge Alibaba's potential and miss out on $200 billion in profits.
The king returns and is once again a god.
Lao Sun's wild and energetic investment.
Ordinary people really can't compare.
Including Duan Yongping and Zhang Lei, most of the investments are in companies that have not changed the times.
Cognition and realm seem to be completely different from the same level.
Zhang Lei said that the best moat is to create future value like crazy, but looking at the bunch of companies he actually invests in, it feels like a different story entirely.
Don't say anything else.
Spend hundreds of billions to invest in Baili shoes and Gree electric appliances.
This is completely insincere.
You just make flowers for those shoes, and they don't have crazy future value.
Mankind and the times are not inferior to your pair of shoes, no matter how strange they are.
There is also that Gree Electric Appliances, which is obviously eating the old book, and even the opponent of the United States can't handle it.
Whether such a company can survive until tomorrow is a question, and how can we talk about frantically creating future value?
It may still be a height problem.
It is the understanding of the future value of madness, and people like Masayoshi Son and Musk are at the forefront of human beings.
And our smartest and most advanced people, and even more, may just compare to our own past:
Compared with being barefoot in the village in the past, now spending tens of billions to buy a large listed company in the shoe industry will feel that it is crazy to create future value.
And then you can install a Gree air conditioner that you can't afford to install at home without air conditioning, and it will already be a high-end atmosphere and a high-grade future.
Based on such levels and memories, the cognition and cutting-edge insights of many of our most intelligent and high-level people are probably only relatively cutting-edge and high-end relative to an extremely backward starting point in our past, and they are not, and are far from being at the real forefront of mankind.
Where is the real future and frontier?
This may be a question that we still need to seriously think about and examine at the moment.
Masayoshi Son's RAM succeeded, there were too many luck and coincidences.
It's completely hundreds of billions of dollars in profits, and it can't be sent out again and again.
Someone else has to give it to him.
But the change of horses from Ali to ByteDance.
This is definitely a simple and most direct embodiment of professionalism, realm and execution.
ByteDance's excellence has been so obvious.
But including Cheetah Mobile and 360 Boss, they are still selling early after making a little difference, before $20 billion.
I was in a hurry.
I also left them a private message if they could sell us the shares.
I was thinking if I could raise some money to take their shares.
It's a pity they didn't dick me.
They themselves also missed out on the real big gains that followed.
That's a problem.
As an industry professional, why can't I even understand a real excellence repeatedly?
In particular, the bosses of Cheetah Mobile and 360 have always been a little bit worse in the industry, and they have missed the real excellence many times.
Why is the next excellent to come out, or I can't understand it?
I can't hold it in my hands.
The deep-rooted problem behind this is definitely not a matter of their boss's individual vision.
Because of the other best investors.
Including well-known private equity champions and public offering champions.
Didn't touch a single ByteDance.
It's just to get involved in those scrap companies.
They are just taking cheap in the primary market, and then going to the secondary market to pit retail investors.
Or directly use the information advantage in the secondary market, use ingenuity, or even use capital manipulation to pit retail investors to cut leeks.
The strong pit the weak, this investment atmosphere and habits.
Fundamentally, it shows that most of our investors' thinking logic and realm level basis are problematic.
Why don't we really think about supporting and creating some great companies to benefit the times and ordinary disadvantaged investors, develop together, and carry forward the spirit of positive and harmonious games?
Why can't we escape the narrow-mindedness of a zero-sum game?
If the strong are born to be weak, is such a strong person a real strong person?
Uncounted.
This is a robber.
The real strong should lead the times and let the majority of people benefit with them.
Many of our source problems deserve serious examination and reflection.