Chapter 204 Listing on NASDAQ
"This acquisition is definitely a big deal. I think your best option is still the one I proposed previously."
The live stream administrator, Hazel, continued, "That five million dollars will used for the purchase of a 10% stake in Facebook Live. Even if the operations aren’t good, you won't lose too much."
"No need, I’ll just acquire it directly."
Noah lightly stated, "If Facebook Live operates poorly and goes bankrupt after the acquisition, then I’ll just think of the one billion dollars as a plaything."
Hazel's mouth dropped open in shock. One billion dollars was just a plaything? Owner of the Rolls-Royce was truly extravagant!
Indeed, she didn't understand the world of the wealthy.
"Well, since that's the case, I’ll take you to meet the board of directors and discuss the acquisition," Hazel said.
"Okay." Noah nodded and followed the live stream administrator into an office.
Seven or eight people sat at the long table sat, both men and women, all shareholders of Facebook Live.
The next few steps were simple.
Noah found a table to sit at and drank some coffee while Hazel printed various acquisition contracts.
After printing the contracts, Hazel handed a thick stack of papers to Noah.
Noah signed and fingerprinted each contract, then proceeded to transfer one billion dollars to the shareholders' accounts at Facebook Live.
Completing all of this took about an hour.
"Noah, from now on, you are the boss of Facebook Live."
Those shareholders all stood up, their gaze respectful toward Noah.
"Because you’ve acquired all the shares, you have the decision-making power in our company. There is no need for any voting or anything."
Noah nodded. From now on, Facebook Live belonged to him.
"Noah, would you like to see the financial statements of our platform for this quarter?"
"In addition, there will be personnel changes right after your acquisition, and you need to make decisions regarding that as well."
"And the company is currently in need of some software engineers, so we need to recruit new staff, and you also need to make decisions regarding salary and benefits in this area."
Not long after, the management of various departments such as the finance department and the personnel department came to see Noah and asked him for instructions on the future development of the company.
Noah immediately felt overwhelmed. He didn't expect to have to make so many decisions at such a small live streaming platform.
He thought of his father Larry, who controlled wealth that could influence the global economy. How much time did he have for his daily affairs? He was probably too busy to spare a moment for himself.
Noah immediately summoned the management team and shareholders of Facebook Live for a meeting.
"I just took office, and all the trivial matters within the company, such as financial statement audits, recruitment, hiring of streamers, and gift distribution, will remain the same. As long as there are no major principle issues, everything is okay," Noah said.
Those people let out a sigh of relief.
They were really afraid of having a boss who didn't understand anything and would meddle in their affairs as an outsider.
They liked this hands-off policy.
Of course, the boss also had a prerequisite - there had to be no principle issues.
"I’ll talk about the future development direction of the company," Noah continued, "Our goal is to make Facebook Live the top live streaming platform in the country within a year, and also list it on NASDAQ."
"What?!"
Everyone present was dumbfounded, thinking they must have misheard.
"Noah, are you joking...?"
The finance manager coughed lightly, feeling a bit speechless. Noah didn't seem to understand what it meant to list on NASDAQ at all.
"Yes, listing on NASDAQ... feels a bit unrealistic."
"I understand, Noah is young and doesn't understand certain things. We shouldn’t make fun of him!"
"Yes, we were young once! We shouldn’t make fun of him!"
"Noah has great ambitions, I admire him!"
People whispered to each other.
"What? Is it very difficult to list a company on NASDAQ?"
Noah looked curious. He hadn't misunderstood; the Lin family had listed over a dozen companies on NASDAQ, two of which had only taken six months. So Noah thought that it was a simple matter, and he had even given himself a year, which he thought was quite a long time.
"Cough, Noah, it's really difficult." The finance manager shook his head helplessly. He felt it necessary to educate Noah on how difficult it was to list on NASDAQ.
"Noah, a company needs to fulfill three criteria before they can list on NASDAQ. The lowest requirement is that the shareholder's equity must be at least $15 million. But our company's shareholder's equity is currently not even $5 million, and I'm talking about Chinese yuan.
"In addition, the public is required to hold a stock value of $8 million. But right now, our platform doesn't even have any public holdings, let alone $8 million.
"Just think about it. You want to get Facebook Live to go public on NASDAQ within a year? It's not possible."
At the end, the financial director couldn't help but laugh.
"Yeah, Noah, there are thousands of live-streaming platforms in Eagleland, but only two have gone public, and the competition is fierce. A major live-streaming platform even went bankrupt recently. Considering our current situation, the chances of going public on NASDAQ are basically zero. Even if we do manage it, it would take ten or twenty years.
"But who knows if live streaming will still be as popular in ten or twenty years?
"Noah, you're young, so you have a lot of drive. I understand your ambition and desire to stand out. But being able to ring the bell at NASDAQ represents glory and being at the top. We’ve already made significant progress by going from a third-rate platform to a second-rate one within a year.
"You shouldn't think about going public on NASDAQ, Noah."
Noah's expression remained unchanged as he calmly said, "Facebook Live needs a sufficient number of viewers to become bigger and stronger. There are two methods to attract viewers: advertising marketing and poaching popular streamers from other platforms. These popular streamers already have a fan base."
"If we do these two things well, there shouldn't be any problem for us to go public within a year, right?"
"Noah, you're right. You understand this well. It seems like you have good business sense," the financial director said with a smile. "But you forgot one thing - advertising marketing costs money. Poaching popular streamers costs even more. To attract those popular streamers, we would have to compensate their previous platforms for breaking the contract and pay them a premium. This would be four to five times the original price, which will not be worth it at all!
"If we poach the top streamer from a domestic platform, it would still cost over a billion dollars including all the fines and premium payments," the CFO continued. "It would cost over a billion dollars! But just one top streamer is not enough to go public on NASDAQ. We would need to poach all types of popular streamers, and even at a conservative estimate, it would cost around $2 billion. And that's not even including the various promotion costs for the platform, which would total up to $3 billion."
"$3 billion?" Noah's eyes flickered with a trace of excitement.
"But wouldn't it be better to invest 3 billion dollars, in other industries? Like finance or real estate? Those are highly profitable industries, there's no need to spend it all on live streaming," the financial director continued, looking at Noah.
"And you just acquired us, so I imagine you don't have much funds left. Where would you get 3 billion dollars to invest in this? Even if you do have 3 billion dollars, who knows how long it will take to recoup the investment?"
Noah nodded solemnly.
" I don't have much left. I only have a little over 10 billion dollars in my account."
