Generation Z Artists

Chapter 361 Fang the Richest Man

The news of StarNet's IPO quickly caused a sensation in the global financial world.

From Fang Xinghe's perspective, StarNet was a piece he casually made; it was neither a core asset nor a guarantee of power, so he had never paid much attention to it.

From Dongzi's perspective, StarNet is his ticket to success and the most crucial step before he can realize his entrepreneurial dream.

Therefore, he devoted himself to the task and was already impatient.

Fang Xinghe had just decided to launch the project when Dong Ge immediately placed the underwriters on his desk.

"Goldman Sachs and American Express are acting as joint lead underwriters, and Piper Jaffray is acting as joint managers. What do you think, Boss?"

The guy added 89 points to most of the finance-related courses, but it didn't seem very useful—the textbooks were at least 20 years behind reality. The real way to play in this field isn't through academic knowledge, but through experience.

Fortunately, he has never liked to show off, and when he didn't understand, he asked, "What are your thoughts?"

Dongzi did his homework very well.

"Goldman Sachs, as the world's number one investment bank and a major market maker for various exchanges, is a must-choose."

American Express has had you endorse their credit cards before, so we're old friends. I can give them a ride and continue developing our relationship.

Piper Jaffray was the manager of Baidu's IPO last year. Baidu's stock price surged by 353.85% on its first day of trading, creating a huge miracle. It's a very auspicious day, so we can continue to use it..."

Fang was very satisfied, and immediately put a big pancake on Dongzi's forehead.

"I don't know anything about business, but I know you've done a fantastic job. You've only taken the last step in this long journey. Just keep working hard and persevering, and on the day the company goes public, you'll be a billionaire!"

Dongzi clenched his fists, his expression excited—three years! Do you know how I've gotten through these three years?

Oh, that's a bit of a mix-up.

But it's understandable, because Brother Fang genuinely shared the fruits of victory with everyone; he was extremely generous.

It was announced on the spot that all StarNet employees could purchase a certain number of company shares at an internal price based on their length of service, job position, and actual contributions.

StarNet has a total share capital of 100 million shares, valued at 1 billion RMB, with each share worth 100 RMB.

普通员工购买额度为1000股=10万元，骨干20-50万，经理级50-100万，高层200-1000万。

In addition to subscription, employees who make special contributions also receive stock option bonuses linked to their positions.

As soon as the news spread, StarNet employees became the envy of their relatives and friends, being pampered and admired every day: "Darling, you smell so good!"

Hey, are you short of money? Do you want to sell your stocks?

In fact, the outside world has no idea how much StarNet is worth. All they know is that Fang Xinghe would never mistreat his own people.

Buying other people's pre-IPO shares might cost you your shirt, but following Brother Fang will guarantee you a fortune.

With this simple trust, StarNet employees bought up all their shares instantly, so there was no need to worry about not having money; they could just ask and someone would lend them some.

Subsequent statistics showed that the total number of employee shares was 5260000, or 5.26%.

Adding the stock options that Fang Xinghe rewarded to executives like Dongzi, it brings the total to 10%.

Next, Fang Xinghe launched StarNet's only round of financing, which excited investors and investment institutions around the world.

StarNet currently has two core business areas.

The first is the official celebrity fan cafe, and the second is the social media platform StarNet Weibo.

Xingwang's official fan club is undoubtedly the world's largest fan club. Fang Xinghe didn't start this business early, but by constantly stirring up trouble, he has almost crushed all his competitors.

In fact, his main rivals have always been the talent agencies of celebrities.

In places like Japan and South Korea where idols are very popular, once a star becomes famous, the company will build its own fan club as a major way to make money.

It's virtually impossible for third-party platforms to compete with them.

Why hasn't a single large company emerged in the celebrity fan club sector? Here's the reason.

Fang Xinghe, from the very beginning, pulled a fast one.

Do you remember? When he first launched the official fan cafe business, he gave all the membership fees after deducting operating costs to the celebrities themselves.

As for how celebrities split the profits with their management companies, it doesn't matter. StarNet only recognizes applications submitted by the celebrities themselves using their ID cards.

As a result, the situation gradually turned around.

HOT originally had both official fan clubs run by their management company and fan clubs built by their fans in both Japan and South Korea, and they were very active. However, because Fang Ge gave them too much, HOT was willing to break with their company in order to obtain this permission.

Ultimately, after a long and fierce struggle, the fans completely sided with the idol and migrated to the StarNet.

Many people are curious about how much money StarNet actually gives to celebrities.

That's roughly equivalent to 10 yuan per fan.

At its peak, HOT had a total of 155 million paid members on its official fan cafes in China, Japan, and South Korea, generating 1600 million RMB in monthly revenue.

Their album sales and music revenue might only amount to two or three million RMB.

Seriously, it's no exaggeration. The traditional record business of Japanese and Korean idols hardly makes any money. Coupled with the 80/20 or even 90/10 revenue split, those idols are just a facade, nothing more than a bunch of dung.

Therefore, StarNet's dominance of the world can be considered a historical inevitability.

Brother Fang is really generous; he didn't actually make any money from this business.

So even Hong Kong stars like Bald Zhang, who look down on the mainland, have their assistants post photos in the official fan cafe every day, just to protect his more than 20 mainland members and make a good living off them.

Of course, after the incident, his membership dropped to just over 4, and his enthusiasm vanished instantly.

However, minor celebrities are different from newcomers. Minor celebrities have thousands of members who are happy to maintain their relationships frequently. Money is not important; it's their foundation.

The official fan cafe has a very user-friendly interface and features. After several years of operation, celebrities around the world are now used to sharing their daily lives on the official fan cafe.

Everyone has the desire to share. While sharing, you can make money and retain followers at the same time. Why not?
Therefore, Fang Xinghe created an internet ecosystem that did not exist in his previous life.

This ecosystem can only be created at this stage.

In a few years, with the skyrocketing salaries of celebrities, Zheng Shuang and her ilk will no longer care about the small amount of money spent on official fan cafe memberships.

Even now, Western celebrities don't have as much motivation to run official fan cafes as Asian celebrities. They earn so much more that their core motivation for using official fan cafes comes from the desire to share, rather than membership fees.

Regardless, StarNet unified global fan clubs at this historical juncture, directly leading to the rapid rise of Weibo.

This is a historic opportunity.

StarNet's direct competitors are Juyou.com and Facebook; the former is flopping, while the latter is rising like the sun.

In the normal timeline, Facebook is about to explode.

In January 2005, the number of users reached 1 million.

In May 2005, it completed its Series A funding round, valuing the company at approximately $100 million and covering more than 800 American universities.

In September 2005, a high school network was added, and the website was officially renamed "Facebook".

In September 2006, registration was opened to the public, expanding from campuses to the general public. Three months later, registered users exceeded ten million. However, in the new era under Fang Xinghe's control, Facebook encountered numerous setbacks.

By January 2005, the total number of paid members of StarNet's official North American cafe had already exceeded 5 million.

In September 2005, StarNet's North American version of Weibo was launched, and the number of registered users exceeded 9 million in the same month.

In April 2006, "The Primordial Chronicles, Volume 4: The Last Celestial Being" was released in North America, and the official Weibo account of the Primordial Era saw its follower count surge by 500 million in a single month...

From a cultural perspective, Facebook's integrated social model is more in line with American habits.

However, on the other hand, Instagram is not without its challenges to Facebook in the future. Weibo, with its similar visual, trendy, and lifestyle-oriented social networking features, is highly competitive everywhere.

Moreover, Weibo was the first to launch and seized the opportune moment in its lifetime.

Now, Mr. Fang wants to add a geographical advantage to it—accepting investment from American, Japanese, and South Korean giants.

Therefore, he allocated all his limited share to international giants and refused any offers of favor from domestic capital, for which he was severely criticized.

This time, the 14th Ugly One didn't make a move; instead, it was those financial mouthpieces with official backing who criticized him for "worshipping foreign things and fawning on foreigners."

It's really funny.

Some of their statements sound reasonable, such as "pay protection money" and "let foreign capital make money."

This can indeed be understood as paying protection money. The difference is that, compared to being highly vigilant on a cultural level, Fang Xinghe is very willing to pay protection money on a financial level.

Firstly, the financial battlefield is not under his jurisdiction.

Secondly, the real focus of the financial battle will be on many years later.

Thirdly, concessions on the financial front are the most necessary and valuable.

Fang Xinghe wondered how many people possessed such a clear and correct understanding—that tolerating Westernization in the financial sphere, temporarily accepting American financial hegemony, and focusing on the real economy is precisely the foundation for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

The US approach is complete financialization, while China's development path is industrialization. Only by giving them the high financial profits they desire will they provide the industrial development space they need.

As a reborn individual, if one believes that one can use their prophetic abilities to engage in financial confrontation with the United States, then that is the biggest deviation from the right path.

Can a prophet stop someone from unplugging the internet cable?

If you get too big, they'll either legislate against you, trigger strategic vigilance and a shift in policy, or even use military deterrence. Whether you die or not is uncertain, but it's definitely not a smart move.

Fang Xinghe is willing to share profits with American giants and even accept the strictest regulations to develop Weibo in the way the United States wants.

This thing is too sensitive.

At least for the next fifteen years, China does not have the capability to launch an ideological counterattack against the United States. Therefore, during this period, Weibo should not be regarded as a proactive weapon. Maintaining market share would be the greatest success.

In later generations, the rise of Western Douyin, the major accounting scandal on Xiaohongshu, and China's pressure on American public opinion... all occurred within a specific historical period and a unique comparative environment.

Now, Fang Xinghe is extremely clear about what Weibo can and cannot do.

Therefore, amidst a chorus of criticism and doubt, he gave up nearly 50% of his shares.

BlackRock and Sequoia Capital America each received 15%.

Sony 10%, Samsung 8%.

Employees account for 5.26%, and stock options account for 4.74%.

All shares were transferred by Fang Xinghe, leaving him with 42%.

Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase are pure financial capital firms, the four pillars of Wall Street today and in the future, and all of them are now directly or indirectly involved in IPOs.

Sequoia Capital America is a Silicon Valley firm, a representative of the technology sector, and provides human resources and consulting services.

Sony and Samsung's core businesses were the first to be subdued by China, but they survived to the end and formed a symbiotic relationship with domestic industries.

Brother Fang doesn't plan to cultivate particularly good relationships with anyone or firmly align himself with any side, but he intends to maintain "fairly good" connections with all key figures, sacrificing personal gain and making many friends.

In fact, they might not necessarily lose money, because only by bringing the big scoundrels into their camp will they be willing to do their best to drive up the stock price and ensure the smooth development of their business.

As for control of the company... how about learning about dual-class shares?
Fang Xinghe was so sensible that BlackRock responded warmly – when they entered the room, they approved Fang Xinghe's valuation of "StarNet at 400 billion RMB".

This valuation has surpassed that of NetEase, Baidu, and Alibaba, and is only slightly lower than that of Tencent.

There was no need for Fang Ge to personally intervene; Goldman Sachs simply boasted in its report:

"StarNet's official fan cafe has almost monopolized about 90% of the global fan market, and the depth of this moat is unlikely to be crossed in the foreseeable future."

As the creator and spokesperson of this core product, Star River's irreplaceable nature will protect the official cafe business in the long term.

The decisive role that official social networking services play in driving social business will become a key factor that makes it difficult for all similar social products to compete head-on.

This was a brilliant idea, and even more so, a solid realization…

In short, StarNet is worth 400 billion.

Sony and Samsung were overjoyed to get on board, while Sequoia, having failed to take down Facebook, was happy to support StarNet in their battle against it. That's how things were settled so simply and easily.

Fang Ge's net worth skyrocketed, with his holdings of Xingwang shares alone reaching over 160 billion yuan. At the same time, he also recouped 200 billion yuan in cash—his previous actions involved transferring personal shares rather than issuing new shares.

When StarNet goes public on Nasdaq, it will issue 2500 million new shares, diluting all shareholders' holdings to 80% of the original shares.

Let's not talk about things that are too far in the future; anyway, he made it big.

This money only requires a 20% tax, instantly making him China's richest man and the person with the highest cash flow.

However, the money didn't stay in his account for long. First, he repaid the bank loans during Xingwang's development period, then he bought an office building in full to rent out (to Xinghe Entertainment Group), and finally he invested 10 billion yuan to promote the second phase of the Qingdao Film and Television Industrial Park, and made the special effects department independent as Xinghe Special Effects.

With this, all four major sectors of Galaxy Entertainment Group have been completed.

Xinghe Culture: Holds Xinghe's personal brokerage contract and various copyrights.

Galaxy Pictures: A film and television production company.

Galaxy Effects: The most extravagant special effects company in China.

Galaxy Properties: Managing heavy assets such as film and television parks, as well as future cinema chains and theaters.

Fang Xinghe also owns an independent firm called Xinghe Investment, which manages his various equity and financial assets.

Rupert Hoogewerf did the math, and this didn't shock him—Fang Xinghe's net worth has reached over 50 billion yuan, which is more than double that of Huang Guangyu, who ranks second.

There was an uproar: No, how did he suddenly become so rich?

Sigh, it's just monetizing fame.

Tencent's initial success was built on the identity of its idol writers, and Xingwang's current success is also based on personal fame. Isn't this something anyone can do?
Money is meaningless; you can't take it with you when you die. It's much more exciting to build a career.

Fang, the richest man, immediately forgot about making money and went to Japan and South Korea to screen and conclude the run of "The Return of the Condor Heroes".

As a result, the fervor surrounding the Japanese concubines and Korean maids reached a new peak.

(End of this chapter)