The King of Soft Rice in Chinese Entertainment

Chapter 491 Fan Bayi

"Little Swallow appears at Baidu's roadshow to help China's largest search engine go public!"

"Li Yanhong said that Fan Bingbing is an outstanding investor and Baidu welcomes her to join the company."

"Fan Bingbing frankly admitted that she pays close attention to the IT industry and has learned a lot from it."

The media, especially online media, is naturally very interested in this kind of novelty, because it generates a lot of traffic!
Therefore, we conducted in-depth research.

But as they dug deeper, they discovered something was amiss: Fan Xiaoyanzi wasn't just an ordinary investor at Baidu, but also a member of the board of directors!

What the hell!

Financial journalists generally have some integrity, and when writing their reports, they will mention that there are different kinds of directors.

Entertainment reporters didn't care about all that; their reports were incredibly sensational, practically claiming that without her support, Baidu would have no chance of going public.

Fan Xiaoyanzi's fans were also extremely excited. Just two months ago, they were wondering what other honors she could win after winning the Cannes Best Actress award, and whether she could break into Hollywood.

I never expected that she would transform herself and not only cross over into the fields of finance and IT, but also become a director of Baidu... Our sister is really amazing!
In this situation, even if Zhang Ziyi's fans are dissatisfied, they dare not speak out loudly. They can only make sarcastic remarks in their own territory, such as "Li Yanhong is really generous" or "A chicken can actually be sold for an astronomical price".

However, Zhang Niangniang's older brother, after being provoked by the reporter, once again spoke recklessly: "Could she have used the money from tax evasion to invest in Baidu?"

However, the news only appeared briefly on a few online media outlets before disappearing, and Zhang Niangniang's elder brother also quickly vanished from the public eye, no longer appearing in the media.

After all, it's currently the roadshow period, and Baidu will absolutely not allow any comments to affect its pricing.

Then, all of this reached its climax on August 5, 2005.

On its first day of trading, Baidu's stock price surged threefold, completely breaking records for Chinese concept stocks and even being rare among Nasdaq-listed companies over the past five years.

Based on the closing price that day, the market value rose to $39.58 billion, and the net worth of founder and CEO Robin Li exceeded $9 million.

Unfortunately, this wasn't what the eager netizens wanted to know.

They didn't have to wait long. After all, Baidu is now a listed company, and the media soon learned from public information that Fan Bingbing, as a director of the board, currently holds about 3% of the shares.

When this news came out, the public was immediately shocked again. After all, a simple calculation shows that she now has a net worth of at least $1 million.

The shock was so great that many fans in online communities didn't know what to say, and could only keep repeating things like "Sister is so amazing" and "Little Swallow is so amazing".

In a sense, Fan Xiaoyanzi is someone they've watched grow up, and they have a strong sense of involvement in her. Now that their daughter has finally achieved something, and a great one at that, they can't help but feel a sense of great satisfaction.

However, the person involved did not think so.

"It's very simple. I used the excuse that I could participate in roadshows and endorse Baidu to facilitate a smoother IPO to get these 3% of the shares and a seat on the board of directors."

"Of course their voting rights are low. Sharing some profits is already their biggest concession. If I were to join the board of directors and have corresponding voting rights, I'm afraid Li Yanhong would lose sleep. They just want a figurehead."

"It doesn't matter. I bought Baidu's initial public offering shares to make money. Now that I have the money, I can do whatever I want with them. They'd better not bother me."

"The rest... I'm just worried about... never mind, there's no point in talking to you, I'll just call Angela directly."

"Finally, what's the meaning of that 'Fan 800 million' thing online? Don't you think netizens are being a bit baffled?" "I'm not angry at all, I'm just annoyed!"

Fan Bingbing slammed down the phone, threw it on the table, leaned back in her chair, and glared angrily at the ceiling.

It should have been a happy occasion. Although she had traveled all over the world with Baidu's IPO team, the stock price tripled on the first day of trading, causing her net worth to soar.

Even if it's all just paper data, financial institutions will still accept it as collateral. No wonder everyone likes to play the financial game.

When she got back, she saw that she had been given the nickname "Fan Bayi" online... She blushed. What a lunatic! Who would give someone such a nickname!

The reason is actually very simple. Her publicly disclosed net worth is around 1 million US dollars, which is about 8 million RMB according to the exchange rate, so she was targeted.

"Is this never going to end? I've gone to such lengths, and I'm still being called 'Fan Bayi' all this time. Have I worked so hard for nothing? Am I destined to be associated with this title?" Little Fan muttered to himself.

After a moment, she couldn't help but sigh again: "It's so easy to have 8 million, so... what am I thinking in the future?"

In fact, Fan Bingbing knew, and even knew that her future selves would inevitably have to take the blame for certain people.

However, some people choose to board a ship, and they choose to go down a path that leads nowhere.

The more this happened, the more she cherished everything she had, and the more she wanted to...do better.

"Cheer up! That future is getting further and further away from you!" Little Fan sat up straight, clenched her fist with full energy, and believed that this unlucky nickname would soon disappear from the internet.

After all, his true net worth is much more than that.

Putting everything else aside, if she were to take Aurogon Technology public, her net worth wouldn't be much less than Li Yanhong's.

Moreover, given Aurogon Technology's current valuation, even without going public, it would still place her in the top 200 of the rich list.

"This is a problem, we need to cover it up for now," said Xiao Fan, picking up his phone to make a call, but then remembered something and opened his computer to search.

Sure enough, in a thread discussing Fan's 800 million yuan fortune, someone said that based on the available information, our sister's wealth is definitely more than that, and she will definitely be on the Forbes rich list this year.

Grinning as if in pain, Fan Bingbing immediately picked up her phone and dialed a number. Although she knew the fans were exaggerating, the fact that the exaggeration was almost identical to the truth was quite frustrating, especially since the person involved wanted to keep something a secret.

"What's up, darling?" Angela's somewhat languid voice came from the other end of the line.

Fan Bingbing shivered, involuntarily recalling some embarrassing yet pleasurable things. She quickly changed the subject, saying, "Um, do me a favor. Talk to the people at Forbes and ask them to underestimate the list when they publish it at the end of the year. It would be better if they didn't make the list at all."

"What, is showing off your wealth a problem?" Angela asked casually.

“You must have done a simulation, right? Li Huizhao at least inherited the family business, while I started from scratch and don’t seem to have any background. If my ranking is a little lower, it’s fine, but if it’s too high, do you think someone will have designs on me?” Fan Bingbing sighed.

Although Aurogon Technology is not listed on the stock exchange and has never publicly released financial reports, and even uses a shell company to separate itself from the main Aurogon Technology entity, a lot of information can still be found if you really investigate.

According to the simulated future, she and Li Huizhao will be the youngest billionaires on the Forbes list released at the end of the year, both only 24 years old.

(End of this chapter)