How did Amber get ripened?

The use of capital mergers and acquisitions quickly grow up, and then package listing, such an education and training company, how far can you go/Sinorama reporter Lu Xucheng editor/Liu Hentao August 5 night 10 o'clock, the Amber Education Group (hereinafter referred to as Amber) finally landed on the United States New York exchange, issued 10.67 million shares, 10 U.S. Raise money 107 million dollars. Amber became a company that was listed in the United States after new Oriental, Zheng Bao, Hong Cheng and other training enterprises. When the Ambogau are still immersed in the joy of listing, the industry on the listing of Amber issued a different voice, "spent 1.777 billion yuan to buy more than 20 projects, in exchange for the 2009 more than 900 million revenue." "The cost is too great," said Jiang Mingjie, a veteran of the education industry. "Amber is actually the integration of domestic scattered training institutions, and then packaging listing." Is definitely not an endogenous growth of the company, long-term investment value is not much. "Someone on Sina Weibo said so. These questions may not be unfounded. On the day of the IPO, the shares fell below the 10 U.S. dollar price and closed at $9.25, down 7.5%, followed by a fall of 8.45 and 8.01 dollars, respectively, by 8.65% and 5.21% in the following two days. For national Entrepreneurship 1999 that National Day, Huang sitting in Tiananmen balcony mood is difficult to suppress. "We're in the third square on the left-hand side of Tiananmen. Huang said she was surrounded by 24 Chinese ph. D. and entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, such as Robin Li and Deng. This year, the Ministry of Education set up in 1996 to support outstanding overseas students of the short-term return service of the "Chunhui program" and the United States San Francisco Consulate-General, invited 25 people to study in Silicon Valley returned home. Before the national day, they had visited major cities, lectured at universities and received interviews with leaders. On October 2, Huang, who attended the 50 anniversary celebration, attended a welcoming dinner hosted by the Ministry of Education, Zhili and vice Minister Wei Yu. Cheering, two ministers sigh, they do minister for so many years, Chinese software is occupied by foreign products, education is related to generations, they asked the scene of people, who can come back for Chinese education to do software. "I am learning software, parents are teachers, they grew up in the campus environment, there is a deep education complex, plus the national day after the ceremony of passion, the minister is calling." Huang decided to move the Amber software company, which was founded in Silicon Valley, back to China. Huang was 33 years old, just married in the United States to buy a house, and in Silicon Valley registered his own design software company. Born in Lanzhou, Gansu province, the road of Huang Jin study is very smooth, 15-Year-old obtained computer science and Engineering, 1985 and 1988, respectively, a bachelor of computer software and master's degree, 1988 admitted to the University of California Berkeley Berkeley PhD, in 1990 to the United States, 1992, joined the United States chip design software company Avant!, become a founding engineer. She is active in Silicon Valley and organizesAssociation, every weekend to the successful people to give a speech, gathered a group of Silicon Valley of the Chinese elite. 1998, the United States Consulate General of San Francisco and the Chinese Ministry of Education International Department organized the first Silicon Valley "stay the United States doctor, entrepreneur cooperation delegation", then the head of the Huang. 2000, when the dotcom bubble broke out, the Silicon Valley background of the yellow energy in 20 minutes to get 7 million or 8 million dollars of investment, returned to the founder of the Beijing Amber Education software company. Zhulin is Huang after returning to recruit the first group of employees, 2000 into the Bo, he remembers the amber in Beijing Wangjing Science and Technology Park has a large office area, in Beijing University of Technology also has a layer of office buildings, can accommodate the office of the 200~300 People's floors, at that time "empty, few people." "I broke the two big taboos of entrepreneurship, first of all, to change the environment, from Silicon Valley back to China, and then to change the industry, design software before, suddenly do education, and no connections." But young did not fail. "Huang in a college classroom, looking back on his entrepreneurial history, so that those who aspire to success. In fact, Huang is not completely out of network. According to Huang herself, she went to the Ministry of Education almost every week to persuade the ministry to set up a committee for the Standardization of Distance education, and Amber was the Deputy Director's unit. Zhulin told the entrepreneur that a Vice-President of Amber was the Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Ministry of Education. He said that at that time, there is no product of Amber, Huang is most concerned about how through the Ministry of Education to send the department, schools throughout the country to buy Amber products. In order to get a certain approval as soon as possible, Huang let her staff to the Ministry of Education Department of Basic Education to a director for one weeks. "My friend was in a company that did the same business with Amber, and was responsible for the sale of the campus information platform software and lost to Amber when competing for a project. "The senior industry personage Jiang Mingjie said, the friend trustee asks to inquire, only then knew that the amber has very" deep "the background. Huang with the Ministry of Education, a former leader more familiar. "Li Ying, an industry veteran who has long followed the story of Amber, said to the entrepreneur. There are also media reports that early Amber was supported by a fund from the Ministry of Education. Jiang Mingjie told the "Entrepreneur", 2000 ~2003 years, the main education software, amber Platform, including educational management software, do a general. "One time, through the Ministry of Education, Amber got the geosciences an online education platform project, and the result was half done." Jiang Mingjie said, Geosciences no way, had to hire people to complete the project, but the effect is not good, finally had to replace the new platform. "Amber's software has some personalized management, such as in educational video, which students do not have in this section, it can be labeled." After a class to do the problem, after the completion of which is wrong, the system can also be picked out for you. "A training organization Mister Kang said. The software was a selling point when Huang came back from the United States in 2000, and these technologies became popular. Zhulin told "entrepreneur", in fact, even if Amber's education software business is done well, it will not becomeFor a big company. The technology of educational software platform was not mature at that time, the Sequela is quite many. The more education software is sold, the higher the cost of subsequent services and the lower the profit. Amber later every year by selling education software has 10 million or 20 million yuan income, Huang realized that the education software industry in China is "no chance." In 2003 she decided to stop selling educational software and transform educational services. "The company has 10 million or 20 million revenue and it's okay to maintain it." But do one thing, or you have a good end, or you can really make this thing bigger, maintain is actually the biggest damage, your time cost is actually very big. Huang told the firm's decision that senior executives were willing to pay a cut. 2003, amber transformation to do education services, the company account was only millions of yuan. Let's go public. Amber Transformation, 2003 joined the vice President Huangsenlei, Huang was previously the Peking University attached school executive principal. Cisco also plays an important role. April 2006, Cisco, which wants to promote the concept of network communication in China, has invested in such institutions as the more than 10 million US dollar, which pushed the concept of web-based education. On the September 7, 2006, the new Oriental Education group, led by Mr Yu, was listed on the NYSE by foreign investors. Education became the industry of wind-chasing, and Amber was once again easy to get a third round of investment. October 2007, Macquarie, Cisco, Huawei, Avenue funds and other institutions to the amber investment of 54.21 million of dollars. "I told my colleagues that I would get another money next year," he said. "Huang said that in 2000, there was a lot of wind in the pursuit of Amber, she felt that the company is not short of money, did not take," people can make a mistake, cannot make two times. Huang said the board felt the company was working very hard and did not need to raise money. "I told him that China's entire industry is too fragmented and needs to be integrated." "Huang said. In October 2008, Amber took the fourth round of 103 million-dollar investment by the British Union, the Avenue Fund and Macquarie, the largest single private equity financing in China's education sector. Huang Fortunately took the money, because after a few days after the financial tsunami occurred. "First, the model of amber is learner-centred, adaptable to China's fragmented education market, and the second is that the education services of Amber can stick learners; third, Amber has a set of IT systems that guarantee the quality of educational services after expansion. "Huang explains why you can get an investment. "We are also listed in the new Oriental after the education and training industry began to focus." "Li Yue, an executive director of Huaxing Capital who has done a number of financing services in the education industry, said that before VCs all believed that the education and training industry was not capable of replicating and developing slowly." After the listing of new Oriental, investment institutions have been eyeing this field, at the end of 2007, early 2008, many VCs began to rob projects, in the case of not understanding the industry "crazy investment." Jiang Mingjie speculated that Cisco played a role in endorsing the latter. Jiang Mingjie told "Entrepreneurial", amber transformation to do education services, to find venture capital, selling points have two: "One is to sell software upgrade out of the technology platform and philosophy, it has done education software, canImplement some personalized services with lower cost. Another, it is to do the software itself, do it training has a relatively large advantage. Its investment agency has Cisco, Cisco does it more, and Amber can use a lot of Cisco's standards. "In 2008, Amber began acquiring a number of counseling centers and employment training centres. According to Huanggui, general manager of the Amber Vocational Education Department, who has been in charge of mergers and acquisitions, amber acquisition generally picks up the top three training institutions. After the merger, talk to each other about the financial indicators to be completed in the future, the original team to retain, but the school's financial staff and human resources manager sent by the Amber, "we are the acquisition of a team, is a person, not an asset or anything." "Huanggui was the boss of the Dalian Hope Vocational School, and his schools were acquired by Amber in September 2008." At that time the company's annual turnover has been achieved 20 million yuan, with a profit of millions of yuan. In March 2008, Amber told Huanggui the intention of the takeover and disclosed the company's future plan, which is to be listed in the United States in 2010. "When companies are good, they must think of bad times when I have a hunch about the economic crisis." Another reason that the team has been with me for so many years, I can't give them a return, want to go on the market independently, but the company size is not big enough. "According to the price given by Amber, after the listing, the company's mid-level employees will become millionaires, Huanggui so no hesitation." He later took the role of a shareholder to Amber headquarters in Beijing, was responsible for a period of time mergers and acquisitions business, the original company found a professional manager to take care of. "From Dalian to Beijing, I originally tube 20 million performance of the company, now tube 200 million, for me is also an improvement." Huanggui was satisfied with the result. "Give a portion of the money, part of the equity, go public." "This way of amber is undoubtedly a great temptation for many educational and training institutions," he said. "There are few entrepreneurs in this industry who make education a lifelong business, they are businessmen, and the essence of a businessman is to sell a business for a good price after a period of time." "The high Min Shimin of an tutoring agency bought by Amber explains why the education and training companies that are among the top-ranked sectors across the country are willing to commit to Amber," and the company will face the ceiling when it develops to a certain stage. "Jiang Mingjie that the mode of integration of the education industry through the capital operation of the company is because the field of education and training, in addition to English training, the various subdivision areas are very fragmented, there is no absolute leading edge of the companies unified rivers and lakes, at this time, amber money to clear the way, natural invincible. According to the disclosure of the Amber Prospectus, Amber acquired 10 institutions in 2008 and 13 in 2009. Through the huff and puff, Amber becomes a training aircraft carrier. Shi Min told the "entrepreneur", Amber announced that is a total acquisition, in fact, not so, in October 2009, the announcement of the acquisition of 1 to 1 of primary and secondary schools in Beijing, John, in fact, only the acquisition of all the business of John 20%~30%. "Entrepreneur" from a just leftWang Xiang, Jinghan's veteran employee, learned that, to be exact, Amber only acquired Jinghan's 10 campuses in the Beijing area, while Jinghan's 20 campuses outside Beijing had no relationship with Amber. "2009 Beijing Jing John's revenue is 90 million yuan." Jinghan 2009 revenue of about 400 million ~5 billion, if all acquisitions, Amber 2009 revenue number is far more than 902 million yuan. "Shi Min said," Amber really very few entities to operate, only Kunshan, Dalian IT training base, and so on a few, the other is through the "Operation", and Amber is going to pack all the business listing. The pain of integration there is a description on the prospectus presented by Amber: 2004 ~2007 years, we established a nationwide service platform through distributors to sell our products and services to our target customers. In this way, the brand of Amber is established, which improves the customer's knowledge of the products and services of amber. Due to the successful implementation of this strategy, the registered users of Amber's software products or services (Web education) for end consumers grew from about 400 in 2004 to about 170,000 in 2007. A former employee who worked for 6 years in Amber said that "until 2007, Amber was still selling software," but Amber sold the software directly to the end users, rather than to educational institutions such as universities. Fontaine, an internal employee of Amber, revealed that the 2009 Amber Institute's new learning software PRODUCT sold tens of millions of yuan through distribution channels and entities it purchased. According to the disclosure of the IPO application, Amber's income from education products was 107 in 2007. 70,000 yuan increased to 2008 of 38.826 million Yuan, and 2009 142 million yuan. But there is another story behind this beautiful figure. "Amber acquired Jinghan (Beijing), set up a new company, called Jinghan Talent, began to give us insurance, and the business commission from the original according to the amount of check to the actual completion of the settlement." Wang Xiang said that after a massive takeover, Amber wanted to use the agencies scattered across the country to sell learning software products at the expense of traditional businesses. Jinghan's head teacher and consultant were asked to sell a series of cards and learning software launched by Ann Bo. "The traditional lesson is 8%, selling Amber's learning software PRODUCT 10%, and the sale is settled." "For example, parents in Beijing bought 100 hours of traditional lessons, while giving parents 25 learning software, Amber asked us to say to parents, these 25 learning software is you buy, 100 hours traditional class is presented." Wang Xiang said, but the reality is just in turn, parents are concerned with the teacher face-to-face traditional lessons, rather than learning software, "many parents ask, do not learn software can be cheaper?" Wang Xiang said that the class teacher or consultant in the actual implementation or become a selling class gift learning software, "anyway the price is the same." In fact, the acquisition of an education and training enterprises does not have a great advantage, the integration between educational institutions is difficult. Education marginal profit is very high, but because it is a talent-intensive industry, the people who need it will multiply. Unlike software, products come out, you go to develop another project on the line, the rest is the sales team. "Kang said. After Amber buys the brand, add "amber education" before each other's logo. Like the new Oriental, the acquisition of a school, preceded by "New Oriental", it must be able to go up at once, this is a recognition of the brand. But Amber is in front, it doesn't do much. Jinghan, for example, is earning less this year than last year. Kang said that, with the "amber education", diluted the original John's professional degree, but it reduced its attractiveness. And some institutions have been acquired, the original relatively stable ownership structure will certainly change, once the change must be some people's interests are lost, will go some people, it will decline. Kang said: "I know that John's time before the action is very big, my sister-in-law came out from the inside, she worked in it for more than a year." "Of course, the acquisition company will have this process, first down again, the acquisition of the organization to use the resources of amber, reduce costs, competitiveness will be strengthened." If Amber succeeds, it will be a big test in the future to integrate the following institutions. "Kang said. Amber has the advantage of vocational training, in the tutoring business is relatively unfamiliar, how to integrate as many as 96 tutoring branches, 5 12-year schools, this is a big problem. More than one industry personage to "entrepreneur" said, Huang is not a traditional education and training industry knowledgeable boss. As a result, Amber's entry into a new field will allow headhunters to dig into the industry's top executives to success or failure of the hero, this mechanism led to frequent changes in their executives. Jiang Mingjie learned that a senior executive with an online learning team joined Amber before leaving. Jiang Mingjie smiled, Cisco has been a "nanny" role as an investor, and Gu Yish, who has served as chief information officer in Cisco's Greater China, has served as senior vice president of the Amber Institute, the Vocational Education Services Division and the Technical Services operations Center; worked in Cisco for 6 years, Cisco (China) The treasurer of the finance master is the senior vice President and chief financial officer of Amber. Not familiar with the business, Amber to Jinghan and other mergers and acquisitions institutions, in addition to the monthly audit finance, the basic will not send staff supervision. Amber even let Jing John Elite staff to push learning software, before also sent to the class teacher and consultants to do in-depth training. "It has acquired too many institutions to manage." Through equity incentives, the owners of the buy-out firms want to get more money out of the U.S. stock market, only to do so. Shi Min said that Amber had signed a gambling deal with the merged bosses, and that it would not get out of control as long as it was in charge of its finances. "But after the end of the year after the stock lockout period?" Amber is far less well-known around the world than the company it buys, "many parents don't know much about amber." "When Wang Xiang is pushing Amber's learning software, he often encounters parents asking," What's amber? What's your relationship with Amber? When making billboards and other advertising, Amber will usually put Amber and the name of the acquisition of the agency, the singles "Amber", eyesMarked consumer unrecognized. Fontaine also expressed the same concern, "amber, although there are more than 1000 employees, but they are not strong in front of the acquisition of institutions." "Between Amber and the acquired company, it's hard to say who's borrowing the brand power." "Some of the major marketing activities that John has made. If the leader of Amber is to come and play Amber's brand name, you need to give Jinghan a sponsorship fee." "Shi Min said. Overdraft future? Amber's business is divided into two: Better Jobs (mainly vocational education and college) and Better Schools (mainly 12-year schools and mentoring schools). The best thing about Amber is better Jobs, the vocational education is mainly the university students it training and youth-oriented it education, is the Ace of Amber Project, this part of the business accounted for about half of the total revenue of Amber, nearly three years gross margin also step by step, from 2007 's 38.5% Grew to 40.8% in 2008 and 59.3% in 2009. This is mainly thanks to the unique resource advantages of amber. "Amber is the Ministry of Education's IT Training extension project, the only implementation unit." Huanggui said that the university's IT training market, Amber accounted for 15.8% of the country's share, ranked first. Amber to do the university's IT training base model is: Local government investment in the house, computers, broadband and other hardware, amber into the human, software and curriculum system, early amber can be free to use the hardware facilities provided by the Government. A college student last year to Ambokun, Dalian training Base Internship, tuition is 5000 yuan, schools, local government, students each part of the burden. "Preliminary statistics 2009 the true participation in Ambos training students should be around 100,000 people." "Huanggui said. "Amber has three major business software, amber Education, and amber training." Software is the old line, education is through acquisition. The training base inside the amber is the biggest selling point in the entire amber, and it is to let a lot of people understand, remember, feel quite bull, quite big, promoted its brand. The business of Amber is a bit like human resource outsourcing. "Kang said. Huanggui said that Amber now free to use the Dalian and Kunshan training base to provide the Government's hardware facilities, and then slowly also to pay rent. By that time, the gross margin of Amber's better jobs will be pulled down. According to Huanggui, Amber intends to cover more than 20 software outsourcing cities in China and provide new profitable projects for the vocational schools of the university. For the current profitability of the basic education market, Jiang Mingjie raised his concern: "Now parents as long as heard is 1 to 1 will be willing to pay tens of thousands of yuan, but in fact, parents will slowly find the effect is not too good." "Shi Min also believes that the IT training market is now on the decline, and in a few years, the primary and secondary school counseling market will repeat the IT training market." In recent years it training market is not good, basically no profit. For the youth to provide it training for the community of Hua-Yu International has closed nearly 70% branches, Beida Jade Bird also openedStart shrinking the branch. According to the Amber Prospectus disclosed that the amber vocational education sector in the first quarter of 2010 only 35.764 million yuan, compared with the first quarter of 2009 89.815 million yuan reduced 54.051 million yuan. In 2009, Amber bought 4 vocational schools, 2008 years only 3, income does not rise and fall. Jiang Mingjie said that according to the trend of education and training, the real prospects for development are other vocational training markets and overseas studies, kindergartens, children's English training and other markets. Compared to the pro-insurance, Hong-cheng and other professional training institutions, Amber is the all-inclusive route, but in these new markets, Amber has not yet been laid out. An expert on American equities analyzed Amber's earnings, The net cash outflow from the amber investment activity was found to be 262 million yuan in 2008, an astonishing 802 million yuan in 2009 and an increase of 540 million yuan, while the revenue of Amber 2008 was 508 million Yuan, the 2009 revenue was 902 million yuan and the increase was 394 million yuan. This means that the revenue generated by the Amber Acquisition project is far behind the cost of mergers and acquisitions, and that "Amber has embarked on a path of financing-merger-refinancing, which is quite dangerous." "The experts believe that Amber is often the acquisition of light assets of education and training companies, to be reduced annually, the report will be difficult to see." "Amber has raised 107 million dollars and is said to have a lower valuation than the fourth round of funding, 103 million dollars." "Jiang Mingjie is skeptical that Amber has overdrawn future growth in order to sprint to the market. 2009 National Day, Huang and Li, Deng again invited to participate in the National Day ceremony, ten years later in Tiananmen Reunion, three people filled with emotion. We have contributed more or less to the development of Chinese society. Huang said, she was sitting next to a leading cadre, the air parade after the full of passion, he took Huang hand, said he was very supportive of the success of the education of amber. "I said why did you support Amber?" He said, "I'm going to support something else. Success is a company success, at best, an industry success. But if the amber education is successful, it is the national quality promotion, to China five years 10 years of economic development is very helpful, I heard very moved, feel heavy sense of mission. "10 years, the return of the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to talk about their careers, is still a family of national feelings." Over the past decade, 25 of returnees, except Robin Li and Deng, became business stars, and the rest were unknown. What would happen if she stayed in Silicon Valley to do the software?