Ran: A merger, more imagination than others

Absrtact: CEO of Ecapital Capital Co., Ltd. ran he is the founder of China's successful private investment bank, but it is not a person who is not a man who has made a lot of money ran's resume is the dream of countless Chinese parents to design their children's lives: high School study Abroad, Harvard undergraduate and

Ecapital Capital Limited CEO ran

He is the founder of China's successful private investment bank, but not a man with a stuffy voice.

Ran's resume is the dream of countless Chinese parents to design their children's lives: High School abroad, Harvard and MBA, and top overseas investment banks.

The imagination of most Chinese parents will be over, but ran's life is more wonderful: He returned home and founded his private investment bank, Ecapital Capital.

Ran is trying to establish a third force among the world's big investment banks and state-owned investment banks. At present, Ecapital Capital is the number and amount of mergers and acquisitions of the first Chinese private investment bank.

Familiar with ran, he has the common characteristics of bankers: shrewd, cold, and good at discovering. But ran, unlike them, has the courage and ability to express the group.

He became one of the first Chinese business people to register for Sina Weibo in 2008. Over the years, he has published more than 8,800 micro-blogs, on dozens blog posts, with 3.39 million fans. He has a unique view of democracy, rule of law, society, finance and even marriage, and is not afraid to express it.

Two first

In 2012 years, the country's largest mother and child electricity website Red children seeking to sell, the shareholders hired a famous European Investment Bank for mergers and acquisitions advisers, but because the latter target to the Amazon and other international giants, the progress is not smooth, ran decided to take the opportunity to enter.

After combing through the list of possible acquisitions, ran a key target and immediately gave the founder of the Red Child a call: "We have no intention of competing with the big investment banks, but would you like us to try Su ning?" "received a positive reply, ran flew directly to Nanjing Suning headquarters, first met the vice president of Suning Jingun, Ren showed interest. One months later, Wang took the founder of Red children to Nanjing to meet with Suning Chairman Jindong.

September 25, 2012, Red children sold at 66 million U.S. dollars, the buyer is Su Ning, and this is also a a-share company in the vertical field of the first mergers and acquisitions attempt.

Ran says he has more imagination than anyone else in mergers and acquisitions. He preferred to target sellers or buyers who seemed impossible. Even if the other party has identified the client, he will still feel the chance.

Ran led to the thunder of the spring capital financing is a low probability of success events.

One day in early 2012, 10 o'clock in the morning ran received Chun-hua capital partner Wang Yang's telephone, said the price talks, to the Thunderbolt financing negotiations to end.

That afternoon, Wang learned that the Thunder founder Shenglong is waiting for the airport, he realized this is the last chance, he immediately to Wang Yang call, let him to the airport will Zou. They came up with a new trading structure on the phone, that is, equity plus equity, which eventually moved the Thunderbolt. March 2012, the Thunderbolt completed a new round of 50 million U.S. dollars of financing, Chun Hua Capital led.

These two cases represent the two main businesses of the Ecapital capital that ran founded-mergers and acquisitions and private equity financing. Founded in 2000, Ecapital Capital is one of the first private investment banks in China.

Up to now, Ecapital Capital has been involved in nearly hundred transactions, completing 11 mergers and acquisitions in just 2012 years, with a total of more than 2 billion dollars, including: Youku buys potatoes (the largest listed company in the Chinese media and Internet sector), and the pony Pentium acquisition of the Digital kingdom ( Chinese media companies first acquired major entertainment assets overseas through bankruptcy reorganization procedures, HNA Investment in Caesar tourism (the first case of China Airlines Integrated tour company), Actis Investment Port of Lou (China's catering industry's largest holding-type investment project).

A wall in the Ecapital conference room was covered with Ecapital's project. One of the hallmarks of an investment bank's success, ran says, is how many walls it has been working on.

One partner with ran, an internet company, said ran knows how to let jittery buyers unwind, one of which is that they never seem impatient when negotiating, and he always stares at each other for a long time after expressing a strong willingness to cooperate, and then says slowly: "I need to think about it." ”

A person who has worked with Ran said that ran like a greedy cat chasing fish at any time to pursue a possible opportunity, and in the face of partners always willing to tell the truth.

Ecapital Capital is now the number and amount of mergers and acquisitions are listed in the first private investment bank in China. This first, ran struggled for 17 years.

Two startups

Ran is one of China's first venture capital investment Bank, founded in 1995, and some overseas financiers smell the seeds of China's investment banking industry.

The Harvard Business School's top graduate even ran to meet the director of Jinrongjie CMC, he pointed to the old Alley House Financial Street said, "There are investors overseas, as long as willing to go to the capital market change, I will help you put this floor up." In the same year, ran participated in the founding of the Orient.

Until then, there were only two forces in China's investment banking market, with international investment banks such as Goldman doing big business, and state-owned investment banks such as CICC relying on the government's background. The original intention of ran is to establish a new private investment bank to provide services for the mergers, acquisitions and financing of small and medium-sized enterprises in the midst of two strands of power.

Feng in the "barbaric growth" in that era was called the Blind Robin era, the rich are bold, such as Shi Yuzhu. These "savage growth" private entrepreneurs are not familiar with the role of investment banks and are therefore unlikely to hire them easily.

The Orient will soon be propped up, and in order to survive, they may even have a Beijing restaurant guide like Zagat.

One day, ran holding the sample of the book, pondering how to make the font more beautiful. "At that moment, suddenly feel very sad, this and I was" the restoration of gold, "The dream is too far away. ”

The Orient, which had only been in the last three years, ended. Ran, 30 years old, returned to the United States after his birthday and became senior manager of the global Mergers and Acquisitions Department of the US Chase Securities Company.

In the seemingly scenery of the investment line, living in a five-star hotel, sitting first class, in 2000 when the Internet wave came, ran finally sit down.

In 2000, a once-all-powerful network company chairman in front of Ran, painted a piece of cake on the blackboard, divided into three small chunks: "This is the future of the global E-commerce market, this is ebay, this is the Amazon, this is Yahoo." The rest is ours! ”

In the same year, Ran's younger brother, Shao Yipo, a graduate of Harvard Business School MBA, founded the ebay network in Shanghai, becoming the first E-commerce website in the country.

Late one night, JPMorgan's South Korean office, ran, waited for a fax gap to write an article "pointing to the Sea", the first column he wrote to Caijing. Since then, he has published dozens of articles in Caijing, including finance, Internet, media, mergers and acquisitions.

In the article, ran will be the internet business than people yearning for the sea, he wrote, from the Silicon Valley to Zhongguancun, from Yahoo to Sina, people are thinking about similar models: tens of thousands of dollars started, one months to introduce 1 million dollar angel investment, six months to introduce 3 million to 5 million U.S. dollars of venture capital, A 20 million-dollar strategic investment is introduced within a year and is listed overseas within two years, bringing the company's market value to about $1 billion.

The wave of the internet is not a short-lived, bland business wave, but a revolutionary, historical change. The Internet naturally requires capital assistance.

In April 2000, ran the second time he returned to his business. Ecapital Capital was born in the three-storey office building at Kerry Center. After Ecapital, a large number of private investment banks have been established. 2003, the Han Investment group was established, 2004, Huaxing Capital was established, 2005, the Green Bridge Capital was established.

The common denominator of these private investment banks is to completely jump open the traditional securities underwriting and securities brokerage narrow business framework, early in the consultancy business as the core, mainly to serve the emerging economies in the High-growth enterprises, and later began to develop mergers and acquisitions, financing and even listing business. They are involved in more than 1 billion dollars in the transaction, which ensures that more small and medium-sized private enterprises can enjoy financial services.

Ran said that the investment bank is a stable and conservative and well-funded behemoth, in the United States, only those who have many years of investment banking experience to qualify for a small investment bank. China does not have the white-haired investment banking vice chairmen, which gives private investment banks such as ecapital an excellent opportunity.

It has been judged that ran the most appropriate time, with the background of international investment banks, with resources and relationships, to do what Chinese Internet companies need most.

But two startups soon, the first wave of the internet bubble burst, ecapital capital was also implicated. The office moved from the expensive two-seater to the relatively inexpensive China resources building, with five partners walking two, and at least three people left.

Ran had to adjust its strategy to extend the business of Ecapital Capital from TMT to Media Entertainment, consumer industry, and health industry, and launched the first real leveraged buyout case in the country.

February 5, 2006, Pacific Alliance Group, an Overseas private investment fund, bought a 68% per cent stake in China's baby supplies supplier for 122.5 million dollars. The typical significance of this acquisition is: the fund to pay 122.5 million of dollars in the acquisition, only a mere 12 million dollars in cash, the rest of the good children found Jinguu and corporate control value as collateral, to financial institutions to borrow, to win 400% of the high return on investment, to achieve "snake swallow elephant."

Ran said that today China's financial environment and the United States in the 80 's have a lot of similarities, he believes that leveraged buy-outs in China will certainly usher in their own spring, which will be the major market opportunities for mergers and acquisitions.

China's rapid economic growth over the past more than 30 years has not met the real economic cycle, once it has begun, how to grasp it? Ran says one of the key issues that Ecapital runs through 2013 years is how to handle the investment opportunities in the economic cycle and to ensure a complete layout of the mergers and acquisitions business.

But at this point, he has to face another problem, that is, the survival of domestic investment banks. The investment bank, represented by Ecapital, has pushed the entire Chinese Internet acquisition and investment, but these companies grew up and formed their own professional investment and financing team, the role of investment banks in the past is gradually weakened.

Ran said the future ecapital will set up an investment and acquisition fund company, the ecapital role will not be limited to mergers and acquisitions advisers, but as the main body, to buy the company, through the operation of the upgrade after the IPO or resell to the right buyer. In this way, both financial innovation and capital innovation can be grasped, and the best exit path can be found. And when that goal is achieved, Ecapital will likely become China's black Stone.

In the development process of private investment banks, risks and opportunities are the same. Some have compared this survival path to a cone-shaped space-time tunnel, and only a handful of private investment banks can crawl through the tunnels and see the sun through holes.

Inner Business Order

Ran is a very special person. His second identity was a well-known blogger and columnist. He has published hundreds of professional articles in several domestic financial newspapers and periodicals, in addition, he also wrote hundreds of blogs, nearly million Weibo.

In the network, netizens will he said words organized into "ran quotations."

Ran said he returned from the United States in 2000 to set up Ecapital, only five or six years of experience in investment banking, betting that China will be getting better. Then he felt the conflict between ideals and reality, which was undoubtedly experiencing an extreme experience. After all, this is a completely different two business environment, one that has a century-old history, the norm matures, while the other is still groping and self-perfection.

He criticized the ubiquitous approval system as a hotbed of interest groups. To limit the savage plunder of interest groups, we should dare to abandon the administrative approval in most economic fields and let the market run its own logic. He judged that the government had taken taxpayers ' money by simply trying to help taxpayers avoid disaster. A good government can do this most of the time, and bad government is most of the time turning itself into a disaster for the people.

Later, at the end of 2012, "Mr. Fashion" activities, ran in front of Wang Shi and many other entrepreneurs, said Ecapital insist not to do evil, will not contract damage market rules and order transactions will not be fake for customers.

His education of a whole set of Western business civilizations is fermenting.

He is extremely strict in the management of the company. Ecapital Capital, a female employee said, once ran in the office to see women employees dressed casually, immediately developed a set of dress rules, meticulous to include the length of the skirt, stockings color, shoes style. Employees never see his temper, no time he will not be rude, but most employees will be afraid of him.

In business, ran emphasizes the same professional subdivision as Western financial markets, focusing on business. He focused on mergers and acquisitions and was very concerned about potential conflicts of interest. "Do you serve Huayi and Boehner, and can you serve the pony Pentium?" We have a very clear line, that is, at the same time, we will not help the two competitors in the same industry to do the same thing. ”

Insiders will find that ran led the ecapital is a very "not local" local investment bank. His rival, Baofan, has shown the opposite of the "rivers and lakes" pie, the founder of Huaxing Capital with a bald head, love racing. "You can meet in a variety of social occasions huaxing high-rise, karaoke, bar and so on, but ran has been accustomed to and each other to drink coffee." Today, Huaxing's business expands to include listed stock underwriting, securities brokerage, book management and other institutional securities, business volume also began to overtake easy Kay.

Ran reflection, ecapital the principle of too gentle, in the advent of the great wave always miss the best opportunity. 2011 E-commerce in full swing, ecapital but too conservative, missed a group of electric companies financing and mergers and acquisitions, until a year later barely caught the wave of the tail. While huaxing in this wave has just begun to do the financing of Beijing East.

Ran has repeatedly told the public that his ideal is to Polish easy Kai Capital into a "century-old shop." As long as the direction is clear, the previous strategy of the loss of focus on the dimensions of the century, perhaps not so serious. But for a "century old shop", to promote a kind of business atmosphere, this is ran more concerned about. Because only in a good business order, will be born "hundred years old shop."

Ran says the current Chinese business environment is good for those who are willing to open one eye. In a long period of time, he saw in the business of the so-called "success" is often empty gloves White Wolf, Peter Paul, in such a big background, all walks of life are impatient to seek short-term returns.

He hopes to practice to promote the market's normative development. He also wants to use words and words to drive more people to define their inner business order-to allocate resources in a market-driven fashion, rather than through people and governments.

Ran said that if Chinese businessmen were the "most timid" group, it was precisely because they were a group of people closest to the government. But entrepreneurs are symbiotic with this society, and entrepreneurs tend to be the ultimate victims when social ecology deteriorates. So he never wanted to be a silent majority.

"I think entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, for their long-term security and long-term interests, should still have some basic, but firm, aspirations and beliefs, such as the pursuit and adherence to the rule of law, equity and a free-market economy." Because no one can run fast on a mine-strewn field, and no one can uphold white in a filthy dye. "Ran said.