Youtu will complete its domestic listing within three years, without excluding backdoor borrowing and spin-off

"We have set a new goal of listing in China in three years. This plan has actually been launched long ago." Gu Yongqiang summarized Youtu's capital actions in the next three years in one sentence.

Heyi Group (Youku Tudou) announced on the 6th that it will return to the domestic stock market within three years, or 1095 days. Today is exactly the 1946th day that Youku has spent in U.S. stocks.

For a company that has only been established for ten years, how many 1946 days can it have? How many 1095 days will there be in the future? These may be the deepest anxieties and expectations in Gu Yongqiang's heart when he explained his future vision to the media today.

Were the previous 1946 days a mistake for Youku?

Xiaoyu found a data and found that since mid-2014, when A-shares began to rise, Youku Tudou has only risen by 3%, and it has been basically "stagnant" for more than a year.

What is more comparable is that in 2015, iQiyi and Tencent Video were very aggressive in the field of high-priced content and paid membership because they were not subject to "profit reports." Among the pursuers, Short Video platforms such as Mishuai, as well as secondary cultural fields such as Stations A and B, have also caught up with the former Big Brother.

Therefore, it is a matter of course that You Tu returned to China. Gu Yongqiang also gave an example in an interview: "When we explained many of our excellent content, such as" The Journey ", to U.S. stock investors, they didn't understand it at all."

In the next 1095 days, can Youtu's ambition to go public really be realized?

You know, as China's top video website, Youtu has always faced two major problems in landing in the A-share market: profit requirements and uncertainty. However, considering that Youku Tudou's losses in the first three quarters of 2015 totaled more than US$200 million, if it does not turn losses into profits, it will be difficult to go public.

However, in the interview, Gu Yongqiang said that on the one hand, they may consider backdoor, reorganization and other methods. On the other hand, they may also split up high-quality assets and list them separately, or adjust the amortization method of certain large expenditures to finally meet the requirements for listing.

"If we can find this shortcut, we will definitely take it. We need to find the most efficient and fastest way." When he said this, Gu Yongqiang glanced at everyone.

Of course, for Youtu, the past 1946 days have passed. In the days to come, Youtu will have Ali's five major "interconnections" in terms of membership, data, and channels, an industrial upgrade from single screen to multiple screens, and a large increase in paying users. It will be a blessing no matter how you think about it.

It is worth mentioning that during this privatization process, Xiaomi "handed over" all the Utu shares it held. The former once purchased a large number of Utu shares from the secondary market at the end of 2014. This time, the release of the high position made Xiaomi's people laugh."Thank you for helping us make money."

Youku went to a good university in the United States and is now coming back to graduate school.

In the first quarter of 2015, when Gu Yongqiang was drinking tea with a certain director, the other party said,"It's not a big deal to be in the United States all year round" and advised them to come back as soon as possible. After all, with the improvement of the domestic A-share market, it is not uncommon for Chinese stocks to return. Focus Media was the first, and Shanda and other companies were the next.

This speech was exactly what Gu Yongqiang wanted. In the past few years in the United States, he has deeply felt the troubles brought to Youtu by the differences in Chinese and American cultures and capital markets.

"We have had a lot of good content broadcast in China in the past five years, including" The Journey "and" Unexpectedly."When we explained it to U.S. stock investors, they did not understand it. So we always have to translate it into the American model, saying it is American xx, and we need to package it, especially for new investors." Gu Yongqiang explained in detail the original intention of the privatization of Youtu at this morning's communication meeting.

This is a common problem faced by almost all Chinese stocks: the users are in China, but the capital is in the United States. The long-term disconnect will either lead to a serious underestimation of the market value or lead to poor development of the company itself.

Therefore, Gu Yongqiang believes that coming back is a very important thing.

Later, Utu teamed up with Ali to announce privatization at a price of US$27.6 per share, which is a win-win solution compared to the issue price of US$12.8 per share. It can also be said here that Youtu does not want to be picky about the price of privatization to avoid long dreams.

"When communicating with core shareholders, we talked about the significance (and plan) of our return, and everyone thought we were very kind."

Among them, Xiaomi may also make a lot of money. According to media sources, Xiaomi purchased a large number of Utu shares through the secondary market at the end of 2014. However, during this privatization process, Xiaomi "withdrew" all shares. If calculated based on the stock price of around 20 US dollars at that time, Xiaomi's return on investment was about 30%.

"Thank you for helping us make money." This is Xiaomi's most candid expression to Gu Yongqiang.

"What does (these five years) mean to us? Our ability to list in New York was a very important part of the brand's rise and internationalization. It was a very milestone event at that time." Gu Yongqiang made a meaningful evaluation of his "days" in the United States over the past five years.

"I made an analogy at that time. We went to New York to go to college. Now we have graduated from college and are going to return to China.

When we started, it was a video platform. With the changes of the multi-screen Internet, we are more and more like a mobile Internet company. It is very important to return to China to be a company with culture and entertainment as its core, so we are back this time. Graduate school. "

Uotu will complete its domestic listing within three years, and backdoor and spin-off listings are not ruled out.

" We have set a new goal of listing domestically within three years. This plan has actually been launched long ago." Gu Yongqiang summarized Youtu's capital actions in the next three years in one sentence.

He even proposed to use the "golden decade" of China's entertainment industry to catch up with YouTube.

"If Ali can surpass Amazon +Ebuy in market value, we hope to surpass Netflix+YouTube in the future. They are NY (short for New York), so we have to surpass New York. It is our vision to surpass them in terms of revenue time, revenue scale, and membership size."

But the most urgent problem facing them at present is how to list domestically.

The domestic A-share market has certain profit requirements for companies, but video websites have always been a "bottomless hole" that burns money. At present, apart from LeTV, which has certain "financial skills", no company can achieve profit. This paradox is also one of the reasons why many domestic video websites have gone to Nasdaq to ring the bell. Compared with China, the United States is much more relaxed.

Even if LeTV is profitable, the "mystery" is self-evident:

one of the methods is to establish a subsidiary company LeTV Zhixin, which is responsible for the production and sales of TVs and mobile phones. LeTV then purchases products from LeTV Zhixin, so that LeTV Zhixin's "huge losses" cannot be directly passed on to LeTV, and LeTV is in a relatively safe area.

Secondly, there is less accrual for copyright purchases. In recent years, the copyright burden on video websites has become heavier and heavier. However, although LeTV purchases more than one billion yuan per year, it has greatly reduced the pressure on procurement costs by making less accrual.

This "brilliant" approach can be regarded as an effective response to Youtu. Gu Yongqiang also vaguely expressed this idea during an interview, saying that he would not rule out a spin-off and listing in the future.

Alipay has diverted 7 million yuan to Youku members. With Ali,

it is not just capital, but also strategic linkage. The two sides will cooperate more closely in "entertainment + e-commerce". Gu Yongqiang once At the 2016 Ecological Marketing Conference, it was clearly stated that "Youtu should be Taobao and Tmall in the field of culture and entertainment."

Therefore, after this "comprehensive embrace" of Ali, the two sides carried out at least the following five aspects of linkage.

The first is the opening up of member income. At the beginning of 2015, Youtu's non-advertising revenue was below 5%, but now it is growing at a three-digit year-on-year and a high-digit quarterly double-digit rate, with an astonishing momentum. A large part of this is brought to Youtu by Ali. Take the cooperation with Alipay during the Spring Festival this year as an example. One Spring Festival brought 7 million paid members.

It turns out that users go to Youtu to watch movies, TV, variety shows, anime, music and other content. Objectively speaking, they do not have the ability to locate or track their payment, shopping and other information. However, Ali has connected with Alipay. Data in this area is very important to driving our user income, or a very complementary incubator, including an element of complementary strategies.

Second, Ali is a leading platform in e-commerce in the world. In recent months, we have given some examples, including the prosperity of Luo Ji Thought in our self-channel ecosystem and the beginning of opening self-channel stores. Moreover, we have seen that the transaction volume continues to increase. The Papi sauce auction, which has recently become popular on the Internet, will also be exclusively linked between Youku and Taobao auction platforms. Therefore, whether it is user income and payment, as well as e-commerce, We all have great attempts.

The third is data. On the one hand, in culture and entertainment, we have more than 500 million user data for watching, looking, playing, transmitting, and photographing. In these aspects, we have what content they watch, what time they watch, what place they watch, and what interactive behaviors they have when they watch, and what uploading behaviors they have. In the case of Ali and Alipay, a lot of payment and e-commerce shopping, as well as some data, these two aspects of data have been opened up. After our privatization was completed today, these teams from both sides have begun to work in and get through more., truly open up the data.

Fourth, there are two engines in Youtu's culture and entertainment, one is content and the other is channels. In terms of content, Youku used to invest in many aspects of content in Tudou. As you can see, after Alibaba went public, it has been talking about their happiness and health sections. In the happiness section, Ali's digital entertainment has already been linked to Youku Tudou. There are many linkages. On the other hand, Ali sports, film and television, and music will have some linkages. There will be a steady stream of actions released in recent months, and some of them will be radical.

The other is channels. In the fields of mobile Internet and PC, excellent soil is a strong point. In terms of OTT, there are also many complementarities and linkages with Ali. Later, more channels like VR will also have many linkages.

Editor: yvonne