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If we talk about the first overseas listed Internet company in China, it is Sina.com, which was listed on the NASDAQ in the United States on April 13, 2000. However, if China's first overseas listed Internet company should be China.com, which was listed on the NASDAQ in the United States on July 14, 1999.
The main reason for saying this is that China is slightly different from China's territory, China means all the territories that China has sovereignty, and the territory has the meaning of border in addition to the meaning of national borders, and China's territory is bounded by customs, not including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, while China must include Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, etc. In addition, overseas is equal to foreign, and overseas is often used instead of foreign on **, which means that the distant sea side. China.com was a Hong Kong company at the time, and according to Chinese officials, it was a Chinese Internet company listed overseas.
When it comes to China.com, many people may know, and there are many who don't know, everyone knows the current China.com, and what they don't know is the past China.com. Now let's talk about the unknown China Network in the past.
After the Internet was officially commercialized in Chinese mainland in April 1994, wave after wave of Internet construction boom was rapidly set off. At first, as I mentioned in my previous article, it was mostly used for information dissemination and was successful, more typically portals**.
Affected by this, Pexels began to take off the Internet in Hong Kong for about half a year. At that time, Xinhua News Agency's Jinding Group in Hong Kong quickly seized the opportunity and established an Internet joint venture in Hong Kong with the United States Allianz Corporation at the end of 1994 with its affiliated Jinding Technology CompanyChina International Network Communication***CIC).Jinding Technology does not contribute, is responsible for planning, resource docking, etc., accounting for 60% of the shares, and Asia-Pacific Allianz is responsible for capital contribution and financing, accounting for 40% of the shares.
After the establishment of the company, Jinding Technology is responsible for planning to do something, what to do? Then plan to build a **, build a ** first must have a domain name, only then did I find that Hong Kong people are not lagging behind in this aspect of preemptive registration of domain names, they have been in 1993, and good domain names have almost been preemptively registered.
But then their good fortune came again, and they learned that an Italian in Hong Kong had three very important top-level domains, one being Chinacom、The other two are hongkong.com、taiwan.com, he registered these three domain names not to build ** but to hoard and sell money. After some negotiations and many mediations, around April 1995, they finally acquired the three domain names from this Italy in the name of China International Network Communication***CIC, and it was very suitable.
It can be seen from this that shortly after the establishment of CIC, it successfully acquired three top-level domain names related to China's national image, which has to be said to have made an important contribution to the history of China's Internet development.
The period from 1995 to 1999 was five years in which China's external propaganda development and important progress were made, and its conspicuous sign was the birth of online propaganda, and it can be said that the emergence and development of China's Internet and the emergence and development of online propaganda are inseparable. Against this background, Xinhua News Agency's Jinding Group set up an Internet company in Hong Kong, with the aim of relying on Hong Kong, the gateway for Sino-foreign exchanges, to use the Internet to carry out external propaganda.
CIC was founded in early 1995 and registered a domain name cww. onlinecom, named Guozhongwang, means China wide web, stands for CIC company, and wants to use this domain name as the basis to establish a portal for external publicity in Hong Kong**, and Chinacom、hongkong.com、taiwan.com operates independently as a subsidiary and subsidiary.
From 1996 to 1999, CIC held four consecutive annual conferences in the name of China.com in the mainland, the first of which was received by then Premier Zhu Rongji. From 1996 to 1997, CIC coordinated with Merrill Lynch and other international investment banks to introduce a number of well-known consortiums of multinational companies from the United States, Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, China and other places to invest in CIC, raising more than 20 million US dollars. In terms of financing, the Chinese side also successfully invited Hong Kong New World Group to join CIC, attracting more than US$10 million. These promotional activities and the introduction of funds have laid the foundation for CIC's future development and listing.
As a result of the increase in shareholders, there was some controversy within the CIC, and disagreements began to arise in late 1998 over whether the company should go publicAt that time, the Chinese side was hesitant to list overseas, believing that there was no precedent before, lacked experience in this area, and was afraid of messing up, and was not very active, but international venture capital was very resolute, and the purpose of their funds was to go public.
Finally, after several rounds of consultations, it was agreed that CIC would not be listed, but would replace China Net Company (Chinacom) was spun off from CIC, independently packaged and listed, and China.com Co., Ltd.** was distributed to the shareholders of CIC in accordance with the CIC equity structure. In May 1999, the largest network company in the United States at that time, the United States ** (AOL) learned of this news and intended to acquire the shares of China.com, in order to safeguard the interests of the Chinese side, the Chinese side did not want the United States to become the largest shareholder, after careful consideration and negotiations with a number of people, finally by the Hong Kong New World Group to undertake part of the shares of Jinding Group, making it the largest shareholder of China.com, AOL is the second largest shareholder, Jinding Group is reduced to the third largest shareholder.
At the beginning of June 1999, China.com was formally reorganized, completely spun off from CIC, and established China.com International Network Communication *** and made preparations before listing. Dr. Qian Guofeng, Chairman of the Science and Technology Development Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, was invited to serve as the chairman of the board of directors of China.com, and Peter Yip, a Hong Kong native, was hired as the chief executive officer, and the American investment bank Lehman Brothers was appointed as the lead underwriter, and officially applied for listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
*: Canned Picture GalleryAt the beginning of July, China.com officially issued more than 4 million new shares to the worldDue to the oversubscription of nearly 100 times, the listing price was raised from the original $15 per share to $20 per share. On July 14, China Net Co., Ltd. was officially listed on the NASDAQ in the United States, and the share once rose to 67$2 and a great success. Later, the stock price was speculated to 220$31 shares, with a market capitalization of more than $5 billion.
At that time, the American ** analysts believed that there were three main reasons for the successful listing of China.com:The first is the concept of Internet plus China, which has first-class selling points; Second, the shareholders are all world-renowned institutions, which is a dream combination; Third, the timing is very appropriate (shortly after the US interest rate hike and before the arrival of the off-season). Of course, there is also a very important and most fortunate point, that is, the China Internet Listing is ahead of the bursting of the global Internet bubble.
After the successful listing of China.com, newspapers and periodicals in the West and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in China have praised it, such as the American "Newsweek" published an article saying: Many people do not hesitate to buy China.com** because China.com represents the concept of China and the new trend of Wall Street. Hong Kong's "Sing Pao" article believes that the Chinese online market has become a model and will attract more Chinese Internet companies in the Asia-Pacific region to follow in its footsteps. The director of the Hong Kong branch of China's Taiwan ** Agency said: China.com is a pioneer of Internet Chinese**, and it will make historic contributions to the spread of Chinese culture. Chinese newspapers in Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries also attach great importance to the Chinese online market, believing that it will promote the development of global Chinese networks.
China.com is the first Chinese concept network company listed in the United States, and its attraction to international investment reflects the international confidence in China's reform and opening up, and has played a huge role in promoting the aspirations of international investors and entering the Chinese market at that time. An editorial in Hong Kong's "Ming Pao" said: The successful listing of China.com in the United States has shocked the US investment and technology circles, and fully demonstrates the huge potential of the Greater China market.
Compared with the scenery of China's online market, Sina, NetEase, and Sohu, which are also portals, were not so lucky, and they suffered the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2000, but they still withstood the pressure and went public, which was not easy and successful. As a result, China.com was listed as one of the four major gateways in China at that time.
However, the good times did not last long, due to various reasons, especially strategic misjudgment and business model misalignment, resulting in losses year after year, and the situation has deteriorated, although many adjustments have not been effective, the original position of the four major portals has gradually been replaced by Tencent. Until October 5, 2011, there was a news that shocked China's Internet industry - known as China's first Internet stock"CDC Group (China.com Investment Group), the parent company of China.com, officially filed for bankruptcy protection in the Atlanta Bankruptcy Court.
At this point, the once glorious Chinese Internet pioneer at that time became a martyr, of course, he did not die, China.com still exists, but this China.com is no longer the other China.com.
At present, there is almost no trace of the founding of China.com on the Internet, and this article is written to commemorate and cherish that era. Finally, I sincerely hope that now China.com can create brilliance again, because his name is China.com.
Do you know China.com? What impressed you the most about it? Let's talk in the comment section.
*: "How much do you know about the past"**