Zhou Shouzi’s network
VCPE reference (vcpecankao) original
Author| Li Zixuan
Edit | Manage lost
CFOs who help companies go public often leave after completing their mission, which is almost a consensus in the industry.
On the afternoon of March 24, 2021, Zhou Shouzi, Xiaomi’s youngest partner, announced his departure and will soon join ByteDance, returning to work in Singapore, his hometown after an 18-year absence.
On Weibo, Lei Jun and Zhou Shouzi each posted a blog with emotion, full of affection. Since being invited to join in 2015, Zhou Shouzi has been with Xiaomi for nearly 6 years. This is the company that has stayed the longest in his career.
Like Xiaomi, Bytedance is also one of the companies that Zhou Shouzi invested in DST.
For Zhou Shouzi, the wider byte beat of the business layout will provide him with more room for display. The byte beating, which is currently estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars, still has room for growth in the future. When the byte beating strikes the bell, it may be a bright moment for Zhou Shouzi.
01
Zhou Shouzi and his new owner, Bytedance, are due to his time in DST. At that time, Zhou Shouzi was the one who invested in Bytedance Series B on behalf of DST.
The B round of DST is very important for byte beating, because there is no money for byte beating.
How hard was the byte beating back then? Zhang Yiming found a circle of investors on his own, but to no avail. Wang Qiong of SIG, an early investor, has pushed Toutiao to many investors, but most investors regard Toutiao as the next portal, thinking that it is the next news client such as Netease, Sohu, Tencent, etc., and they will think that there is already a portal. Netease and Sohu both claim to have 200 million users. Where can Toutiao develop?
Wang Qiong found 20 investors by brushing his face, met with them and introduced today’s headlines, but no one is optimistic about the headlines. In the domestic capital market, there is almost no institution that is optimistic about Zhang Yiming and Toutiao.
Wang Qiong continues to look for investors. By coincidence, Wang Qiong saw a report on the headline saying that Milner Yuri, the helm of DST, invested in Prismatic in the United States, which also provides users with content of interest through smart recommendation algorithms.
Wang Qiong contacted Yuri of DST. He sent someone to evaluate the product. This person was Zhou Shouzi. He commented on ByteDance, “The founder is notChang Qiang, he has a very clear view of the general direction, and the data is very good.” So, DST soon decided to invest.
02
Zhou Shouzi is a key figure for DST to open up the Chinese Internet market. Zhou Shouzi has been involved in some well-known investment projects such as JD.com, Alibaba, Xiaomi, Bytedance, Didi and Meituan.
At first, Zhou Shouzi and DST were unfamiliar in China. In order to research projects and accumulate contacts, Zhou Shouzi met with 30 companies every week. In the end of the year, he met 300 to 500 companies and got to know more than 20 Among the main partners of top financial consulting institutions is Bao Fan, the founder of China Renaissance Capital. Bao Fan introduced JD to Zhou Shouzi and arranged for Zhou Shouzi and Yuri to meet with Liu Qiangdong.
On the evening of March 30, 2011, Liu Qiangdong excitedly posted a message on Weibo, “JD.com’s new round of financing is nearing its end, and the total scale is far more than US$1 billion.” DST is the largest investment in this round of financing. Fang, accounted for 8.8% of the shares. After that, DST invested in JD.com twice. In 2012, it invested 250 million US dollars. In 2013, it made a small increase in its holdings.
I invested in JD.com and was promoted by Liu Qiangdong’s Weibo. DST was officially knocked on the door of the Chinese market. Zhou Shouzi then set his sights on Xiaomi. At that time, Lei Jun was not short of money, Zhou Shouzi still found Lei Jun through contacts.
Six months after the meeting, under the arrangement of Zhou Shouzi, the heads of DST Hong Kong office John Lindfors and Milner Yuri walked into the Xiaomi office to meet Lei Jun. The reactions of the other two at DST confirmed Zhou Shouzi’s vision.
At that time, Xiaomi had just released its first smartphone, which has not yet been on sale, and the prospects are still unclear. However, Lei Jun introduced to them his “iron triangle” plan to integrate hardware, software and Internet services. Yuri found it very interesting. .
John also recognizes Lei Jun very much. He feels that Lei Jun has the burden and knows how to achieve it. He is an “all-rounder”. After months of due diligence, DST has invested 500 million US dollars in Xiaomi and won 7% of shares.
After leaving the company, the three people at DST were very excited. They imagined Xiaomi’s future together in the car. After that, Yuri frequently met and chatted with Lei Jun. The chat lasted for a few hours, and he gave Lei Jun a set of universe miniatures. Model as a gift.
Lei Jun said later that he never thought that DST would vote for Xiaomi.
03
Yuri is well-known in the founder circle in China. One reason is his investment style of “paying high prices without any decision-making power”, and another reason is his closeness to the founders of the investment. Zhou Shouzi learned this style to the extreme, not only to get close to them, but also to join them.
Zhou Shou Capital’s person looks handsome and smartMing is diligent, and the experience of joining the army when he was young makes him outstanding. Former Jingwei China investor Zhuang Minghao once commented on Zhou Shouzi: “It was fortunate to have a meeting with him, which fits all the definitions of the word male god in my heart.”
The male god Zhou Shouzi also conquered Lei Jun. In 2015, Lei Jun invited Zhou Shouzi to join Xiaomi. Zhou Shouzi has left his hometown for many years. After persuading his family, he will continue to stay in China as Xiaomi’s CFO, responsible for group finance, investment and human resources.
Lei Jun, who has always been good at marketing, has also taken Zhou Shouzi out to help Xiaomi attract fans. In July 2015, Lei Jun took Zhou Shouzi wearing sunglasses and combined a photo with the text “Singaporeans, absolutely rich and handsome, welcome Mi Fans to follow him!” Later, Lei Jun put on Zhou Shouzi “The Second Handsome of Xiaomi” “The hat encourages him to start a live broadcast.
Although Lei Jun had always denied the rumors that Xiaomi was going to go public, at the end of 2014, a $1.1 billion financing raised Xiaomi’s valuation to $45 billion. The outside world feels that Xiaomi’s listing is in sight. But there are also many doubtful voices, that is, as a hardware company, a valuation bubble of $45 billion is too much.
Lei Jun needs someone to help Xiaomi inject more added value and build an ecosystem. It is an efficient choice to invest in smart hardware companies. And Zhou Shouzi, who is an investment banker, is the best candidate for this task.
Shortly after, Xiaomi established the Hubei Xiaomi Yangtze River Industrial Investment Fund Management Company. Zhou Shouzi served as a legal person, director and general manager. Several previously established investment companies also let Zhou Shouzi serve as a legal person and concurrently serve as a director or manager. .
When Xiaomi submitted its prospectus in 2018, Xiaomi had successively invested in more than 210 companies, and there were nearly 100 smart hardware companies. In 2016, Xiaomi also established a film investment company, but it was dissolved after two years.
Xiaomi began to deploy Internet finance business in 2015, including payment, microfinance, Internet insurance, and wealth management product distribution, and integrated financial-related businesses into Xiaomi’s wholly-owned subsidiary Xiaomi Finance. However, more room for display is left to Hong Feng, the co-founder of Xiaomi, and Zhou Shouzi only serves as a supervisor in several companies of Xiaomi Financial Holdings.
On New Year’s Day 2018, Zhou Shouzi received 5 million Class B common stocks with outstanding options granted by Xiaomi, with an exercise price of $0-1.0225 per share, and a lock-up period of 5-10 years. Other Xiaomi executives have obtained a certain number of option stocks, and Xiaomi is preparing to sprint to go public.
Zhou Shouzi’s first IPO, he excitedly shared a picture on Weibo that is said to be very popular inside Xiaomi, which reads “In the next year, even sleeping is a waste of time.”
Actually, Xiaomi’s situation in 2018 is not good. The capital market financing environment was severe in the first half of the year. The newly released Mi 8 was affected by the Huawei P20 and OPPOFindX released at the same time.Sound, sales performance is not good. The scale of Xiaomi’s valuation has also changed many times, from hundreds of billions of dollars to more than 50 billion dollars.
Therefore, Zhou Shouzi was appointed as the senior vice president of Xiaomi in April of this year, which meant that he was in danger.
In a hotel near the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Zhou Shouzi was under tremendous pressure. The prospectus submitted by Xiaomi to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange was 600 pages, and every word had to be considered repeatedly.
However, in June 2018, the application for the issuance of Xiaomi CDR was approved; on July 9, 2018, Xiaomi listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming the first Hong Kong stock listed company with the same shares and different rights, and the largest Hong Kong stock market at that time IPO.
04
The valuation of Xiaomi in 2018 is not ideal. There are rumors that Zhou Shouzi is going to leave both before and after the listing.
Especially in April 2020, when Xiaomi announced that Zhou Shouzi would no longer serve as CFO, there was speculation that Zhou Shouzi was at odds with Lei Jun. However, these rumors were firmly denied by Lei Jun’s actions every time.
On October 25, 2019, Zhou Shouzi was appointed as executive director on his 37th birthday and joined the board of Xiaomi Group. Less than a year later, Lei Jun promoted Zhou Shouzi to the youngest partner of Xiaomi. After that, he was given 100 million share options, effective for ten years.
Lei Jun wants to keep Zhou Shouzi’s feelings. Everyone can tell. Some people even call Zhou Shouzi the “prince” of Xiaomi.
Of the more than 270 companies invested by Zhou Shouzi during his tenure, most of them are concentrated in the upstream and downstream of the supply chain related to Xiaomi’s main business, and dozens of them have been listed. In the past two years, the dividends of Xiaomi’s investment have gradually been realized. As of December 31, 2020, Xiaomi has invested in more than 310 companies with a total book value of RMB 48 billion, an increase of 60.1% year-on-year. As of the end of 2020, the company’s total investment value is 67.3 billion yuan.
In November 2019, Zhou Shouzi was once again entrusted with an important task, serving as the president of Xiaomi’s international department and concurrently serving as the chief financial officer. At that time, Xiaomi was vigorously developing overseas business, and has successfully entered 90 countries and regions around the world, accounting for 49% of overseas revenue.
After Zhou Shouzi took over, he rushed to visit partners from various countries before the spread of the overseas epidemic, and expanded the scale to more than 100 countries and regions.
In 2020, Xiaomi’s overseas market revenue reached 122.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.1%, almost the same as domestic. According to Canalys statistics, in the fourth quarter of 2020, Xiaomi’s smartphone shipments in 54 countries and regions ranked among the top five.
05
Reviewing Zhou Shouzi’s career path, it is compact and clear. In 2003, after retiring from the Singapore Air Force, Zhou Shouzi entered the Department of Economics of University College London.Two years later, he joined the Goldman Sachs Group, one of the four largest investment banks in the United States, as an analyst.
The Goldman Sachs Group has a history of more than 150 years and has survived many financial crises. Under high-pressure work conditions, Zhou Shouzi worked with a large number of young analysts for more than ten hours a day, in exchange for rapid growth and considerable salary. This kind of life “lasted for two full years, basically no weekends.”
In 2018, when the subprime mortgage crisis broke out, Goldman Sachs was transformed into a bank holding company supervised by the Federal Reserve. Zhou Shouzi just had about two years of work experience, and he happened to study for an MBA at Harvard Business School.
When preparing to apply for a job again, in 2010, Yuri, an old acquaintance of Goldman Sachs, threw a hydrangea to him. He agreed without thinking, and followed in Yuri’s footsteps and entered the Internet industry.
An unproven claim is that Zhou Shouzi and Yuri, the founder of the new owner, met at the Goldman Sachs stage. However, it can be confirmed that Goldman Sachs and DST have a deep intersection. A large number of DST employees have worked in the four major investment banks in the United States, especially Goldman Sachs. Some media reported that when Goldman Sachs and DST jointly invested in Facebook in 2011, 70% of DST employees had worked at Goldman Sachs. In addition, Goldman Sachs was one of the investors in the early days of DST.
Coincidentally, after Yuri invested in Facebook, Zhou Shouzi also joined Facebook to stay for a while. This episode of schooling is also the beginning of the Internet field in which he is involved.
Since entering DST, Zhou Shouzi’s career has been closely related to Chinese Internet companies, and his contacts and his story have also unfolded. From an outsider and bystander to a participant, Zhou Shouzi’s highlights are still to come.