Moderna filed S-1 with SEC last Friday and will become the largest biotech IPO in history.
The record amount of raise ($500 million in current version of documents; I will expect more) just surpassed $421 million (HK$3.3bn) IPO by Innovent. In the past years, the typical size of the largest biotech IPO is around $200-300 million.
Since October, we have seen a series of large biotech IPOs that might also contribute to the money pulled from other biotech companies.
Here is the list of ever-increase IPOs in size since October:
US has no official language on the federal level, according to Wikipedia – very interesting. It seems to me that this is one of the many indicators of US being designed to be an overarching organization.
“There is no official language at the U.S. federal level. However, 32 states of the United States, in some cases as part of what has been called theEnglish-only movement, have adopted legislation granting official status to English. Out of 50 states, 30 have established English as the only official language, while Hawaii recognizes both English and Hawaiian as official, and Alaska has made some 20 native languages official, along with English.”
Hawaiian language
TheHawaiian alphabethas 13 letters: five vowels (each with a long pronunciation and a short one) and eight consonants, one of which is the glottal stop calledʻokina.
Frequently used phrase
Aloha = hello, kindness
Maholo = thank you
Kokua = support
Shaka = hand gesture of extended thumb and pinkie
Lei = necklace made of flowers, shells, leaves, or kukui nuts
Mauka = towards the mountain; makai = towards the ocean.
另一个全球共识，各国家地区都已宣布并付诸实践的，是大力推动新能源汽车的发展，最具代表性的就是Tesla为首的电动汽车。按照各自的时间表，内燃机车的销售还能有10-20年。实际我认为电动汽车时代会来得更快，就像iPhone短短两三年就能让诺基亚和黑莓成为历史。虽然汽车相比于手机周期会更长，但变革来临时，用脚投票的消费者往往超出现有预期。最好的证明 – Tesla Model 3 在今年第三季度已经成为美国最受欢迎销量最好的车型。
It is not necessarily something new/surprising – traditional media are PAYING tech companies to be promoted.
Source: my Twitter on 11/8
I found this really ironic in the sense that originally most media should BE PAID to promote something. The reach to readers is built in the gene of media and defines one of the two pillars of media business model.
Tech companies like Twitter/Toutiao, are not just selling promotions/ads. To me, they are more like real estate developers. They are building towns/offices for people to live/work and renting out the places such as tops of buildings… What’s more, they are doing this everyday and creating places everyday with little physical limits and marginal efforts.
When the town is getting crowded, it becomes Manhattan, where real estates are pricey. Those who were invited as “Official Accounts” now needs to pay more money to be seen. The tech companies can run those auctions which no one questions their eligibility (and why Manhattan is in New York).
Crystal City near Washington was reported a few days ago by Bezos’ Washington Post as the choice for Amazon’s HQ2; only after 2 days, medias reported that it’s going to be split into two cities.
While the result will be announced soon, I think it is worth to review tech firms’ real estate moves by looking at Facebook, Google, etc. This post will focus on Facebook.
Facebook’s original office (since 2004) was in downtown Palo Alto on Emerson Street. It had 5 or 6 offices, one conference room, and a large common area.
Source: Daily Mail, NY Times, Redux, eyevineSource: Business Insider
The following expansion in Palo Alto including leases on S. California Avenue and 1050 Page Mill Road.
Facebook moved to Menlo Park in 2011, the old campus of Sun (acquired by Oracle) – an 11 building, 57 acre, 1 million square foot property on the Bayfront Expressway. The purchase was a sale-leaseback with a 15 year long-term lease, with an option to purchase the campus after five years. There were no tax breaks included in the deal with Menlo Park. Facebook has also bought a 22 acre building connected to the campus by a tunnel. It was rumored that Facebook had been considering a leaseback of the property, with the purchase being assigned to a state pension fund. A 15 year leaseback was confirmed today, with the option to buy after 5 years. [TechCrunch]
Source: e-Discovery Team
Besides the move in Silicon Valley, in December 2010, it leased two floors with up to 150,000 square feet at 335 Madison Avenue in New York City, accommodating up to 600 people. It began construction on a $450 million data center in Forest City, North Carolina in 2010 after the first one announced earlier that year in Prineville, Oregon. Facebook also announced a 500-person office in Hyderabad, India, as the first office in mainland Asia, investing up to $150 million to the 50,000 square foot facility.
The number of employees start to explode since 2010.
In a 2013 report, FB has the project, called Anton Menlo, cost an estimated $120 million. It will sprawl over 10 acres of land off Highway 101 in Menlo Park, California. The 630,000 square-foot Facebook town will be walking and biking distance to Facebook’s headquarters. There will be 35 studios, 208 one-bedroom apartments, 139 two-bedroom apartments, and for top Facebook employees, there will be 12 three-bedroom apartments. [Business Insider]
Source: Business InsiderSource: Business Insider
In 2015, FB acquired a 56-acre industrial park immediately south of its current Menlo Park headquarters. The purchase of Prologis Inc.’s 21-building Menlo Science & Technology Park — which industry sources pegged at roughly $400 million. [Silicon Valley Business Journal]
In 2016, Facebook goes from rent to own in Menlo Park in $202 million deal.
Source: Silicon Valley Business Journal
During 2017-2018, FB has opened offices and hired at a blistering pace, with enormous new leases in Sunnyvale, Mountain View and Fremont. This month, Facebook leased all the office space in San Francisco’s new 43-story Park Tower, vaulting it into the ranks of the largest tech tenants in San Francisco. Instagram, a major Facebook subsidiary, recently moved 200 employees into another San Francisco office tower. [San Francisco Chronicle]
In June 2018 reports, Facebook has leased an additional 754,000 square feet for offices in Fremont.
In 2017, FB said it will two more Prineville data centers, followed up by a report of $750 million in Sep. 2018, bringing total investments to $2 billion and total footprint to 3.2 million sqft. The expansion will take nearly two years and employ 1,500 construction workers at peak.
Facebook Data Center in Prineville, August 14, 2015 | Source: Thomas Boyd, oregonlive.com
CIIE 2018 is actually the first of its kind so itself doesn’t have a rich “history” to tell. But there are two other exhibits in China worth noting – 1. Canton Fair (广交会) in Guangdong & 2. Expo 2010 (2010 世博会) in Shanghai
Canton Fair was first held in 1957 Spring and has two sessions (spring session & autumn session) a year (62 years and 124 sessions so far) . Its official name was Chinese Export Commodities Fair, which highlights its origin and main function – exports. Its name was changed after the 100th session and has been China Import and Export Fair since then.
World Expo (or World’s fair, International Exposition, etc.), held every 5 years, is more of a showcase than an purposeful event. China won the bid to host Expo 2010 in 2002, one year after it won the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in 2001. CIIE is held in Shanghai.
What did Xi Say
I watched live keynote and took the following notes –
Part I – welcome & intro
President Xi welcomed the guests, briefly introduced the CIIE and highlighted that CIIE is the “first expo with import theme on a nation’s level”
Part II – importance of a global economy
President Xi used “irresistible trends” according to history to describe the inevitable future of openness, collaborations and global trades/economy. President Xi mentioned “the better world” several times
President Xi suggested three points using “every country” as subject
be open and open more room for collaboration
push for technology & science advancements, as the driver for human’s growth, also highlighting the word “together”
be more inclusive and let every country make progress; reduce inequalities globally
Part III – what China did and will do
China has made significant progress due to reform and opening, and will continue to do so on a greater scale
China will do the following
Increase import proactively: support the consumption upgrade; lower the tariffs; host CIIE annually
Lift limits on foreign investments in certain industries: finance & services (opening accordingly), agricultural & mining & manufacturing (deeper openness), telecom & education & healthcare & culture (accelerate); especially in education and healthcare, foreign ownership percentage will increase. In the future 15 years, good imported might exceed $30 trillion, services imported might exceed $10 trillion
Make business environment better: a combination of “pre-establishment national treatment” and “negative list” will be used; protection on IP is highlighted; an interesting “torchlight” metaphor also mentioned here – President Xi said every country should improve their business environment.
Pilot area on the next level: Hainan is highlighted here
Push for multilateral and bilateral collaborations: WTO reform is mentioned here; several regional collaboration framework is mentioned here
Part IV – be confident in China’s growth potential
President Xi mentioned a few numbers to support the argument that China is making solid progress this year
President Xi also talked about the difficulties/dilemma which should naturally occur as things always have two sides; but be confident about China’s economy, its resilience, strength and growth
Part V – Shanghai is great and has its unique positions
President Xi announced three decisions about Shanghai
expand free trade pilot zone
establish a market for tech/innovation in Shanghai Stock Exchange (科创板), supporting Shanghai’s financial role and tech/innovation center
make integrated Yangtze River Delta region a national level strategy
Part VI – closing
Takwaways
Shanghai’s role reinforced.
The center of import will shift from Guangdong to Shanghai. Export center might still remain in Canton Fair.
Domestic financial center strengthened; global financial firms (mostly have already had presence in HK and Beijing) should expand and locate in Shanghai (especially for the new board on SSE).
SSE will be part of the overall push to let tech companies IPO in domestic market (aimed to compete with SZSE, HKEX, Nasdaq); but this kind of effort has been made several times – ChiNext on SZSE, NEEQ (new three board), etc.. really need a series of efforts/reforms to vitalize the market
Currently major startups/tech companies are in Beijing or Shenzhen; Shanghai will play a more important role.
