It’s time for Alibaba to dual-list, among other changes

Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1244

It’s time for Alibaba to dual-list, among other changes

On November 15, 2019, Alibaba went public for the second time in Hong Kong. Zhang Yong sent his first letter to shareholders after he became the chairman of the board of directors, describing Alibaba’s new starting point and the upgraded vision “to become a living 102 A great company of the year”.

No one could have imagined it at the time, and in a few months, 2019 will be a distant memory, getting further and further every year.

When writing a shareholder letter in 2020, Zhang Yong also felt that “the door to the world has already reopened, and we can travel freely” a year later. Published a letter to shareholders today, he wrote that what Ali is facing is already the “question of the times”.

For the Alibaba company, the biggest change has occurred in the past year. A quarter of the Ali partners who firmly controlled the Ali Group resigned. This is the biggest change since the operation of the Ali partnership system, mainly because the managers of Ant Group quit.

• There are 9 less partners in Ali (now 29), which is the smallest since its listing in 2014, but the control of partners over the company has not changed. 9 people including retired Wang Shuai, Hu Xiaoming, and 7 Ant managements including Jing Xiandong and Ni Xingjun quit.

Ali’s three major strategies have also changed from “globalization, domestic demand, big data and cloud computing” to “consumption, cloud computing, globalization”, and the order has changed. Ant Group, which can best undertake the strategy of “big data”, also Disconnected from Ali in the past year.

The newly implemented “operational responsibility system” and “diversified governance” assign more responsibilities to the heads of Alibaba’s various segments and specific businesses. The presidents of each business unit have become more like CEOs, managing a group of fully functional businesses and being accountable for profit and loss.

• At the end of 2020, Zhang Yong believes that the middle platform should be thinned , agile and fast, and the manpower saved can be personalized.
• In mid-2021, he began to extend the operational responsibility system that had been piloted the previous year to more departments.
• At the end of last year, Zhang Yong upgraded the China-Taiwan strategy, which has been in use for 6 years, into a new organizational strategy – “diversified governance”.

The listing location of China’s largest retail group will also change. In the next few months, if there are no new regulatory issues, Alibaba will switch from being listed primarily in New York to a dual listing in Hong Kong and New York. If it is delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in the future, its stock trading will not be greatly affected.

• In the past two years, the most common methods of returning to Hong Kong for Chinese concept stocks are “Secondary Listing” and “Dual Primary Listing”.
• “Secondary listings” include Alibaba, JD.com, Baidu, NetEase, Bilibili, etc. “Dual primary listings” include Xpeng Motors, Li Auto, Zhihu, BeiGene, etc. Bilibili is one step ahead of Alibaba in seeking a major listing in Hong Kong.
• The biggest difference between the two listing methods is that the supervision and compliance requirements for secondary listing are relatively low, the listing process is relatively simple, and time-consuming. After the company is listed, it can be included in an index, such as the Hang Seng Technology Index, and then it can obtain institutional investment. configuration of the user.
• On January 1 this year, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange launched new regulations. If a Chinese concept stock company is delisted from the United States, it can follow the various governance structures of the US stock market listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to lower the listing threshold.

In his letter to shareholders, Zhang Yong said the company “must change faster than this era” in the face of great uncertainty. Now, Ali’s changes have begun , and the changes of the times have not stopped. (Guan Yiwen and Gong Fangyi)

Leap second, why is the Internet giant so nervous?

On July 25, Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon called for the abolition of leap seconds, which has been endorsed by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology and the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. The International Telecommunication Union will give final results next year.

Similar to a leap year every four years (366 days a year), a leap second corrects for the time scale set by humans (24 hours in a day) and the time it takes for the Earth to rotate once, usually by adding or subtracting 1 to the time second. At this time, a minute is no longer 60 seconds, but 61 seconds or 59 seconds.

• Positive leap second: The second after 23:59:59 is 23:59:60, and then 00:00:00.
• Negative leap second: the second immediately after 23:59:58 is 00:00:00.
• The next leap second is expected at the end of 2022.

Since the concept of leap second was proposed in 1972, it has been operated 27 times, all of which are +1 seconds, and there has been no subtraction yet. 1 second is nothing to the average person, but a car can travel tens of meters. In order to ensure the continuity of positioning, navigation and timing, the global mainstream satellite positioning systems do not introduce leap seconds.

The computer systems that are most affected by leap seconds are computer systems that require precise timing. Their code runs automatically according to the rule of 1 minute and 60 seconds. Once exceptions occur, there will be problems, such as the example mentioned in the opening paragraph. In order to minimize the impact of adjusting leap seconds, companies such as Google and Facebook add 1 second to multiple hours, but a little carelessness can also lead to service interruptions.

• At midnight on July 1, 2012, websites such as Reddit, Mozilla, LinkedIn, Yelp and Amadeus were down for dozens of minutes.
• At 0:00 on July 1, 2015, about 2,000 computer networks around the world were suddenly and briefly interrupted; the Intercontinental Exchange was forced to suspend trading for 61 minutes.
• At 0:00 on January 1, 2017, cloud service providers such as Cloudflare suddenly crashed.

The uneven and long-term slowing of the Earth’s rotation, and the increasing frequency and unpredictability of leap seconds. Abolishing leap seconds has become an urgent choice, at the cost of about 5,000 years from now, human time will be 1 hour off the Earth’s rotation, and sunrise will be earlier. (Intern Zeng Xinghe Qianming)

China issued at least 7 billion yuan of consumer coupons this year

Consumer coupons have been used on a large scale after the epidemic as a stimulus. So far this year, at least 23 provinces and cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Hebei, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Jiangsu, Shandong and other places, have issued consumer coupons. Just looking at the top ten cities in the country in terms of total retail sales of consumer goods in 2021, the amount of consumer coupons issued this year has exceeded 7 billion yuan.

Demand can stimulate supply. At the supply level, the increase in household consumption expenditure can repair the income of enterprises affected by the epidemic, stimulate enterprise production, and form a virtuous circle. According to the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, 1 yuan of consumer coupons placed in high, medium, and low businesses affected by the epidemic will bring in revenue of 12.23 yuan, 11.33 yuan, and 5.4 yuan respectively.

However, due to the restrictions on the amount and usage time of consumer vouchers, it may not necessarily stimulate residents to consume; residents who consume may just overdraw their purchasing power in advance.

• In the first eight months of 2020, a total of over 30 billion yuan of consumer coupons were issued through Alipay across the country, with a write-off rate of 60%. (intern Xue Yujie)

GM’s China joint venture loses $87 million in second quarter

General Motors, one of the world’s three largest automakers, released its second quarterly report on Tuesday (July 26), with net profit down 40% year-on-year to $1.69 billion. Revenue also only rose 5%. But management maintained its full-year net profit forecast of $9.6 billion to $11.2 billion.

• GM’s two major markets, North America and China, both underperformed. The pre-tax margin in North America fell to 8% from 10.4% a year ago. GM has a backlog of at least 95,000 new car orders because of shortages of chips and other components.
• GM only sold 484,200 vehicles in China in the second quarter, a year-on-year decrease of 35.5% and the lowest sales since the first quarter of 2020. In a press release in early July, GM said it was “committed to resuming production and operations” of its various sub-brands sold in China. (Gong Fangyi)

IMF downgrades global economic growth forecast for third time

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its global growth forecast for this year and next, warning that the global economy could soon slip into a full-blown recession. The IMF expects GDP to grow 3.2% this year, down from 3.6% and 4.4% forecast in April and January.

The IMF further pointed out that a series of interest rate hikes by central banks to curb inflation is expected to further affect the global economy in 2023, slowing down GDP growth to 2.9%.

• “The outlook has clearly dimmed since April. The world could soon be teetering on the brink of a global recession,” said IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas.
• Risks to the revised economic outlook are “significantly skewed to the downside,” the report said.
• About 60 percent of the world’s 75 poorest countries are at or at risk of debt distress, a situation that is spreading to middle-income countries. (Gong Fangyi)

OTHER NEWS

By 2025, the number of cross-provincial designated medical institutions for general outpatient clinics will double to 500,000.

This is one of the latest requirements of the National Medical Insurance Bureau and the Ministry of Finance on promoting inter-provincial medical insurance settlement. Other requirements include increasing the direct settlement rate of hospitalization expenses across provinces to more than 70%.

Gansu closed 186 scenic spots.

• On July 25, there were 98 new confirmed cases in the mainland, 37 in Gansu and 32 in Guangxi; 770 new asymptomatic infections were reported in the mainland, including 370 in Guangxi and 306 in Gansu.
• Gansu added “37+306”, and social screening found 2 cases, both in Lanzhou.
• 186 scenic spots in the province were temporarily closed.
• Guangxi added “32+370”, and Beihai City has basically achieved a social dynamic reset.
• Heze, Shandong reported a local epidemic, with 1 new confirmed case and 27 asymptomatic infections.
• Shanghai has strengthened epidemic prevention and control in the tourism and accommodation industry. Practitioners are tested daily for nucleic acid, and occupants are required to provide a negative nucleic acid test certificate within 48 hours.

The National Energy Group produced 300 million tons of coal in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 6.2%.

In the first half of this year, the coal output of the National Energy Group was 300 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 6.2%, and the coal production capacity was increased by 58 million tons. The spokesperson said that in the future, it will continue to increase production and supply, while accelerating the development of new energy.

Coca-Cola’s second-quarter revenue was $11.3 billion, up 12% year over year.

On July 26, Coca-Cola released its second-quarter earnings report, with revenue up 12% to $11.3 billion, mainly due to rising non-retail demand such as restaurants and other venues.

McDonald’s sales rose, but net profit nearly halved.

McDonald’s quarterly results showed that the company’s revenue in the second quarter of this year was $5.72 billion, a slight decline. Global same-store sales rose 9.7% year over year, with growth across all segments. Its net profit of $1.188 billion almost halved. The company said the lower profit was related to soaring expenses, including the cost of closing operations in Russia.

WuXi AppTec’s net profit in the first half of the year increased by 73.3% year-on-year.

On the evening of July 26, WuXi PharmaTech announced its results that in the first half of this year, the company’s revenue was 17.756 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 68.5%, of which over 80% of its revenue came from overseas. The company said its revenue and net profit growth benefited from an integrated business model covering the entire industry chain. Specific data shows that the high growth in the first half of the year was mainly due to new crown-related products. The company also raised its full-year revenue forecast for this year to around 70%.

Since 2000, Apple has applied for and published 248 automotive patents.

These patents of Apple cover driverless technology, ride comfort, seating, suspension, navigation, battery management, V2X vehicle-to-vehicle communication connection, etc. The most types of patents are communication and navigation, followed by unmanned driving. After filing a patent application, which takes about 18 months to publish, Apple has published eight automotive-related patents so far in 2021. It is reported that Apple Car may be released in 2025.

Meta launches the first Metaverse White Paper.

This white paper predicts the impact of the Metaverse on the global economy and consists of four parts: Metaverse Applications and Challenges, Similarities between Mobile Device Technology and the Metaverse, Using Economic Models to Study the Impact of Mobile Devices on Global GDP, Researching the Metaverse potential economic market. It mentioned that by 2031, Metaverse technology will contribute $3.01 trillion to global GDP, one third of which will come from the Asia-Pacific region.

Walmart lowered its second-quarter operating margin to 4.2%.

Walmart expects second-quarter revenue to fall at least 13% from a year earlier, with an operating margin of 4.2%. Inflation has led consumers to spend more on essentials such as food and less on goods such as clothing and electronics, the company said. Shares of Walmart and other large retailers tumbled after the announcement, with the U.S. retailer’s stock market value falling by more than $100 billion, with Amazon and Walmart accounting for most of the decline.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao sues a Hong Kong publisher for defamation.

According to media reports, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao sued Modern Media, the Hong Kong publisher of Bloomberg Businessweek, alleging that an article published by the media on June 23 was defamatory in the title and related description. It is reported that Changpeng Zhao sued Forbes for defamation in 2020.

The electricity load of many cities in Guangdong Province hit a record high.

According to data from China Southern Power Grid, on July 25, the electricity load in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, and other cities in southern China hit a record high. The highest unified load of China Southern Power Grid has exceeded 200 million kilowatts for 13 days during the month.

Maybelline will gradually close offline counters.

It is reported that Maybelline, a beauty brand under L’Oreal, will close all offline stores in China one after another, leaving only Watsons counters, and the rest of the sales channels will be transferred online.

CBA claims 406 million against Bilibili.

According to a court ruling, CBA sued Bilibili for misappropriating the copyright of the competition and claimed 406 million yuan because Bilibili provided the public with an on-demand service for the video of the CBA 2019-2020 season without authorization.

The first housing provident fund loan in Zhejiang Lanxi is up to 800,000 yuan, and the down payment ratio is 30%.

Recently, Lanxi City, Zhejiang Province introduced a policy to increase the loan amount of housing provident fund. The maximum loan limit for the first home is increased by 100,000 yuan, and the couple can borrow up to 800,000 yuan in total. It is reported that Hunan Province has also introduced relevant policies, stating that the maximum loan of the provincial housing provident fund is 700,000 yuan, and the three-child family can further increase the amount.

Mercedes-Benz Germany will stop production for a week.

According to media reports, due to the blockage of the supply of some chips, the current production of Mercedes-Benz’s plant in Rastatt, Germany is limited, and production will be suspended for a week in the future.

Text | Gong Fangyi Intern Zeng Xing Intern Xue Yujie Guan Yiwen He Ganming

Editor | Gong Fangyi Huang Junjie Song Wei

The title picture comes from the movie “Friends”

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