Chapter 403

Time is the best way to heal pain. After two years of settling, investors have recovered from the fear of the stock market crash.

Just look at the Vienna Stock Exchange. Although the daily trading volume was less than half of its peak, the market had returned to normal.

After the stock market crash, although the number of companies on the market had decreased, the quality of the companies was much better than before.

After the bubble was removed, the rational market was much healthier. With the normal operation of the economy, there was another wave of new leeks entering the market.

Compared to the seniors who entered the market at their peak, they were much luckier. They entered the market at a low price, and the economy was booming.

Although it couldn't be said that everyone made money, most people more or less earned a little. If it wasn't for the huge impact of the previous stock crash, many people still had lingering fears, and there might have been another bull market.

The promotion of oil companies to go public was launched under this background. Unlike the sunset industry of the future, the petrochemical industry of the current era was full of high technology.

As the world's largest producer and consumer of oil, the Holy Roman Empire's annual demand for petrochemical products had maintained a double-digit growth rate in the past decade.

Although petrochemical products were not yet widespread in the world, the demand in Shinra showed how large the market was.

According to the calculations of social economists, it was estimated that in five years, the world's demand for crude oil would increase to 35 million tons per year, of which the Holy Roman Empire alone would need to consume 25 million tons per year.

This set of numbers might be insignificant in the future, and any country could surpass it. But in this day and age, it was an astronomical figure.

According to the current price of crude oil on the international market, the crude oil industry alone was a market of 350 million DND per year, which was almost the annual revenue of the Government of Vienna.

However, compared to the entire petrochemical industry, crude oil was only a small part of it. If all of it was developed, it would be a large market of at least 1 billion DND per year.

Most importantly, this market was in a period of rapid growth. Doubling the demand in five years was just the beginning, and doubling it in ten years was not a dream.

Although the royal family was not the only oil producer, the production cost of its oil fields was the lowest in the world.

If it wasn't for Franz's intention to limit the export of crude oil, the entire European crude oil supply would have been monopolized by the royal family.

Did competitors really exist?

These days, there were only two oil-producing countries in the European world. Other than Shinra, there was only Russia. Although the production cost of the Baku oil field was not high, the cost of land transportation was high!

In the context of immature oil pipeline technology, transportation was the primary problem for the oil industry.

Not only did Russia encounter it, but the Alliance on the other side of the ocean also encountered it. However, the Americans were lucky. Most of their territory was flat land, so it was not difficult to install oil pipelines.

In contrast, the Baku region was not. With the technology of the oil field, even if pipelines were built in Baku, they would not be able to transport. "The world's most expensive oil pipeline" was not just for show.

In contrast, the oil companies under the royal family were in much better position. They had enough oil reserves, and just mining coastal oil fields that were easy to transport would be enough to satisfy the market demand.

Both the mining and transportation costs were low. Coupled with the world's most advanced mining and smelting technology, it was clearly a dimensional reduction.

With so many advantages, he would naturally earn a lot. To this day, these few oil companies were the biggest cash cows of the Royal Family Financial Group.

Now that they were going public, there were many problems to consider. Frederick The Great had been troubled by whether to integrate them into a giant and go public, or to break them up and reorganize them into a bunch of small companies.

The interests involved were too great. Even Frederick The Great was frightened. Any mistake in a decision could cause the loss of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of BDH in the future.

It could be said that he had not been relaxed since he took on this task. There were countless documents to read every day, and he had to make decisions on all major matters.

The policy of focusing on the development of the petrochemical industry was implemented. The best time to go public had arrived. With Frederick The Great's signature on the document, the vigorous listing plan of the oil company was officially launched.

Four oil companies were going public. They were going to raise 200 million BDH in Vienna and Frankfurt for the construction of the petrochemical industry chain.

The European financial news media blew up when they received the news.

"200 million BDH." This number was too shocking. Even if it was divided into four, it was still 50 million BDH on average.

This number still exceeded 95% of the world's national revenue. The Austrian Power Group, the world's most valuable listed company, had a market value of only 850 million BDH.

The Austrian Power Group controlled close to 60% of Europe's electricity supply. It was the world's largest company.

According to the capital market's valuation of these four oil companies, the highest one had reached 570 million BDH. After going public, it was likely to break the Austrian Power Group's leading position in market value.

Of course, there were reasons for the high valuation. In this era where petrochemicals were regarded as high-tech products, the listing of oil companies was completely a story told by high-tech companies.

Unlike the dreams of other technology companies, the oil company's plans were at least visible and tangible.

Just look at the assets and profits. Putting aside the hardcore mechanical equipment, factories, and technology, Chen Xiaolian did not want to talk about it. The oil fields under the name of each oil company had billions of tons of crude oil reserves. They could make tens of millions of BDH in profits every year.

Coupled with the promise of double-digit annual profit growth, and the market's prediction of the future petrochemical industry, the high valuation was inevitable.

In fact, if they were not divided into four companies, the valuation could continue to rise. As long as any industry had the word "monopoly" on it, the capital market would give a super high premium.

Take the Austrian Power Group as an example. At its peak, the market value once broke through the 2.5 billion BDH mark. Now it had fallen. In addition to the stock market disaster, the more important reason was that the performance was not as expected.

There was no other way. Who asked the European people to be poor? Although many cities had popularized the power grid, the majority of the people at the bottom could not afford it.

After Shinra, they realized that not every country was keen to promote new technology. Electric motors were not popularized at all.

Coupled with the fact that some countries had to import coal, the cost of power generation was so high that the power grid laid in many overseas cities suffered a short-term loss.

Although the prospects were broad, it was an indisputable fact that the performance growth slowed in a short period of time. The capital market naturally had to respond.

In contrast, the oil companies were much better. With the booming development of the automobile industry, the speed of promotion of internal combustion engines was much faster than the electric motors. The market demand was also growing much faster.

…

"Your Royal Highness, the pre-listing equity incentives and pre-subscription work have been completed. It is expected to be listed for trading on December 21."

No matter how intense the media controversy was, the largest IPO in the Holy Roman Empire's financial market was launched.

No one was interested?

That was completely overthinking it. If it wasn't for the cover-up, the Royal Consortium would not have allowed the oil company to go public.

Whether it was the pre-listing financing or the pre-subscription, they were all handled by the Royal Financial Group. How could the valuation not be high when it was a left-handed game?

It was better if no one bought it. At worst, they could just open a smurf account and buy everything. According to the current market demand, the petrochemical industry was the future development direction.

According to the internal estimates of the consortium, once the petrochemical industry chain was completed, the annual profits of these companies could exceed the current valuation.

In the era before the devaluation of the currency, the economic growth of the world was not fast. Dragons could not be raised in shallow water. Limited by the market environment, it was absolutely rare for a company to maintain a double-digit annual profit growth rate.

In fact, these high-growth companies usually would not go public. Unless they really encountered financial difficulties or were about to hit the bottleneck of the company's development.

Because they were worried that a tall tree would attract the wind, in order to hide their wealth, they had to list their high-quality companies. It was probably only the Royal Consortium.

"Got it. Everything will go according to the original plan."

For some reason, after everything was done, Frederick The Great felt empty.