Chapter 120: Sean Parker
Zhan Hua was, of course, nursing a grievance against Su Can. The sixteen million dollars he had thrown down had not left Su Can reeling. Instead, the kid had squeezed him hard, driving the share of Facebook available for sale down to five percent.
It was baffling, utterly unbelievable. Zhan Hua's displeasure was easy to imagine, but one was an old fox and the other a young one. Neither Zhan Hua nor Su Can showed it. Their conversation flowed smoothly over the phone, yet neither yielded an inch.
But this cut, almost brutally harsh by Zhan Hua's standards, made him pick up the offshore Red Leaf Fund's analytical reports again. He had never been one to act on emotion, so although Su Can had left his head throbbing, he suppressed his anger. You talk big, Su Can. Fine, let me see exactly what gives you that confidence. Zhan Hua spread the pile of documents across his desk again, studying the indicators and projections, along with the EBIT and EBITDA figures for the American Facebook that the professional departments had compiled for him.
EBITDA meant earnings before interest and taxes. In the 1980s, with the wave of leveraged buyouts, investors began widely using the EBITDA formula as an indicator of a company's ability to service debt. This method was particularly suitable for evaluating industries with enormous initial capital expenditures that needed to amortize those investments over a long period.
Facebook's EBITDA painted an enticing picture for Zhan Hua, but he did not think it justified exchanging sixteen million dollars for a five-percent stake. Besides, he felt that Su Can could not possibly have access to reports produced by professional institutions like these. So what exactly gave Su Can such confidence? Where did his self-assurance come from? What