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Yao Ming slams 30m yuan into gold basket

By Cai Muyuan (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-03-17 17:41

Yao Ming slams 30m yuan into gold basket

An ad of Garmin's GPS product with Yao Ming as the image spokesman. [Photo source: Internet]

With more celebrities making a fortune in the Chinese stock market, the famous basketball player, Yao Ming is also getting on board.

Beijing Unistrong Science & Technology Co Ltd, a high-tech firm in Beijing's Zhongguancun, issued its fundraising plan yesterday. The company plans to raise 469 million yuan through offering 30 million shares, with IPO price lowest at 15.63 yuan per share.

As the company's fourth largest shareholder, Yao holds 675,000 shares, accounting for 0.75 percent of the total, The Beijing News reported on Wednesday.

Beijing Unistrong has not fixed a price. But, according to one measure, if the price for each share is 15.63 yuan ($2.29), Yao's shares would worth 10.55 million yuan, the newspaper said.

Calculated from the price/earnings (P/E) ratio of the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) board, if the P/E ratio reaches 50 times after the listing, the price of each share will exceed 40 yuan, and Yao's share will be worth 30 million yuan, the newspaper reported.

Compared to Yao's previous investments, ranging from a restaurant to a music website, this may be a slam-dunk for him.

Beijing Unistrong will start its on-line and off-line subscription on March 24, Chengdu Evening Post reported Wednesday.

As the country's earliest company in the GPS (Global Positioning System) business, Bejing Unistrong has 10 percent of China's market share. It's a distributor of Garmin International Inc, a unit of Garmin Ltd, the global leader in satellite navigation.