Zhibao Expertise, a Shanghai-based insurance-technology agency listed on the Nasdaq, mentioned Wednesday it has signed a non-binding time period sheet for a inventory sale that might be paid for in bitcoin — some 3,500 cash, price close to $220 million at present costs.
The deal, a non-public funding in public fairness often known as a PIPE, would have a purchaser named Joyertech and Data OPC subscribe for Zhibao shares with consideration the corporate expects to incorporate about 3,500 BTC.
The determine stays topic to last valuation, custody preparations, an audit, regulatory overview, and definitive agreements. Zhibao harassed that the time period sheet binds nobody, and that the transaction might change or fall by means of.
The construction hints at a well-recognized transfer. Zhibao (NASDAQ: ZBAO), which pioneered a “2B2C” embedded-insurance mannequin in China and launched the nation’s first digital insurance coverage brokerage platform in 2020, would preserve operating its current enterprise at first.
But the customer would identify a majority of the board at closing, a management transition that might hand the newcomers the steering wheel whereas the present crew minds the legacy operation till a later “separation, disposition, or different restructuring.”
$220 million in bitcoin has a brand new proprietor
In plain phrases, a modest insurance-tech firm would turn out to be a house for a big pile of bitcoin, with new homeowners in cost. Fairly than increase money and purchase cash available on the market, Zhibao would take the bitcoin itself as cost, a swap that seats a treasury on its stability sheet from day one.
It’s the sort of reinvention that has swept public markets over two years, as companies remake themselves round a bitcoin treasury and company holdings climb to information. Zhibao’s inventory jumped close to 24% on the information.
Behind ZBAO are staff, insurance coverage purchasers, and a founding crew that constructed one thing new in a crowded market, and the time period sheet would fold that story right into a treasury car formed by individuals who might worth the shell as a lot because the enterprise.
For the present employees, the promise is continuity “till the separation” — phrases that carry their very own uncertainty.
The wager holds warning indicators. Analysts have referred to as the treasury increase a bubble, and a few treasury companies have began promoting their cash beneath market strain this yr.
