Bestseller: China Literature's IPO
① It looks to be a love story.
② Today China's most popular provider of fiction-for-phones will book over $1bn in a flotation on Hong Kong's stock exchange.
③ Retail stock was subscribed 600 times over; investors expect a valuation of above $6bn.
④ They hope to help write the next chapters of China Literature—as affluent young Chinese become more willing to pay for them.
⑤ The novel platform, where every month 200m feast on a library of close to 10m novels on their smartphones, offers the first pages of some works for free, then charges to read on.
⑥ The 6m authors who write for the repository serialise works and adapt plotlines based on readers' comments.
⑦ And there is a real-life twist: its majority stakeholder is Tencent, a gaming-and-social-media behemoth that wants to expand its entertainment empire.
⑧ Bestselling novels are already being made into hit games, films and dramas, reaping juicy licensing fees.
⑨ Expect a page-turner.
▍生词好句
IPO: 首次公开募股 (Initial Public Offerings)
flotation /fləʊˈteɪʃ(ə)n/: n. 发行股票
subscribe /səbˈskrʌɪb/: vt. 订购、认购 (股票等)
affluent /ˈaflʊənt/: adj. 富裕的
feast on: 尽情享用
feast /fiːst/: n. 盛宴；(感官) 享受
repository /rɪˈpɒzɪt(ə)ri/: n. 存放处；信息库
serialize /ˈsɪərɪəlʌɪz/: vt. 连载
behemoth /bɪˈhiːmɒθ/ /ˈbiːhɪˌməʊθ/: n. 庞然大物
hit /hɪt/: n. 风靡一时
reap /riːp/: vt. 收割；收获
juicy /ˈdʒuːsi/: adj. 多汁的；利润丰厚的
licensing fees: n. 许可费；知识产权费
