Financial Capital and Technology Unicorn Parallel Forum Roundtable Side Note
TECHUB NEWS Hong Kong Report | Reporter Alma Li | August 25, 2026
Core Viewpoints: On August 24, the second roundtable of the Financial Capital and Technology Unicorn Parallel Forum was held in Hong Kong. Discussing "From Unicorn to Industry Leader - Mergers, Governance, and Capital Reconstruction," six guests offered a set of judgments: Mergers are an essential part of the growth of technology companies, but more than half of mergers are doomed to fail; before taking action, one must first think clearly about “what to buy”; transitioning from a private company to a public company, the hardest lesson for founders is learning to face the public; AI is intensifying the concentration of capital at the top, and mid-tier unicorns are struggling; besides IPOs, mergers and S funds are rewriting the exit logic.
The 2026 Global Unicorn Conference, hosted by the Hong Kong Ta Kung Wen Wei Media Group, opened on August 24 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. As a parallel sub-forum of the conference, the "Financial Capital and Technology Unicorn" parallel forum, hosted by the Global Value Investment Association and the Hong Kong Private Equity Association, was held the same afternoon. The second roundtable "From Unicorn to Industry Leader - Mergers, Governance, and Capital Reconstruction" featured discussions by Yu Tiecheng, Dean of the Guanghui Mergers Research Institute; Zhang Ke, Founder of Beike Capital; Zheng Peimin, Founder of Shanghai Rongzheng Enterprise Consulting Services (Group) Co., Ltd.; Li Mingyu, Chairman of Qianhe Holdings; Yan Qifa, Managing Director of Qianhai Ark Asset Management Co., Ltd.; and Wang Jianjun, Founder of Qurgen, with Yao Hong, President of Tengyun Hong Kong Technology Cluster Accelerator, hosting.
Before Taking Action, Answer "What to Buy"
Is a merger truly a shortcut for company growth, or a magnifier of risk? The host directed the first question to Yu Tiecheng.
Yu Tiecheng's answer was: Mergers are an indispensable part of enterprise development, and the largest companies globally have almost all grown through mergers, including Danaher and other giants in the pharmaceutical and health sector. However, for a technology enterprise to undertake its first true industrial merger, the chairman must first think clearly about three questions.
The first is the strategic level: What exactly am I buying? Is it filling a market channel gap, acquiring a technology to overcome a bottleneck, or buying a capable team? “What I fear most is blindly merging across hot spots and fields,” he said, advocating a merger logic of “same customers, different products”—providing new products to the same group of customers is the easiest merger strategy to create a sales flywheel. The second is transaction design: The core technology of tech companies often resides with individual talents. If founders cash out entirely in one go, how much drive will they have to continue? Therefore, it's crucial to carefully design the transaction structure, allowing the other party to cash out partially while retaining a significant shareholding to remain invested in the company and maintain the drive to work together. The third is culture; he likened mergers to choosing a marriage partner, stating that company culture often determines success or failure.
He revealed that his 2020 publication "Mergers and Acquisitions Traps" summarizes 70 major traps and over 200 minor traps, and it remains a bestseller in the M&A field to this day.
Zhang Ke's "Five Pits"
Zhang Ke, who has led large-scale cross-border mergers at HNA, broke the issue down into five points.
First, what exactly is being broken through—market breakthroughs, technical breakthroughs, or breakthrough talent teams? It must be tangible. Second, how to form effective interest bundling post-merger. He mentioned a deal he undertook in South Korea: using a listed company to exchange shares with listed companies in Hong Kong and Singapore, thereby achieving mutual interests. Third, how to calculate synergies. Revenue synergy is often overly optimistic compared to projections; conversely, cost reduction can be easier to quantify. Fourth, how to exit. He recalled overseeing transactions worth hundreds of billions during his time at HNA, and when he was forced to sell later, he did not incur much loss, “less than 1% loss, which is something I am proud of.” Fifth, the money used for mergers must match the return cycle of the merger—mergers often require a five-year maturation period, and short-term debt for long-term investment is a big taboo in mergers.
Over Half of Mergers are Doomed to Fail
When discussing the success rate of mergers, Yu Tiecheng provided a set of calm references. A professor from New York University studied nearly three thousand mergers of large American companies over forty years, concluding that 70% of mergers did not achieve their initial expected goals. However, “failure” itself is a complex issue: if a company's profit drops from 100 million to 60 million three years after acquisition, internally it appears as a failure, but outsiders may not reach that judgment; in some cases, a company acquires a competitor solely to eliminate it—if the target no longer exists, the buyer may consider it a success.
“So whether the failure rate is 50%, 60%, or 80% will never have a definitive answer,” Yu Tiecheng said, “but one thing is certain: over half of mergers are definitely failures.” He often asks his students during lectures: In human marriages, are there more happy ones or unhappy ones? “The essence of corporate mergers is marriage—if it’s hard for one person to get along with another, how much harder is it for a group of people to get along with another group.”
Zhang Ke added another perspective: it depends on what stage the company is in. When weak, your “mergers” are often about being acquired; only when you dominate a certain field can it be your turn to acquire others. Discussing success or failure at two different stages doesn’t refer to the same accounting principles.
The Hardest Lesson for Founders: Learning to Face the Public
What is the hardest role transformation when transitioning from an entrepreneur to a chairman of a public company? Zheng Peimin's answer was very straightforward: from a private company to a public company, how to face the public.
He analyzed that in the stage of a private company, the board may only consist of a dozen to twenty shareholders; even in a semiconductor company with a higher number of shareholders, there are only about forty to fifty shareholders, and everything is resolved within a small circle. Once it becomes a public company, the scene changes completely: statutory information disclosure, annual report roadshows are one type of scenario; but more troublesome are non-statutory scenarios—one misstep by the founder in an elevator can be amplified by the internet and lead to drastic fluctuations in stock prices. “What was once private life becomes public; a founder of a public company probably has to tighten their belt,” he said, otherwise, it could lead to devastating impacts on wealth. How to face the public is a skill that entrepreneurs need to train particularly before becoming chairman of a public company.
This veteran, who has served over 1,500 listed companies on equity incentives, candidly admitted that after more than thirty years in the capital market, this was his first time publicly speaking in Hong Kong.
The Team Lesson of Scientist Founders
Wang Jianjun has not yet reached the IPO stage, and he candidly stated that he can only discuss ideas. His company, Qurgen, is developing a new cancer treatment method—cellular conversion cancer therapy. Unlike existing therapies that kill tumor cells, their transcription factor drug directly transforms tumor cells into normal cells after entering the tumor tissue, “essentially turning bad people into good people.”
He introduced that, currently, approximately 90 clinical cases in China and the US have yielded encouraging results: in principle, there are no side effects, with only about 20% of patients experiencing secondary side effects; some patients, after treatment, had mutations of tumor-driving genes repaired; most admitted patients usually had a life expectancy of only three to six months, and the current average life expectancy has exceeded a year and is still extending.
“These cannot rely on just me,” Wang Jianjun said. From research to clinical application, he quickly built an efficient clinical team; the subsequent commercialization is also focused on recruiting a team. He is keenly aware of the boundaries of his capabilities: teaching, with student scores approaching full marks; research, also doing well; but business analysis is not his area of expertise. Transitioning from a private company to a public company relies on the strength of the team, not just the strength of the founder.
Li Mingyu: The Middle-tier Unicorns Are the Most Struggling
What kind of companies are suitable for the SPAC route? Li Mingyu's judgment is very specific: first, they must be technology companies, preferably at the stage where “it is already difficult to raise money in the primary market”—landing on the secondary market through SPAC opens new financing channels. He cited an example: in the past two years, global capital has increased its allocation to AI, while biomedicine has cooled, causing many companies to cut funding during Phase II clinical trials, making SPAC a realistic option for them.
As for the choice of listing location, he candidly admitted that his views have changed. Before the second half of last year, he firmly believed that “liquidity determines possibility”—the number of listed companies on Nasdaq is less than twice that of Hong Kong, but the daily trading volume is ten times that of Hong Kong, so he originally avoided the Hong Kong market. However, since the second half of last year, AI has violently intensified the differentiation of capital: he cited data from a reputable US agency, stating that last year, 70% of US VC dollars were invested in the top 389 companies, with nearly half of those funds going to the top six companies; in the first half of this year, the funding amounts of Anthropic and OpenAI accounted for 43% of the US primary market VC financing.
“The current primary market is a dumbbell-shaped structure,” Li Mingyu said; top companies find it easy to secure funding, while newly established startups can also obtain funding easily, as a few young people can gather together enough seed funding with a round of phone calls; the most struggling are the middle-tier unicorns. “At today's global unicorn conference, I may have to throw a splash of cold water: the current unicorns are the most uncomfortable.” Therefore, his conclusion became straightforward: go to whichever market allows you to list the fastest, without overthinking it.
S Funds and Mergers are Rewriting Exit Logic
IPOs are no longer the only exit. Yan Qifa predicts that the paths of S funds (Secondary Funds) and merger funds will definitely become increasingly important and will profoundly change investment logic in the primary market.
His reasoning is that in the past, IPO was the most critical evaluation standard for investment, but due to both policy and market constraints, the proportion of successful IPOs is ultimately limited. Now, when evaluating a project, the possibility of transitioning to S funds has already been included in the investment criteria. However, he also cautions against leaning toward the other extreme: in judging whether a project can IPO, one must also consider the potential for being acquired, employing a “two-legged approach”—this has differed from Qianhai Ark's past evaluation logic.
At the end of the roundtable, Yao Hong thanked everyone present. Two roundtables, one discussing going abroad, and the other discussing mergers, point to the same issue: unicorns need to grow into industry leaders, relying not on single-point breakthroughs, but on a systemic capability of capital, governance, and globalization.
Roundtable Guests (in seating order): Yu Tiecheng (Dean of Guanghui Mergers Research Institute), Zhang Ke (Founder of Beike Capital, former Chief Investment Officer of HNA Capital), Zheng Peimin (Founder and Chairman of Shanghai Rongzheng Enterprise Consulting Services (Group) Co., Ltd.), Li Mingyu (Chairman of Qianhe Holdings), Yan Qifa (Managing Director of Qianhai Ark Asset Management Co., Ltd.), Wang Jianjun (Founder and Chief Scientist of Qurgen). Host: Yao Hong (President of Tengyun Hong Kong Technology Cluster Accelerator, Deputy Secretary-General of the Global Value Investment Association).
Editor’s Note: This article was organized by TECHUB NEWS reporter Alma Li based on recordings from the roundtable on August 24, 2026. It has been edited and published with the consent of the forum organizers. The main text adopts a third-person reporting style, retaining content that can be verified through on-site recordings, event posters, publicly announced content from the organizers, or authoritative information; the technology and clinical progress described by Wang Jianjun at Qurgen have been verified against public records. All data mentioned in the guests' speeches come from their presentations. Unverifiable proper nouns, numbers, and expressions have not been included.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational exchange only and does not constitute any investment advice.
Related Public Information:
2. Revolutionizing cancer treatment: Wayne State startup Qurgen | Wayne State University
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
