Zhibao Technology Inc., a Nasdaq-listed Shanghai-based company that sells digital insurance products in China, announced Wednesday that it has signed a non-binding term sheet to receive roughly 3,500 Bitcoin as payment in a proposed stock sale. The deal would be worth approximately $220 million at current BTC prices.
A PIPE, or private investment in public equity, means a private buyer purchases shares directly from a publicly listed company rather than on the open market. In this case, the buyer, a firm called Joyertech and Information OPC, would pay for those shares not in cash but in Bitcoin.
Who's actually in charge here?The deal comes with a catch that goes well beyond a simple Bitcoin buy. Per the term sheet, "the Company intends to maintain its existing operations while the Buyer is expected to designate a majority of the members of the board of directors at the closing of the PIPE financing." That means Joyertech would effectively take control of the company.
Zhibao, which trades as ZBAO on the Nasdaq, describes itself as "a leading high-growth InsurTech company and pioneer of the 2B2C digital embedded insurance model in China." The company launched what it calls the first digital insurance brokerage platform in the country back in 2020, powered by its own platform-as-a-service—a cloud-based system that other businesses plug into to offer insurance products to their customers.
Hours after the announcement the stock price skyrocketed from $0.15 to $0.40, which is more than 2X in less than four hours. The momentum receded as the hour passed and the stock settled in around $0.24—a sharp correction, but still around a 60% gain.
Based on the deal, the current team sticks around only temporarily. The press release states that "the current management team is expected to continue overseeing the day-to-day operations of the legacy business" until a later "separation, disposition, or other restructuring," happens. In plain English: the founders run the insurance side until the new owners decide what to do with it.
Meanwhile, for Zhibao, none of this is final. Zhibao's own filing emphasizes that the term sheet is non-binding, and the proposed transaction "remains subject to, among other things, the completion of satisfactory legal, financial, and operational due diligence, the negotiation and execution of definitive agreements, applicable corporate and regulatory approvals, compliance with Nasdaq listing requirements, and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions."
Zhibao has 180 calendar days—until January 6, 2027—to regain compliance with Nasdaq's minimum bid price requirement of $1 per share.
