Bottom line: Sohu founder Charles Zhang should privatize his company in the next year and then sell off the pieces, or risk see his dwindling empire slowly become worthless.
Sohu’s incredible shrinking empire
You know you’re a CEO when you can call results like those just released by Internet company Sohu(Nasdaq: SOHU) “solid”. Of course that’s my sarcastic assessment, after reading the latest quarterly report that absolutely nothing upbeat about it from one of China’s oldest Internet companies. Nearly all of the numbers in Sohu’s latest report were down, with the lone exception of its online search business, whose anemic growth shouldn’t excite anyone.
Also down was Sohu’s stock, which slumped 6.4 percent after the results came out and is rapidly approaching lows not seen for nearly a decade. All that brings us to my assertion that perhaps it’s time for founder Charles Zhang to consider the unthinkable and break up his company and sell of the various pieces while there are still potential buyers. If he waits too much longer, those pieces will continue to diminish in value to the point where nobody wants them. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Money-losing Coolpad is likely to get sold before the end of this year to raise cash for controlling stakeholder LeEco, or could end up getting shut down if no buyer comes forward.
Coolpad to post big H1 loss
It’s a new week, and that means new chances to write about the struggles of companies in the orbit of fast-fading former video superstar LeEco (Shenzhen: 300104). Last week the company’s majority owned Yidao private car services was in the headlines, amid a he-said-she-said spat over 1.3 billion yuan ($189 million) in funds that Yidao said were “misappropriated” by its parent, leading to its own cash crunch that saw many of its drivers going unpaid.
If that wasn’t bad enough, now another one of LeEco’s assets, smartphone maker Coolpad (HKEx: 2369) is warning of ballooning losses due to plummeting sales in the fiercely competitive market. There are two subtexts here, the most obvious being that LeEco is hardly in any position to throw Coolpad a needed lifeline. The other is that LeEco’s own smartphone business is probably dying a rapid death, since it was theoretically going to use Coolpad to make at least some of its phones. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Ant Financial’s open letter to MoneyGram could hint at a new raised offer coming soon for the company, though rival suitor Euronet is likely to bid equally aggressively and has a slightly better chance of winning the contest.
Ant makes case to MoneyGram workers, US politicians
Three weeks after being surprised by an unsolicited counterbid for US money transferring specialist MoneyGram, China’s Ant Financial is finally speaking out on the matter beyond its initial reaction to the rival bid. The former financial unit of e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) frankly isn’t saying much about future plans in its open letter to the MoneyGram community, and there’s no hint on whether it will raise its offer for the US company.
Instead, the letter seems aimed at reassuring MoneyGram employees that their jobs will be safe, and on reassuring wary government officials that information on MoneyGram users won’t be recklessly used. Those messages look squarely aimed at quelling the very real possibility that such a deal could get vetoed by Washington on national security grounds, even though the jobs issue doesn’t really fall into that category. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Xiaomi’s adoption of Costco as its new role model and abandonment of Apple looks like a realistic move, and could better position the company to survive over the next 5 years amid a looming market shakeup.
Xiaomi eyes chic cheap image
Smartphone maker Xiaomi appears to be a company with an identity crisis, with reports that charismatic CEO Lei Jun has dumped former role model Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) in favor a new model in US bulk-item supermarket operator Cosctco (Nasdaq: CSCO). Many will probably smile at this not-so-subtle shift at Xiaomi, which was one of China’s hottest companies just two years ago when Lei liked to think of himself as China’s Steve Jobs.
But the adoption of a new role model in Costco probably speaks volumes about how Lei sees his company going forward, as he tries to salvage its core smartphone business following a difficult last two years. That fall from grace includes a 40 percent drop in sales in its home China market in last year’s fourth quarter, causing its market share to slip to 7.4 percent, or about half of what it commanded just a year earlier, according to IDC. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: LeEco’s debt-for-equity deal with Compal and the looming collapse of its Vizio purchase are welcome developments that show it could quietly jettison some of its newer businesses and eventually emerge from its current cash crunch.
Picture dims on LeEco’s Vizio purchase
The unwinding of former online video superstar LeEco (Shenzhen: 300104) continues to unfold, with two major developments that could help to slow the company’s rapid decline. The first of those has one of LeEco’s largest creditors, Taiwan contract manufacturer Compal (Taipei: 2324), agreeing to swap out the huge amount of money it’s owed for LeEco shares. The second has a major deal last year that had LeEco agreeing to pay $2 billion for US television brand Vizio apparently unraveling due to China’s recent clampdown on money leaving the country for offshore M&A. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: New signals from Qihoo and Wuxi AppTech show they may be getting preferential treatment for A-share listings, as the regulator shifts its policies to favor high-quality private firms for IPOs.
Wuxi AppTech eyes A-share listing
New signals coming from China’s stock regulator hint that it’s softening its stance towards letting companies formerly listed in the US jump the queue for re-listings at home. That appears to be the message, following a string of new reports saying first software security specialist Qihoo 360and now drugmaker Wuxi AppTech are moving towards re-listings on the China A-share market, both within a relatively short period after leaving New York.
This latest development comes not long after SF Express (Shenzhen: 002352), China’s largest parcel delivery company, completed a backdoor listing in Shenzhen, which again shows the regulator might be easing its view on this kind of path to market. The broader theme here, and one that will be important for other private firms waiting to list in China, is that the securities regulator is finally realizing that it’s not always necessary to use a “first come first served” approach when choosing who gets to make IPOs. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Baidu’s opening of a new artificial intelligence lab in Silicon Valley is the latest move in its AI obsession, which is likely to end in failure and a quiet pullback in around two years due to mediocre execution.
Baidu in new Silicon Valley R&D lab
I’m officially dubbing Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) chief executive Robin Li the “two-year attention span man”, with word that the company is setting up a new Silicon Valley office in the rush to build up its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. If any one of China’s “big three” Internet chiefs deserves the title of “short attention span” man, it’s most definitely Robin Li. As far as I can remember, Li has been a “flavor of the moment” guy who fixates on the latest daily hot trend, most often to jettison the idea around 2 years later when it falls out of fashion. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Tencent’s online literature unit is likely to make a Hong Kong IPO later this year, and should get a relatively strong reception due to strong backing and its market leading position for a product with stable long-term demand.
Tencent literature unit eyes HK IPO
If you don’t succeed the first, second and third times, then try again. That could well be the mantra for the digital literature unit of former online entertainment giant Shanda, which has gone through quite a few attempts at an IPO, only to stumble each time. This particular story has quite a few twists, which I’ll review shortly. But the end result appears to be that the unit, previously called Cloudary, may finally succeed in its latest attempt to go to market, this time under its current parentage as the online literature unit of Internet giant Tencent (HKEx: 700). Read Full Post…
Bottom line: China Telecom, Unicom and China Broadcasting Network could share the costs of a 5G network to lower costs, while China Mobile is likely to construct a network on its own.
China telcos consider 5G network sharing
As earnings season reaches a crescendo, wireless carrier China Telecom (HKEx: 728; NYSE: CHA) is raising an old theme by saying it might consider sharing resources with someone else in building a next-generation 5G network. This particular topic first surfaced more than a year ago when China Telecom and rival Unicom (HKEx: 763; NYSE: CHU) studied the possibility of sharing 4G resources, even though they ultimately each built their own networks. (previous post)
The interesting twist this time is that Beijing is rolling out a program to inject private capital into the telecoms sector, meaning perhaps China Telecom and the other telcos could be allowed to pick private-sector partners for their 5G networks. Another interesting wrinkle comes in the form of a fourth state-run telco that was assembled from the nation’s many cable TV companies last year and would probably like to have its own telecoms network. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Qudian’s IPO will get a moderately warm reception in New York, drawing interest due to its status as a major private fintech firm but also wariness owing to many uncertainties in the young sector.
Qudian moves closer to IPO
Anything involving movement of money has always been slightly problematic in China. Be it paying for things online, paying to play computer games, or even borrowing small sums to buy something like a smartphone, nothing has ever been easy for Chinese consumers. That’s mostly due to the creaky financial system they inherited when the country began its march into the modern era starting in the 1980s and ’90s.
That lack of services has been a godsend for a new generation of companies that are now making their way to market by supplying some of the many basic financial services that consumers crave. An IPO by one of the largest of those looks set to happen in the next 3 months, with word that microlender Qudian has made its first private filings for a New York listing to raise up to $1 billion. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Ant Financial will counter bid for MoneyGram, following a surprise rival bid for the company, while Alibaba Pictures’ absorption of the former Youku Tudou looks like a logical consolidation of Alibaba’s filmed entertainment assets.
Ant’s MoneyGram offer attracts rival bidder
Two of Alibaba(NYSE: BABA) founder Jack Ma’s biggest endeavors outside his core e-commerce business are in the headlines, led by a counter bid for a US financial services company his Ant Financial is trying to acquire. That particular deal has a US company called Euronet Worldwide announcing a bid for MoneyGram that’s 15 percent higher than Ant’s own $880 million bid made back in January. The other news is slightly more mundane but still significant, and has Ma’s Alibaba moving its Youku Tudou online video service into its separately listed Alibaba Pictures (HKEx: 1060) filmed entertainment unit. Read Full Post…
