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Media/Entertainment
youngchinabiz.com : latest Business news about Media – Entertainment in China by expert / journalist Doug Young : more than two decades of experience in writting about Chinese Companies
A brewing spat between security software giant Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) and struggling smartphone maker Coolpad (HKEx: 2369) has provided some good entertainment for followers of China’s vibrant Internet sector over the last few weeks. The tale has all the elements of a good trashy romance novel, including a love triangle and vengeful scheming by China’s most famous Internet bad-boy.
But more fundamentally, the tale is also filled with valuable lessons for anyone doing business in China’s high-tech sector, or really in any of the country’s emerging industries where private entrepreneurs are driving the growth. The story’s biggest moral is to be careful when choosing your business partners – a lesson that many private investors have learned over the last 3 decades as China transforms from a socialist system to a market-oriented economy. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: The securities regulator should start signaling it will end its latest IPO freeze as soon as current market volatility subsides to demonstrate China’s commitment to capital market liberalization.
CSRC should signal IPO ban to end soon
Reports of 2 new listing plans by Chinese companies were in the headlines last week, showing executives hope to resume their fund-raising using capital markets once the current market volatility ends. One headline saw outdoor advertising specialist Focus Media disclose a new plan to list via a backdoor offering in Shenzhen, while the other saw media report that snack giant Liwayway Holdings was taking initial steps for a $200 million IPO in Hong Kong.
Stock market fund-raising by Chinese companies has come to a standstill over the last 2 months, after a rout that began in June frightened off investors and prompted the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) to suspend all new offerings in a bid to stabilize the situation. This resumption of offering activity is still in the very early stages, and reflects the important role that financial markets play for companies in need of capital to fund their operations. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: A new 1 billion yuan co-production tie-up for iQiyi marks the latest bid by Baidu to build up its new businesses through big spending, but could pressure Baidu’s shares due to shorter-term profit erosion.
iQiyi, Shanghai New Culture in production tie-up
I have to credit Internet giant Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) for sticking to its guns with its recent strategy of aggressive spending on acquisitions and tie-ups as the centerpiece of a drive to diversify beyond its core search business. That strategy put a big damper on Baidu’s profit growth in its latest quarterly results, sparking a sell-off that has seen its stock lose more than a third of their value this year.
And yet despite those concerns, Baidu continues to aggressively pour money into its emerging new businesses, many of them companies that are growing fast but are also losing big money. That’s certainly the case with Baidu’s latest investment, which will see it pour 1 billion yuan ($160 milllion) into a new co-production deal between its iQiyi online video unit and a Shenzhen-listed film production house called Shanghai New Culture (Shenzhen: 300336). Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Phoenix New Media’s retrenchment could produce some short-term improvement for its profits, but won’t halt a longer term decline due to its inability to adapt in a rapidly changing new media environment.
Phoenix New Media in big job cuts
After stumbling badly in its latest quarterly report, a sputtering Phoenix New Media (NYSE: FENG) is making major job cuts and rolling out a broader retrenchment, as it tries to avoid getting sidelined in China’s rapidly evolving media market. This particular story has an interesting parallel in a mostly forgotten company called Tom Group (HKEx: 2383), which was backed by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing who hoped to build it into a regional media giant when he launched the company during the Internet boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s. But more on that shortly.
Phoenix also began its life as a traditional media company, and the lesson from all this is that such media are having a hard time adapting to the rapid pace of change in the Internet age. That said, I’m not at all optimistic that Phoenix will be able to chart an effective new course, and it could just be a matter of time before the company becomes a non-player on the Chinese Internet or disappears completely. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Focus Media’s latest backdoor listing plan could stand a 50-50 chance of success, and should come as a warning of the difficulties that may face many other US-listed Chinese firms hoping to privatize and re-list in China.
Focus Media in new backdoor listing plan
You have to admire the persistence of Focus Media, the outdoor advertising specialist that’s trying to blaze a new homecoming trail for US-listed Chinese firms trying to privatize and re-list in China to get higher valuations. More than 2 years after leaving the Nasdaq and one failed re-listing attempt in Shenzhen, Focus is trying again with a new plan for a backdoor listing via a Shenzhen-listed shell company called Hedy Holdings (Shenzhen: 002027).
I’m actually being just slightly facetious in admiring Focus for its persistence, since it really has very few other options in this case. Big investors including US private equity giant Carlyle put up billions of dollars to help Focus de-list in 2013, and now they’re simply looking to recoup their investments and hopefully make some profits by re-listing the company at a higher valuation in China. Read Full Post…
Following last week’s wild ride for Chinese stocks, now seems like a good opportunity to revisit the flurry of privatization bids for US-listed China Internet companies and how they’re faring. The list of headlines is led by reports that the biggest of the buyout bids for software security maker Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) is showing signs of unraveling, as investors balk at the widening gap between their original buyout offer and the company’s latest share price following last week’s sharp declines.
Meantime, another much smaller deal first announced at the height of the buyout wave in June has been quietly completed, resulting in the delisting of shares for China Mobile Games. Completion of this second deal just a couple of months after it was originally announced shows that such buyouts can still be done despite the big sell-offs in both China and New York that are making it hard to value such deals. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Huayi Bros could be moving towards an eventual goal of becoming China’s first major Hollywood-style studio through its massive new 30 billion yuan partnership with Ping An Bank.
HUayi goes to the movies with Ping An
It’s become quite common in China these days to see non-entertainment companies pour millions of dollars into entertainment-related ventures, most notably film-production deals. Everyone’s goal is to repeat the success of recent box office hits like “Monster Hunt”, which are earning big money by drawing on a fast-growing Chinese box office that could pass the US to become the world’s largest in the next decade.
But even I was surprised to see the size of the latest mega tie-up, which will see Ping An Bank pair with the highly successful independent movie producer Huayi Bros (Shenzhen: 300027) in a massive partnership with 30 billion yuan ($4.7 billion) in investment. That’s quite a large sum of money for the entertainment space, and is roughly comparable to how much e-commerce leader Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) said it would pay last week for 20 percent of retailing giant Suning (Shenzhen: 002024). Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Qihoo could drop its privatization plan and launch a buyout offer for Coolpad, in a bid to protect its joint venture with Coolpad and stop a rival offer for the company from LeTV.
Bidding war shaping up for Coolpad?
A new media report is detailing an intriguing behind-the-scenes clash taking place between security software specialist Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) and online video company LeTV (Shenzhen: 300104), with big stakes involved for both sides. If the report is true, Qihoo is quickly finding itself in a difficult position that could end with collapses for its recent privatization bid or its joint venture partnership formed late last year with smartphone maker Coolpad (HKEx: 2369).
The clash is pitting 2 of China’s highest-profile Internet executives against each other, with Qihoo’s outspoken CEO Zhou Hongyi coming under a surprise attack from younger rival LeTV CEO Jia Yueting. In this case it appears Zhou may soon have to choose between going forward with his plans to privatize Qihoo, or abandon that plan and instead mount a counter-offensive to prevent LeTV from making a bid to take control of Coolpad. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: SMG’s Whaley Tech division has become the focus of its drive into the new media realm, following Li Ruigang’s departure from his post as group chairman to focus on the unit’s development.
SMG chief tries hand at smart TV
I don’t generally hold out much hope for traditional Chinese broadcasters for making the transition to new media, since most are bureaucratic, state-run outfits staffed by an older generation that doesn’t really understand the emerging industry landscape. But 2 companies that have the potential make the transition are Shanghai Media Group (SMG) and Hunan Satellite TV, which are both making big drives into digital products delivered in on-demand formats over the Internet.
Of the pair, my favorite is Hunan Satellite, since the company has a strong track record of innovation that has helped it to build a national audience despite its location in the relatively backward interior Hunan province. But SMG’s longtime chief Li Ruigang is also trying to show he can take his company into the new media era, with word that he’s formally quit as chairman of his group to focus on development of its new media businesses. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Alibaba and Tencent are starting to look similar in terms of size and tapering growth, and are unlikely to excite investors again until they can reignite growth to above the 30 percent level.
Growth sluggish at Alibaba, Tencent
Near simultaneous releases of the latest earnings reports from Tencent (HKEx: 700) and Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) are providing a good opportunity to compare China’s 2 largest Internet companies, and also how they’re doing at the moment and what their prospects look like. The pair are surprisingly similar in terms of size, but their characters and core strengths and quite different, reflecting the personalities of their founders.
Tencent’s focus on games and social networking reflects the wonky, somewhat nerdy nature of its founder Pony Ma, who feels far more comfortable networking with other geeky people and communicating online than speaking at big investor forums. Alibaba founder Jack Ma is much more of a salesman, which explains why his company has emerged as China’s leading e-commerce company. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Youku Tudou’s new name and campaign to create more exclusive content look like good strategic moves, but it really needs to sell itself to a larger benefactor to ensure its longer-term future.
Youku Tudou to change name, develop content ecosystem
Youku Tudou (NYSE: YOKU) was once China’s top online video site when it was formed 3 years ago through the merger of the country’s 2 leading players. But those glory days are firmly in the past now, as the company has been overtaken by more aggressive names like LeTV (Shenzhen: 300104) and iQiyi, the service backed by cash-rich online search giant Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU).
Now media are reporting that Youku Tudou is rolling out a major overhaul that will include a new name for the company, as well as a massive spending campaign to build up an ecosystem for creating its own video content. The campaign certainly seems interesting and long overdue. But I’ve argued for a while now and still believe that what Youku Tudou really needs is to consider selling itself to a stronger Internet partner, rather than trying to continue as an independent company. Read Full Post…
