For the latest news on U.S.- and Hong Kong-traded Chinese stocks, visit our new Bamboo Works site.
The largest in a string of Chinese antitrust investigations this year has begun nearing closure, with word that Beijing regulators are crafting new rules that will require greater transparency from luxury car makers regarding their pricing policies. The new rules would follow a series of massive fines against both luxury automakers and their parts suppliers, who were penalized for charging excessively high prices for after-sales replacement parts and maintenance services. Read Full Post…
One of the highest profile cases in a recent series of probes against multinationals in China has reached an emphatic but reasonably just conclusion, with word that Beijing has fined British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline (London: GSK) nearly half a billion dollars and handed several of its top local executives suspended jail sentences. I was never a big fan of this investigation, which saw GSK pursued for bribing doctors and other medical professionals to buy its drugs. That’s not because I think GSK was innocent in this case, but rather because I think the company was unfairly singled out for punishment for corrupt practices that are widespread in China’s business culture. Read Full Post…
I’m a bit reluctant to write more today about the historic New York IPO for e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), whose extremely strong trading debut surprised even me. But I would be somewhat remiss if I didn’t at least mention the final phase of this massive offering, which has made Alibaba the world’s second largest Internet company behind only Google (Nasdaq: GOOG). At the same time, another far more low profile trading debut in Hong Kong for auto rental specialist CAR Inc (HKEx: 699) has also done quite well, extending a nearly yearlong window for overseas listings by Chinese firms. Read Full Post…
Several news bits are casting a spotlight on growing stress in the low-end smartphone market, where a crowded field of Chinese companies have been engaged in a cut-throat series of price wars for the past year. Leading the headlines is word that Coolpad, a leading homegrown brand, is cutting 10 percent of its workforce as it explores a new joint venture with some of its distributors. At the same time, other reports say that China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) won’t be coming to the rescue of these struggling companies by selling their smartphones to its subscribers at subsidized prices, as the leading Chinese carrier embarks on its own cost-cutting campaign to bolster its sagging profits. Read Full Post…
With Alibaba’s blockbuster IPO nearly in the past, attention will turn over the next few weeks to tech giant Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and the mystery surrounding the lack of a launch schedule for its new iPhone 6 in China. While Alibaba is a story of hype, the iPhone 6 saga is quickly becoming a tale of intrigue, as everyone tries to guess what’s happening behind the scenes to delay this other highly anticipated event. China’s own media are helping to fuel the suspense, with a new report from the Xinhua central news agency providing clues about what looks like a tangle with China’s censors. Read Full Post…
With Alibaba’s (NYSE: BABA) blockbuster IPO nearly in the history books, I wanted to take this opportunity to explore what’s ahead for the company as it gets set to break numerous records with its New York listing. One good indicator of what lies ahead would be the performance for shares of other Chinese tech firms that have listed over the last 12 months. But such comparisons have limited value, since Alibaba is clearly in a far different class from all these other companies, following a pricing of its shares that makes it more valuable than such global corporate giants as Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Disney (NYSE: DIS). Read Full Post…
Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) has joined a growing field of Chinese solar panel makers entering the risky business of speculative development in China, with its launch of a new locally-based fund for solar power construction. The move follows the establishment of self-financed vehicles for similar speculative construction by rivals Trina (NYSE: TSL), Yingli (NYSE: YGE) and wind power equipment maker Ming Yang (NYSE: MY), as they try to create more demand for their products. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on September 19. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════
Hong Kong may be disappointed about losing the world’s biggest Internet IPO with the imminent trading debut of Alibaba in New York, but it’s getting a nice consolation prize with word of a major new listing plan by top commercial property developer Wanda Group. The Wanda reports are getting much less coverage than they might normally due to Alibaba fever, which will see the Chinese e-commerce leader raise more than $20 billion when its shares start trading on Friday in New York. But at up to $6 billion, the IPO for Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties will still qualify as one of the world’s biggest offerings for 2014. Read Full Post…
A couple of separate reports are shining a spotlight on some of the shenanigans happening at former social networking (SNS) superstar Weibo (Nasdaq: WB), and also on its dimming prospects as it gets overtaken by more nimble, innovative rivals. The first and more entertaining of those reports details how Weibo routinely inflates the number of followers for some of the most popular people on its service through use of phantom “zombie” accounts. The second details a worrisome trend that says the number of mobile users for Weibo dropped sharply in August, hinting at problems ahead in this high-growth area. Read Full Post…
Conspiracy talk was buzzing through the microblogging realm this past week, as numerous executives weighed in on 2 major news events in the China tech world. One of those saw Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) finally unveil its new iPhone 6, only to mysteriously yank China from its global launch map without any explanation. The other saw executives speculating on the significance of and reasons behind the surprise defection of Zhang Yaqin, a longtime China-based Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) executive who abruptly left the company for a job at leading Internet search company Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU). Read Full Post…
