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Journalist China
Business news from China By Doug Young.
Doug Young, journalist, has lived and worked in China for 20 years, much of that as a journalist, writing about publicly listed Chinese companies.
He is based in Shanghai where, in addition to his role as editor of Young’s China Business Blog, he teaches financial journalism at Fudan University, one of China’s top journalism programs.
He contributes regularly to a wide range of publications in both China and the west, including Forbes, CNN, Seeking Alpha and Reuters, as well as Asia-based publications including the South China Morning Post, Global Times, Shanghai Daily and Shanghai Observer
Bottom line: A Chinese buyer could have a strong chance of winning the bidding for US hotel operator Starwood, with CIC most likely to emerge as Beijing’s preferred candidate among a trio of interested local buyers.
Chinese buyers eye Starwood Hotels
Just a day after China’s 2 leading travel sites put aside their bitter rivalry and formed a major new alliance, we’re getting word of yet another major deal in the hot tourism sector. This time media are saying 3 Chinese buyers are eyeing Starwood (NYSE: HOT), one of the world’s top hotel operators. The 3 potential bidders include 2 of China’s leading private equity investors, China Investment Corp (CIC) and HNA Group. The third is one of China’s top hotel operators, Jin Jiang (HKEx: 2006; Shanghai: 600574), which has been on a buying spree recently both at home and abroad.
If one of the 3 succeeds, the deal would mark the largest purchase ever of an offshore asset by a Chinese buyer, based on Starwood’s latest market value of $15 billion. Word of the deal comes just a day after leading domestic online travel agents Ctrip (Nasdaq: CTRP) and Qunar (Nasdaq: QUNR) buried the hatchet in their bloody battle for share in China’s fast-growing travel market. A Starwood deal would also come less than a week after US-British cruise operator Carnival (NYSE: CCL) formed a new joint venture with 2 Chinese partners. (Chinese article) Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Google’s establishment of China-based servers and registration of Chinese domain names associated with its app store show it could enter the local smartphone market by Lunar New Year and quickly become a significant player.
Google sets up China servers
New information on a low-profile but authoritative techie website is hinting that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is inching towards a return to China, but this time in the less controversial hardware and apps areas where rival Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has built a lucrative business. The somewhat geeky posting says Google has quietly set up several servers in China, and has registered China-related Internet domain names associated with Google Play, its main app store that is now blocked in the country.
If and when it does announce its return, which could happen before the Lunar New Year, Google is almost certain to draw criticism from some western observers. Many of those previously lauded the company for the decision to shutter its China search engine in 2010, following a high-profile dispute over censorship. Those same people could accuse Google of hypocrisy with its decision to return to China, even though other major global names like Apple and Samsung (Seoul: 005930) already operate thriving businesses in the Chinese smartphone and app markets. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Jiuxian’s decision to list in China and Dangdang’s continued effort to de-list from New York show that low-quality Chinese firms will have difficulty getting attention from US investors and are probably better listing in their home market.
Jiuxian wine cellar to list on China’s OTC
Two news items continue to show a growing distaste for New York by Chinese web firms, led by word that veteran online wine seller Jiuxian has just received approval for an IPO on China’s over-the-counter (OTC) board. The second items comes from veteran e-commerce site Dangdang (NYSE: DANG), whose outspoken CEO is quoted complaining about his company’s low valuation and saying his plans are moving forward to de-list from New York and re-list in China.
The most commonly heard theme to these stories is that Chinese firms can get better valuations in their home market than New York, because their names are more recognized in China. But another theme that gets far less attention is that many of these complaining companies are simply low-quality products whose only real attraction is their “made in China” label. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Lenovo and Tsinghua Unigroup may be considering rival bids for EMC following a $67 billion offer from Dell, but will ultimately abandon any such plans due to high price and political sensitivities.
Unigroup, Lenovo eying rival bids for EMC?
As the blockbuster deal that would see faded PC giant Dell buy leading memory products maker EMC (NYSE: EMC) for $67 billion buzzes through the high-tech headlines, I thought I would look at 2 leading Chinese candidates whose names were noticeably absent on the list of companies that might make rival bids for EMC. China tech watchers will know I’m referring to local PC giant Lenovo (HKEx: 992), which has never seen an acquisition opportunity it didn’t like, and the more recently acquisitive Tsinghua Unigroup.
Both of these names could be interested in EMC for similar reasons, and each could theoretically make rival bid for the US company. Dell’s newly announced purchase of EMC would be one of the biggest-ever sales in the high-tech world, but also includes a 60 day period where others could make counter offers. Other names mentioned that could make such bids include the likes of IBM (NYSE: IBM), Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), though sources say the chances of such a bid are slim. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: YIngli’s sudden repayment of 70 percent of a maturing bond shows the government may provide partial assistance for struggling solar panel makers, in an effort to engineer an orderly shut-down of these weaker companies.
Yingli makes surprise debt repayment
The story of China’s troubled solar panel sector has taken an unexpected twist, with word of a last-minute partial reprieve for Yingli (NYSE: YGE), one of the weakest major players that looked set to default on a large debt payment. The development came quite quickly and had a few unusual elements that hint strongly at government intervention.
Yingli’s case is important because it will show to what extent Beijing and local governments may come to the rescue of ailing companies from the solar panel sector. Earlier signals had indicated Beijing was prepared to let weaker companies fail or get acquired, providing a second round of much-needed consolidation for a sector plagued by overcapacity. But this latest sign shows Beijing and especially local governments may be losing some of that resolve as China’s economy slows. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: New $200-$300 million investments by Baidu and Alibaba in smaller Internet companies show such fundings are starting to recede in size after peaking earlier this year.
58 Home gets investment from Alibaba, KKR
Two big fund-raising stories are in the headlines today, each involving a top Internet company as China’s “big 3” trio of Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) and Tencent (HKEx: 700) look for ways to put their big cash pots to work. It’s interesting to note that neither Baidu nor Alibaba is the central player in either of these latest deals, one in e-commerce and the other in online-to-offline (O2O) services. Instead, both are playing secondary roles, supporting other companies with good growth potential.
The larger of the 2 investments is seeing Alibaba participate in a new $300 million first funding round for a 1-year-old company that helps web surfers find home-based services like cleaning and baby sitting. The second has Baidu participating in a $200 million funding for an older e-commerce company with close ties to state-run cereals giant COFCO. Read Full Post…
We will be on holiday October 1 and 2 for the Chinese National Day holiday. We will resume some limited publishing on Oct 5, and will return to a normal publishing schedule on October 8.
Bottom line: Cisco’s new joint venture will mostly resell its networking equipment into China, and is unlikely to ease Beijing’s worries that its products could be used by Washington for cyber spying.
Cisco calls on China with new JV
Networking equipment giant Cisco (NYSE: CSCO) has become the latest global tech firm to capitulate to China’s national security paranoia, announcing the formation of a new joint venture with a local partner. The tie-up with Inspur Group is just the latest in a recent string of new China-based partnerships involving big western tech firms. Those companies, whose ranks also include IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), fear that without such well-connected local partners, they could get locked out of the lucrative IT services market under tough restrictions imposed by a new Chinese national security law.
Announcement of the new joint venture with Inspur marks a major shift for Cisco, which up until now has preferred to do its business in China by itself rather than with a local partner. Cisco’s earlier go-it-alone posture has already come with a high cost it in a country where Beijing prefers to see big foreign tech names transfer technology to local partners. Thus this latest partnership should perhaps help to ease some of that pressure, even though it could ultimately put some of Cisco’s intellectual property at risk. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Alibaba needs to take a more low-key approach to improving its government relations, rather than making a big spectacle of cultivating better ties with Beijing.
Alibaba govt relations campaign in overdrive
Alibaba(NYSE: BABA) founder and chief cheerleader Jack Ma has never really understood the meaning of the word “moderation”, which is all too clear with his sudden interest in cultivating better relations with Beijing. Ma has been pulling all the stops in a bid to be closely associated with this week’s US trip by Chinese President Xi Jinping, appearing at related events and announcing a new donation that synchronized nicely with a concurrent speech by Xi.
All that schmoozing certainly looks understandable, and Ma was actually just one of many US and Chinese tech leaders trying to share the stage with China’s president on his first state trip to the US. But Alibaba’s public relations machine was taking things just a bit too far when it joined the Beijing love affair and began promoting stories related to US-Chinese themes from the official Xinhua news agency, often considered the mouthpiece of the Chinese government. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Disney’s Uniqlo tie-up highlights its new focus on China retailing as the opening of its Shanghai Disneyland draws near, and could be followed by a major film-production tie-up in the next 1-2 years.
Disney in new China retailing tie-up
Entertainment and retailing juggernaut Disney (NYSE: DIS) is turning up the volume of its advance into China, with Shanghai emerging at the epicenter of its campaign. In the latest move on that front, the company has just announced it will launch a new concept store in China’s commercial capital in partnership with Japanese fast-fashion retailing juggernaut Uniqlo. That particular move comes just 4 months after Disney opened its first China Disney store in the heart of Shanghai’s financial district. That store was also Disney’s largest in the world.
This sudden retailing push comes as Disney prepares for the main event in the first half of next year, which will see it open its first mainland Chinese Disneyland, also in Shanghai. That opening will cap years of lobbying and planning, and will be the first new Disneyland since the last one opened in Hong Kong a decade ago. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: The pending collapse of Citic Securities’ bid for Russell Investments is the direct result of company instability due to corruption allegations and stock market volatility, and highlights the risk of doing business with big state-run companies.
Instability sinks Citic’s bid for Russell
Recent turbulence in China’s corporate world may be set to claim one of its first big victims, with word that a deal to sell fund manager Russell Investments to top Chinese brokerage Citic Securities (HKEx: 6030; Shanghai: 600030) is on the brink of collapse. London Stock Exchange Group has been looking to sell Russell for the last few months, and Citic had emerged as the preferred buyer after several others dropped out.
But Citic Securities has suddenly become a symbol of instability in China, hit by the one-two double whammy of corruption allegations and plunging profits for its core securities brokerage business. The recent corruption allegations against some of its top officials are part of a bigger national crackdown on graft, while the woes at its core brokerage business are the result of volatility in China’s stock markets. Read Full Post…
