Bottom line: Bright’s plan to sell Weetabix 4 years after the purchase is mostly due to declining performance at the British cereal maker, with similar sales likely to follow for other poorly planned food purchases by Chinese buyers.
Bright loses appetite for Weetabix
After splashing into the global M&A headlines 4 years ago with its purchase of a well-known British breakfast cereal maker, Shanghai’s Bright Food has decided that Weetabix apparently isn’t its cup of tea. That seems to be the message in the latest headlines, which say that Bright is looking to sell the British company for quite a discount to the price it paid at the time of the ground-breaking deal in 2012.
Of course much has happened since Bright, known in Shanghai for its biscuits and dairy products, first announced the deal. Bright brought Weetabix’s core breakfast cereal products to China not long after the deal was closed, and even talked about making a separate listing for the British company. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: TCL’s new licensing deal with BlackBerry will end up as a quiet failure due to TCL’s weak R&D skills and lack of consumer appeal to the BlackBerry name.
TCL, BlackBerry in licensing tie-up
When does adding two negatives yield a positive? The answer is “never”, but dying smartphone makers BlackBerry (Toronto: BB) and TCL (Shenzhen: 000100) are hoping that maybe this time will be different. Of course, it’s easy for me to predict disaster for this particular new alliance, and I’d be much bolder if I said this partnership might revive the two dying companies. But the truth is that neither BlackBerry’s nor TCL’s smartphone business have much going for them these days. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Starbucks’ selection of WeChat before Alipay for in-store electronic payments is a symbolic victory for the former, while Alipay’s aggressive global expansion could eventually help it to overtake UnionPay outside China.
WeChat ties with Starbucks
China’s two leading mobile payments services are both in the headlines, led by word of a major new tie-up between Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) WeChat and coffee lifestyle titan Starbucks (NYSE: SBUX). I have to admit that my interest in this particular tie-up is somewhat personal, as I’m a big fan of both of these companies and have been waiting a long time for such a partnership.
But equally significant is the fact that Starbucks chose WeChat before archrival Alipay. That same Alipay is in a couple of its own headlines, both showing how it’s trying to expand abroad to compete with China’s other major electronic payments system, the state-owned UnionPay. One of those headlines has Alipay in a new tie-up in Australia, while the other has it announcing partnerships with four major financial companies to expand its footprint in Europe. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: A Chinese bid for the Chicago Stock Exchange could get vetoed on concerns about exposure to the US financial system, while a similar bid for chip maker Lattice could get approved due to its relatively small size.
Lattice buyer has Beijing backing
Two cross-border deals involving China M&A in the US appear to be stalling, even before the protectionist-minded Donald Trump becomes the next US president. That certainly doesn’t bode well for either deal, one in the high-tech chip space and the other in the financial sector, since both could easily have Chinese government backing. One of those has a Sichuan-based investor group trying to buy the tiny Chicago Stock Exchange, while the other has a different group trying to buy mid-sized chip design house Lattice Semiconductor (Nasdaq: LSCC). Read Full Post…
Two names closely associated with e-commerce are in the headlines, led by industry leader Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), which is coming under fresh assault from a coalition of US trade groups for allowing trafficking in pirated goods in its online marketplaces. The other headline involves parcel delivery giant ZTO Express (NYSE: ZTO), which is coming under a different kind of assault as investors dumped its newly-listed New York shares on their first trading day after an impressive $1.4 billion IPO. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on October 28. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Bottom line: Growing national security concerns are likely to kill the pending purchase of Germany’s Aixtron by a Chinese buyer, and could also kill the pending sale of NXP’s standard products unit to a similar buyer.
Germany calls for review of Aixtron sale to China
A major cross-border chip deal that I failed to notice earlier this year is suddenly in doubt, with word that Germany has reversed course and wants a security review for the proposed sale of local chipmaker Aixtron (Frankfurt: AIXA) to a Chinese buyer. Such a move would mark the first potential killing of a cross-border chip deal in Europe, which would be following the US and Taiwan in voicing concerns about China’s sudden voracity for overseas makers of high-tech microchips. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on October 26. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Germany Withdraws Approval for Chinese Takeover of Aixtron (Frankfurt: AIXA) (English article)
Oppo, Vivo Pass Huawei in China Smartphone Market in Q3 – Counterpoint (Chinese article)
ChemChina Ready for Concessions to Clinch Delayed Syngenta Deal: Source (English article)
New Oriental (NYSE: EDU) Announces Results for the First Fiscal Quarter (PRNewswire)
Student Loan Specialist Qufenqi Posts 540 Mln Yuan Loss in 2015 (Chinese article)
The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on October 25. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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HNA Group Acquires 25 Pct Equity Interest in Hilton (NYSE: HLT) for $6.5 Bln (Businesswire)
Syngenta Slumps After EU Watchdog Sparks ChemChina Deal Doubts (English article)
JD.com (Nasdaq: JD) Corruption Incident Nets More Than 10 Workers (Chinese article)
Bottom line: China’s Wanda Group will continue a recent trend of hunting for top global talent to build its growing entertainment empire, as it seeks to challenge the likes of Disney.
The aggressively expanding Wanda Group is filling up its ranks with foreign-trained China veterans as it tries to challenge the likes of global names like Disney (NYSE: DIS) with moves into the movie and theme park spaces. Now the company is going on a major shopping spree for top talent from some of those companies, led by new reports that it has just poached a top Disney theme park executive to head its own theme park division. At the same time, other reports are pointing out that Wanda also recently hired Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) former top China executive to help lead its Internet division. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on October 19. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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China’s Wanda Courts Hollywood With Film Subsidy (English article)
China Life (HKEx: 2628) Invests $2 Bln In Starwood Capital Hotel Portfolio (PRNewswire)
China Unicom (HKEx: 762) Says Profit in First 3 Quarters Down 80.6 Pct (HKEx announcement)
UCar to Raise 10 Bln Yuan in Bet on Car E-commerce (Chinese article)
Honda (Tokyo: 7267) planning new China car factory for 2019 start: sources
