Bottom line: Best Inc is likely to make its New York IPO in the next two weeks, but its shares will price in the middle of their range and debut weakly due to stiff competition in the logistics sector.
Best Inc. raises IPO target
It’s been a quiet year so far for major Chinese IPOs in New York, but all that looks set to change soon with several major offerings coming down the pipeline. One of those is in the headlines as we head into the end of August, with word that Best Inc, also known as Best Logistics, is driving towards a New York offering that will raise up to $1 billion. That deal was first announced in June, so it’s a bit unclear why it has taken so long to jump back into the headlines with this boosted fund-raising target.
Based on what I’m hearing from one of my sources, the US securities regulator is giving extra scrutiny to a group of fintech companies that are all lining up to list in New York before the end of the year, due to the newness of the business type. Best Inc doesn’t really fall into that group, as it’s in a traditional business that’s thriving due to China’s e-commerce boom. What’s more, this company is also backed by e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), and counts the former head of Google(Nasdaq: GOOG) China as its chief. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Alibaba could buy the RT-Mart supermarket chain this year to boost its grocery business, while JD.com’s more online-focused effort and push into smaller cities looks like a better approach to the sector.
Alibaba grocer drives into Sun Art, JD goes to small cities
The online supermarket wars that began last year between e-commerce rivals Alibaba(NYSE: BABA) and JD.com (Nasdaq: JD) are heating up in the Year of the Rooster, though the pair seem to be taking slightly different tacks, at least based on the latest headlines. Leading those are reports that Alibaba is in talks for a tie-up of some sort with Sun Art (HKEx: 6808), operator of the popular RT-Mart supermarket chain. Meantime, JD is making its own headlines in the space, with an executive detailing the company’s plans to achieve 100 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) in sales from its operation this year. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Weibo’s lessening dependence on Alibaba is making an acquisition of the former by the latter look less likely, and raises the possibility that Weibo could instead make a play for its parent, Sina.
Weibo weans self from Alibaba
I’ve been predicting for a while that e-commerce leader Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) would soon make a bid for Weibo (WB), often called the Twitter (Nasdaq: TWTR) of China, due to an increasingly cozy relationship between the two. But the latest results from Weibo could prompt me to revise my earlier prediction, with the revelation that Weibo actually appears to be weaning itself from its heavy dependence on Alibaba.
This story has a number of threads, underpinned by a landmark tie-up that saw Alibaba buy 18 percent of Weibo 3 years ago, and then later increase that to the current level of 30 percent. The idea was that Weibo, which was losing money at the time of the original tie-up, could milk Alibaba’s connections with thousands of online merchants to find new business opportunities. Such a development did indeed occur, and last year business from Alibaba accounted for a whopping 30 percent of Weibo’s total. Read Full Post…
Updates with details of Alibaba’s latest holdings, and statement from Alibaba.
Bottom line: Alibaba’s sale of Momo shares is probably part of a slow-motion divorce, as Momo’s founder aims to continue forward as a standalone listed company following the termination of its buyout bid earlier this year.
Alibaba sells Momo shares
The story of the failed courtship between leading e-commerce company Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) and social networking app operator Momo (Nasdaq: MOMO) could be nearing an end, with word that the former has sold off some of its stake in the latter. This particular tale is full of twists and turns, culminating in speculation at one point that Alibaba would outright buy the “hook up” app sometimes referred to as China’s equivalent of US matchmaking app Tinder.
But as with many courtships on the Chinese Internet, this particular one seems to be ending in a slow-motion break-up, though it’s unclear what the cause of that might be. Investors don’t seem to be worrying about the falling out just yet, at least based on Momo’s share price after word emerged that 5 million of its American Depositary Shares (ADSs) were sold by Alibaba. (Chinese article) But I’m not particularly bullish on Momo, mostly because its dating-style app seems like a trendy thing that will probably fall out of fashion at some point. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: China Mobile and its peers could take a big hit to their voice call revenues as they roll-out anti-fraud systems to counter negative publicity, while Alibaba could suffer similar but smaller impact to its pre-paid phone card business.
China Mobile cracks down on phone conmen
The same week it officially lost its crown as China’s most valuable listed company, China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) is back in the headlines with more bad news related to a swell of publicity involving the nation’s rampant phone fraud. Normally I might dismiss this story, since phone fraud has been common in China for years and is really nothing new. But another similar case this year ended up becoming a huge headache Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), and cost the online search giant huge sums in both market value and lost revenue. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: A blossoming price war between Alibaba and JD.com in the online grocery space could stretch out for the next year, costing each hundreds of millions of dollars on promotions as they battle for market share.
Alibaba to spend billions on Tmall Supermarket
Just days after e-commerce partners JD.com (Nasdaq: JD) and Walmart (NYSE: WMT) revealed a major promotion for their online grocery business, sector leader Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) is firing back that it will outspend its smaller rivals in the hotly contested space. This sudden price war in online groceries space looks remarkably similar to another battle that broke out nearly a year ago, when Alibaba launched another major promotion against online grocer Yihaodian, Walmart’s main China e-commerce site at the time. Walmart appeared to later concede defeat in that battle just two months ago when it sold Yihaodian in exchange for shares in JD.com, Alibaba’s chief rival. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Sina’s latest financials show it could be benefiting from recent woes at Baidu, while JD.com’s results show its growth is slowing as it moves towards its important goal of becoming profitable.
Sina jumps on strong profit growth
Two of China’s top Internet companies have just reported their latest quarterly earnings, with web stalwart Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) wowing Wall Street with new numbers that show its Twitter-like Weibo (Nasdaq: WB) service may finally be gaining some traction. Meantime, investors were less impressed by e-commerce giant JD.com (Nasdsaq: JD), which continued to post strong revenue growth but remained squarely in the loss column. JD tried to comfort investors by saying its operations are now quite profitable on a non-GAAP basis, but that didn’t seem to change sentiment too much. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Alibaba’s bid for Polish C2C site Allegro looks like a smart move into a related developing market, but could be thwarted by rival Tencent, while affiliate Ant Financial’s new Taiwan insurance tie-up also looks smart though relatively small.
Alibaba bids for Poland’s Allegro
E-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) and its Ant Financial affiliate are in a couple of major headlines as the weekend approaches, each focusing on a strategic growth area. In the first case, Alibaba has entered the bidding for a leading Eastern Europe online auctions site, competing with global rival eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) for Poland’s Allegro. The second deal has Ant, owner of leading electronic payments service Alipay, expanding its financial services holdings with the purchase of a majority stake in the insurance unit of Taiwan’s Cathay Financial (Taipei: 2882). Read Full Post…
Bottom line: New sales of Alibaba and Lenovo shares by big stakeholders partly reflect disappointment in each stock’s performance by the seller, as both companies face issues that could stunt their medium-term growth.
Big stakeholders sell Alibaba, Lenovo shares
The folks at e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) and PC leader Lenovo (HKEx: 992) are licking their wounds today, after each was dumped by a major major shareholder. In the first case longtime backer SoftBank has just sold off a big chunk of its Alibaba holdings, raising a hefty $7.9 billion in the process. The second deal has Internet giant Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) looking to sell about $200 million worth of Lenovo stock. Alibaba and SoftBank are trying to put a positive spin on their development, but the bottom line is that both Alibaba and Lenovo stock have become disappointments recently for all investors. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Homelink’s new mega funding reflects a recent renewed boom for Chinese real estate in major cities, while Alibaba’s backing of Momo’s buyout could presage a tie-up between Momo and Weibo.
Alibaba joins Momo buyout group
A couple of big fund-raising stories are in the headlines, led by the latest mega-funding for the fast-expanding real estate agent Homelink. Meantime, separate reports are saying that e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) has joined a group aiming to privatize social networking app Momo (Nasdaq: MOMO), helping to squash skepticism that the buyout offer announced last year might collapse due to insufficient funding.
The only common thread to these 2 stories is that they show big funding remains available for high-growth companies in China, fueled in part by profits being generated by China’s booming real estate market. That boom has been directly responsible for Homelink’s meteoric rise, and seems like a good place to start this discussion of these 2 new mega fundings. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Groupon’s new tie-up with Comcast shows it’s more interested in working with a well-known US-based company than the unfamiliar Alibaba, which could force Alibaba to quietly dump its Groupon stake by the end of this year.
Comcast buys into Groupon
It seems e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) isn’t the only company interested in money-losing group buying site Groupon (Nasdaq: GRPN). Less than 2 months after Alibaba disclosed it had purchased 5 percent of Groupon shares, apparently in the open market, a firm backed by US cable giant Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) has just announced plans for its own strategic tie-up with the faded group buying site.
This new move certainly seems to throw some doubt on my previous prediction that Alibaba’s purchase could presage a boosting of its stake in Groupon, or perhaps even an outright buyout bid. While such a move is still possible, Groupon does seem to be signaling that it intends to remain independent. It also seems to be indicating it prefers this more direct approach to forming new partnerships, rather than Alibaba’s approach that looks a bit stealthier since it appeared to buy its Groupon shares without the company’s consent. Read Full Post…
