The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on December 13-15. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Tesla’s (Nasdaq: TSLA) China President Resigns After Less Than 9 Months (English article)
BAIC Motor, Investors Said Poised To Raise $1.4 Bln In IPO (English article)
Tencent-Backed (HKEx: 700) Private Bank Approved To Begin Business (Chinese article)
Xiaomi Issues Statement Confirming Sales Suspension In India (Chinese article)
Ctrip To Spend $15 Mln To Boost 3 Pct Stake In Tuniu (Nasdaq: TOUR) – Source (Chinese article)
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on December 10. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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NetEase (Nasdaq: NTES) Says Momo CEO Was Corrupt While At Company (Chinese article)
Qunar (Nasdaq: QUNR) Forecasts Profit By End Of 2016 (Chinese article)
SouFun (NYSE: SFUN) Terminates Strategic Cooperation With Century 21 China (PRNewswire)
Tencent (HKEx: 700) Doubles 2015 Budget For Literature Subsidiary (English article)
LeTV (Shenzhen: 300104) Seeks License to Make Electric Car (English article)
Bottom line: CGN’s shares are likely to rise 10-15 percent on their first trading day next week, while JD.com’s shares could rally over the next few days before resuming a longer downward trend towards their IPO price.
JD raises $620 mln in secondary offering
Just when the year-end rush of new share offerings appeared to be losing momentum with weak demand for property developer Dalian Wanda, the market is getting a lift with a stronger reception for 2 other share sales. The first of those has seen nuclear power plant builder CGN Power price shares for its IPO at the top of their range, making it the largest new Hong Kong listing in 2 years. The second deal saw strong demand for a secondary offering by e-commerce giant JD.com (Nasdaq: JD), helping it to raise another $619 million following its IPO back in May. Read Full Post…
Tech executives have been uncharacteristically quiet on their microblogs this past week, possibly due to the US Thanksgiving holiday that saw light activity in New York where most of their stocks are traded. But all the holidays in the world could never quiet the talkative Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi, who was busy talking up one of his company’s latest investments. That particular investment came in the unlikely property management space, involving a developer of YMCA-style buildings that rent out apartments to young people. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Weibo’s latest moves to stop users from defecting to WeChat reflect the company’s concerns over its fading momentum, and send a negative signal that will put pressure on its stock.
Weibo takes new steps to counter WeChat’s rise
An entertaining war is breaking out in the social networking (SNS) space, with word that the Twitter-like Weibo (Nasdaq: WB) is taking steps to punish people who use the service to promote their parallel accounts on archrival WeChat. I say this particular war is somewhat entertaining, as it seems quite petty and reflects the intense competition between these 2 companies. But at a more serious level, Weibo’s move reflects the very real fact that its service is rapidly losing eyeballs to the trendier WeChat, which is far more versatile and is also optimized for the fast-growing mobile Internet space. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Chen Tianqiao’s sale of his Shanda Games stake marks his symbolic exit from online entertainment, and he will probably return to deal-making by setting up his own private equity firm.
Chen Tianqiao steps down from Shanda Games
The slow-motion breakup of the online entertainment empire of Shanda Interactive has taken a major step forward, with news that the company is selling its entire stake in its core online gaming unit. The news follows previous reports that Shanda Interactive had reached a deal to sell a controlling stake in its Cloudary online literature unit, and its sale earlier this year of a controlling stake in its struggling Ku6 Media (Nasdaq: KUTV) online video unit. All of this comes as Shanda Interactive’s chairman and founder Chen Tianqiao looks to disband his empire that was an early leader in online entertainment, but later languished as it was overtaken by rivals like NetEase (Nasdaq: NTES) and Tencent (HKEx: 700). Read Full Post…
Bottom line: WeChat will face slow progress in the US and other global markets due to strong competition, and will be hobbled by concerns that it may monitor its users activities like it does in China.
WeChat in US promotion on UCLA campus
Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) WeChat mobile messaging service may be wildly popular in China, but it’s facing a steep uphill climb outside its protected home market. My own recent experience using the service in Hong Kong this week highlights one of WeChat’s biggest problems, namely concerns among users that their activities may be monitored and censored. That kind of issue could push users to more popular western brands like WhatsApp and Line, which have cleaner reputations. Tencent itself isn’t helping the situation by using a half-hearted promotion strategy in the US, as highlighted in a new report on some of its recent activities to crack that highly competitive market. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on November 26. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Tencent (HKEx: 700) To Air HBO In China As Govt Shuts Down Free Sites (English article)
Bottom line: China should completely up its film market to foreign participation, following recent liberalizing steps that have resulted in a boom in cross-border tie-ups.
Hollywood falls in love with China
The mayor of Los Angeles called on Chinese leaders to ease their restrictions on imported movies during a visit to Beijing last week, seeking better access for a product that is one of the most lucrative US exports to China.
The fact is that China has already taken big steps over the last 2 years to open its movie theaters to overseas products, as both foreign and domestic producers chase a fast-growing market that is now the world’s second largest behind only the United States. At the same time, a growing number of foreign filmmakers are getting improved access to the market through co-investments with Chinese partners, including joint ventures and joint production agreements. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Strong demand for Alibaba’s newly issued bonds testifies to its popularity among investors, especially short-term traders, and the debt is likely to see high trading volumes before activity settles down next year.
Investors clamor for Alibaba bonds
It seems that anything with the Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) name is in huge demand these days, with word that a massive $8 billion bond offering by China’s leading e-commerce company was massively oversubscribed. To put things in perspective, the previous largest bond program by a Chinese Internet firm came earlier this year from social networking leader Tencent (HKEx: 700), which announced plans to raise up to $5 billion. But unlike Tencent, which had to sell the bonds in several offerings over a few months due to the big amount, Alibaba has been able to easily sell its entire $8 billion offering in a single shot. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Renren’s situation is likely to continue deteriorating as its core SNS business struggles and it sells off assets, with the company likely to close up shop or sell itself within the next 2 years.
Renren losses balloon
During the last boom for Chinese Internet IPOs in late 2010 and early 2011, one of the last names to make a successful listing was money-losing social networking (SNS) leader Renren (NYSE: RENN), which billed itself as the Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) of China. More than 3 years later, the company is still losing money and the figure is starting to balloon, according to Renren’s just released quarterly earnings.
Somewhat surprisingly, Renren still has a market value of $1 billion, even as it shows every sign of becoming a bargain buy for an acquirer or going out of business completely. But this is China, and Internet stocks that normally wouldn’t get any attention from US investors can still get noticed when they carry the “made in China” label. Read Full Post…
