It was an action-filled weekend for dying Swedish carmaker Saab, which begged for more time to secure a cash infusion from China even as its unions called for it to file for bankruptcy. (English article) My message to the Saab is this: if you’re counting on the Chinese to save you, then you can probably start writing your own obituary. I know that probably sounds harsh, but this particular case is strikingly similar to another case that ultimately ended with the demise of the muscular but obsolete Hummer brand in the US a couple of years ago. Let’s review the facts: Saab is in standby-mode while it waits for two potential saviors, little-known Chinese vehicle companies Zhejiang Youngman and Pangda Automobile, to get Chinese government approval to throw the Swedish automaker a lifeline in the form of a 245 million euro investment. (English article) The deal sounds remarkably similar to Hummer’s situation in 2009, which saw it find a Chinese savior in the form of a little-known Chinese industrial equipment maker, Tengzhong, only to see the deal collapse when it failed to win central government approval. In both cases, relatively unknown Chinese firms with little or no experience running an overseas operation have tried to step up and save a small, dying Western brand. The Chinese regulator, the National Development and Reform Commission, never gave an official explanation for vetoing the Tengzhong-Hummer deal in 2009. But in my view it rightly realized that even an experienced car maker would have a very difficult time resuscitating Hummer, and a company like Tengzhong stood about a zero percent chance of success. There’s no reason to think the NDRC won’t correctly feel the same way with this Youngman-Pangda-Saab deal, despite optimistic words from the Chinese investors over the weekend. So unless Saab finds an alternate investos, which looks unlikely, its future prospects are in serious trouble.
Bottom line: A potential lifeline to Saab from two Chinese firms will get vetoed by the government, forcing the dying Swedish automaker into bankruptcy.
瑞典汽车制造商萨博危在旦夕，尽管瑞典两大工会呼吁其申请破产，萨博仍希望争取到更多时间，以从中国得到注资。我想告诉萨博的是：如果指望中国搭救，那很可能是自掘坟墓。我知道这听起来很刺耳，但这和两年前的一幕极为相似，四川腾中重工收购悍马品牌，最终以失败收场。让我们看一下现状：萨博处于“待机”模式，坐等浙江青年莲花汽车和庞大汽贸集团搭救，期待这两家并不知名的中国公司能获得中国监管部门批准，向其注资2.45亿欧元。这笔交易听起来很像2009年悍马的境遇，当时腾中重工收购悍马未能获批。在这两笔交易中，都是相对不知名、没有海外运作经验或经验很少的中国企业，试图搭救即将破产的西方小品牌。中国发改委从未对2009年否决腾中收购悍马做出官方解释。但我认为，发改委正确意识到，即使是一家经验丰富的汽车商，在收购悍马後也会遭遇困难，像腾中这样的企业成功机率为零。尽管萨博中方投资者周末表态乐观，但发改委对浙江青年莲花汽车和庞大汽贸投资萨博，未尝不会持有与腾中收购悍马一样的看法。因此，除非萨博另觅投资方（这看似也不太可能实现），否则该公司将前途多舛。
一句话：两家中国企业拟投资萨博救急，该计划或遭中国政府否决，从而迫使萨博汽车不得不破产。
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Lashou, China’s top group buying site whose name literally means “join hands” in Chinese, is desperately shopping for an investment banking partner to underwrite an IPO in a sudden race against time among Chinese Web firms to go public before a looming Internet bubble bursts. At least that’s my interpretation of the latest media reports saying Lashou is racing to find new underwriters for the planned offering, after Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) resigned from the case. (
Just two days after Carol Bartz’s high-profile departure from Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO), the inevitable first reports are already emerging that the US search giant is in talks to sell its troublesome 40 percent stake in Alibaba Group. (
of news the market doesn’t want to hear, as it would imply that perhaps Deloitte and other major accounting firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers may often have suspicions about US-listed Chinese companies’ accounting records, but simply stay quiet to avoid losing any business, obviously a huge breach of their responsibilities. Some old timers might remember that a much bigger accounting scandal in the 1990s over former energy high-flyer Enron ultimately brought down former major consulting firm Arthur Andersen. I doubt Deloitte or any other major accounting firms will face a similar shut-down from this latest confidence crisis. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see the major accounting firms going back to re-examine the books of their US-listed China clients, and perhaps a resignation or two as accountant for one or more of the larger listed companies in the next few months.
I have just one word to describe the news that leading Chinese online merchant 360Buy will try to raise up to $5 billion in the largest-ever Internet IPO for a Chinese company in the US: desperation. (
Leading Chinese social networking site Renren (NYSE: RENN) has finally discovered microblogging, with the launch of a new service, called Xiaozhan, designed to emulate Twitter to complement its traditional SNS site that looks and feels more like Facebook. (
The sudden firing of Carol Bartz, the hard-nosed CEO of search giant Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO), is all the talk of the tech world today, and I have no doubt the folks at Alibaba Group, who took every opportunity to bad-mouth this woman, are quietly celebrating the news. (
My latest glance at the morning headlines is reconfirming for me why longtime China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) Chairman Wang Jianzhou needs to step down, the sooner the better, and hand over control of the company to bolder new leadership that can bring some excitement back to this company. At first glance, his comments that China Mobile would face difficulty but could still reach its target of 50 million 3G subscribers this year looks relatively bold and aggressive (
US solar cell makers are showing that their Chinese rivals aren’t the only ones who can count on government support to boost sales, with First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR) announcing a big new deal with strong backing from Washington. Based in the sun-baked state of Arizona, First Solar said it will provide a hefty 100 megawatts worth of solar modules to India’s Reliance Power, with $85 million in financing for the project’s first phase coming from the policy-driven US Export-Import Bank. (
Well, it seems we now know at least one company that’s going to adopt Baidu’s (Nasdaq: BIDU) new mobile operating system, which it launched with fanfare last week (
history at new product development isn’t very strong. But I’ll also take this rare opportunity to break with the critics and say that Baidu’s new OS at least offers an interesting China-specific alternative to the other products on the market, as well as special access to Baidu’s market-leading search technology. Baidu has already proven that Chinese Web surfers do prefer a China-specific product to a one-size-fits-all approach like Google’s or Yahoo’s (Nasdaq: YHOO), so perhaps the same will be true for mobile Web surfing. Still, Dell is hardly a big name in the mobile Internet space, and, in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone here in China using a Dell brand mobile phone or tablet PC. To succeed, Baidu will have to sign up some bigger cellphone makers in the next few months, with domestic names like ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063), Lenovo (HKEx: 992), TCL (Shenzhen 000100) and Huawei looking like the best candidates. If it can do that, and if its mobile OS proves reliable and user friendly, I would give it as high as a 50 percent chance of gaining a significant portion — perhaps up to 15 or 20 percent — of China’s mobile OS market.
I’ve been writing for more than a month now about China’s looming Internet bubble, and a new domestic media report makes a good case that group buying sites may lead the way when this bubble bursts in the months ahead. (
