Several solar panel companies are in the headlines once again, led by an news that bankrupt former superstar Suntech (NYSE: STP) is nearing a reorganization that will cost its stockholders most of their money. While that may sound bad, I personally don’t have much sympathy for anyone who continued to hold Suntech stock after the company started experiencing major problems about a year ago. Meantime, the news is a bit more positive for rivals Yingli (NYSE: YGE) and Renesola (NYSE: SOL), which both reported narrowing losses as outlook for the sector continues to improve with stabilizing and even rising prices for solar panels. Read Full Post…
Journalist China
China Steps Up Economic Crime Fight
China notched a major milestone in its fight against economic crime last week when it levied a record fine against a rogue securities brokerage and significantly raised the maximum penalty for trademark infringement. Both cases showed that Beijing is determined to significantly raise the penalties that companies and their employees face for economic crimes like trademark theft and insider trading. Read Full Post…
China Auto Rental Looks To HK For IPO
Three years. That figure has suddenly become the magic number for a growing number of private Chinese firms that are increasingly looking to make IPOs in Hong Kong, which requires that all companies show at least 3 consecutive years of profit before they can list there. That magic number appears to be the key element behind new remarks by leading car rental firm China Auto Rental, which says it favors a Hong Kong listing within the next 3 years over New York. Not surprisingly, the company’s chief executive Charles Lu said he expects China Auto to turn profitable this year, meaning 2016 is the earliest his company could qualify for a listing on Hong Kong’s main stock exchange. Read Full Post…
WeChat Faces US Skeptics, Banking Friction
I’ve been traveling through Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau these last few days, so thought I’d end the week with a look at Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) hugely popular WeChat mobile messaging service and the challenges it faces in its quest to go global and commercialize. I’ve been quite surprised by how widespread WeChat, known in Chinese as Weixin, has become in all 3 of these Chinese-speaking areas. But at the same time, comments from one of my industry friends also indicate Tencent could face an uphill battle winning acceptance in the US, where it could face heavy competition from rival products and skepticism due to its China connections. New media reports also indicate WeChat’s hyped new relationship with China Merchants Bank (HKEx: 3968; Shanghai: 600036) may also be running into problems, indicating the road to commercialization may not be as smooth as Tencent had hoped. Read Full Post…
Logistics In Focus With Carlyle Investment
Just a couple of weeks after US delivery giant UPS (NYSE: UPS) unveiled a major plan to expand its China logistics infrastructure, private equity firm Carlyle is announcing an even larger $400 million venture to tap the nation’s booming e-commerce market. These 2 mega investments could well be followed by similar plans from both domestic and international firms, resulting in a multibillion-dollar spending spree over the next few years on new warehouses and other logistics facilities to help speed the delivery of goods ordered online to users’ homes and offices. Read Full Post…
As E-Commerce Explodes, Who Will Prosper?
A new report on the explosion of e-commerce in China seems like a good opportunity to take a broader look at the sector and its longer term potential, including which players are likely to emerge as the big winners over the longer term. The latest figures indicate the potential of e-commerce in China is huge, meaning we could ultimately see 2 or 3 major players succeed in the market. But that also means we’re likely to see at least 3 or 4 casualties in the current battle for supremacy, since the field of major, well-funded contenders current numbers around 6 or 7. Read Full Post…
Legal Thursday: Lawyers Chase PetroChina, LightInTheBox
I’m calling today “legal Thursday” following word of a series of shareholder lawsuits against state-run oil giant PetroChina (HKEx: 857; Shanghai: 601857; NYSE: PTR) and e-commerce firm LightInTheBox (NYSE: LITB), whose shares have both dropped sharply in the last 2 weeks. These lawsuits may just be the first in what’s likely to become a bigger wave of similar actions by law firms that will accuse the companies of hiding information that led to their share declines, costing investors millions of dollars. In particular, we could see a flood of similar share plunges and lawsuits at other major publicly listed state-run firms if Beijing continues its recent campaign to root out rampant corruption at many of these companies.
HP New China Push Set To Sputter
Perhaps struggling former global PC leader Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) has finally straightened its house, or perhaps it senses that rival Lenovo (HKEx: 992) has become distracted with its recent push into smartphones. Whatever the reason, HP appears to be gearing up for a new push into China, with its announcement of a newly created China chairman position which is being filled with a tech industry veteran. Such a move implies an overhaul of HP’s China operations, and is certainly long overdue for a company whose share of China’s PC market has dropped sharply in the last few years. But the move also looks like too little too late, amid a global trend that has seen PC sales fall sharply due to the rising popularity of smaller devices like tablet PCs and smartphones. Read Full Post…
Baidu Tackles Internet TV, Youku Next?
In the latest signal of the growing popularity of Internet TV, leading search engine Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) is reportedly preparing a tie-up in the space to promote its iQiyi online video service with top domestic TV maker TCL Multimedia (HKEx: 1070). The rapid growth in this area over the last year has been quite interesting to watch, as a number of major private companies have been piling into the space with new Internet-based offerings in a bid to challenge China’s notoriously slow and uncreative traditional TV sector. Read Full Post…
Corporate Corruption Drive Moves To State Firms
An anti-corruption drive centered on firms in China is quickly moving into the state-run sector, with word of a major probe at PetroChina (HKEx: 857; Shanghai: 601857; NYSE: PTR) that has snared some of the oil giant’s top executives. Before I go any further, I need to admit that this new twist shows that I was wrong in my earlier observation that the growing wave of anti-corruption probes was mainly targeted at foreign firms. I still contend the campaign began with foreign companies, which are generally easier targets for Chinese investigators; but now the clean-up appears to be spreading into the much larger state-run sector, where investigations are much more difficult because many suspects are protected by their vast networks of government and other connections, known as guanxi. Read Full Post…
Qihoo Milks Rally With $600 Mln Bond Offer
Software security specialist Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) is pouncing on a recent rally in its shares to announce a massive new bond offering, becoming the latest in a select group of top Chinese tech firms to raise big new funds as investor enthusiasm returns to the sector. Following its announcement of upbeat earnings earlier this week, Qihoo has followed with word of the plan to offer senior 5-year notes worth $600 million. To put things in perspective, that amount is equal to more than 6 percent of the company’s market value, which is already quite inflated after Qihoo’s shares have nearly quadrupled over the last year. Read Full Post…
