Alibaba packs bags for NY after HK rejects IPO request
Alibaba’s insistence on keeping control of the company in the hands of management has taken an interesting twist, with the e-commerce leader now reportedly eying New York as the preferred destination for its highly anticipated multibillion-dollar IPO. Company watchers will know that Alibaba was reportedly leaning towards Hong Kong for its listing, but ran into a roadblock when Hong Kong securities regulators refused to grant it an exemption that would have allowed its top managers to retain control of the company. This unexpected twist raises the 2 interesting issues: The most immediate is where exactly this mega IPO will take place; and more broadly speaking, it also speaks to the issue of who should control a company once it goes public — its managers or its investors. Read Full Post…
Asset seizure casts new clouds over Suntech retrench
Someone should write a book about solar panel superstar Suntech (NYSE: STP), whose the incredible rise and spectacular fall has taken yet another intriguing twist with word that some of its major assets have been seized by a court in Italy. The Italian angle is just the latest turn in this international story of a company founded by an Australian-educated Chinese engineer, which once look set to revolutionize the solar energy sector, only to be forced into bankruptcy when the sector plunged into a massive downturn. From a more practical perspective, I suspect this latest development will prolong Suntech’s bankruptcy reorganization, since its creditors may have been hoping to liquidate these Italian assets to repay some of the company’s massive debt. Read Full Post…
After years of being locked out of China’s lucrative gaming market, US software giant Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) may have finally found an opening through a new joint venture with BesTV (Shanghai: 600637), the digital arm of the nation’s second largest media company. On the one hand I should congratulate Microsoft for its tenacity in pursuing China’s electronic gaming market, which is one of the world’s largest. But on the other hand, I have to return to one of my common refrains about the world’s biggest software maker in observing that this effort looks a bit late and will have difficulty finding an audience in China’s highly competitive gaming market. I also have my doubts about the selection of BesTV as its partner, but I’ll come back to that later. Read Full Post…
Smart TVs, which let consumers watch programs via Internet-based channels, has suddenly become the latest flavor of the day for China tech firms, with just about every major Internet player piling into the market in the last few months. Top e-commerce firm Alibaba and search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) have both announced major new initiatives in the last 2 months, and now social networking leader Tencent (HKEx: 700) is joining the frenzy with its own new tie-up. At the same time, retailing giant Suning (Shenzhen: 002024) may also be making moves in the space, with word that it’s near a deal to purchase online video company PPTV. Read Full Post…
Solar group offers solution for US-China trade spat
Following a landmark compromise in July that averted a China-EU trade war over solar panels, a major US trade group is offering its own proposal to end a similar spat between the US and China. While I’m no expert on this matter, I do think this latest plan from the US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) looks quite interesting and promising, both for its content and also because the group has engaged many of the parties involved in both the US and China. Not surprisingly, at least one major voice has already spoken out against the plan, with SolarWorld expressing skepticism about the proposal. Read Full Post…
I’ve been writing with growing frequency about the impending release of 4G mobile licenses, as local media report almost weekly on the latest developments in this highly anticipated event. The latest reports aren’t all that exciting, citing a regulatory source saying rumors that licenses will be issued this month are most likely untrue. Meantime, leading telco China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) doesn’t seem to care about the actual release date, and has already started its own aggressive campaign for advance sign-ups of 4G subscribers in major cities like Shanghai. Amid all this buzz, I thought I’d also take a look at what’s ahead for 4G once it actually launches, as I do see a rather bumpy road for the technology in its first year. Read Full Post…
Social networking apps (SNS) have become the flavor of the day among Chinese Internet firms, especially in the mobile space, and it’s rare to go more than a week or two without reports of a big new move by a major player in the space. Amid all that chatter, I was intrigued to read the latest report of an interesting new tie-up between leading microblog operator Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) Weibo and appliance maker Hisense (Shanghai: 600060) into the unlikely field of smart air conditioners. Read Full Post…
I must admit I have little interest in or time for the legions of workers who regularly sweep up the dust and litter on Shanghai’s many streets. Perhaps part of the reason is snobbery, although I don’t have any particular bad feelings for these actual workers, whose trademark pastel blue smocks with florescent yellow stripes makes them hard to miss.
Instead, my lack of interest in these sweepers is mostly because they represent a lingering relic of China’s wasteful and inefficient socialist past, where keeping people employed was more important than actual productivity. Read Full Post…
Software outsourcing firm Camelot Information Systems (NYSE: CIS) has quietly raised the value of its management-led buyout offer, as it nears its ultimate goal of going private due to lack of interest from Wall Street investors. Even with the increased offer, Camelot is still just worth just under $100 million, a tiny fraction of what it was once worth when investors were much more bullish on the company and China’s software outsourcing sector in general. The looming de-listing also comes just a week after Pactera (Nasdaq: PACT), one of China’s only other major publicly traded IT outsourcing firms, said a group seeking to buy the company had lowered its bid due to weakening outlook. (previous post) Read Full Post…
Beijing took an important step towards rejuvenating the global solar panel sector last week when it announced new steps that will strictly limit new plant construction. This kind of government-led approach is a good short-term solution, as it will halt the introduction of new supply, which in turn will allow prices to stabilize after more than 2 years of steep declines caused by massive overcapacity. Read Full Post…
Most of China may have taken a holiday during last week’s 3-day Mid Autumn Festival, but it was all work for networking equipment giant Huawei as it used the time to host a global IT forum in Holland. Xu Wenwei, head of Huawei’s enterprise division, used his microblog to hype the event, which looks like the company’s latest effort to convince the world that it’s a global company and not just another maker of cheap “made in China” goods. Meantime, the chatty Lei Jun took time out from his Mid Autumn holiday to drop the latest hint that Xiaomi, the fast-rising smartphone maker he co-founded, is developing its own mobile operating system (OS) that could someday compete with rival products from Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Read Full Post…
