The latest reports saying web portal Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU) has broken off talks to buy online video site PPTV don’t surprise me too much, as I’ve come to expect this kind of volatility these days from Sohu and its fickle Chairman Charles Zhang. After disappearing from his company for a year for unspecified personal issues, Zhang has suddenly come back and appears determined to make up for all the time he was away by making sure his company appears in the news headlines as much as possible in connection with a string of potential new tie-ups. This kind of frenetic activity seems like what we should expect these days from Zhang, who has suffered for more than a decade as the head of what I’ve previously dubbed China’s “biggest little Internet company.” Read Full Post…
I have to commend Yang Yuanqing, chairman of PC giant Lenovo (HKEx: 992), for his company’s latest quarterly results that look quite solid, but even more for his ability to stay on message. Just a year ago, Yang took every opportunity to talk about his desire to overtake US rival Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) to become the world’s biggest PC brand. That message has clearly become yesterday’s news, replaced by the latest mantra that China’s consumer tech giant is setting its sights on smartphone leaders Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Samsung (Seoul: 005930) as its next targets. Read Full Post…
Galaxy, Sinopec Engineering sputter out of the gate
Everyone is hailing the success of 2 massive China IPOs this week that seems to herald a new uptick in the moribund sector, with relatively strong debuts for offerings from Galaxy Securities (HKEx: 6681) and Sinopec Engineering (HKEx: 2386). But I’m going to go ahead and play the contrarian here by noting that these 2 offerings are hardly the success that many people desperately want to see, meaning it could still be months or even next year before we see real signs of life return to the market. Read Full Post…
A sudden rush to form new partnerships on China’s Internet is creating some interesting new tie-ups, including the latest one that is seeing e-commerce leader Alibaba join with security software firm Qihoo 360 in the e-commerce search space. This new pair-up actually seems relatively minor, with Qihoo using Alibaba’s specialized eTao search engine to power e-commerce searches on Qihoo’s own so.com general search site. (English article; Chinese article) This kind of tie-up isn’t all that uncommon in search, where portals and other companies that want to include a search function on their home page often license a third party’s engine like Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) or Baidu’s (Nasdaq: BIDU) for the job. Read Full Post…
China’s sluggish media and telecoms sectors are getting a couple of new boosts from different directions, as part of Beijing’s bid to breathe new life into a space now dominated by slow-moving state-run behemoths. The first of those boosts has one such behemoth, CCTV, in a new joint venture to promote Internet protocol television (IPTV) with Shanghai Media Group (SMG), China’s second largest media company. The second is a bit more incremental, with media reporting that Beijing has just issued a formal pilot plan for setting up the nation’s first batch of virtual network operators (VNO). Read Full Post…
Investors are still pondering Goldman Sachs’ (NYSE: GS) sale this week of its remaining stake in Chinese banking giant ICBC (HKEx: 1398; NYSE: 601398), trying to figure out if the move is a positive or negative for China’s wobbly banking sector. My view is that the move is indeed positive, which is being supported by the latest word that a big portion of Goldman’s stake was purchased by Temasek, the massive Singaporean sovereign wealth fund. Read Full Post…
China telecoms watchers are scratching their heads in complete puzzlement today, following the latest media reports that Beijing may require the nation’s 3 big telcos to all build 4G networks based on a homegrown Chinese technology called TD-LTE. This latest signal coming from unnamed sources at China’s telecoms regulator surprised even me, as there was no indication before that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) might make this requirement. But then again, the MIIT has become famous for its mixed signals over the years, in what I suspect are deliberate leaks by the agency designed to get more public feedback on internal policy debates. Read Full Post…
After 2 previous failed attempts to tap the China market, French food giant Danone (Paris: DANO) is trying yet again through a new major tie-up that includes a joint venture and equity stake in tainted dairy giant Mengniu (HKEx: 2319). This time I have to commend Danone on its choice of partners and approach in the new tie-up, which seem to show it’s learned its lesson from previous disastrous partnerships with 2 other locally controlled entities. Accordingly, the third time could finally be the charm for Danone as it looks for a success in the huge but often problematic Chinese food market. Read Full Post…
Solar stocks that were once a darling of bullish investors and green energy enthusiasts have found a new patron in short-term traders, who are feeding on the sector’s high volatility. That’s my main conclusion after seeing a huge surge in the shares of many solar stocks despite any major positive catalyst. This surge is one of the biggest I’ve seen this year, but is certainly not the only time that most solar shares have risen or fallen by more than 7 percent on a single trading day on little or no major news from the sector. Read Full Post…
Anyone looking to invest in the China IT outsourcing story will be disappointed to learn that Pactera (Nasdaq: PACT), the sector’s biggest publicly listed player, has just announced a plan to privatize at a nice premium to its last share price. If the privatization succeeds, Pactera would join rival Camelot Information Systems (NYSE: CIS), which is engaged in a similar de-listing, removing what were once 2 of China’s most exciting tech companies from the publicly listed realm for international investors. While the Pactera move reflects a broader privatization trend among US-listed Chinese companies, it also reflects the failure of Chinese IT outsourcing firms to realize the big hopes that many once held for them. Read Full Post…
After making increasing noises about its intent to develop electric vehicles (EVs), domestic automaker Geely (HKEx: 175) is getting serious about the effort by moving one of its top executives into a new role overseeing its EV sales. Meantime, rival EV maker BYD (HKEx: 1211; Shenzhen: 002594) has gotten its own new boost in the space with the launch of a new pilot program for its electric taxis in Hong Kong. Both developments are certainly positive for the sector, and indicate the Chinese automakers haven’t given up on their dreams of bringing EVs to both China and the world. Read Full Post…
