More than a year after first announcing a potential buyout, telecoms software maker AsiaInfo-Linkage (Nasdaq: ASIA) has finally reached a deal with a group led by a unit of Chinese financial giant Citic that would see its shares de-listed. Investors were unimpressed by the final announcement, with AsiaInfo shares actually closing down by 0.7 percent at $11.60 after it announced a deal to sell itself for $12 per share to the group led by Citic Capital Partners which also includes Singapore’s Temasek sovereign wealth fund. (company announcement) Read Full Post…
After years of inactivity, China’s Internet sector has seen a sudden flurry of M&A deals with potential to consolidate the fragmented space and create some truly world class companies that could one day compete with the likes of Amazon and Google. While commercial factors are mostly behind this sudden M&A spring, Beijing could also play a limited role by encouraging more consolidation, helping to lay the foundation for a vibrant and sustainable Internet sector that could become a global leader. Read Full Post…
Embattled hoteliers and restaurant operators whose business has been hit by China’s H7N9 bird flu outbreak are finally getting some relief with Shanghai’s formal cancellation of its bird flu emergency after the city went 3 weeks without any new cases. (English article) But companies could continue to feel the fallout from the scare for at least the next few months, with by Yum’s (NYSE: YUM) KFC perhaps the most vulnerable to longer term damage. Read Full Post…
Not sure what to do with little Fido or Flurry after your beloved dog or cat moves on to the big Dog House or Cat Palace in the sky? Well now there’s an answer, at least there is in Shanghai, where the government has been hard at work on the problem of what to do with the thousands of pets that die in the city each year. And the answer is: cremation. That’s the official verdict from the city after consulting with animal experts over the last few months to draft a new set of guidelines on the issue. (Chinese article) Read Full Post…
A sudden flurry of activity has caught my attention at Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU), one of China’s oldest Internet portals, which has splashed into the headlines several times in the last couple of months after years of being ignored by investors. What has most caught my attention most this time around was a comment in one of the recent reports that Sohu founder and Chairman Charles Zhang was recently experiencing some kind of emotional fatigue, which leads me to wonder if the company may be headed for a breakup. Read Full Post…
I don’t often write about new products and services in China’s hyperactive e-commerce space, since such initiatives have become commonplace in an overheated sector where everyone is always looking for any competitive advantage. But the latest pilot program by Jingdong, China’s second largest e-commerce firm, looks like a potential game-changer since it could significantly challenge the entire industry by introducing ultra-fast deliveries. At the same time, newly released data is showing China’s e-commerce sales posted a major decline in the first quarter, hinting the sector may be headed for a rapid slowdown after several years of breakneck growth. Read Full Post…
SNS moves beyond idle chatter in after Ya’an quake
The Ya’an earthquake now already 2 weeks ago has cast an interesting new spotlight on China’s vibrant field of social networking services (SNS), showing a different side to these sites that are largely seen as little more than frivolous, time-wasting toys. As a frequent user of Chinese sites like Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) Weibo, Tencent (HKEx: 700) WeChat and Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), I can personally testify that I mostly use these sites to fill up idle time at home or on the subway, often when I’m trying to procrastinate or am just feeling bored. But these sites are suddenly earning new praise as a critical communication tool during the Ya’an earthquake, arguably the first major global disaster since SNS services began their meteoric rise less than a decade ago. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on May 11-13. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Alibaba To Invest $294 Mln In Mapping Firm AutoNavi (Nasdaq: AMAP) (English article)
Hyundai Motor (Seoul: 005380) Mulls 4th China Plant: Vice Chmn (English article)
CSRC Approves Citic Securities (HKEx: 6030) To Issue 20 Bln Yuan in Bonds (HKEx announcement)
Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Building 4th Retail Store in Beijing – Source (English article)
Yum (NYSE: YUM) April Same-Store Sales Fall 29 Pct in China (English article)
Less than 2 weeks after buying a major stake in leading Chinese microblogging site Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) Weibo, e-commerce leader Alibaba is back on the acquisition track with word that it’s on the cusp of another deal to buy a similar strategic stake in mapping services firm AutoNavi (Nasdaq: AMAP). While this newest deal would be a bit smaller than the Weibo tie-up, it marks the latest transaction in a nascent M&A wave among China tech firms that looks set to gain momentum during the rest of the year. Read Full Post…
When is a company executive talking about the importance of the New Zealand market major news? The answer is: When the executive is the press-shy Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of China telecoms equipment giant Huawei, having his first ever meeting with reporters. Ren founded Huawei in the 1990s as a telecoms equipment importer, and has gone on to build the company into the world’s second largest networking equipment maker and one of China’s biggest high-tech exporters. Yet despite his 2 decades in the business, Ren had never done a media interview in all that time — a fact that the company confirmed for me when I asked about his media roundtable this week with a group of New Zealand reporters. Read Full Post…
The latest reports on Beijing’s plans to issue 4G mobile licenses look like good news for China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL), which could lay the groundwork for China’s largest telco to reach a highly anticipated deal to finally offer an Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone for its network. But the news isn’t completely positive for China Mobile, as the latest reports also strongly imply that the nation’s other 2 carriers will both be allowed to develop 4G networks using mature, globally developed technologies. By comparison, China Mobile has been forced to build its 4G network using a problem-plagued homegrown Chinese technology called TD-LTE, and had been lobbying hard for the regulator to require one of its rivals to use that standard also. Read Full Post…
