UPDATE: Since first posting this, 7 Days has informed me that, indeed, the $65 million investment from Warburg was old news, coming in 2008. That would explain the strangeness of this investment if it had been a new one, which I already noted below
There’s a couple of interesting news bits coming from the budget hotel world that each could have interesting implications for the fast growing sector. In the bigger of the two, Morgan Stanley looks like it may abort the sale of its 60 percent stake in Shanghai Motel Management, operator of the Motel 168 chain, after it failed to get the kind of frothy bids it was seeking from a list of suitors that included China’s top two operators, Home Inn (Nasdaq: HMIN) and China Lodging 
Group (Nasdaq: HTHT), and French giant Accor. (English story) It’s been pretty clear all along that Morgan Stanley was hyping this deal through repeated unsourced leaks, hoping it could get as much as $1 billion for a stake that certainly wasn’t worth nearly that much. In the second piece of news, Guangzhou-based operator 7 Days (NYSE: SVN) has received a somewhat strange investment of $65 million, according to a Chinese media report (English article) Why a company with a $900 million market cap would want such a small private investment seems odd, but maybe it’s related to the investors, which in this case happen to include Warburg Pincus. With an worldly partner like that at the lodge, look for some interesting developments from this relatively low-key budget player in the months ahead.
Bottom line: Morgan Stanley will quietly sell its China budget hotel stake for well below its original $1 billion asking price, while interesting days await the 7 Days chain after a Warburg Pincus investment.
更新：登了这个文章后，7天通知我Warburg的投资是旧闻，来在2008年。这样会解释我写的奇怪如果这投资是新的。
经济型酒店业有两则有趣的新闻，每条都可能给这个快速发展的行业带来有趣的影响。第一条新闻，看起来摩根士丹利可能会放弃出售持有的上海莫泰酒店管理有限公司60%的股权，因它并未从竞标者中得到有力报价。上海莫泰是经济型连锁酒店“莫泰168”的运营商。很明显，大摩一直都在试图通过所谓的消息人士来炒作这一交易，以期能以10亿美元将其股权售出。另一条新闻是，据中国媒体报导，总部位於广州的7天连锁酒店获得了6,500万美元的奇怪注资。一家拥有9亿美元市值的企业却要这麽一小笔私人投资似乎很奇怪，但或许这与此事的投资人有关，此事牵涉到了美国华平投资集团(Warburg Pincus)。有了这麽一个精明的合作夥伴，相信未来数月，这个相对低调的经济型酒店会有一些有趣进展。
一句话：摩根士丹利将以远低於其10亿美元的报价悄悄卖出莫泰股权，而有了美国华平的投资，7天连锁酒店未来料有有趣进展。
Related postings 有关文章:
◙ Disney Shanghai: A Great Hotel Play
Siemens Networks’ pending acquisition of Motorola’s networking business. Chinese regulators were hesitating to approve the deal, and many suspected the Huawei lawsuit was the main reason. This settlement could also give a boost to Huawei’s own aspirations to get into the US market, as it will look like a sign of goodwill from a Chinese company in a dispute with a struggling US counterpart.
verdicts meaningless as the technology is already outdated when the decision comes. Furthermore, damages are often tiny even when the courts decide for the plaintiffs. A source at ZTE tells me the company hasn’t ruled out suing Ericsson overseas as well. To all of that, my only comment is that ZTE needs to get a bit more sophisticated in its litigation strategy if it really wants to compete with the big boys on the global networking stage.
found a spot building a trial network in Shenzhen, where hometown giant Huawei will also build a network. Other winners include ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063), which got Guangzhou; Nokia Siemens Networks, which got Hangzhou; Datang, in Nanjing; and Alcatel Lucent (Paris: ALUA), in Shanghai. In my mind, the clear winner in all this is Nokia Siemens, as they now get not only one but two chances at building China Mobile’s commercial 4G network with their pending acquisition of Motorola’s networking business. Ericsson appears to have squeezed in through the back door to stay in the race, but looks to be a bit of a lame duck after being forced to share Shenzhen with archrival and local giant Huawei.
It seems group buying site Lashou has attracted not only the hearts and dollars of Chinese consumers, but also overseas investors. Just one year after its founding as China’s answer to Groupon, Lashou has received a whopping $111 million in new funding from three European investors, including London’s Miilestone Capital Partners (
Mobile security software maker Netqin appears to have scaled back its New York IPO, no doubt due to a steady stream of negative publicity as it prepares to list. Chinese media are reporting the company is now aiming to raise around $75 million, a 25 percent reduction from its previous plans, giving it a relatively modest market cap of $475 million. (
The reason is this: China’s telecoms industry saw a similar shuffle in 2004, that also seemed largely political at first. But since then, industry leader China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) has gone on to further consolidate its industry leading position, taking its share from 2/3 of the market at the time to 3/4 now. Unicom (NYSE: CHU; HKEx: 762) went on to lose much of its edge and innovation as the industry’s No. 2 player, while China Telecom (NYSE: CHT; HKEx: 728) went on to become downright boring under an uninspired new chief. If history repeats itself, the latest oil reshuffle could bode well for Sinopec, as its new boss was known for his entrepreneurial and innovative leadership at CNOOC.
So, what new can I say about Disney’s (NYSE: DIS) official ground-breaking for its Shanghai theme park, a development that caps years of hype about the potential of the China market for the world’s best known theme park operator? The official groundbreaking for the park in Shanghai included some of the first formal financials we’ve seen, including a $3.7 billion price tag for the first phase and Disney’s 43 percent stake in the project. Local construction companies will surely benefit in the park’s construction, but one more overlooked group that’s likely to get a boost are the city’s hotels, especially budget operators that will cater to the droves of out-of-town Chinese who want to see Mickey but don’t want to spend $200 a night for a room at the Inter-Continental or Westin. So who am I talking about? In this case, it would be the usual suspects with strong property portfolios in Shanghai, including Home Inns (Nasdaq: HMIN), Jinjiang Hotels (Shanghai: 600754), China Lodging Group (Nasdaq: HTHT), operator of the Hanting chain, and Motel 168.
There’s more news out on the latest stumbles by former Chinese superstars Huawei and ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen 000063) as they try to break into tough Western markets. First Huawei. After being selected as a finalist to supply 4G equipment for US Cellular, the sixth largest US wireless carrier (
