The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on August 28. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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- Jingdong Mall Blocks Alibaba’s eTao From Price Comparisons (Chinese article)
- Dongfeng (HKEx: 489) Courting Fujian Motor (English article)
- BYD (HKEx; 1211) Announces Interim Results (HKEx announcement)
- Shanda Games (Nasdaq: GAME) Announces Resignation of Tan Qunzhao as CEO (PRNewswire)
- China Approves Ford (NYSE: F), Mazda, Changan to Split JV in Two: Ford CEO (English article)
- Latest calendar for Q2 earnings reports (Earnings calendar)
I have to admit that I’ve been quite surprised by the lack of noise coming from North American politicians in the month since Chinese oil major CNOOC (HKEx: 883; NYSE: CEO) announced its landmark plan to buy Canadian oil giant Nexen (Toronto: NXY) in a deal valued at $15.1 billion. In fact, you could say the silence over that period has been almost deafening, with the lack of noise only ending late last week when Nexen made the low-key announcement that it has scheduled a meeting on September 20 for its shareholders to vote on the deal. (
Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) big courtroom victory in its smartphone patent dispute with Samsung (Seoul: 005930) could soon send a chill through China’s up-and-coming tech sector, with the US giant likely to soon file a series of similar lawsuits against companies like Huawei and ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063). This probable new twist in Apple’s ongoing quest for global smartphone dominance would not only hit the Chinese firms financially, but would also shine a spotlight on the uncomfortable fact that most still depend strongly on foreign technology for many of their higher-end products.
I was quite intrigued when buzz first emerged last week about a new tie-up between Internet leaders Alibaba and Tencent (HKEx: 700) and insurance giant Ping An (HKEx: 2318; Shanghai: 601318), hoping we might see an innovative financial services tie-up between these 3 industry titans. So it came as somewhat of a disappointment when reports disclosed the companies would pool resources to simply launch a new online insurance joint venture. (
New signals coming from Beijing indicate the mobile Internet could be the first area of China’s telecoms sector to open to foreign investment, following years of an informal ban on outside investment in the sensitive space. The new signs, coming from the telecoms regulator, would be consistent with recent moves over the past year that have seen Beijing officially approve new China-based cloud computing ventures backed by US technology giants IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Microsoft (NYSE: MSFT), both of which have an Internet focus.
Investors have been anxiously watching for signs of a looming bad-loan crisis for China’s top banks, but the latest results from Bank of China (HKEx: 3988; Shanghai: 601398) indicate that Beijing may be looking to substitute slowing growth for a full-blow crisis. This kind of “compromise” could only happen in China, since Beijing’s position as both regulator and majority stakeholder of the major banks means it has the power to decide just how badly those lenders will suffer following a government-ordered lending binge in 2009 and 2010 that left most major players with billions of dollars in questionable loans.
I’ve been watching with interest these last couple of weeks as Internet software security specialist Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) takes an uncharacteristically low-profile approach to its new online search service, in a clear and interesting challenge to industry titan Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU). Qihoo’s controversial founder Zhou Hongwei has been mostly quiet since the service’s recent debut, even as media reported the company quietly severed its long-standing relationship with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) in launching its own technology. Now it seems that Zhou, who seems to thrive on controversy, is challenging Baidu itself, though not in the way that most people might think.
Less than 2 weeks after HiSoft (Nasdaq: HSFT) and VanceInfo (NYSE: VIT) announced their landmark merger agreement, we’re getting word of another significant acquisition in the IT outsourcing space with a new purchase plan by China-listed Beyondsoft (Shenzhen: 002649). The rapid announcement of 2 such major deals could indicate that much-needed consolidation is finally coming to this lucrative but highly fragmented industry, which holds the potential to produce major companies that could someday rival big Indian outsourcing firms like Infosys (Mumbai: INFY).
