Bottom line: Focus Media could complete its backdoor listing in Shenzhen within the next month, kicking off a new wave of similar migrations by formerly US-listed Chinese firms looking for higher valuations from local investors.
Faded outdoor advertising specialist Focus Media is inching towards its goal of becoming China’s first formerly New York-traded firm to re-list in its home market, with reports that it has selected a Shenzhen-listed company to make a backdoor IPO. This particular migration has been in the works for more than a year now, and could end soon with this backdoor IPO that would see Focus take over the public listing of Hongda Building Materials (Shenzhen: 002211). Read Full Post…
The confidence crisis for US-listed China stocks has taken an interesting twist with the start of a bidding war for AsiaInfo-Linkage (Nasdaq: ASIA), one of the oldest US-listed China firms. The development underscores the fact that despite questionable accounting practices at many smaller US-listed Chinese firms, there are still many good companies in the market that may look like good values for buyers wanting to take advantage of depressed share prices that have resulted in cheap valuations. On the IPO front, meanwhile, a steady stream of noise from e-commerce giant 360Buy, which also goes by the name Jingdong Mall, indicates the company may be getting close to making its first public filing for a public offering that it first announced plans for last fall. Let’s look at AsiaInfo first, as the new bidding war could be the first in a new string of buyout offers for healthy US-listed Chinese firms whose shares have tumbled by 50 percent or more in the last year after a series of accounting scandals. Media are reporting that big-name US private equity firms including KKR and TPG are eying bids for AsiaInfo-Linkage that could value the company at $1 billion or more. (
