The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on December 2. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Fosun (HKEx: 656) Raises Club Med (Paris: CU) Bid Hours Before Deadline (English article)
Jack Ma, Pony Ma May Join In Ping An’s (HKEx: 2318) $4.75 Bln Fund Raising (Chinese article)
Bottom line: A weak debut for eHi reflects waning investor enthusiasm for Chinese IPOs, while a new $585 million investment in Huayi Bros reflects strong growth prospects for the independent filmmaker.
eHi IPO sputters out of the gate
A flurry of fund-raising events are in the headlines today, led by a weak trading debut for car rental specialist eHi Car Services (NYSE: EHIC) and a big capital infusion for Huayi Bros (Shenzhen: 300027), one of China’s leading independent film makers. Rounding out the activity are reports confirming that smartphone high-flyer Xiaomi has made its largest investment to date, spending $300 million for a stake in iQiyi, China’s second largest online video site owned by Internet search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU). Read Full Post…
The headlines are buzzing today about the latest Hurun Report listing the richest people in China, which has a decidedly tech flavor this year that hints at trouble ahead for the overcharged Internet sector. The report has become a gold standard for gauging the latest business trends in China, but is also famous for focusing on industries that have become overheated. That’s not too surprising, since it’s often such overheating that leads to huge surges in company share prices, which are most often the main foundation for calculating individuals’ wealth. This year half of the top 10 richest men in China come from the tech sector. Read Full Post…
We’ll have to wait a few weeks to see who wins the title for China’s most valuable Internet company, but the champion for wealthiest chief executive has just been declared with Alibaba founder Jack Ma beating out Tencent (HKEx: 700) chief Pony Ma for the title. That declaration, based on estimates by Bloomberg, comes after release of the latest public filing from Alibaba in the run-up to its highly anticipated IPO that could come in less than 3 weeks. That filing also showed that profits from China’s leading e-commerce company rose 60 percent in the second quarter, an impressive feat for a company of its size. Read Full Post…
Three of China’s shyest tech CEOs have made rare appearances on their microblogs over the past week, emerging from the shadows after difficult periods for at least 2 of their firms. Liu Qingdong, CEO of e-commerce giant JD.com, was the first to come out of his shell, ending a 19 month self-imposed silence. He was followed by NQ Mobile’s (NYSE: NQ) CEO Lin Yu, whose microblog had gone silent since a scandal last year that saw the security software maker came under a short seller attack. Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) CEO Pony Ma also made a relatively rare posting on his microblog, though in this case his appearance was mostly promotional as he trumpeted another major milestone for his company’s popular social networking services. Read Full Post…
Many of China’s biggest tech leaders were chattering in cyberspace last week from Beijing, where they were gathered for this year’s National People’s Congress and the related Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), collectively known as the lianghui. Lei Jun, CEO of handset sensation Xioami, was uncharacteristically low-key in talking about his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as was Li Dongsheng, the soft-spoken CEO of leading TV maker TCL (HKEx: 1070; Shenzhen: 000100). But the marketing savvy Xiaomi was still up to its usual publicity tricks, helping to spread a series of photos showing Robin Li, founder of search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), using a Xiaomi handset in one of the sessions. Read Full Post…
Just a half year after pooling their online search assets, leading web firm Tencent (HKEx: 700) and the much smaller Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU) are reportedly in talks to also merge their video businesses amid a broader wave of consolidation sweeping China’s Internet. I have some doubts about whether this new deal will happen for reasons I’ll explain shortly, though I’m far less skeptical now than I would have been at this time a year ago. If such a deal does happen, it could mark the latest step in what could become Tencent’s eventual acquisition of Sohu, one of China’s oldest Internet companies. Read Full Post…
Spin doctors from Chinese tech titans Tencent (HKEx: 700) and Alibaba have been hard at work these last few days, doing their best to promote their products and add positive interpretations to news involving their companies. Tencent chief Pony Ma was actively hyping up several of his company’s products and services, while an Alibaba executive was touting a visit between founder Jack Ma and visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron. Tencent also got a helping hand from restaurant ratings giant Dianping, whose low-key founder was hyping a new tie-up between Dianping and the payments platform on Tencent’s wildly popular WeChat instant messaging service. Read Full Post…
Charismatic Xiaomi co-founder Lei Jun has had huge success getting China’s gossipy media to promote his company, and now he’s succeeding in getting many of the country’s other high-tech leaders to talk about his firm and its trendy smartphones. In the last week alone, Xiaomi’s name has cropped up several times in connection with other Internet and tech executives on Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) Weibo, often called the Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) of China.
Lei himself and several of his lieutenants were tweeting nonstop during his company’s high profile promotion on Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms during the Nov 11 Singles’ Day shopping extravaganza, though that’s nothing unusual. But others who joined in with their own comments included executives from leading Internet company Tencent (HKEx: 700), and also from stodgier smartphone rival Huawei, which looks just slightly envious of Xiaomi’s trendy image. Read Full Post…
Tencent (HKEx: 700) founder Pony Ma is suddenly shedding his low-key style with a flurry of public appearances and speeches, which have been the talk of the microblogging world over the past week. I’ve admired Pony for quite a while now, as he’s quietly built up Tencent into one of the world’s biggest Internet companies with his strong product development skills and early bet on social networking services (SNS). But public speaking has never been a strong suit for this Internet visionary who is one of China’s richest men, which is evident in his mundane series of appearances and mostly mundane comments over the last week. Read Full Post…
Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) colorful but low-key Chairman Pony Ma is suddenly losing his shyness at a major Internet conference in Beijing, where he is clearly in his preferred environment mixing with lots of other Internet geeks and techies. Media have been buzzing these last few days with words from the head of China’s biggest Internet firm, with much of the talk centered on Tencent’s hot mobile instant messaging platform called WeChat or Weixin in Chinese. Ma has addressed 2 of the key questions facing WeChat, both centered on how the service can generate profits for Tencent from its base of 300 million users. Read Full Post…
