Shanghai Media Group Archives ~ Page 4 of 5 ~ Business China : news for investors in China

News Digest: July 11, 2014

By newsdoug on July 11, 2014

The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on July 11. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════

China’s Box Office Sales Surge 25 Pct In H1 (English article)
Weibo (Nasdaq: WB), Qihoo, UCWeb Cooperate on Independent Blogger Platform (English article)
Dangdang (NYSE: DANG) Launched “Super Speed Delivery” in 400 Cities Of China (PRNewswire)
Lenovo (HKEx: 992) Market Share Approaches 20 Pct – IDC (Chinese article)
Shanghai Media Group Buys Galloping Horse (Chinese article)

Sony Joins China Game Console Rush

By newsdoug on May 27, 2014

Shanghai is quickly emerging as ground zero for the world’s top 2 gaming console makers to enter China, with word that Sony (Tokyo: 6753) has formed a new local tie-up aimed at bringing its PlayStation to the market. The company’s new plan comes just weeks after word emerged of a similar plan by rival Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) for its popular Xbox in partnership with another Shanghai media company. Both companies are seeking to tap China’s massive appetite for electronic gaming, after Beijing recently lifted a decade-long ban on the sale of foreign consoles in the market. Read Full Post…

News Digest: April 1, 2014

By newsdoug on April 1, 2014

The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on April 1. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Huawei 2013 Profit At 21 Bln Yuan, Sales Outpace Ericsson (Stockholm: ERICb) (Chinese article)
Shanghai Media Group Undergoes New Round Of Restructuring (Chinese article)
Xiaomi Targets 100 Mln Handset Shipments In 2015 (English article)
Alibaba Invests $692 Mln In Chinese Department Store Operator (English article)
Tesla’s (Nasdaq: TSLA) China Chief Resigns, Company Cites Personal Reasons (English article)

Shanghai Disneyland Momentum Builds With Retail JV

By newsdoug on March 27, 2014

Retail village to debut alongside Shanghai Disneyland

An amusing rivalry between 2 US entertainment giants is rapidly shaping up in Shanghai, with developers of the new Disneyland (NYSE: DIS) resort announcing a major new retail development just days after DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA) broke ground on its own massive entertainment complex in the city. The close timing of these 2 announcements may be partly coincidental, but the rivalry certainly isn’t. Hollywood followers will know that DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg was formerly the head of Disney’s famous animation division, and only left the company after a famous fall-out with former Disney chief Michael Eisner. Read Full Post…

DreamWorks Finds Home In Shanghai

By newsdoug on March 21, 2014

A growing love affair between Hollywood and Shanghai has taken a major step forward, with the formal ground-breaking for a $2.4 billion entertainment complex being co-developed by US giant DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA) and the city’s leading broadcaster. As a longtime industry watcher, I’m most encouraged that this project is actually moving forward, even if the latest price tag is a bit lower than the figure given when the deal was first announced nearly 2 years ago. Over the years I’ve seen too many cases where big new Sino-foreign projects have been announced with big fanfare, only to later die quiet deaths due to failure to get necessary approvals and financing. Read Full Post…

News Digest: March 8-10, 2014

By newsdoug on March 10, 2014

The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on March 8-10. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Tencent (HKEx: 700) Clinches JD.com Investment, Pair To Merge E-Commerce (Chinese article)
Alibaba May Invest $1 Bln In Online Video Site Wasu (Shenzhen: 000156) (Chinese article)
Disney (NYSE: DIS), Shanghai Media Group To Develop Disney-Branded Movies (English article)
City of Dalian Order 1,200 BYD (HKEx: 1211) Electric Buses (Businesswire)
Shanghai Jin Jiang Hotels (Hong Kong: 2006) Scraps Bond Issue (English article)
Latest calendar for Q4 earnings reports (Earnings calendar)

Hollywood-China Love Affair In Chengdu Spotlight

By newsdoug on June 7, 2013

Many of the usual global CEOs are in China this week for the annual Fortune Global Forum in the interior city of Chengdu, but what’s really interesting this year is the presence of many big Hollywood executives. I use the word “interesting” instead of “surprising”, because the presence of top executives from names like DreamWorks Animation (Nasdaq: DWA) and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) isn’t really that unexpected considering the sudden love affair between China and Hollywood that’s developed rather rapidly over the last year and a half. Even the music industry is finally starting to believe in the huge potential of the China market, with the head of the US-based Recording Academy, organizer of the Grammy Awards, also attending the event in Chengdu. Read Full Post…

IPTV Gets Boost, VNOs Coming Soon

By newsdoug on May 23, 2013

SMG’s BesTV links with CCTV in IPTV tie-up

China’s sluggish media and telecoms sectors are getting a couple of new boosts from different directions, as part of Beijing’s bid to breathe new life into a space now dominated by slow-moving state-run behemoths. The first of those boosts has one such behemoth, CCTV, in a new joint venture to promote Internet protocol television (IPTV) with Shanghai Media Group (SMG), China’s second largest media company. The second is a bit more incremental, with media reporting that Beijing has just issued a formal pilot plan for setting up the nation’s first batch of virtual network operators (VNO). Read Full Post…

Disney, Tencent Tie-Up to Animate China 迪斯尼、腾讯合作研发动漫

By newsdoug on April 11, 2012

Tencent's pudgy penguin ties up with Disney Coming soon to movie screens in China: “Pudgy Penguin: The Movie”. That may sound like fantasy for now, but it could soon become reality following a newly announced partnership between animation giant Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Chinese Internet leader Tencent (HKEx: 700), whose ubiquitous logo featuring a pudgy cartoon penguin is practically synonymous with the web in China. (company announcement; English article) Talks of the tie-up were first leaked last week, at which time I predicted the pair would form a joint venture animation studio similar to the one announced earlier this year between another US industry leader, DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA) and local partner Shanghai Media Group (SMG). (previous post) The structure of Disney’s partnership looks a little different from a traditional joint venture, with the 2 sides announcing they would set up an animation R&D center along with China Animation Group. The Ministry of Culture also appears to be heavily involved, meaning the venture should have good government connections to help it steer clear of China’s huge bureaucracy governing the sensitive media sector. Despite its name as an R&D center and the emphasis on developing local talent for China’s animation industry, which look mostly like a public relations exercise, this initiative closely resembles an animation studio in everything but name, with the announcement saying it will develop content for the China market. From my perspective, I really do like this particular tie-up, as it brings together a major foreign player in the form of Disney, together with a major new media player like Tencent and government connections from the Ministry of Culture and the China Animation Group. Tencent is currently making aggressive moves in the online video market, and, joking aside, its animated pudgy penguin would make a great character for a future animated movie or TV or Internet series to help promote the Tencent brand and the partnership in general. While the government’s close involvement has its positive elements, it could also be one of the new venture’s weak points, as government involvement in anything tends to add an extra layer of bureaucracy from officials who often have other agendas besides running an efficient business. But then again, no one ever said this was an official business, which could be another weakness in this partnership if and when it ever starts to earn profits. Comparing this Disney-Tencent tie-up with the DreamWorks-SMG one, I would have to say I personally like the DreamWorks one better, since SMG, as China’s second biggest media group, is also a quasi-government organization but lacks formal government ties, giving it more room to innovate. But that said, China’s animation market is certainly big enough for major joint ventures led by 2 of the world’s top players, and I would fully expect both to see strong success both in China and also potentially through exporting their products to other Asian markets.

Bottom line: Disney’s new tie-up with Tencent looks well positioned to capitalize on China’s animation market, though close government participation remains a medium-sized risk factor.

Disney-Tencent Talks: China Looking Animated 迪士尼与腾讯沟通动漫合作

By newsdoug on April 5, 2012

Disney explores China animation China may finally be opening up its animation market to foreign investment, with the latest word that none other than Disney (NYSE: DIS), arguably the world’s most famous brand in the field, is in talks with Internet leader Tencent (HKEx: 700) for a tie-up in the lucrative but largely undeveloped space. The media reports are rather vague, saying only that Tencent, China’s largest Internet company, is “communicating” with Disney about a potential animation development tie-up. (Chinese article) But any such partnership would look extremely interesting, especially as Tencent is looking to build up its online video business (previous post) in a bid to compete with industry leaders Youku (NYSE: YOKU) and Tudou (Nasdaq: TUDO), which are in the process of merging. (previous post) From Disney’s perspective, any such deal would mark a major breakthrough, following its last big advance a couple of years ago when it finally reached an agreement to build its first mainland Chinese Disneyland in Shanghai. The Shanghai Disneyland agreement was a long and torturous process, marked by nearly a decade of on-again-off-again talks that finally resulted in the big deal. Disney has a number of other smaller China initiatives, including its Disney-branded English language schools and numerous merchandise licensing agreements. But the big piece missing from Disney’s China picture to date is filmed entertainment, with the company lacking any major presence on Chinese TV and in its movie theaters apart from products imported under a strict quota system. An animation tie-up with Tencent — or any other video channel — could quickly change that situation, allowing Disney to set up a China-based animation studio that could distribute programs through its own Disney-branded TV or Internet channel, or sell content to other channel operators. DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA), creator of the popular “Shrek” animated franchise, scored a major breakthrough on the China animation front early this year when it formally signed a deal to create a Chinese animation joint venture with Shanghai Media Group (SMG), China’s second largest media company. (previous post) I said at the time that the DreamWorks deal, along with a number of other smaller signals from Beijing, indicated that China might be preparing to open up its animation market to western investment, after a previous attempt to open the market about 5 years ago failed. I have to assume that Disney would only enter into talks with Tencent or any other potential partner after receiving a nod from Beijing that any eventual new venture in the sensitive media space would receive government approval. Given the current climate of opening up the media space and the recent DreamWorks deal, I would have to believe that Disney is definitely looking around for an animation partner, and is probably talking to Tencent as well as others at this early stage. If that’s the case, look for Disney to sign its own China animation joint venture in the not-too-distant future, probably by the end of this year.

Bottom line: Reports that Disney is talking to Tencent for a Chinese animation joint venture could very well be true, with Disney likely to form such a venture by the end of this year.

AsiaInfo, Xinhua in Latest Listings Shuffle 新华电视悄然上市亚信联创或被摘牌

By newsdoug on February 9, 2012

Xinhua unit lists, AsiaInfo considers offer There’s a couple of interesting new developments on the listings and de-listings front, with a unit of Xinhua making what looks like a low-key but also significant offering in Hong Kong even as one of the oldest US-listed China firms, AsiaInfo (Nasdaq: ASIA) may be preparing to de-list. The Xinhua listing represents China’s easing of restrictions for such offerings in one of its most sensitive sectors, the media; while the AsiaInfo development marks the latest chapter in a clean-up of US-listed Chinese firms, which have been plagued for much of the last year by a serious of accounting scandals. Let’s look at Xinhua first, which has done a backdoor listing for its relatively obscure TV arm, China Xinhua News Network Corp. (English article) The company said the move is part of a global expansion plan that will see it move into about 100 countries as China tries to boost its influence. The low-key move, which did not see Xinhua raise any actual funds, comes just months after both Xinhua and the People’s Daily both launched similar plans to list their web assets on China stock exchanges (previous post), clearly reflecting the fact that Beijing has given the green light for its media to start listing. That said, I would advise investors to avoid these big state names like Xinhua and People’s Daily, and look for some of the country’s more dynamic media players like Shanghai Media Group and Southern Media Group, which no doubt will soon be listing some of their assets after the big Beijing-based giants go first. Moving on to AsiaInfo, the company has announced it has hired a financial adviser after receiving an unsolicited takeover offer from a fund connected to the CITIC conglomerate. (company announcement) AsiaInfo shares have rallied quite a bit since the beginning of the year, up around 50 percent, presumably as rumors began to spread about this potential buy-out. I can’t really comment on the company’s specific financial situation as I don’t follow them closely, but clearly this offer is based on the low stock prices for many Chinese companies following last year’s sell-off after a series of accounting scandals raised questions about the entire sector. A couple of other companies, Shanda Interactive (Nasdaq: SNDA) and Grentech (Nasdaq: GRFF), have already announced plans to privatize in reaction to the sell-off (previous post), and this takeover bid looks like another attempt by a buyer to take advantage of bargain prices. Shrewd investors with time to do some research could do well this year by identifying other potential bargains, as I suspect we will see a steady string of additional buyout and privatization offers for the next few months as bargain-hunters seek to take advantage of low prices.

Bottom line: Xinhua’s backdoor IPO in Hong Kong marks the first in a wave of new media listings this year, while AsiaInfo could mark the first of many buyouts by bargain-hunting investors.