PrivateEquityChina

Lightning Domains, Hosting, Email

I highly recommend Lightning Hosting and Domains you can purchase or host domains for as low $8.88 (a lucky number for Chinese). Their email is cheap and they have a range of hosting services including do-it-yourself websites. I also like the look of their email newsletter service.

MG Rover "to be sold to Chinese carmaker"

Expect to see more of the same as Chinese enterprises are being encouraged to invest outside of China. Key investments have already been made in oil and gas. Ive precised the following article...

Reutersreport Shanghai Automotive Industry SAIC.L , China's largest carmaker, plans to buy privately held British automaker MG Rover in a bold push to grab a Western beachhead and boosting its ambitions to become the world's sixth-largest automaker by taking an initial equity stake in MG Rover, the size of which was still under discussion.

The report goes on to give the impression that negotiations are still ongoing rather than a deal has been done.

SAIC also sees MG Rover's 1,247 western European dealers as a point of entry into Europe.

MG Rover, an independent car maker, has been struggling to break even after being sold four years ago by Germany's BMW BMWG.DE for just 10 pounds. Britain's seventh-largest private equity group, Phoenix Venture Holdings, owns MG Rover now.

SAIC signed a cooperation agreement with Rover in June but provided no details, saying the companies had yet to receive central government approval.

State media in China quoted sources close to Shanghai Auto as saying the company would buy a stake in Rover and start producing Rover products in China.

Shanghai Auto is already the main Chinese partner of both General Motors GM.N and Volkswagen VOWG.DE
The company aims to become one of the world's top six automakers by 2010 and has said it wants to list its stock overseas to raise a reported $2 billion.

In July it agreed to buy South Korea's Ssangyong Motor 003620.KS , and executives have said Shanghai Auto would keep seeking overseas acquisitions and develop its own brand.

China's First Ever Agricultural Trade Deficit

IHT reports China recorded a $3.73 billion agricultural trade deficit, its first ever, in the first half of the year, casting doubts on its ability to remain a self-sufficient food producer, the state press reported.

In the medium term I expect China's agricultural SOEs to seek to acquire or joint venture with companies from agbio leaders such as New Zealand to improve farming methods and yeilds.

Amazon Acquires China Online Retailer Joyo.com

Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) has agreed to acquire Joyo.com Ltd., an operator of online retail sites targeting China. The deal is valued at approximately $75 million, including around $72 million in cash and the assumption of employee stock options. It is expected to close later this quarter.Joyo.com was founded in 2000, and has raised venture capital from firms like Legend Capital and Softchina Venture Capital Corp.
Private Equity Week

China Outsourcing

You can't pick up a US news source without seeing someone complain about the damage outsourcing, particularly to China, is doing to the US economy and US jobs, especially technology jobs.

HELLO guys, wake up and smell the coffee.

When was the last time these guys turned over anything (and pretty much everything) they own and read the label. MADE IN CHINA.

Oh and up to the 80's it was all MADE IN HONG KONG or JAPAN.

Why is this suddenly treated like a new issue?

TCL Gets Approval For Listing

BEIJING, Aug. 19 Abridged:

(Xinhuanet) -- TCL Corp, one of China's leading consumer-electronics makers, is making substantial progress on its plan to list its mobile handset unit in Hong Kong by obtaining approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), analysts say.

The CSRC announced last Thursday a new regulation standardizing the issues related to overseas listing of subsidiaries of domestic listed companies.

According to the regulation, the net profit of the subsidiary in the latest fiscal year should account for no more than 50 per cent of the parent company's total. Meanwhile, the subsidiary's net asset should be less than 30 per cent of the domestic-listed parent company's total.

For TCL Corp, the mobile unit contributed 42.4 per cent to its net profit, while the mobile unit accounted for 14.97 per cent of TCL Corp's net asset.

However, the listing plan is yet to be approved by the shareholders of TCL International Holdings Ltd and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Analysts believe that the split-off and listing plan will help the company to become much more focused on its mobile business and find a new way to raise funds from the international market.

"The split-off of its mobile phone business won't have much impact on its domestic listed parent company," said Dai Chunrong, an analyst from China Securities.

"As there is no new share offering by way of introduction, the company's overall performance will not be diluted," she said.

TCL Corp announced early this week that it is to list its mobile phone business via introduction instead of plans for an initial public offering exposed to unfavourable market conditions.

An introduction listing means the company will not offer new shares to the public."

China IVR Mobile Market Size and Players

IVR Market Size
China's IVR market in 2003 reached 200 million yuan (US$24.10 million).
Concerns re impact of recent crackdowns by regulators/mobile operators have caused analysts to downgrade forecasts of 2004 revenues to 1.35 billion yuan (US$162.6 million) down from 1.5 billion yuan (US$180 million) previously forecast.

Sina
- Q2 IVR service revenues with China Mobile accounted for about 7% of its revenues from mobile value-added services, or approximately 4% of its total revenues for the quarter ended June 30, 2004.
- Q2 US$49.2 million in net revenues.

Tom Online
- increased its SMS revenues by 3% in Q2.
- 49.5% share of the IVR market, estimated Zhou Yi, an analyst with Beijing-based research house Analysys International.
-revenues from IVR products and services grew 43 per cent, to US$8.19 million, compared with the first quarter.
-IVR services accounted for 28 per cent of Tom Online's total wireless Internet revenues. That compared with 10 per cent during the same period last year, and 24 per cent in this year's first quarter.
- Its wireless service contributed 93 per cent to Tom Online's total revenues.

Sina Corp
- 19% IVR market share

Rock Mobile Corp
- 12.5% IVR market share
- Siemens and Acer's venture capital arms are investors

Unihub Global Network
- 9% IVR market share
- Beijing-based

Tencent Holdings
- 7% IVR market share
- Hong Kong-listed

Sohu.com and NetEase.com
- newcomers to the IVR market, are still minor players little effected by the recent crackdown.

source: China Daily

More on IVR Crackdown

China daily reports Chinese Web portals (eg Sina) are facing a crackdown by mobile operators, over irregularities in their IVR (interactive voice response) offerings. This follows stricter regulation of SMS services that have impacted revenues in recent months.

IVR services allows mobile phone users call and listen to prerecorded voice content, such as songs and jokes, or chat with friends online. Industry observers believe the crackdown largely resulted from adult (pornographic) offerings in Sina's IVR services. IVR users are charged 1 yuan (12 US cents) per minute.

Shanghai VC Invests in Mobile Phone Content Provider

Mobile phone content developer Digital Chocolate, Inc., of San Mateo, says it's secured $13 million in a second round of funding from four venture capital firms.

The Series B funding was led by Sutter Hill Ventures and also included Chengwei Ventures, a Shanghai-based venture capital firm and one of China's first independent venture funds. Digital Chocolate Series A investors Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and Sequoia Capital also participated in the second round. The company previously secured $8.4 million in its Series A funding.

"This next round of funding validates our vision of what that mobile content can be, and will allow us to explore any and all opportunities to create the kind of experience we envisage and customers will demand," says Trip Hawkins, founder and CEO of Digital Chocolate.

source

Hu Exits HInnovation

Vital Images, a US-based NASDAQ-listed company, paid US$18 million to buy HInnovation Inc, a small and medium-sized high-tech enterprise in Zhongguancun Science Park in northwest Beijing.

HInnovation was established by Hu Hui, a returned overseas student, in 2002, with a registered capital US$150,000.

HInnovation's software solutions allow physicians to use personal computers to access two-dimensional and three-dimensional medical imaging applications securely over the Internet.

more...