Year: 2007

Color on Mindray Q4 2006 Results

Post author By stlplace
Post date March 12, 2007
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Last Updated on March 13, 2007 by stlplace

Well, Xinhua Finance Media Limited XFML IPO nearly broke my heart, kind as I expected. The good thing is WR Hambrecht only allocated me 100 shares, out of 200 shares I indicated to buy.

On a positive note, Mindray reported a good quarter and a good year. Here is the results. Going forward they expect “total net revenues for full year 2007 to be in the range of RMB2,120.0 million to RMB2,150.0 million”, this is about 40% revenue growth over 2006. The international market will be the key growth driver; domestic market is picking up after last year’s anti-corruption campaign.

Interestingly, the market decided to hold a sell off on MR today.

Tags Mindray, MR

China Stocks

Harvest Fund in China

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Last Updated on March 14, 2007 by stlplace

Mutual fund is a hot commodity in China these days, as the domestic stock market became really hot in last year. While the mutual fund industry is still in its early stage, I found this Harvest Fund to be impressive. I watched an interview of its manager, Mr. Zhao Xue Jun, at CBN (No. 1 Cai Jing, my default TV setting these days). Here is Harvest Fund (Jia Shi in Chinese) home page and here is an interview of Mr. Zhao by No. 1 Cai Jing News.

Tags China-mutual-fund

China

Reality Check on Shanghai Housing Prices

Post author By stlplace
Post date March 11, 2007
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Last Updated on July 16, 2007 by stlplace

To a large extent, the Chinese economy growth in recent years is attributed to the growth in the real estate market. Ten years ago, when I left Shanghai for graduate study in US, I remember most people still live in the apartment assigned by their “Danwei”.

Tags shanghai-housing

China

Spending Power of Dollar and Yuan

Post author By stlplace
Post date March 11, 2007
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Last Updated on March 12, 2007 by stlplace

There are lots of discussions about living cost in Shanghai, such as this one from Wang Jianshuo. I am not going to do a comprehensive study here, but I want to share my findings after spending one week in Shanghai.

I rent a one bedroom apartment near Zhongshan park, it cost me CNY 2,300. Because I stay for short term, they charge me a little higher. I think for a one year lease it will be 2,000 Yuan a month. A comparable apartment in St. Louis will cost about $500. So 2000 Yuan vs. 500 dollars. We can say one dollar is really worth 4 Yuan, not the offical rate of 7.75?

Tags dollar-and-yuan, shanghai-restaurant

China

Home Inns Stock HMIN Looks Scary

Post author By stlplace
Post date March 7, 2007
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Last Updated on March 12, 2007 by stlplace

I mean the stock for the short term, not the hotel. They reported the Q4 2006 and full year results today. Here is the result. It’s good number, but again the current stock price is way ahead of curve. Going forward they are “going to beep up franchise hotels in Beijing and China”, translated in plain English: franchise hotel does not generate much revenue, the profit margin may not be as good as leased/operated hotel too. They expect a 60% to 70% top line growth for 2007, which is reasonable. But that may not satisfy the lofty expectation from the Street.

Tags HMIN, home-inns, jinjiang-inn

China

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

Post author By stlplace
Post date March 6, 2007
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Last Updated on March 11, 2007 by stlplace

As an old saying goes (I hope mine could worth 100 words). I took this one at Beijing Airport. Did you notice the “retiring room”?

Tags retiring-room, sheng-jian-bao

Stocks

Holly Heelys

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Last Updated on March 7, 2007 by stlplace

Listened to Heelys first conference call over the Internet because I got waked up by the luggage delivery people at 5 AM. Now I got both luggages from the United Airline. I am happy despite they deliver it on strange time such as 12 AM or 5 AM. I do appreciate the delivery team’s hard work though.

Back to conference and Heelys earning report. The Q4 result is as good as I expected. You can see the number here. Although they did not give the guidance but in Q&A session they gave out the backlog as of Dec 31 06 is $ 50 m, which we could assume will be filled in Q1 07. So the Q1 07 result will also be good. Going forward they only say 20 to 25% in next few years. It’s probablly a very safe number for them.

Tags Heelys-earning-report, HLYS-earing-report

China

English Training Companies in Shanghai

Post author By stlplace
Post date March 6, 2007
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Last Updated on March 6, 2007 by stlplace

Heard about this Kai’en English from a colleague, they offer spoken English, Youth English, Business English, test preparation, etc.

Why English training is so hot? According to the S1 prospectus of Xinhua Finance Media, page 108 (under Radio section), “the average wages of Chinese employees with advanced and intermediate levels of English are 72.5% and 24.3% higher than those with basic levels of English, respectively”. By the way, I listened its “Easy FM” here in Shanghai, and I think it’s a good source to learn English.

One year training cost at WallStreet English is CNY 15,000, my colleague joked it’s CNY 50 per day. It’s mostly spoken English. It’s not small amount for average workers in China.

Tags English-training

China Stocks

Xinhua Finance Media IPO Update

Post author By stlplace
Post date March 6, 2007
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Last Updated on March 6, 2007 by stlplace

(Update 07Mar07) I saw an updated F1 prospectus at SEC web site. So I would assume the IPO is still on?

Just heard from a friend in the States, this is not offical, but the rumor is the IPO is called off. I assume the reason is the recent sell off of Chinese stocks inside and outside China scared lots of potential foreign buyers.

IPO is a very interesting game for issuing companies, underwriters and buying institutions. Companies do the road show and get people excited. They also talked to underwriter to determine the issuing prices. The underwriters bought all these shares from companies at the issuing price and sell those shares to institutions (a.k.a, their buddies). They receive a fee from this transaction.

Tags XFML, Xinhua-Finance-Media