stlplaceLast Updated on February 14, 2007 by stlplace
Google Checkout is doing promotion again. I found this while I Googled “Heelys”. Here are the links for Heelys. I think the $10 off can be applied to other things too. A gift from Google for your V-day.
Sports Authority, Dick’s Sporting Goods
By the way, I visited couple Sports Authority stores and Dick’s recently, and some ran out of Heelys. So online may be a good source.
Last Updated on February 14, 2007 by stlplace
“China’s Motel168, one of the country’s three biggest budget hotel chains, plans to raise about $100 million through an initial public offering on Nasdaq, sources familiar with the plan said on Wednesday.
Motel168, controlled by privately run Shanghai hotel and restaurant manager Merrylin Holdings Ltd., has hired Wall Street investment bank Morgan Stanley (MS.N: Quote, Profile , Research) to advise it on the IPO, planned for the third quarter of this year, the sources said.
Morgan Stanley is also a major shareholder in Motel168 after an investment arm of the bank paid $20 million for a 20 percent stake in late 2005, the sources said.
“Motel168 is hungry for capital now as it has to compete with Home Inns, Jinjiang Inn and other rivals for aggressive land purchases to build more hotels,” said one Shanghai-based source close to Motel168.
“If you don’t speed up, then you lose market share and soon you will be completely out of the race,” said the source, who declined to be identified before an official announcement.”
Wang Jianshuo has a good review about motel 168 in his blog.
Last Updated on February 13, 2007 by stlplace
Blue Nile, a leading diamond ring online retailer. I vaguely remember one of my friends bought the wedding ring from them a while ago (before the company went public in 2004). The company has an interesting story: the founder went to a tradtional jewery store to buy the ring for his financee, he felt he was not treated well by the associates. So he did some research and started his own venture.
The Knot, I heard this name from Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC’s “Mad Money”. One of the founders by a Chinese American (husband). He started the business with his wife. The reason they started is when they were gettting married, they found the whole thing is just too overwelming. So they started this web site to help people “to be married”.
Last Updated on February 13, 2007 by stlplace
I listened to the conference call of Sohu and Ctrip lately. Not surprisingly, both companies mentioned the positive effect of 2008 Beijing Olympics. Sohu is the Internet content service sponsor, and Ctrip should enjoy the booming of China travel industry before Olympics. But I think this Olympics effect is already priced in the stocks, and to make things worrysome, the effect may not turn out as big as people thought. The SOHU and CTRP stocks got punished partly because of this “irrational exuberance”.
On the other hand, Chinese economy is still in fast growth mode and I am bullish on some of the companies whose growth does not solely depend on Olympics. Or at least their PR person does not mention Olympics all the time 🙂
Last Updated on February 14, 2007 by stlplace
(Update 14Feb07) SeekingAlpha has a consumer survey on Dell, HP and Gateway.
Gateway computer? What’s that? We all know Dell, HP, IBM or Lenovo thinkpad, but not Gateway. Well, I remember Gateway computer because around 1997 and 1998, the PCs in my school are all Gateway branded. Gateway is a PC maker started in Iowa farms in 1985 and got big in 90s. Its consumer PC and laptop are sold in Best Buy and Circuity City nowadays. The company did not do well in recent years because of its own mistakes and the intense competition of PC industry. Now with the release of Windows Vista, it get a chance to turn around. I am summerizing some of the plus for Gateway:
1) It has more products for consumers (than business). The expectation is consumer will adopt Vista faster than the Business.
2) In last Friday’s Q4 result it announced additional cost cutting measures (bad for employees), saving additional $25 m. Good for investors.
3) Last but not least, it did pretty bad lately. I am not sure if it hit bottom yet but its 06 Revenue only slightly exceeded 05. And its Q4 06 revenue is light compared to same Q 05. At this moment, any positive will be good news.
Last Updated on February 11, 2007 by stlplace
I was a bit surprised to see Dixie Chicks won the “album of the year” award. I was happy because it’s a band I like. I got the “Taking the long way” CD last May when it was just out with lots of controversy. I guess the CD sales will soar and the price will go up 🙂
For the Dixie Chicks trio, this is especially rewarding after been virtually shut out from main stream media after the UK concert incident. I don’t want to talk about politics here. But I think in career, in investing, or in business, we will get written off by other people from time to time. The sweetest feeling is later on we prove ourselves through the hard work. This is not revenge; this is redemption.
Last Updated on February 11, 2007 by stlplace
This is an interesting statistics of the world assets by geography, courtesy of My Money Blog. I remember from Jeremy Siegal’s recent book “The Future for Investors”, one trend is the emerging middle class in developing countries (Brazil, China, India etc.) are going to buy assets from the “baby boomers” in the developed economies. In other words, maybe 20 years from now, 5% of Microsoft will be owned by Chinese and Indians. This also reminded me one more number, the saving rate in China is 50%, and the US saving rate last year is -2%. Note the interest rate in China is quite low, and investment options are not plenty. The Chinese domestic stock market is taking off lately, but I think many people will buy foreign equities if the Yuan (RMB) become a hard currency.
This is even more interesting considering many foreign funds are buying Chinese stocks lately.
Last Updated on February 10, 2007 by stlplace
There are many benifits for a company to go public, otherwise why so many Chinese companies came to the Wall Street in recent years. But on the other hand, if a company came to public just for the sake of “listed in NYSE or Nasdaq”, there may be something wrong here. There are many rising stars and fallen heros among Chinese Internet companies in past few years, after Sina, Sohu and Netease came in the dot com era. Some of the notable ones include JOBS, SNDA, and BIDU. In all these cases the CEO of the company seemed worked too hard for Wall Street, and then made big mis-step.
I think for the long term, companies will be better served if CEOs can step back from the impatient Wall Street for a while. Just like in the dance, they should be the leaders, rather than let the Wall Street lead them. That is of course assume they know what they are doing.
Last Updated on December 12, 2007 by stlplace
This is probablly the hottest IPO this year (so far). It went up 89% on its debut. But I did not jump into it because: 1) I don’t have much cash; 2) Hedge fund is the business I don’t know too much about.
I am not against shorting stocks, trading options and other exotic stuff; but these are the areas I don’t feel comfortable (math, lots of math) and don’t plan to learn it at this time. I am just an old fashioned guy, and my role model is the guy in Omaha. One of his rule is “buy the business you can understand; and the business that generates lots of cash and does not change too much over the years, e.g., Coca Cola and Gillette”.
Interestly, Mr. Duan Yongping, the legendary figure in China electronics industry, is also learning Buffett’s philosophy these days.
Last Updated on February 9, 2007 by stlplace
The following is from Reuters. I have not seen the final prospectus from SEC web site yet.
“HONG KONG, Feb 9 (Reuters) – Investors and New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. (EDU.N: Quote, Profile , Research), China’s largest education group, and its investors have raised US$334 million after pricing 8.05 million American Depositary Shares at a 1.78 percent discount to its last closing price.
Investors including Tiger Global and the founder of New Oriental sold the shares at US$41.5 apiece.
The shares sold comprised 92 percent of existing shares and 8 percent of new shares, the source said.”
(Update 09Feb07) The prospectus is here. If you look carefully at the “selling shareholders” section, you will find “Tigerstep Developments Limited, a company incorporated in British Virgin Islands, is wholly owned by Bamei Li, mother of Michael Minhong Yu”. Yu’s mom is probablly the richest grandma in China 🙂