Month: July 2014

Chinese PE Firms Too Tech-Focused: Report. AsianInvestor

Leave a Comment / December 5, 2014

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Chinese PE firms too tech-focused: report

By Elva Muk | 28 July 2014

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Company valuations are being pushed up as PE firms chase the same targets, and market domination by big players like Alibaba is squeezing profit, says China First Capital.

Spurred by the success of the likes of Tencent and Alibaba, Chinese private equity and venture capital firms have become too focused on technology and e-commerce investments, argues a new report.

Nearly all publicly announced deals this year have been in the technology sector, says the China Private Equity 2014 report from China First Capital, a private capital markets advisory firm. They include online shopping sites and mobile travel, game and taxi-booking services.

Though China has restarted its initial public offering process after a hiatus of more than a year, US listing also provides an effective way for PE firms to exit their investments. Chinese internet and mobile companies Zhaopin, Cheetah Mobile, Sina Weibo and Qihoo 360 have already floated in the US market this year.

Though Tencent and Alibaba are shining examples of success, the investment outlook for newly established technology companies may not be as rosy, the report says. These firms do not enjoy a technological barrier to entry and rely “on the same prayer-for-low-profitability outcome: a purchase down the road by China’s two internet leviathans, Tencent or Alibaba”.

But China First Capital forecasts that the duo will soon lose their appetite for buying smaller Chinese internet firms.

Moreover, domination by the major players has squeezed the growth potential of newcomers. Alibaba commands close to 50% market share of the country’s online shopping in terms of transaction volume, while Tencent is similarly dominant in online gaming. Almost all the money goes to these two firms, the report notes.

Further, the investment landscape in China is less dynamic than some elsewhere. The US has a greater number of venture capital trade buyers for successful VC-backed companies, and less monopolistic internet and mobile industries and a richer early adaptor market to tap, the report notes.

In China over the past two years, PE firms have invested heavily in Chinese shopping sites that follow a model similar to Groupon. However, some projects have lost money because monetising the sites has proved difficult.

Another obstacle in China for private equity in building up investment is the high cost of acquiring clients. In most VC-backed companies in the US, the head of business development is responsible for generating growth at the cheapest cost.

This approach is uncommon in China. A typical method of acquiring customers in the mainland is to pay for a high-ranked listing on search engine Baidu, which handles over 60% of search requests in the country.

“The ‘pay to play’ rules of China’s internet [industry] lead to companies taking lots of expensive shortcuts, often burning a lot of PE and VC firms’ cash,” the report said.

Further, PE firms are chasing the same investment themes and companies, resulting in rising valuations. “It is an ongoing example of inadequate diversification by industry or stage,” it added.

China’s PE capital raised has grown five-fold to over $100 billion since 2005, while the number of firms has grown to 1,000.

– Haymarket Media Limited. All rights reserved.

http://www.asianinvestor.net/News/388932,chinese-pe-firms-too-tech-focused-report.aspx

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Neue Zurcher Zeitung Interview

Leave a Comment / December 5, 2014

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Monday’s “Neue Zurcher Zeitung” of Switzerland published an article based on the interview I gave last week while in London with the newspaper’s financial editor Christof Leisinger. For those whose German is up to the task, click here to read the article in full.

To get a flavor of what we discussed, here are some of the quotes, in English:

“China has the world’s second largest economy and capital market. GPD growth and corporate earnings are both growing far faster than in OECD countries. And yet, global institutional capital is in almost all cases seriously underweight China. How to explain this? Simple, there are just too few attractive and legal ways for international capital to invest in China.

“The Chinese companies quoted in the US and Hong Kong mainly come from two unrepresentative pools: large, slower-growing Chinese state-owned companies, and internet and mobile services “concept” stocks often with limited revenues and profits. The powerful engine of long-term economic growth in China, its millions of successful private sector entrepreneur-founded businesses serving domestic market, are almost all off-limits to non-Chinese investors. To invest, you need state approval to buy Renminbi and later permission to convert back into dollars, Euros or other freely-tradable currencies.

“China no longer especially needs or wants Western capital to finance its economic growth. The best way now to invest in China, to increase allocation there,  is probably through M&A, by putting money into US or European companies that are aggressively acquiring good Chinese private sector ones.”

“Overall, the country is doing an excellent job managing the transition from export-reliance to domestic consumption, a economic challenge Germany is still struggling with. The Chinese economy has undergone enormous structural change over the last five years, most of it positive, with more and more of economic activity coming from the private sector, rather than state-owned one, from producing and selling products to satisfy the needs of  China’s 1 billion consumers rather than those of Wal-Mart shoppers in the US.

“On the macro level I do not expect any big change anytime soon, no free convertibility for the Renminbi. But, more quietly and pragmatically, the Chinese government has solved a rather large problem related to this, by making it legal and simple now for every Chinese citizen to use Renminbi to buy up to $50,000 a year in dollars, to pay for travel, educating their children, or buy shares or other assets outside China. In other words, the capital account remains closed, but Chinese individually now have a lot of the benefits of free exchange between dollars and Renminbi. It’s one of the reasons the Champs d’Elysees and Bond Street are jammed with Chinese tourists.”

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