China tech investment

China Merchants Steams in to Compete with SoftBank’s Vision Fund — Financial Times

Leave a Comment / August 9, 2020

 

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China Merchants Group has been adopting new technology to resist foreign competitors for nearly 150 years. Founded in the 19th century, the company brought steam shipping to China so it could compete with western traders.

Now an arm of the Chinese state, CMG has been enlisted once again to buy up technology at a time when global private equity is vying for a share of China’s burgeoning tech market.

The country’s largest and oldest state-owned enterprise, CMG said this month it would partner with a London-based firm to raise a Rmb100bn ($15bn) fund mainly focused on investing in Chinese start-ups.

The China New Era Technology Fund will be launched into direct competition with the likes of SoftBank’s $100bn Vision Fund, as well as other huge investment vehicles raised by top global private equity houses such as Sequoia Capital, Carlyle, KKR and Hillhouse Capital Management.

“They have been very important to China in the past, especially in reform,” said Li Wei, a professor of economics at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing. “But you haven’t heard much about them in technology . . . It’s not too surprising to see them moving into this area, upgrading themselves once again.”

CMG is already one of the world’s largest investors. Since the start of 2015 its investment arm China Merchants Capital, which will oversee the New Era fund, has launched 31 funds aiming to raise a combined total of at least $52bn, according to publicly disclosed information.

But experts say little is known about the returns of those funds, most of which have been launched in co-operation with other local governments or state companies.

Before New Era, China Merchants Capital’s largest fund was a Rmb60bn vehicle launched with China Construction Bank in 2016. While almost no information is available on its investment activity, the fund said it would focus on high-tech, manufacturing and medical tech.

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CMG’s experience investing directly into Chinese tech groups is limited, although it has taken part in the fundraising of several high-profile companies. In 2015 China Merchants Bank joined Apple, Tencent and Ant Financial to invest a combined $2.5bn into ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing, a company that now touts an $80bn valuation. It also invested in ecommerce logistics provider SF Express in 2013.

Success in Chinese tech investing is set to become increasingly difficult as more capital pours into the sector.

“Fifteen billion dollars can seem like a droplet in China,” said Peter Fuhrman, chairman and chief executive of tech-focused investment banking group China First Capital, based in Shenzhen. “We’re all bobbing in an ocean of risk capital. Still, one can’t but wonder, given the quite so-so cash returns from China high-tech investing, if all this money will find investable opportunities, and if there weren’t more productive uses for at least some of all this bounty.”

CMG, however, has always set itself apart from the rest of the country’s state groups. It is unlike any other company under the control of the Chinese government as it was founded before the Chinese Communist party and is based in Hong Kong, outside mainland China. Recommended Banks China Merchants Bank accused of US discrimination

The business was launched in 1872 as China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, a logistics and shipping joint-stock company formed between Chinese merchants based in China’s bustling port cities and the Qing dynasty court.

Mirroring its New Era fund today, it was designed to compete for technology with foreign rivals. At that time it was focused on obtaining steam transport technology to “counter the inroads of western steam shipping in Chinese coastal trade”, according to research by University of Queensland professor Chi-Kong Lai.

Nearly a century later, after falling under the control of the Chinese government, CMG became the single most important company in the early development of the city of Shenzhen, China’s so-called “window to the world” as it opened to the west.

Then led by former intelligence officer and guerrilla soldier Yuan Geng, the company used its base in Hong Kong to attract some of the first investors from the British-controlled city into the small Chinese town of Shenzhen, which has since grown into one of the world’s largest manufacturing hubs.

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Its work in opening China to global investment gained CMG and Yuan, who led the company until the early 1990s, status as leading figures in the country’s reform era.

Today the company is a sprawling state conglomerate with $1.1tn in assets and holdings in real estate, ports, shipping, banking, asset management, toll roads and even healthcare. The company has 46 ports in 18 countries, according to the state-run People’s Daily, with deals last year in the sector including the controversial takeover of the Hambantota terminal in Sri Lanka and the $924m acquisition of Brazilian operator TCP Participações.

CMG did not respond to requests for comment. But one person who has advised it on overseas investments said the Chinese government was using it in the same way the company opened up Shenzhen to the outside world, helping “unlock foreign markets”.

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https://www.ft.com/content/e7e81928-7f57-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d


 

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China’s New Plan for Silicon Valley Partnerships — Global Times

Leave a Comment / August 11, 2020

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The once-sizzling romance between China and Silicon Valley has cooled rather dramatically. This has some potentially serious consequences for both sides, but especially for China, which desires to invest in and gain access to some of the hottest new ideas from this cradle of innovation. A new strategy is needed.

Until recently, Chinese investment funds and companies were investing hundreds of millions of dollars every year into promising Silicon Valley start-ups, as part of a strategy to forge closer ties between the US high-technology sector and the large Chinese market. But the flow of funds has largely dried up.

There are two main reasons. First, Chinese regulators imposed new restrictions on large overseas investments. Second, the US government began to take a less friendly attitude toward Chinese technology investment in the US, killing several proposed deals and holding up approval on many others.

There is every sign that things in the US are going to get more restrictive rather than less. As someone convinced of mutual benefits from Chinese investment in US technology, it all seems highly counterproductive. The world needs more deep and extensive ties between the Chinese and the US high-technology world, not just in start-up investing but also in university research and scientific conferences, shared research and development (R&D) labs, and partnerships among large companies working in hot fields like semiconductors, robotics, artificial intelligence and clean energy.

What can China do? Rather than sending money out, it can encourage more US high-technology start-ups to relocate to China. There is a huge amount to be gained, both for China’s continuing industrial upgrading and for innovative US technology companies looking to grow into giants.

China has in abundance the most vital ingredients for technology start-up success:  capital, a market and talented managers and engineers. In many industries, for example advanced manufacturing, robotics and new battery technologies, China often has more to offer technology companies than the US.

China already has lured a lot of Chinese-born scientists and technologists back from Silicon Valley to open start-ups. The next step is to lure some of the best early-stage US technology companies to China. This addresses a big weakness in the US high-technology scene: companies there tend to view the China market as an after-thought. In reality, it is often the market most worth prioritizing.

I’m seeing how well all this can work on the ground. We’re helping a promising US robotics company build its future in China. It is establishing a Chinese company as its main asset and moving some of its core team to China. It expects to add many more staff in China. The breakthrough product it’s now perfecting has a huge potential market in China’s manufacturing industry.

Originally, this company was aiming to find investors in China to help it grow in Ohio. We helped explain why bringing the company to China would make a lot more sense. The company is applying for R&D grants as well as venture capital in China. Within a 100-kilometer radius of its future base in Shenzhen, South China’s Guangdong Province is the largest concentration of potential customers and partners in the world.

We foresee big mutual gains if China can attract many more exciting early-stage technology companies. They  will create jobs, pay taxes and invest in local R&D. The benefits to China should be far larger than just buying some shares in a technology company based in Silicon Valley.

The objective isn’t to evade US rules but to bring start-ups early in their growth stage to the market where the demand is greatest. Technology companies do best when they sit close to the biggest concentration of customers.

The Chinese government has already said it wants to make the country more of a magnet for global technology talent. Shenzhen is a great city for US start-ups to grow big.

The steep drop in Chinese investment in Silicon Valley may actually prove a blessing in disguise. It’s smart to keep more of that capital at home to invest in great technology companies in China. Many US technology start-ups will achieve far more, and far more quickly, if they make China their future home.

The author is Chairman and CEO of China First Capital.

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1061519.shtml

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