Public Company Pipeline

If your in Hong Kong, or if you’ll be in the neighborhood, you might want to drop by DealFlow Media’s International PIPEs Conference, which is set for April 8-10, 2008 at The Grand Hyatt.

This is a great place to get an idea of what’s in the pipeline of Chinese companies that want to come public.  

This three-day global event covers everything a company needs to know about finance and law pertaining to going public and raising capital.

Another nice touch is that the conference will be translated into English and Chinese.

Some highlights include these:

• Steve Zhu, Senior Partner, Allbright Law Offices will participate in a panel discussion covering international corporate finance and alternatives for the Asia-based company.

• Guang Xun Xu, Managing Director, NASDAQ Asia will participate in a panel discussion focusing on going public on international exchanges.

• Donald Straszheim, Vice Chairman, Roth Capital Partners gives a presentation covering currency and trade issues, the environment, investment inflows and outflows and all that drives China’s growth potential.

The conference should draw a large audience of institutional investors, investment bankers, attorneys, international business development executives, company management teams from china, representatives from international exchanges, investor relations professionals, and Chinese venture capital investors.

For more information about the conference visit: http://www.dealflowmedia.com or http://www.pipesconference.cn  

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Pyongyang Boogie

East Pyongyang Grand Theater

America’s most boring orchestra – the New York Philharmonic – landed in Pyongyang, North Korea today. It will spend two days the city, the highlight of which will be  a Tuesday concert at the refurbished East Pyongyang Grand Theater.

Word is that while the U.S. government has kept its distance from the visit, the Bush administration has made no secret of it hope that the Philharmonic’s trip will nudge North Korea toward greater openness and improve relations with China, the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

North Korea’s official media is likely to portray the concert as an overture by an archenemy to pay homage to the DPRK’s despotic leader Kim Jong-il instead of as a mission to promote goodwill.

As for the concert, the orchestra will play Gershwin, Dvorak and Wagner, not to mention the U.S. and North Korean national anthems. The show is supposed to be broadcast live on state-run radio and television - an unheard-of circumstance for a population that’s is used to rigid government censorship about events in the rest of the world.

And, in a special gesture, the orchestra plans to play a folk song deeply resonant for all Koreans - "Arirang" - as an encore.

The East Pyongyang Grand Theatre located on a bank of the River Taedong, which flows through Pyongyang.

The theatre underwent a formative and artistic renovations.

There’s no word now as to whether Kim will attend. It’s said that he rarely misses a chance to see Russian dancing girls when they make their rare trips to his reclusive country.

If he does attend, the question will be whether he’s sober enough to sit through the show and if he’ll bring one of his many teenaged “girlfriends.”

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Space Shot

Japan launched a rocket Saturday carrying a satellite that may change the world… and even force lame U.S. Internet providers such as Comcast and Verizon to the join the 21 Century.

Launched from the Yoshinobu Complex at the Tanegashima Space Center, the satellite is set to test a new technology. It’s one that that promises to deliver super high-speed Internet service to homes and businesses around the world.

If the WINDS satellite test works out, U.S. Internet users could join their Asian counterparts, such as the Japanese, who now employ the Internet at speeds that allow full-screen video broadcasts, rocking audio, stellar gaming along with warp-speed downloads and communications for businesses.

But, you can understand why the U.S. cable and utilities industries only offer last-century technologies. Giving you access to the Internet’s awesome power would slice into cable-TV profits.

The joint project of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries could change all that.

If the technology proves successful, subscribers with small dishes would connect to the Internet at speeds of up to 1.2 gigabytes per second.

But, the real advantage to the system will be felt globally.

You see, the little dishes will allow for great advances in tele-medicine. It will bring high-quality medical treatment to remote areas. It will also allow serious distance education that connects students even in the world’s most remote corners to the best teachers and best minds.

This yet another sign of how U.S. corporations' shareholder-sanctioned culture of immediate gratification will cause the U.S. to fall farther and farther behind as the global economy unfolds.

Dumb!

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Chip Shot

The lie was rancid, but I still made solid contact.  You have to get your swings in when you can this year as the never-ending winter continues here in Boston.

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Bank Shots

Money guys always get it right.

Not that you have to love your banker. Or even admire or endorse a banker’s spurious actions, such as lending money to Nazis to build steel mills. Then, turning around and using the wealth the loans helped generated to establish a family political dynasty.

But, imbued with a cold heart, a good banker knows those beans he’s counting can grow into bushes… lots of bushes.

That’s why it should come a no surprise that Chinese bankers have found a way to strike a deal with their counterparts on Taiwan… even though their governments continue to point missiles at each other.

The most recent case of smart moneymen driving good policy happened overnight (Feb. 22) when Taiwan and China reached a deal that allows Taiwanese banks to buy stakes mainland banks through subsidiaries in Hong Kong.

This, by the way, is an important milestone and another move toward smoother cross-strait economic ties.

Taiwanese companies are among the biggest foreign investors in China, with more than $150 billion in assets. But, Taiwan law bans banks from investing in China.

Now, regulators in Taipei and Beijing will allow a scheme in which Fubon Bank – a big Taiwanese lender – takes a 20% stake in Xiamen Commercial Bank through Fubon’s Hong Kong subsidiary.

This deal, however, will not close for at least a month. That’s because China’s central government detests Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian. But, he’s set to retire (and on some nice fat corrupt gains, too) after Taiwan’s March 22 island-wide elections.

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Shooting Snoopers

Hey man, nice shot.

But, do you really believe that concerns about the fatal consequences of human exposure to thawed hydrazine fuel is what drove U.S. President George Bush to authorize his navy to shoot down a crippled American spy satellite, and in the middle of Wednesday’s lunar eclipse to boot?

Come on. The real reason the President had the fair chunk of the Navy and civilian contractors hard at work during the past few weeks re-tasking the missile was quite simple and totally in character.

He simply wanted to poke China in the eye. Show ‘em there’s a bit of cowboy under that giant hat. That if they could shoot down a satellite he could too. 

Of course the Chinese hit a target 600 miles above the earth... what the U.S. did Wednesday night was a lob-wedge sot compared to that.  

None the less the missile shot was great news to the silent minority of Americans who worry that the U.S. doesn’t spend nearly enough money on its defense budget. That at half a trillion dollars a year doesn’t buy what it used to.

It was great news as well to defense contractors. Fear of China will mean a huge expansion of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The first stage of which is already taking place on Guam.  

One of those contractors, Lockheed Martin, was full of itself on Thursday because it make the MK41 missile launcher, used Wednesday,at its Middle River, Maryland plant. The company has sold the Navy its launchers since 1984. Today it also sells them to 11 foreign governments.

The reason for the shoot down was that the spy satellite fatally malfunctioned from just the about the first moment it entered earth orbit.

Of course, that's something Lockheed doesn't want to talk about. 

You see, it built the satellite.

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CHINALCO DEAL: Bigger Than Mr. Softy

To heck with Microsoft and Yahoo!

Chinalco’s attempted takeover of Rio Tinto is the real game… especially when you consider Yahoo! will never go for the Microsoft deal as structured, even though it should.

With Alcoa as a very junior partner in the deal… Chinalco, aka Aluminum Corporation of China,  just bought 12% of Rio for $14 billion… $60 a share… a 20% premium.

This will likely screw BHP Billiton, which has bid $130 billion for all of Rio. It puts Chinalco in place to takeover all of Rio, unless BHP wants to get crazy and pay the premium… add another $30 billion or so to its bid just for starters.

The Chinese — via Chinalco — stepped to the plate because they were worried that a BHP takeover of Rio would give BHP total control of the Australian iron ore industry, which supplies China.

This has big-time global implications because now Chinalco will control Australian iron ore.

Its play is the largest ever Chinese outbound investment and the largest ever cross-border deal involving a Chinese company.

It shows that the Chinese are not only well funded, but are hot to protect their resources stream… expect more… and, there’s not a thing that Sen. Chuck Schumer and his merry band of U.S.-based anti-globalists can do about this.

Stay tuned for what the Aussies think of this.

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