Wikipedia Chinese blogger conference in Hong Kong

The most exciting thing to attend the conference is to see Jimmy Wales, thehedge-fund-manager-turned-non-profit-organization-founder. I am just a huge fun of him. So when i talked with him, I feel I even stammered to speak. bad, bad, bad, just because I am too nervous or what?

I agree with lawrence Li (in chinese) that the conference is a little bit boring, though my job as a volunteer was really chanllenging. Could you imagine doing a real time translation for a five-person panel discussion? Everyone speak fast and love to challenge each other. More terrible, four of the five person are non-native English speakers, and it makes harder to translate other people's secondary language. I was almost crazy. Will never do it again...... just for wiki this time.....



The content in the panel discussion is boring: why Chinese government blocked the wiki? everyone was guessing, while someone tried to explan from a Hong Kong perspective. Most of the speakers, except Jimmy Wales, tried to connect it to the democracy in Hong Kong, and BTW, most of them, except Jimmy Wales, are just occasional Wiki readers or never use Wiki before. The whole topic is a little out of way.... It is more important to talk on some practical topics, say, how to solve the problem, or how to make more mainland Chinese contribute. When a young college student standed up to give his idea which is to set up a version of Wiki without politics, two of the speakers even refused immediately: "You are self censorship yourself". What? at least that young student is thinking of some creative way, not even like someone just sitting there to judge others' creative idea all the time.

Anyway, Jimmy Wales is so cool. And I just like like like him. here is the photo. Am I a lucky girl to be shooted together with him?

google and blogger

Google.com has started to let its gmail user log on blogger.com......automatically....... Frankly speaking, I hate it. Come on, I am already the user of blogger.com and gmail.com. Now with my gmail opening, I have to log out first when i go to the blogger.com and then log in again. Troublesome.

It is not a google way. in my concept way, google should be cool, cool, cool. It just needs to attract users by excellent services such as google map, gmail, google talk and so on. But not by forcing users using the service under the same account...automatically......

Just want to say another thing but first annoyed by the above things.

An employee of baidu.com was killed by the door guard after she finished the work in the midnight. It was late then, almost the midnight, so she just slept in the company, while the door guard, a bad guard, went inside trying to rape her. However, the girl resisted hardly and then the guard killed her. (Quote from the link in Chinese)

It was not about Baidu.com, though it may be be that popular online if it is another company. but the security is just so bad, even guard will do illegal things. When economy develops quickly, people miss a lot of other things, such as ethics.

The old China has various rules on ethics; though they are old, they are still useful in maintain the peace in the society. or the society will expand too fast, just like a balloon, and finally.....booh..boo... bo....

do people care about China's capital market?

I've been writing on China's capital market in English for a while, especially in the stock market. A question remaining in the mind is if English readers do care about this market. Frankly speaking, China's market is still a domestic market, while players are all, or mostly Chinese. So why people still want to read the news in English? Do English readers care about a Chinese company buying another Chinese company, or a Chinese tycoon has been punished?

I am still on my way to find the answer. However, a lot of media have been trying to do that. Have a look at Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and even Times magazine. A lot of stories on Chinese companies. Nobody did it before, so everyone wants to be the pioneer. It's not easy, especially for reporters. They have to be familiar with both side, Chinese side and English side, to find a way to cover interesting stories.

But I still wonder if people really care. Anyone has idea?

Chinese Wikimedia conference 2006 in Hong Kong

Chinese Wikimedia Conference 2006 will be held in Hong Kong from August 26 to August 27. I almost missed it as I was so busy with my job these days. However, Luckily, I found it just before the conference, and thought it would be interesting to attend and volunteer there.

Wiki grows fast. I first heard about it in 2004, when it was pretty new with only a few users. Now, it is so big, covering every corner of the world. I am not sure if the Chinese bloggers are more active now, maybe not as active as in the English version. But I believe people will soon fall in love with it.

If you just drop by HK in the period, come to the conference and have fun.

Say something for Carlyle Group

As one of the biggest and government official-backed private equity funds in U.S., Carlyle may be already used to political pressure. But I couldn't quite understand why it faces so much hurdle in its deal in China.

I remembered cleard a classmate from U.S. once told me the nationalism among Chinese is very dangerous. I was angry to hear that at first, but then found the words had a point. In fact, as Chinese suffered a lot in the war before 1950s, they knew they have to love their nation as much as they can in order to survive. But the fact is that the country becomes bigger now, which means the nation needs to do things to strengthen herself, instead of just protecting herself. But most Chinese still hate Japan, though Japan has taught Chinese a lot of the industrilization and corporate governance. Governments, unfortunately, make use of this kind of nationalist to play on the politics.

Now, it is the same with foreign merge & acquistions in China. Government is afraid that it will lost control on the state-owned companies after selling stakes to foreign investors. So it tells people that it will do harm if foreign investors buy into the company. And then many people protest again, just like they did to the Japanese.

But people should try to investigate before making a judgement. Like Carlyle's deal to Xugong group, one of the biggest heave machine makers in China. Carlyle wants it, Xugong wants it, and even the local government wants it. Then why central government couldn't make a decion in the period as long as three months? Some competitors even said Xugong was sold cheaply. But that's not a reason, isn't it? When foreign investors first came to China in 1990s after Deng Xiaoping made the decision, they also thought China's things are cheap, the reason why they came and buy factories. Why people at that time didn't say the state-owned companies are sold cheap? More important, what Carlyle will bring will be a transparent governance system, which will be much better than a non-transparent company where a lot of bribery will happen?

I am not a Carlyle fun, but just want to make a balance when all the Chinese newspaper which blamed Carlyle all day and when Carlyle hasn't said anything. Today people even argued that Pacific Insurance, in which Carlyle bought a stake a few years before, was also sold cheap. Come on, a bread in China now is sold at least five times expensive compared with years ago, and why couldn't a company? If someone wants to sell and someone wants to buy, the deal should be made, and that's called market economy.

People's Bank of China blamed a business newspaper

It is rare for a Chinese government agency to blame a Chinese newspaper. But today I saw it(the link to the central bank's statement in Chinese) The annoucement said the central bank strongly blame the July 27 report on China Business News saying China could acommodate the yuan to increase by 5 percent in a year. The paper quoted an expert saying that China may first step increase 2 percent or 3 percent, and finally make a 5 percent rise. The central bank spokeman said the paper didn't check the accurancy of the sources properly.

The last sentence is the central bank strongly condemn this non-responsible operation of the paper.

Say first, currency is always the most important or sensitive topic for the central government. I still remember some foreign reporters were jailed due to reports on currencies. This time, it is about a Shanghai-based paper belonging to Shanghai Media Group, the second-largest media corp after CCTV. Unfortunately, the paper itself didn't live well these days as the group wants to sell it, though it reported a lot of interesting stories. As the first daily business newspaper in the mainland, it lacks a strong group to back up.

Behind the currency topis, I see the different situation for official media and non-official media to live in the current time. Foreign media always call all the mainland media official ones; in fact, it isn't true. For some of them such as China Business News and 21st century Herald, they are living on themselves, depending on good stories instead of government ties to survive. It is hard in terms of both revenue and reputation. Say how Central bank blames China Business News, you will know the difference. But it is those papers or media trying to bring fair business environment in China. Free media will help setting up a fair, transparent and stable securities market. Have a look at Hong Kong where media is free to say everything. It is hard to try in the current Chinese market, but someone trying now will become the hero.

bad Mozilla Firefox

When I first started to use Mozilla Firefox two year ago, I thought it is really cool. Sunny brand, plus convenient function of opening multiple pages in one window.

Now I really hate it especialy when I open the task manager and see how much space it took from my laptop's RAM.

The space Firefox takes seems bigger and bigger, or biggest of all. Basically, it loses the advantage as a thin tool. Of course, it adds much more function, but more complicated. To persons such as me who like simple things, Firefox becomes boring. Even today when I opened Asiaexpat.com, a website said it preferred Firefox, the software could only open half of the pages, and then stopped, saying "done".... what a stupid software la.

So I opened the IE to work on everything, though it is troublesome to open so many windows. hoho, back to something familiar, the feeling is not that bad.

I like simplie stuffs, finally found...

bad Mozilla Firefox

When I first started to use Mozilla Firefox two year ago, I thought it is really cool. Sunny brand, plus convenient function of opening multiple pages in one window.

Now I really hate it especialy when I open the task manager and see how much space it took from my laptop's RAM.

The space Firefox takes seems bigger and bigger, or biggest of all. Basically, it loses the advantage as a thin tool. Of course, it adds much more function, but more complicated. To persons such as me who like simple things, Firefox becomes boring. Even today when I opened Asiaexpat.com, a website said it preferred Firefox, the software could only open half of the pages, and then stopped, saying "done".... what a stupid software la.

So I opened the IE to work on everything, though it is troublesome to open so many windows. hoho, back to something familiar, the feeling is not that bad.

I like simplie stuffs, finally found...

Last week in BJ

Outside a bar in Shi Cha Hai, the most popular bar site in Beijing these days.

I really like BJ. People are nice, peaceful and open. The atmosphere just feels like home. Maybe I should seriously consider go back there.

Beautiful Hangzhou

Beautiful Hangzhou and West Lake, though I really had no time to enjoy. Run, run, run!!! flight, airport,hotel, airport, flight. Life is just a circle!!

Crazy Amy in a crazy Hong Kong

It' s always interesting to begin a new job, except that it always makes me crazy. New environment, new colleagues, new style and more important, new pressure. Am I a gongzuokuang, meaning crazy working type? I guess so. I could work for non-stop eight hours, and then water, and then another four hours. Even in the dream, I am still working.

Life is just like a box of chocalate and you never know what you will get from there. That's exactly true. Now what I get is a hard Swiss black chocolate. It is not easy to bite but really chanllenging. Also, you feel more and more sweet flavor for the process.

I've been thinking about the role of newspaper in the era nowadays. Peter Lynch, the famous fund manager, once said that newspaper is such a good and profitable business. Right then, but now so many competitors around the newspaper. For example, websites, companies don't need to release information to newspaper; instead put infos on the website. Another example, newswires who could operate for 24 hours and update every seconds.

So what will make a newspaper special? The content, the specific content, and the breaking content. That will make people curious to know the "new" thing from the newspaper, not the thing already given in the press release, not the repeating of the stock market annoucement. It is hard to maintain the principle as reporters are so easily attempted to do the easiest job. But newspapers have to maintain the principle, just as they have to maintain the balance way.

Something new, something I must get.

SCMP.com will provide free content

I've been hearing complaint from several friends on the website of South China Morning Post, the largest English newspaper in Hong Kong on its restriction of the free content. Now, according to reliable source, it will soon, only in a few days, allow readers to access to part of its content without subscribing the newspaper. (www.scmp.com)

Good news for those expats only reading English but caring about China. Congratulation, the paper has its first step to attract the online readers.

With more and more media covering China, the country has become a hottie among reporters and editors. Someone who has the vision to report the China in a balanced and neutral way will finally beat others. Hope the Post would be the one.

More people come in to the PCCW deal

Among the buyers of PCCW's assets, it became more crowded with three funds coming in, Ashmore Investment Management, Spinnaker Capital and Clearwater Capital Partners.

This is the most interesting deal process I have seen: more and more bidders(both small and big) , and higher and higher willing-to-be-exposed price. Are the assets too good to be omitted? Or people are just too optimistics? Or Richard Li is so friendly with everyone that his asset are a must-see?

The three funds, according to their websites, are expertised in investing in debt, especially in distressed debt(one of Amy's expertised area, too). Coincidently, the three are jointly bidding for undersea cable carrier Asia Netcom, which is exactly belonged to the category "distressed debt", from China Netcom and its Beijing parent. It is said that the three will give Asia Netcom three years before a final solution. If the three also bought PCCW's alive assets, would three years too long?

Among PCCW's assets, the fastest growth comes from Now Broadband TV. It certainly beated other cable operators in terms of user number, and reported a good result in the PCCW's annual report 2005. I would call the service "alive asset", which will not be the right investment category for the three funds.(So why are they here?)

So now three groups, Macquarie, Newbridge and the three-fund consortium, are in the queue. Any further one coming into this fake game?

Big bet today(just for my readers):

If I were the banker, I will approach Mr. Rupert Murdoch, who just sold 20 percent stake of Hong Kong-based Pheniox TV to China Mobile, suggesting him to buy the Now broadband TV. It will be a good choice for the Australian tycoon to buy the opportunity in the growing cable TV market in Hong Kong, and thus opening the market in China as a result. Plus, he has the cash now from China Mobile.

Big belief today:
China Netcom will never allow any foreign companies buying the whole PCCW telecom network. In the political thinking, it must be in this way. So the choices remain with China Netcom: one is to buy PCCW itself in a decent way(isn't that many bankers planning to advise China Netcom) , or the other is to refuse and never cooperate with anyone.

Interesting findings today:

Lehman's relations

Rob Petty, the managing partner of Clearwater Capital Partners LLC, based in New York, once worked with Lehman Brothers, the advisor to PCCW on the deal, for 12 years. Lehman also worked with Ashmore on raising the funds. Hmmm, financial world is always small.....

PCCW's sale may be only a camouflage

The most breaking news in town these days is Tycoon Richard Li Tzar-kai, the biggest shareholder of PCCW, plans to sell the company's telecom assets, including broadband, mobile, wireless and TV services,(see PCCW's annual report here) ,possibly to one of the two private equity funds, one is Australia-based Macquarie Bank, and another is U.S. Newsbridge Capital.

People's attention was suddenly attracted to PCCW's rising share price, and the deal price, reportedly over HK$60 billion; Unfortunately, no one thinks on the other side: why the two private equity funds exposed their interests in PCCW, so early before any decision come? Any specific purpose to publicize it so quickly?

Private equity funds are famous for their deep pocket, and more importantly, beating return. Macquiarie Bank said on their website that the average return was 28 percent for its total portofolio by the end of 2004. Normally, the funds usually buy part or the whole stake in a company before restructuring it and selling out in three to five years.

So let's now guess the plan the two private equity funds are making on the PCCW deal right now. Maybe they see the trend for Hong Kong telecom operators to merge together in the future ten years, and make the assumption that PCCW, the biggest fixed line operator, will stay at last. They will have two options then: one is to list the assets on the stock market, possible, but difficult as it is hard to expect the situation of the stock market at that time: another option is to sell it to another party. In Hong Kong, except for Li's family, the only possibly buyers with enough capital are the mainland telecom companies including China Netcom. (China Mobile, which already bought a small HK operator, raised the example for further buying out from the four rich state-owned tele companies)

The plan sounds good, but unfortunately, China Netcom, the already second biggest telecom operator with 20 percent stake, couldn't agree on selling assets which will charge it more in the future. Off the record, I believe it has the assignment from the Ministry of Information Industry to do something in Hong Kong, the reason it doesn't want to make money from any share deals. Its spokeman also said it never plans to make money from the PCCW's stake.

So both Macquarie Bank and Newsbridge are facing a deal that will upset future buyers, which is unwise to do. Plus, HK$60 billion is not a small number to both parties. Newsbridge's total managed assets in the world is only US$3.2 billion, or nearly HK$ 25 billion, accounting for less than a half of the reported price on PCCW's assets, according to its website.(Macquarie's asset number couldn't be found)

Then, the only result I could get is that nothing will happen, except for the rising up stock price of PCCW. (Or maybe some secret deal between PCCW and China Netcom)

(Update on June 24 for some grammar mistake)

China's Best Banks

One of my blog's readers sent me a letter asking for China's banking sector, while I always has conservative words to say. Banking stocks are the most popular stocks in the Hong Kong stock market, but in fact, investors, especially retail investors, had no idea about the bank espcially the brick-like IPO books. Dangerous to invest in some companies nothing familiar except for the name is really dangerous.

(P.S. the names for Chinese state-owned banks are really famous these days. I met someone from Germany a few days before, where he could recite all Big Four's names. Lol, isn't that amazing)

I will talk about some real experience in using the service of the banks, which I always believe will be helpful in choosing stocks and make long-term investments.

China Merchants Bank, is the best bank I've ever met. Its retail service will not be worse than, or even better than the HSBC, the largest retail bank in Hong Kong. As a new bank originated from the young city Shenzhen, China Merchants clearly develops its advantage on the high quality of the service as well as its good online system. With easy clicks, one could do everything on the lender's website. Also, its credit card is the best, too, and almost every of my friends living in big cities have one CMB credit card. I remember I received the short message confirming a deal on my mobile phone just 30 seconds after I paid on the counter using the card. Isn't the speed amazing?

The CMB's logan is most interesting "we are everywhere", and it does.

China CITIC bank and China Everbright Bank, the two mid-size lenders due to be listed in Hong Kong in 2006: I once used the card of CITIC banks, hmmm, how to say, not that comfortable, but required to use by the university to pay the tuition. Both belong to the conglomate group, but will that help?

Big Four:

Bank of China is good at its service in foreign currency service. Hong Kong investors are enthusiastic about its stock partly because Bank of China's Hong Kong branch has done a good job. Many friends used the account in BOC to buy U.S. dollars. If Bank of China has departed its foreign currency service, I will definitely invest.

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China: big,big,big. but in fact, never use its service before. Just too far away from me.

Agricultural Bank of China: farmers know the brand better than me. But it just want to escape from this special advantage. Come on, agricultural services could make a lot of money if you could focus on it.

China Construction Bank: the relatively smaller size made it flexible. One of its most famous serivice is to pay electronic and water bills. But I always have to queue up to pay them as there are so many people.

"Good housewives couldn't cook without rice", but with so many options in banks these days, why not go to China to test the services? All in all, it's the only and most effective way to know your investment.

Mainland Chinese telecom operators enter into the real capital market

Among all the Chinese state-owned companies listed in Hong Kong, the telecom sector have exposed most to the capital market. especially these days.

China Mobile: acquistions overseas, such as buying into Millicom and Pakistian Telecom.

Comment: Good way to expand, but the operator's lack of experience in overseas market may trigger the crisis in the management of new merged companies.

China Unicom: South Korea Telecom is in talks to buy 10 percent stake of China Unicom, possibly in the form of buying new issue covertible bonds.

Comment: Will the deal help with the performance of China Unicom? I wonder. 10 percent stake will not certainly improve the service as well as expanding the market share.

China Netcom: Australia-based Macquarie Bank may spend 40 billion HK dollars to buy the telecom assets of PCCW in which China Netcom has a 20 percent stake.

Comment: I guess PCCW is doing this to press on China Netcom, the second largest shareholder, to join the bid, but China Netcom may not want to do this, especially after Edward Tian suning, famous for his skill on capital market, left the company.

China Telecom: nothing has happened yet, as its performance isn't good these days. But I believe Wang Xiaochu, the former chairman of China Mobile, will do something soon.

One of my friends writing a "Gossip" finance column once did research on the places where state-owned companies held the annual group meeting. He found that all four telecom companies moved the place to Hong Kong from Beijing, which is unlike from giant companies. In my view, holding the AGM in HK at lease shows the company wish to expose to the capital market.

Now is the telecom sector, my next bet is the banking sector, active in M&A market in the next ten years.

I am in Nanjing

I am on a business trip to Nanjing now. Thing really change fast here.( I guess so do the other cities in China).

Picture: my little sister(not in a real family relation) and me in a coffee bar in the Interntional Trade Centre in Nanjing.

June 4, in Victoria Park, candela party

It has been raining these days, but I was impressed yesterday, when over 19000(official number) or 44000(non-offcial number) HK people went to Victoria Park to join the memorial pary for students died in June, 4, 1989. They were peaceful most of the time, but really enthusiastic when crying the slogan. (Picture will be uploaded soon). No matter what the truth is at that time, there HK people is respectful, for their 17-year persistance

breaking stories make brands, but then

It's always breaking stories making brands for media. I broke a story last week(link), then the next day, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and South China Morning Post all made a follow-up story. Moreover, New York Time quote the Standard in one of its stories, which really made me flattered.

It's always cool to break news in the business reporting. But on the other hand, business reporting has to be careful to be critical, not that close to your business sources. It's hard to balance. Reporters are always tempted to make the deal with business sources in getting first-hand news, but then hard to be neutral to balance various business bodies.

I need to be careful all the time..... remember....

The best cappuccino in Hong Kong

I had the best cappuccino in Hong Kong on Saturday, and along with a great blueberry cheese cake. The place is called Cova in Lee Gardens of Causeway Bay. (the introduction and the address could be found here from our paper).

The cappuccino is not as much sweet as others do, and there is no gap between the level of milk and the coffee, both two mixed pretty well. The Blueberry cake is beautiful, along with some soft cream. (Pity me didn't photo it before I eat it out). Besides, the environment is good, with decent tables and chairs. My friend who was with me there definitely knows the best place in Hong Kong. The price is not that bad, three cappuccino and two cheesecake cose 255 HK dollars.

Good try for all.