Two Internet firms bent on public listing
By Liu Baijia (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-07-09 08:48

Chinese Internet companies Kongzhong and 51job remain determined to make their initial public offerings on the high-tech-laden NASDAQ stock market in New York, despite worries about the outlook for listed Chinese dotcoms.

Beijing-based wireless value-added service provider Kongzhong Corp have filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, pricing its American depository shares (ADSs) between US$10 to US$12 per ADS.

The company is expected to issue 10 million ADSs in its IPO, including 8 million from Kongzhong and 2 million from selling shareholders on the NASDAQ. The company is estimated to raise as much as US$120 million.

Sources close to the IPO said Kongzhong's offering was only more than once oversubscribed, while the stocks of another Beijing-based wireless service operator Tom Online were 94 times oversubscribed by individual investors, when it made its dual listing on the NASDAQ and Hong Kong Growth Enterprise Market in March.

Wallace Cheung, an analyst with Hong Kong's DBS Vickers, said he believed the profit earning ratio was a little bit higher than some competitors, which may be a reason for the low subscription.

At the same time, worries about the prospects of wireless value-added services, such as text and multimedia mobile messages, ringtone and picture downloads, wireless Internet connection, have led to some investors' wait-and-see attitude.

Netease.com Inc, a major Chinese Internet company listed on the NASDAQ four years ago, said on late Wednesday that it might see a sharp drop in the wireless services in the second quarter.

The business said its revenues from mobile services and other fee-based services in the second quarter might decline from 37 to 41 per cent from US$6.8 million in the first quarter.

Netease explained that intensified competition from the country's dominant mobile operator China Mobile, and tightening regulations, had made the company have difficulties in developing subscribers and business.

Michael Yin, a senior analyst with the Internet industry consulting firm Shanghai iResarch Co Ltd, believed that the Netease announcement might also create some difficulties for Kongzhong's IPO.

"They are coincidental, but the Netease report will have some impacts on Kongzhong," he said.

From late last year, the stock prices of most Chinese Internet companies have dropped significantly mainly due to worries about a possible overheating of the Chinese economy, the slow growth of wireless business, and stricter regulations from the Chinese Government and mobile operators.

Yin said that despite the concerns from investors, Internet companies still have to make IPOs, even if they raised less capital.

DBS Vickers' Cheung said he believed that the IPO window for wireless service providers was narrowing, so companies had to continue, no matter how unfavourable the capital market is.

Shanghai-based 51job Inc, a staff recruitment and job seeking website in China, also said yesterday that it aimed to make an IPO on the NASDAQ and raise as much as US$90 million from issuing ADSs on the NASDAQ.

However, the company did not say how many shares it will sell and when that would take place.

The Shanghai-based 51job is one of the two most popular online human resource providers together with Chinahr.com.

Its revenues in 2003 were US$35.44 million from online and offline human resource services, training, surveys, and software, compared with US$20 million in the previous year.

The company, which has been profitable from 2002, made US$4.5 million net profit last year, as compared with US$1.54 million in 2002.

Yin with iResearch said he believed that an IPO would help 51job widen a gap on competitors such as Chinahr and give them better competitiveness.

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