 Biz scene
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-01 08:01 BIZ MOVE APT appointment
Hong Kong-based APT Satellite Holding Ltd (APT Group) recently appointed Cheng Guangren as executive director and president. Meanwhile, Qi Liang was appointed as executive director and vice-president. APT Group is a listed company on both the stock exchanges in Hong Kong and New York. Since 1992, the company has been providing transponder utilization services, satellite communication services and satellite TV broadcasting services to the broadcasting and telecommunication operators in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the United States. GRAPEVINE Developer raises $506m Evergrande Real Estate Group Ltd, a Guangzhou-based developer that scrapped a Hong Kong initial public offering in March, raised $506 million selling a stake of about 13 percent in a private placement, the South China Morning Post said, citing an unidentified person close to the company. Hong Kong property developer Henry Cheng paid $150 million for a 3.9 percent stake and a Middle Eastern investment fund bought 3.6 percent for $146 million. Merrill Lynch & Co, Deutsche Bank AG and three corporate investors that were not identified bought 5.5 percent for $210 million, the paper said. An additional $100 million is expected to be raised from one of the investors before the end of this week, the report said. Gold Group preferred China National Gold Group Corp, owner of China's third-largest gold mining company, is the preferred bidder to develop the country's largest deposit, beating Zijin Mining Group Co, Bloomberg reported yesterday, citing an unnamed company official. China National offered 2.2 billion yuan for the right to the Yangshan gold project, said the company official, who declined to be named before a government announcement. The deposit was discovered last year in the western province of Gansu. The Yangshan deposit, with a resource of 308 metric tons, may be more than twice as big as Zijin Mining's Zijinshan mine, the largest gold project in China. BIZ UNUSUAL Bitter-sweet melon
A kind of hybrid watermelon with double-color flesh is selling for as much as 100 yuan apiece, but is catching on at supermarkets in Hangzhou and Ningbo. The watermelon called "double-color ice cream", has both red and yellow flesh and tastes refreshing. Yong Hongwei, a local farmer who came up with the idea, found that the watermelon with red flesh was sweet, while the yellow flesh had a crisper taste. Yong wanted to put the two tastes together. With the help of experts in Shanghai Academy of Agriculture Sciences, the magic watermelon has finally been produced. LOCAL Disaster reserve Shandong province will set up a reserve for farmers that would be used to help them in the event of a disaster, in a bid to ease concerns of the affect of a catastrophe on their livelihoods. The money will come from a proportion of the annual farming premium income, according to the Shandong provincial government. The reserve will be used to subsidize farmers if their losses exceed the maximum compensation levels from the insurance companies. MARKET Cement firm raises funds Tangshan Jidong Cement Co, the Chinese affiliate of Germany's biggest producer, HeidelbergCement AG, raised 2.96 billion yuan from selling new shares to fund expansion. The company sold 250 million new shares at 11.83 yuan each to six institutional investors on June 6, it said in a Shenzhen Stock Exchange statement yesterday. Jidong Cement will use the proceeds from the stock sale to build new production lines at two ventures with HeidelbergCement and at other factories, according to the statement. Bank fails to sell stake China Minsheng Banking Corp failed to sell its 3.26 percent stake in Haitong Securities Co at an auction for a second time, even after lowering the asking price by almost half as demand fell. Potential investors didn't pay the margin deposit for the stake after indicating interest earlier, according to the Beijing Equity Exchange announcement yesterday. Minsheng has planned to sell 269 million shares in Haitong, China's largest brokerage by market value, with the floor price set at 11.68 yuan after an auction last month failed to draw any bidders. (China Daily 07/01/2008 page15) |
