|
|
ONLINE FEATURES
Book Reviews
BW Video
Columnists
Interactive Gallery
Newsletters
Past Covers
Philanthropy
Podcasts
Special Reports
BLOGS
Auto Beat
Bangalore Tigers
Blogspotting
Brand New Day
Byte of the Apple
Economics Unbound
Eye on Asia
Fine On Media
Green Biz
Hot Property
Investing Insights
Management IQ
NEXT: Innovation
NussbaumOnDesign
Tech Beat
Working Parents
TECHNOLOGY
J.D. Power Ratings
Product Reviews
Tech Stats
Wildstrom: Tech Maven
AUTOS
Home Page
Auto Reviews
Classic Cars
Car Care & Safety
Hybrids
INNOVATION
& DESIGN Home Page Architecture Brand Equity Auto Design Game Room SMALLBIZ Smart Answers Success Stories Today's Tip INVESTING Investing: Europe Annual Reports BW 50 S&P Picks & Pans Stock Screeners Free S&P Stock Report SCOREBOARDS Hot Growth 100 Mutual Funds Info Tech 100 S&P 500 B-SCHOOLS Undergrad Programs MBA Blogs MBA Profiles MBA Rankings Who's Hiring Grads | |
AUGUST 11, 2005
By Brian Bremner and Justin Hibbard There's More Where Baidu Came From The search engine's runaway stock may spur Chinese Net IPOs -- and rein in M&A as companies' ideas of their own valuation soar How do you say feeding frenzy in Chinese? The moon shot of an initial public offering by Chinese Internet search engine Baidu.com (BIDU ) -- whose $27-a-share launch on Aug. 4 jumped fivefold, to $154, before settling back to around $90 -- shattered a five-year record for the best debut on the Nasdaq. It tapped into a deep investor hunger for the next Google (GOOG ) -- which has seen its shares triple in the past year -- and a desire to profit from the Internet in China, where some 100 million people now go online. So will Baidu's success unleash a flood of China Net IPOs? There's good reason for excitement. Broadband subscribers in China last year more than doubled, to 43 million, and Beijing technology research firm BDA China is forecasting the online advertising market, worth $208 million in 2004, will expand to nearly $1 billion by 2009. IPO INSPIRATION. Although the stampede into Baidu is partly based on the search engine's similarity to Google, it also reflects optimism about that potential growth. That's why many analysts are bullish on Chinese Internet companies. "We will see an expansion of the valuations. Baidu helped that," says Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy. Indeed, some Chinese tech companies that have been considering a flotation might now jump in. "Given the success of Baidu, I'm sure some other Google look-alikes will be inspired to [do an] IPO," says Khiem Do, head of Asian equities at Baring Asset Management. At the same time, Baidu's offering could put a damper on a wave of mergers and acquisitions among Chinese Net companies that had been picking up. Yahoo! last year paid $120 million for control of Beijing 3721 Technology Co., and it now appears to be close to a $1 billion deal to buy a one-third stake in Alibaba.com, an online marketplace for small and midsize Chinese companies. "CROWD PSYCHOLOGY." And in February online game pioneer Shanda Interactive Entertainment bought a 19% stake in portal Sina.com. After Baidu's performance, however, Chinese Net entrepreneurs may believe their companies are worth more than potential acquirers are willing to pay. "The Baidu IPO pushes valuations beyond the point where many M&A deals can get done," says David Liu, a managing director at investment bank Jefferies & Co. (see BW Online, 8/11/05, "Baidu: "We've Seen This Movie Before""). All this doesn't mean Baidu truly warrants its own sky-high valuation. Baidu, co-founded five years ago by former Infoseek engineer Robin Yanhong Li, is the mainland's No.1 search engine, with 45% of the market. But the company earned just $1.45 million on $14 million in sales in 2004. At $90 per share, Baidu's market capitalization is nearly $3 billion -- which values it at more than 1,800 times 12-month trailing earnings, compared with price-earnings ratios of 70 or so for Google and Yahoo. And Baidu faces intense competition. Its rivals include well-heeled U.S. search providers such as Google (which owns 2.6% of Baidu), smaller Chinese search sites, e-commerce players like Alibaba, and portals Netease, Sina, and Sohu. "We are in the realm of crowd psychology," says Duncan Clark, BDA's managing director. WHO GETS BITTEN? Investors might also note that the record of Chinese Net stocks has been mixed. Of the 10 Chinese tech companies that went public last year, 7 are trading below their offering price. Online 51job Inc., which went public at $14 in September, 2004, zoomed to $55 before falling to its current $13. The one exception: Shanda Interactive, the best-performing stock on the Nasdaq last year. It went public in May, 2004, at $11 and now trades at $37.50, up 241%. Although Baidu's IPO boosted some of the laggards, they quickly fell back to where they were before the IPO. In a feeding frenzy, it seems, someone always gets bitten.  With Steve Rosenbush and Heather Green in New York Bremner is Asian bureau manager for BusinessWeek, based in Hong Kong, and Hibbard is a BusinessWeek correspondent in San Mateo, Calif.
BW MALL
SPONSORED LINKS
Buy a link now!Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
 Copyright 2005, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.Terms of Use | Privacy Notice |
Printer-Friendly Version
