Qihoo, Alibaba-Backed Momo Are Bellwethers Of China Go-Private Bids
China’s up and down stock market and scrutiny from regulators have slowed but apparently not soured China-based companies that trade on Wall Street from preparing to delist in the U.S. and head home in search of better stock valuations. The process, though, “is a bumpy road, definitely,” ITG Research analyst Henry Guo told IBD. Take the case of Qihoo 360 Technology ( QIHU ), a Beijing-based Chinese security software and Web search giant that is one of China’s biggest Internet businesses on Wall Street. Just a few years after its 2011 IPO and the stock’s nearly 800% run-up from August 2012 to March 2014, Qihoo is near the last phase of delisting from the NYSE. The company announced in March that its shareholders had approved a previously announced plan to be taken private by a consortium of investors, in a deal originally valued at $9.3 billion. China Internet billionaire and Qihoo 360 CEO Zhou Hongyi has backed the deal. And Qihoo has a lot of delisting company. Last year, 28 Chinese-owned companies that traded in the U.S. stock market reported plans to go private, according to research firm Dealogic. That group includes Trina Solar ( TSL ), which in December announced that it had received a go-private offer as its U.S.-based listing became less appealing compared with higher-value domestic markets back in China. CEO Jifan Gao and an investment group submitted a bid to buy out shareholders, in a letter filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The 28 proposed delistings of China-based companies is up from just one in 2014 and 11 in 2013, Dealogic found. This is so even though, after touching eight-year highs in June 2015 and April 2015, respectively, the Shanghai composite and Hong Kong composite indexes have plummeted 45% and 30%, respectively. The fact that so many companies are making the move has spurred the China Securities Regulatory Commission to review such businesses, Bloomberg reported this month, quoting a commission spokesman as saying the panel is conducting “in-depth analysis and research.” And, separately, Bloomberg reported on Thursday that the Qihu deal specifically was having trouble with China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange on the issue of moving the acquisition funds offshore. Anonymous sources told Bloomberg that China wants to avoid encouraging too many buyouts of overseas-traded companies that could increase depreciation pressure on China’s currency. Autohome, E-House Just The Latest To Seek Delisting This year, as of early March, eight Chinese companies listed in the U.S. had announced going-private plans, Dealogic’s data shows. Then in April, Autohome ( ATHM ), which provides online content for car buyers in China, announced that it had received a nonbinding management-led buyout offer for $1.6 billion, or $31.50 a share, from a consortium including Autohome CEO James Qin, Boyu Capital, Sequoia China and Hillhouse Capital. And leading China real estate company E-House ( EJ ) announced that company management would take the Shanghai-based business private for $6.85 per share. The deal is expected to close in the second half of the year. Mobile social networking platform and dating app Momo ( MOMO ), which was originally backed by powerful China e-commerce giant Alibaba Group ( BABA ), is said by observers to have strong prospects for success with its go-private plan. But the news from the China Securities Regulatory Commission has seen its U.S. shares fall from near 16.50 to near 11.50, and U.S. shares of other pending delisters YY ( YY ) and E-Commerce China Dangdang ( DANG ) have plunged by similar percentages. Momo got a $2.6 billion offer last June — just six months after the company held its U.S. stock market IPO — from a group that includes some of its top executives. In early April, Alibaba made a regulatory filing showing it had joined the group seeking to buy out Momo, support that is expected to accelerate Momo’s privatization prospects. Momo says it is the third-most-popular social app in China, after Tencent Holdings ( TCEHY )-owned WeChat and Mobile QQ. Will the go-private movement strengthen or fizzle? Analysts are torn. “The problem is that, first of all, the China capital market is not that stable,” analyst Guo said. China’s capital markets sizzled last year, especially in the first half, making it much easier to raise money at a good valuation in China than in the U.S., Guo says. China Markets Have Settled, But Growth Slows After a frenzied stock market sell-off in January that jolted the globe, China’s markets have settled down, despite slowing economic growth. But the recent calm is not expected to last, as China’s rising debt and ineffective economic reform programs could contribute to more shake-ups, according to a Wall Street Journal report. “You can see that the capital market in China is not that stable,” Guo said. “And we see a lot of companies who announced they were going to have a privatization haven’t really proceeded as planned. “I think the reason behind that is they have had difficulty raising enough money to go private. And secondly, after the privatization, I think they see some difficulty going public again in China. I have not seen that many other companies who have made huge progress.” In the meantime, the process of relisting in China after leaving the U.S. “is not an immediate switch-over,” said Clara Gillispie, director of Trade, Economic and Energy Affairs for the National Bureau of Asian Research, a Seattle-based nonprofit research group. “There are a lot of regulations that you have to go through and approvals you must get from investors. “Even in normal times, you have this big queue lined up. When you see the successful, hot market that you did at the beginning of last year — that really put a lot more (companies) onto that train.” Gillispie said observers consider Qihoo 360 to be “a bellwether” of what lies ahead on the China go-private front. She called Qihoo “a very large, successful company. They have done well in the U.S. market. How they sustain this transition can say a lot about the (go-private) process.” China Companies Had Coveted U.S. Markets In the past, the tide for China companies has washed in the opposite direction. Chinese businesses have wanted to come to the U.S. to gain access to foreign capital and for the cachet of being publicly traded in the U.S. Think Alibaba. The China-based Internet conglomerate made the biggest-ever U.S. IPO when it raised $25 billion in its New York Stock Exchange debut in 2014. Chinese companies, though, found that being on Wall Street “was not always an easy ride,” said Daniel Roules, office managing partner of the Shanghai office of law firm Squire Patton Boggs, which has assisted China companies interested in privatizing. “A general perception grew that the U.S. was a difficult investment environment due to the regulatory hurdles and threat of litigation,” Roules told IBD via email. That apparently has helped fuel the current go-private trend, even in the face of tumultuous times back in the Chinese stock market. Though Chinese companies traded in the U.S. that have considered re-listing in China could be holding off on their plans, Roules said, “We will likely see a number of companies going private in the next few months and then deciding whether to re-list in China” later on. Guo says going back to China remains a logical move for many Chinese companies. “From the longer-term view, it really is in their best interest to go back to China because they’ve got higher valuations there and they’re closer to their consumers, who know the company’s products well,” Guo said. “For the long run, that’s the trend.” In the near term, however, the process isn’t easy, he says. Going private takes a lot of money and the process can take three to five years, he says. “For now,” said Guo, “management really needs to think about how to implement everything, to make a choice that’s in their best interest.”