Althought it doesn't mention KOREA directly, it is the South Korean Internet company in the article.
Asian Net firms to go nuts?
Pacific Rim Internet companies on brink of merger boom, guru says
January 11, 2000: 10:58 a.m. ET
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asia's Internet companies are set to hit the merger trail, redrawing the corporate landscape without even spending real cash, a leading high-tech investment banker said Tuesday.
"In the course of this year you'll see an explosion of that sort of thing,? Robert Owen, chairman of techpacific.com told Reuters. "The process has already started.?
"But it's going to be a function of having the paper to do it with." Owen?s investment bank specializes in nurturing Asian high-tech startups to get them to market. "The big problem is that there aren't enough Asian Internet firms available to investors on public exchanges."
Demand for Asian tech stocks has sent the value of their paper soaring over the past year, unlocking big buying power for the relatively few true Internet firms with share listings.
Investors have pumped funds into Internet-related firms such as chipmakers and telecommunications firms as proxies.
Firms like Hong Kong-listed mobile phone operator, China Telecom, have seen stock gains of as much as 220 percent over the past year. China Telecom has a stock market value of about $70 billion.
"There are some very big Internet companies in South Korea and there are going to be some big ones in China in future,? Owen said. "But a great many content providers are at the early stages of development and are not quoted yet.?
When they do list, their shares tend to leap.
China's Internet portal, China.com Corp., has seen its shares soar nearly 150 percent since its July 1999 debut on Nasdaq, and now has a market capitalization of $3.2 billion.
It's a different scale from America Online, which agreed Monday to buy Time Warner in a stock deal worth roughly $182 billion -- the biggest merger ever. Nevertheless, there is potential for Asian Internet players to reshape the region.
"The AOL deal carries a clear message for traditional businesses that have not viewed the Internet as importantly as they should have," Owen said.
Beefing up cyber firms
A series of joint ventures and acquisitions have been agreed in recent months between Internet service and content providers and specialist investors, with the aim of beefing up Asian cyber firms.
The new web-enabled enterprises aim to tackle traditional market leaders in every industry from auto parts retailing to banking and telecoms.
China's largest Internet service provider (ISP), Rayes Group, plans an overseas listing and has been aggressively eyeing strategic alliances with international content providers.
Shenzhen-based Rayes claims a 15 percent share of the Chinese Internet market and reckons it could issue shares worth $1 billion in the first half of 2000.
In Japan, Internet investor Softbank wants to break into online banking and is bidding for Nippon Credit Bank. It has a joint venture with Nippon Mitsubishi to sell car parts on the Internet and a medical venture with Healtheon/WebMd Corp.
India witnessed an Internet portal frenzy recently after the country's largest private ISP, Nasdaq-listed Satyam Infoway, bought 24.5 percent of IndiaWorld Communications Ltd. for $28 million then said it would buy the rest for $87 million.
But despite the seemingly insatiable appetite for Internet stocks, Asia's Internet boom runs the risk of blowing out.
While the AOL deal underpinned Internet stock valuations to some extent, high expectations may pose problems.
"What's going on at the minute may lead entrepreneurs to believe they can achieve valuations that are way in excess of what is a fair price, and that could make things difficult for investors,? Owen said.
"Many of the businesses that are coming to the market wouldn't get any funding at all unless they were technology businesses," he said.
Hmmmm. Need to buy a content provider in South Korea. Similar to a Korean Yahoo. Looks wide open now.
Jack |
