Ready to play the China card?
IPO Watch
March 06, 2000
by Janet Purdy Levaux
China-based AsiaInfo Holdings Inc.'s (ASIA) debut Friday on the Nasdaq was hotter than a sizzling string of firecrackers.
The stock, priced at $24, shot up 315 percent to close at 99 9/16 Friday as 4.7 million shares traded hands. The company's sales -- which consist of network infrastructure equipment and software -- were $44.2 million in 1998 on net income of $1.5 million.
Alameda, California-based UT Starcom Inc. (UTSI), which makes and sells telecom gear in China, rose 278 percent to end the day at 68 1/8 on volume of nearly 13 million shares. It had 1998 revenue of $105 million and earned $473,000.
Why all the interest in these China-related offerings? What better way to get a piece of the booming market for technology and IT services in the world's most populous country! More than $18 billion of capital investment poured into China's telecom infrastructure last year. The telecom service sector reported revenue of nearly $30 billion in 1999, up about 25 percent from 1998............
AsiaInfo, headquartered in Beijing, has an interesting history. The company was founded in Dallas in 1993 as BDI by James Ding and Edward Tian, both American-educated Chinese nationals. Ding is now CEO, while Tian sits on the board and heads China Netcom Corp., a new IP (Internet Protocol) phone service provider.
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