Are we gonna trade tonight? Read last paragraph and vote. Cheung Wah swaps shares with four firms
By Dennis Ng
STORY: CHEUNG Wah Development, which is a Hong Kong-listed investment vehicle for Japanese Softbank group, signed four agreements to swap shares with four companies worth about US$145 million (HK$1.13 billion).
Junichi Goto, the president of Cheung Wah, which will be renamed as Softbank Investment International (Strategic) (SIIS), yesterday told reporters Cheung Wah had agreed to swap US$25 million worth shares with Chinadotcom Corp, a Chinese Web content company listed on Nasdaq. Cheung Wah and Chinadotcom will also form a 50:50 joint venture as a consulting company to help Japanese companies do business in Asia and help companies of Chinadotcom enter the Japanese market.
The company also agreed to swap shares with Philweb.com, which is a Philippine-listed Internet company, in a transaction valued at US$50 million.
Softbank, Cheung Wah's parent, also agreed to form a joint venture with Philweb.com and American International Group in the Philippines.
Philweb.com will hold a 50 per cent equity stake in this joint venture while the two other partners _ Softbank and AIG _ will have 25 per cent stake each.
Mr Goto said yesterday Cheung Wah had also agreed to exchange shares with Malaysian company Digi Swiss.com Berhad in a transaction valued at an estimated US$50 million.
It is also swapping shares with Hong Kong-listed Lai Sun Hotels International in a deal valued at US$20 million.
``I think Lai Sun Hotels will become our content partner,' Mr Goto said, saying Lai Sun Hotels had Atv.com, which brings long-term benefits to the partnership.
Mr Goto said the new shares issued to the four companies would account for about 5 per cent of the enlarged issued share capital of Cheung Wah.
After all the transactions, Softbank would still hold more than 50 per cent equity stake in Cheung Wah.
Softbank group has about 20 investments in Hong Kong and China worth about US$40 million but Mr Goto said there were no plans at present to inject any of these investment projects into Cheung Wah.
Meanwhile, Mr Goto said the recent drop in the share price of Softbank in Japan was a short-term correction and he had not seen any bubble in the Internet stocks.
Details of the deals forged by SIIS with Chinadotcom, Philwed.com and Digiswiss.com are expected to be released later this week or early next week.
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