Friday 11th December 2009

Dear Reader,

NEW ARTICLE
Thinsoft's thin ice
There's a bubble in Thinsoft (8096), suspended with a market value of HK$1,604m and net assets of $33m. Over 95% of the company is in the custody of 2 brokers. We also discuss the archaic practice of parallel trading, which was to have been abolished in 2008. HKEx appears to have given up on that.

RECENT ARTICLES
Hong Kong Building and Demolition
HKBLA (0145) has been a perennial cash shell. After 3 takeovers, its foundations now appear to be under threat as its cash pile gets depleted on dubious transactions, including investment in Byford and an "earnest deposit". It appears to have become part of a network which includes at least 9 other listed companies.

Value Divergence, part 2
What's going on at Value Convergence (0821)? We list the placees in the convertible bond issue, which has been delayed, and analyse their connections to a network of other companies we have written about before. Is VC joining that network? We also look at the massive dilution that awaits shareholders of China Fortune (0290).

China Motion Telecom - recent history
We examine the recent history of China Motion Telecom (0989), including two aborted acquisitions and a highly dilutive placing "for working capital" at a time when the company was flush with cash. Why did the board agree to that and where did the shares go? We also query the sustainability of margins in a recent acquisition from CMT's controlling shareholders.

China Vanguard's Grand Promise
China Vanguard (8156) bought an asset from its controlling shareholder at 6.5 times the price at which China Motion (0989) turned it down. Now it is struggling to redeem convertible bonds the target issued to Goldman Sachs and Evolution Capital. We also query a year-end HK$139m cash outflow to buy a company which was once owned by the controlling shareholder, with negative net assets. Finally we look at a pending acquisition by Aptus, its subsidiary.

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