Retail

Adidas plans to expand in China

Adidas Group says it will continue to open new stores in China, but will not open many discount stores this year.

Colin Currie, managing director of Adidas Group Greater China, said its focus will be stores that sell new and seasonal products.

Nike, the US sportswear giant, said it will open 40 to 50 factory stores in China this year with discounts of up to 70 percent, and some discount stores will be opened in lower-tier cities. Industry insiders said the move may hurt smaller players targeting lower-tier cities.

Adidas China did not say how many stores it will be open this year, but said most new stores will be in lower-tier cities. The company opened 800 new stores in China last year.

Yum Brands feels pain of chicken antibiotic scare

Yum Brands Inc, owner of the KFC restaurant chain, said first-quarter same-store sales fell 20 percent in China, less than analysts had forecast, as its reputation was dented due to an inquiry into a former chicken supplier. Analysts projected a drop of 25 percent, the average of 20 estimates compiled by Consensus Metrix. Last month same-store sales were unchanged at KFC and rose 13 percent at Pizza Hut, compared with falls of 41 percent and 15 percent in January, the Kentucky-based company said.

Resources

Iron ore prices 1: 'They must fall'

The price of iron ore needs to fall by as much as 20 percent to spur Chinese importers to replenish port inventories and increase demand for ships to deliver the additional cargo, Arctic Securities ASA says. Stocks at ports in China, the biggest consumer of the raw material used to make steel, fell 3.8 percent to 66.3 million metric tons in the week ended March 8, the lowest since March 2009, said Beijing Antaike Information Development Co, a state-backed research company.

Iron ore prices 2: 'Will halve in 18 months'

Rio Tinto Plc, the world's third-largest miner by market capitalization, expects iron ore prices to drop 50 percent in the next 18 months, based on excess capacity and lower demand in China. Rio Tinto's chief economist, Vivek Tulpule, forecast a steady fall in prices to just above $100 (76.7 euros) a metric ton by September next year, according to a report in an Australian newspaper, the Herald Sun. "Rio Tinto's forecast is based on future iron ore demand from China, a country that consumes half of the global iron ore resources," said Wang Guoqing, deputy director at the Lange Steel Information Research Center.

Finance

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan help with IPO

China Galaxy Securities Co, a brokerage backed by China's sovereign wealth fund, picked Goldman Sachs Group Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co to help manage its initial public offering in Hong Kong, informed sources said. The Beijing firm may raise as much as $1.5 billion (1.15 billion euros) in the second quarter, the two sources said. The two New York banks, along with Galaxy Securities' Hong Kong unit, will act as sponsors and global coordinators for the offering, they said.

Investment

Pharmaceutical firmto broaden offerings

The US pharmaceuticals company Catalent Pharma Solutions has announced that it is setting up two joint ventures in China that will be engaged in soft-gel technology and clinical supply solution businesses. The company said it plans to invest more money in the businesses over the next several years to broaden its offerings in China.

MGPA buys office building in Shanghai

MGPA, a private equity real estate investment advisory company managing assets in Europe and Asia, has bought a newly completed Grade A office building, j-Tower, in Shanghai for 263.5 million yuan ($42.4 million; 32.5 million euros). The deal was concluded by MGPA Asia Fund III, which focuses on real estate investments in the Asia-Pacific region, and features equity commitments of $3.9 billion. Its portfolio in China includes a half interest in Galleria Chengdu, a retail mall in that city.

Unilever aims toclean up with purifiers

Unilever, the global consumer goods giant, is to start selling water purifiers in China, the National Business Daily quoted a senior executive at the company as saying. Zeng Xiwen, vice-president of Unilever Greater China, said the company will begin trial sales of the purifiers in Nanjing this month. It will then expand sales channels by placing the products in large home-appliance malls, supermarkets and stores, the paper said.

JPMorgan bullish about profits

JPMorgan Chase & Co's Chinese investment banking unit chief says its profit outlook for this year is much better as global investors' sentiment toward companies based in the country improves. A relaxation in rules on Chinese companies seeking to raise capital overseas is "a good thing for banks like JPMorgan", Fang Fang told journalists in Beijing.

Trade

China sets anti-dumping duties on EU

China's Ministry of Commerce said it would impose anti-dumping duties ranging between 6.6 percent and 37.7 percent on imported toluene diisocyanate (TDI), a main raw material of polyurethane products, from the European Union, from March 13.

The duties will last for five years, the ministry said. Its ruling came after a one-year investigation in which it found that the domestic industry had been "substantially" harmed by EU dumping of TDI, widely used in rubber surface coating, textile processing, petroleum, mining, automobiles and rail transport.

European patent filings on the rise

Chinese companies are the main driving force behind the increasing number of patent filings in the European Patent Office, the People's Daily reported on March 7. The office received 258,000 patent filings from all over the world last year, a 5.2 percent increase year-on-year and a record. Patent filings from Chinese companies accounted for 7.3 percent among the top five countries, up 11.1 percent year-on-year, making it the fastest-growing country in terms of filings.

Scrutiny of gold deals stepped up

China National Gold Group Corp, the nation's biggest producer of the precious metal, said the government has tightened scrutiny of overseas deals. The government is asking for risk-assessment reports for overseas projects, the company president Sun Zhaoxue said in an interview during the National People's Congress session in Beijing.

China Daily-Agencies

(China Daily 03/15/2013 page14)