SAIC Quadruples Half Year Profit
If GM wants to pull off a smashing IPO, they need smashing numbers. There are people they can learn from: Their friends and joint venture partners at China’s SAIC. China’s largest automaker (they have joint ventures with both GM and Volkswagen, can’t get any bigger), said first-half profit may have more than quadrupled from a year earlier, reports Bloomberg. And the secret to their success?
Rising demand for vehicles in the world’s most populous nation. Duh.
China’s passenger-car sales have risen every month since February 2009, and at least the GM portion of SAIC’s business outpaced the market. SAIC’s total sales in the first six months rose by 44 percent to more than 1.77 million units. in the first half, today’s statement said.
In the meantime, SAIC’s stock has declined 29 percent this year. As a Chinese stock trader told me: “The Chinese stock market is totally decoupled from fundamentals.” If GM unravels that secret, nothing will be in the way of an IPO with a huge pop.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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"If GM wants to pull off a smashing IPO, they need smashing numbers. There are people they can learn from: Their friends and joint venture partners at China’s SAIC. China’s largest automaker (they have joint ventures with both GM and Volkswagen, can’t get any bigger), said first-half profit may have more than quadrupled from a year earlier, reports Bloomberg." Bertel, who do you think is going to buy up all that GM stock? Coming soon to a TV near you, a little blurb at the end of all GM commercials; "General Motors, a wholly owned subsidiary of SAIC." On the plus side, maybe we'll finally get the Buicks that are sold in China.
"In the meantime, SAIC’s stock has declined 29 percent this year. As a Chinese stock trader told me: 'The Chinese stock market is totally decoupled from fundamentals.'” No, the stock market is recognizing fundamentals: China is one enormous bubble inflated with debt backed by nothing, and the tumbling stock market (which prices future prospects, not current earnings) is a harbinger of the impending pop. The property bubble there has created some 65 million vacant homes. Chinese cash has been fleeing the country into (for example) Australian and Canadian real estate, in an effort to put money into something that will hold at least some value when the roof falls in. Give the Chinese credit, they recognize an impending disaster when they see one. They know western customers drive China's economy, and that the developed nations are imploding - the liars in Washington, Wall Street, and Brussels not withstanding. The handwriting is on the wall. I take it that's why we're now reading reports China is turning migrant worker and low-income residential districts into locked compounds. The authorities are going to have a massive control problem on their hands when the common people discover the golden goose died about two years ago.
"... take it that’s why we’re now reading reports China is turning migrant worker and low-income residential districts into locked compounds..." Really? Can you please direct me to these "reports" that you speak of? "Chinese cash has been fleeing the country into (for example) Australian and Canadian real estate, in an effort to put money into something that will hold at least some value when the roof falls in. " Are you sure? To the best of my knowledge, Chinese citizens are limited as to how much they can take out of the country. Absence actually emigrating abroad, few are able to buy foreign real assets while remaining a resident of China.