As gkara isn't a fan of history, I've been taking a little peek at the "new china deal" in the ann of 24/10/11, which refers to "Novel Orient Ltd, ... a company based in Hong Kong." Mr Google reckons that Novel Orient Limited was actually incorporated as a shelf company in the British Virgin Islands on 06/07/2011 (http://www.genacct.com/files/file/bvilist_rm.pdf, http://www.atcprimasia.com/shelflist.html).
"Based in Hong Kong" implies governance under Hong kong rule of law, which has stringent reporting requirements, transparency, etc, whereas the BVI is a tax haven that guaranties maximum confidentiality and anonymity, the complete absence of any requirements to file any organisational or accountancy information with the Registrar of Companies, (other than the memorandum of Articles of Association), and with share registers being available for inspection only by company registered shareholders or by order of the Courts. What difference does it make to this deal, wherever Novel Orient is domiciled? I don't know, I'm just saying that is Mr Google has his facts straight, they don't align perfectly with those in the ann.
angry wrote: "as you can see GCN has a strong foothold in China". Are you referring to this week's ann, angry? If so, maybe I'm missing something. That ann says GCN & PI have reached a shareholders agreement with Novel Orient, which has "close relationships" with various companies (which I know personally are reputable, profitable household names of long standing in Hong Kong, although I don't know the extent of their recognition in China), however, because the ann does not qualify the "close relationships" there is no way to tell whether this shareholders agreement with Novel Orient provides even a tenuous toe grip in the Middle Kingdom, much less a foothold.
You've written that you checked with GCN and were told that Novel Orient and Caigouzhan have directors, many managers and large shareholders in common. If this is true, why didn't GCN elaborate on these highly pertinent facts in their ann rather than to use only the vague, meretricious term "close relationships"?
And you said re the claimed connections between Novel Orient and Caigouzhan: "in effect the deal means they have done a deal with the pay pal of China, now how many customers or clients do you think Pay Pal has here, now multiply that number by millions and you see the scope of it." Are you inferring that Caigouzhan, an online purveyor of jewellery and cosmetics is somehow the Chinese equivalent of PayPal, which not only enables online transaction payments of all types and money transfers to be made in most countries throughout the whole world, but which also owns ebay? In any case, the PayPal of China is PayPal, which operates there through CUP.
angry, you ask: "if GCN is a farce and this is not real why would these companies be doing business with them." Isn't that jumping the gun a bit? The only "business" being done so far appears to be that GCN has offered its IPTV technologies under free licence to Priority One GoConnect China, which, through a BVI company, Novel Orient, has undefined connections with some reputable companies including one that sells jewellery and cosmetics online in China. But how will this translate into profits for GCN?
And you wrote re Priority One GoConnect China: "anyway some will still say this all cannot be true". I'm not being intentionally obtuse but I have no idea what "all this" is. Seems to me that while this new venture has nothing unique to offer China, it faces huge challenges in trying to make inroads against firmly entrenched, major Chinese competitors. Not to mention that there is no indication where Priority One GoConnect China Group Ltd will be domiciled, what business model will it employ, what profits it expects to make (and what costs are to be deducted before profits are declared, etc), what governance, accounting, auditing, reporting requirements will apply, and so on and so on.
Then, in post #: 7330621 you wrote: "China is the real aim here on P1." If you are right, that certainly doesn't auger well for P1 in the long term. To those without experience doing business in China, this developing country with a 1.3 billion population equates to apparently obvious, huge potential. What is often overlooked is that on the ground in China are very many millions of very clever, well educated, fast thinking, fast acting, well funded, well connected, high risk-taking entrepreneurs who are already working every minute of every day, 365 days a year exploiting every conceivable opportunity in an environment which is far less tightly regulated than people are familiar with in this part of the world, where corruption is rampant and where the law is frequently overruled by the power of "guanxi" relationships. This makes it extremely difficult for any new ventures, particularly piddling foreign ones, to get up and running in China, even one that has some unique know-how and first-starter advantage, even when there are apparently high barriers to entry for other competitors. With this in mind, it is far from clear how Priority One GoConnect China without anything unique to offer expects to make any advances from its China beachhead. Not only are there already huge IPTV players in China including the national TV station, CCTV (China Central Television), China Digital TV Co, UTStarcom in partnership with China Telecom and China Unicom, and many smaller operators, but there are many well-establshed IPTV shopping channels. China is a seductive mystery to foreign companies who chase possibilities there, but the vast majority of these ventures fail miserably. I've been involved in business with China since it began opening up at the end of the 1970s and in this time I've seen very few foreign ventures ever make a profit there, especially the smaller ones, particularly in more recent years as the Chinese have developed the intellectual and financial resources, the contacts and the experience to aggressively exploit every available opportunity.
(Sorry to be aiming so many shots at you, angry, but you're the one sticking your head up above the parapet.)
GCN Price at posting:
1.9¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
