Recruiting in China

By Margaret Taylor

Jupiter is to launch a China equity fund by the end of the year, to be run by former Gartmore manager Philip Ehrmann.

Ehrmann, who left Gartmore following its management buyout partnership with Hellman & Friedman in May, is to join the firm in October and, subject to regulatory approval, the portfolio will launch thereafter.

At Gartmore Ehrmann was head of Pacific and emerging markets and, among other managerial roles, was lead manager on the firm’s China Opportunities fund.

Report on VC investment in China in first half of 2006 sees more money chasing deals.

July 12, 2006

Beijing—Venture investment in China in the first half of 2006 nearly doubled to $772 million compared to the same period in 2005, according to a new report.

The report, released by Zero2IPO, a Beijing-based venture capital research firm, at the China Venture Capital Semi-Annual Forum 2006 on Tuesday, found that 121 Chinese firms received venture investments, an increase from the first half of 2005 by 49 percent.

The number of firms, however, also represents a 17 percent decline from the 147 firms that landed venture funding in the second half of last year. Still, total venture investment has risen 5.4 percent over the second half of 2005.

“Valuations are up, and the average deal size is now $6.2 million, up from $4.2 million last year—an increase of almost 50 percent,” said Zero2IPO CEO Gavin Ni.

But Mr. Ni called this trend a “low-grade fever,” not a clear valuation bubble.

‘Things may get even hotter.’
-Rocky Lee,

Eleven new China-focused funds were raised during the first half of the year, with an average fund size of $90 million.

Non-Chinese funds continued to dominate, with 71 percent of projects funded by non-Chinese venture firms. Eight-five percent of total venture investment came from dollar-denominated funds.

The Lion’s Share

IT firms continued to win the lion’s share of funding with 84 IT companies receiving $562 million in venture backing in the first half of the year, representing 69 percent of the total number of venture-invested firms and 73 percent of the investment dollars.

The Internet sector in particular attracted the largest number of investments and greatest total amount of venture funding. Thirty-nine Internet companies were funded in the first half of the year, with $276 million dollars invested.

“During the first and second quarters, we saw some very aggressive plays by investors, especially in the web 2.0 space, with high valuations that some of the VCs are now having second thoughts about,” said Rocky Lee, a Beijing-based venture and private equity attorney at DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary.

“There seems to be a return to a focus on business models, revenue models, and other fundamentals,” he added.

Telecommunications followed IT, with 18 projects receiving $152 million. Eleven integrated circuit companies drew a total of $50 million, and seven software companies were funded for a total of $42 million, the report said.

“This was something of a surprise to me,” said Mr. Ni. “I had anticipated that there would be more non-TMT [technology, media, and telecommunications] deals in the first half. But the non-TMT deals tend to take longer, and we expect they will make up a greater percentage in the second half.”

Beijing Leads Shanghai

Beijing-based firms accounted for 51 percent of the received investment dollars and 40 percent of funded companies. Shanghai trailed with 20 percent of the investment dollars and 29 percent of the companies.

Fifty-eight firms—69 percent of firms attracting funding—were early-stage startups, pulling in a total of $241 million for an average of $4.1 million per project, said Mr. Ni.

Rules issued by China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) in April and July scared off overseas venture investors in the first half of 2005. But with the repeal of the SAFE regulations in October, VC money gushed back in.

“A number of VCs are doing larger and larger deals,” said Mr. Lee. “This might be driven by higher valuations, or it might be because the target companies have to have larger war chests in this increasingly competitive environment.”

“In the second quarter alone, we closed eight venture deals,” said Mr. Lee. “We helped deploy almost $100 million in that quarter alone.” With new opportunities related to third generation (3G) applications now heating up, he added, “things may get even hotter.”

SHANGHAI, China, Aug. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- ArvinMeritor, Inc. (NYSE: ARM) today announced it will open a new wholly-owned operation in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China. The 300,000 sq. ft. facility will initially manufacture trailer axles and suspensions for key trailer manufacturers in China, as well as for export of components to North American and European plants. The company's board of directors approved the investment in the new facility.

Production is estimated to begin in the first half of 2007.

Other drivetrain and brake components will be added to the operation's portfolio, as the company continues to pursue its strategic enterprise model.

"As the country's infrastructure improves, tractor-trailer configurations are expected to rise exponentially, and we will be ready to support both current and future market needs with advanced technology," said Sergio Carvalho, vice president and general manager of ArvinMeritor's Trailer Products and Suspensions business.

Investment in the Wuxi operation will include $35 million for new equipment.

The company has identified local sourcing for its components, which furthers its integrated manufacturing strategy to bring all aspects of the supply chain within close proximity of the facility.

Background

ArvinMeritor is the worldwide market leader for trailer axles and plans to become a major player in China's growing trailer undercarriage market.

Today, the company has four Commercial Vehicle Systems (CVS) manufacturing facilities in China, with one being wholly-owned and the remaining three operating as joint venture partnerships. These locations assemble or produce axles, brakes and related components for medium- and heavy-duty trucks, off- highway and bus and coach markets, in addition to the aftermarket. All products are produced for export or are supplied to leading vehicle manufacturers in China.

ArvinMeritor, Inc. is a premier global supplier of a broad range of integrated systems, modules and components to the motor vehicle industry. The company serves light vehicle, commercial truck, trailer and specialty original equipment manufacturers and certain aftermarkets. Headquartered in Troy, Mich., ArvinMeritor employs approximately 29,000 people at more than 120 manufacturing facilities in 25 countries. ArvinMeritor common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol ARM. For more information, visit the company's Web site at: http://www.arvinmeritor.com.

Web site: http://www.arvinmeritor.com//

Siemens China has appointed a new general manager for its Communications Group as a strategic adjustment, a crucial step for its future development, reported the Xinhua-run Shanghai Securities News on Wednesday.

Zhang Zhiqiang, former vice president of Siemens China, is appointed the new position, and will be responsible for all the business of the Communications Group in China.

Zhang joined Siemens China in 1987, starting as an assistant manager in the commercial and management branch. Before his new appointment, Zhang has held management positions in many different business groups in Siemens, including Medical Solutions and Siemens VDO Automotive.

Peter Weiss, the former general manager of the Communications Group, will continue to serve as executive vice president and member of the management board of Siemens China, the newspaper reported.

Source: Xinhua

August 9, 2006

Apple (APPL) is rumored to be removing its general manager position in China and replacing it with four business departments whose general managers will directly report to the head of Apple's Asia Pacific Headquarters.

The four new departments that Apple will set up in China include the Industry Client Business Department (B2B), Consumer Electronics Products Department (B2C) and Education Market Product Department (Edu). The name of the fourth department is still unannounced.

Apart from the manager for the Education Market Product Department who will come from Apple's headquarters, the other two managers are not known yet although local media report that they might be new faces to the company.

A representative from Apple in the Asia Pacific Region has confirmed that Apple is making some adjustments, but he says that the final scheme has not come out yet.

11/08/2006 10:10:00

Research and Markets has announced the addition of China’s Online Recruitment Market in 2006 to their offering.

After the operation analysis of the four largest online recruitment webs of 51job, China HR, Zhaopin.com and CJOL, the report gives a comprehensive analysis of local online recruitment market and industrial online recruitment market. Online recruitment develops imbalanced in different regions: it is developing well in southern China, northern China, and eastern China; it has a great development potential in middle China; it is on the elementary step in the northeastern China and southwestern China while it develops relatively slow in the northwestern China. The development of online recruitment for different industries also has different prospects IT industry and manufacturing industry are the two largest industrial clients for online recruitment. The local online recruitment market and industrial online recruitment market are deserving more attention from the investors.

In China, with the development of the Internet, the recruitment methods are continuously changing. The online recruitment characteristics: no region and time limitation, wider range, high efficiency, fast, time-saving, low cost and others, make it become more and more popular to enterprises and applicants. With the market share continuously expanding, it is making steps into the mainstream recruitment ways. Currently, the online recruitment is enjoying a fast-growing period.

In 2004, online recruitment occupied 13.2% of the whole recruitment market, far lower than newspaper recruitment and on-spot job fair. In 2005, the online recruitment market grew sharply and shared 20% of the whole recruitment market. Its market share is estimated to be 28.2% and its market scale is estimated to be 1.42 billion Yuan in 2006 respectively. There’s still a large development space for China’s online recruitment compared with the quotient of 78% in America.

Market scale of China’s online recruitment market, 2002-2006 (Unit: 100 million RMB)

Since 2003, more and more Chinese enterprises began to enjoy the online recruitment service. Especially in 2004, 90% of the World top 500 enterprises in China enjoyed the online recruitment. Moreover, more than half of the high tech enterprises enjoyed the online recruitment service in 2005. The online recruitment gains more and more recognition thanks to its characteristics such as wide range, abundant information, great choices, high quality of applicants and low cost.

Apart from the enterprises, the online recruitment also receives more and more applicants’ preference. Many of them are well educated young people and surfing the internet frequently. In 2005, the number of China’s netizens reached 111 million, showing a great potential for online recruitment development.

According to the index of "per-million-people coverage", the online recruitment websites of China HR and Zhaopin.com are far ahead of others; some local websites such as JOB168, JOBCN, 528JOB are also performing well;

Top 10 online recruitment website according to the index of "per-million-people coverage",Jan 2006

Per-million-people coverage means the visitor per 1 million Alexa installation users on average.

After the operation analysis of the four largest online recruitment webs of 51job, China HR, Zhaopin.com and CJOL, the report gives a comprehensive analysis of local online recruitment market and industrial online recruitment market.

Online recruitment develops imbalanced in different regions: it is developing well in southern China, northern China, and eastern China; it has a great development potential in middle China; it is on the elementary step in the northeastern China and southwestern China while it develops relatively slow in the northwestern China.

The development of online recruitment for different industries also has different prospects IT industry and manufacturing industry are the two largest industrial clients for online recruitment. The local online recruitment market and industrial online recruitment market are deserving more attention from the investors.

Topics Covered
1 Overview of the online recruitment
2 Situation of China’s online recruitment market
3 Situation of the global recruitment market
4 China’s online recruitment market situation
5 Relationship among enterprises, individual and online recruitment
6 Market operation status of China’s some large online recruitment websites
7 Investment opportunity analysis of local online recruitment markets
8 Opportunity analysis of investing in industrial online recruitment market
9 Development trend of China’s online recruitment market

For more information visit www.researchandmarkets.com

Sourced from home.businesswire.com