Coal mines, forests....anything but B2B

We reported before on Kenfair's acquisition of a coal mine (click on the Kenfair label if you want to follow that saga more closely). It seems that they were trend setters.

We wondered why non-exhibitions people were buying into Eddie Leung's Info Communication, the Hong Kong GEM-listed parent company of Paper Communication, organiser of industrial trade fairs in China. All is now becoming clear as they too appear to have gone into the coal mining business. This set the market alight on Friday when volume spiked to 142,550,000 shares, 147 times above the daily average of 966,034. Mind you, after all that excitement, the share price ended up down 3¢ at HK$0.32.

Meanwhile, B2B online market TradeEasy has gone down the same route, announcing the acquisition of a forestry project in Papua, Indonesia for US$157 million. We first reported that back in October in the same posting linked above relating to Kenfair's entry into the coal-mining business.

It seems that the China's hunger for natural resources is looking like a better bet to some than US consumers' demand for Chinese-manufactured bric-a-brac these days.

Strange goings on in B2B

I don't have this blog properly set up for guest bloggers but, I'm going to post this message I received from my colleague Mark Cochrane on that basis. To describe this news as strange would have to be the understatement of the week:

Kenfair started trading again this morning. The share swung wildly from HK$1.96 down to HK$1.52 and is now at HK$1.60 [PW note: it closed the day down $0.16 at $1.49 on a day the Hang Seng Index was up 1,181 points!]. They released an 'odd' 28 page document from which, at first glance at least they seem to be buying a coal mine.

Unrelated, but equally strange, TradeEasy's parent company has purchased a huge strip of land in Indonesia for the timber and is using TradeEasy as the vehicle for the purchase.

Strange times in B2B media.

You can say that again Mark. Heck, whatever next? They'll be listing a company and valuing it at 5 times the total worth of the market. Oh, yes. That has happened too.