Shanghai Industrial Holdings has many diverse interests, but its most notable spheres of activity are infrastructure and the tobacco industry. Annual returns for 1999 showed a 7.2 per cent drop in turnover to HK$3.3 billion and a 12.4 per cent year-on-year fall in net profit to HK$1.01 billion. This time last year, securities company Pacific Challenge claimed the decline was partly due to the poor performance of the tobacco sector, which the company had tried hard to redress. Pacific expected an improvement for last year, although the sector's importance to the group was waning. In March 2000, Shanghai Industrial signed a deal with Cosco Pacific, among others, to invest in a new container terminal in Shanghai. At the time, Pacific changed its 'long-term buy' recommendation to a 'neutral' one. Recently, the group invested US$110 million in an 11 per cent stake in Semiconductor Manufacturing International, a semiconductor project in Shanghai's Zhangjian High Technology Park. Graphic: THEN29gwz
