China was closed for much of last week, but that didn't some of its top tech executives from emitting a steady stream of tweets on their microblogs regaling followers with tales of their travels over the Lunar New Year holiday. The US emerged as the travel destination of choice for many who favored a destination that has been quite generous towards their sector over the last few months.
Regular tech readers will know I'm talking about the huge success of five major Chinese Internet IPOs in New York, many of which have nearly doubled in value since their trading debuts in the last two months of 2013. Executives at JD.com, China's second largest e-commerce company, are hoping to ride that wave of positive sentiment with another New York IPO this year. That pending deal saw one JD.com executive complain of having to take part in a late-night teleconference during the Lunar New Year holiday that I suspect was connected to that upcoming listing.
None of the chatter in the microblogging realm over the last week was particularly insightful in terms of revealing anything about tech executives on their winter holidays. But collectively, the assortment of posts from the US reflect a recent love affair between Chinese tech start-ups and their US backers, which include a wide assemblage of venture capitalists, private equity investors and institutional and retail stock buyers.
PC giant Lenovo (
0992.HK) led the list of Chinese companies whose executives spent their Lunar New Year in the US, as many went there for an announcement of the company's purchase of faded cellphone giant Motorola for $2.9 billion (HK$22.5 billion) from Google (Nasdaq: GOOG). Senior vice president Chen Xudong and vice president Wei Jianglei both tweeted about the trip on their Chinese microblogs, with the latter noting the delegation made stops in both New York and in California's Pebble Beach where CEO Yang Yuanqing held a meeting to inspire executives following the
major purchase.
Others who were in the US over their New Year holiday included the chief executives from e-commerce firm Dangdang (NYSE: DANG) and software giant Kingsoft (
3888.HK), as well as a top editor from smartphone maker Xiaomi. Dangdang CEO Li Guoqing regaled followers with his impressions from
an event at Lincoln Center in New York, while Kingsoft CEO Zhang Hongjiang sent posts from his Lunar New Year vacation in the southern California cities of Palm Springs and Irvine.
It should come as no surprise that New York was quite generous to Dangdang last year, with the company's shares more than doubling during the year amid a broader rally for China tech stocks. Kingsoft is also eying US financial markets, following the company's disclosure last month that it was spinning off its security software unit in preparation for a
separate New York listing. Others touting of US connections on their microblogs over the holiday included corporate social networking giant LinkedIn's (NYSE: LNKD) new China head Derek Shen, who said LinkedIn's CEO Jeff Weiner held a special event at the company's
headquarters to usher in the Year of the Horse.
