Brief China: Descente Descended and Itochu Angle Is More Hostile and more

In this briefing:

1. Descente Descended and Itochu Angle Is More Hostile
2. China Housing: City Picks For The Near-Term Cyclical Upside
3. China Risun (中国旭阳) IPO Quick Note: Past the Peak of Coking Cycle
4. China Housing: Early Indicators For Sales Volumes In 2019
5. Memory Chips and the Elasticity Myth

1. Descente Descended and Itochu Angle Is More Hostile

Descente Ltd (8114 JP) has been in the press quite a bit in recent days with management commentary about how the company and directors disagree with the Tender Offer launched by Itochu Corp (8001 JP) to raise their stake from 30% to 40% and how it could lead to conflict of interest and worsening management, lower morale for employees, and a loss of independence.

Management, former management, and former employees have all joined the party. Wednesday saw a significant sell-down of shares to a post-Tender Offer low, but it was not clear why.

Descente had, on the 26th, noted in a puff piece in the Nikkei that it would move up the release of its next Mid-Term (Three Year) Plan (normally due in May this year), and it would focus on growing direct sales in China through more stores, growing sales in the US through adding products to the list (currently the major product in North America is skiwear), selling LeCoq Sportif in Indonesia and Munsingwear in Vietnam. WHEN is unknown, but the explicit goal is to encourage shareholders to keep their shares rather than tender them to Itochu.

Today saw a new filing from Itochu in which it amended its original announcement, claimed Descente’s activity in the media was additional and additive to the Target Company Position Statement filed on 7 February, and for that reason, their activity had not been appropriately disclosed to shareholders. Furthermore, Itochu noted that while the jibber-jabber had been going on the last two-plus weeks, Descente had asked Itochu to negotiate post-Tender management structure plans, and Itochu had agreed. Itochu and Descente talked for 9 days from 11-20 Feb but Descente was bad-mouthing Itochu in the press at the same time. That induced Itochu to stop talks. And late today, the Nikkei has released a 27 February interview with the CEO of ANTA, Itochu’s longtime textile partner in China and a 6.86% holder of Descente shares, where he says that he supports Itochu’s tender offer, will not sell their shares in Descente, and would support Itochu efforts to restructure management. 

These three new developments change things in interesting ways, in my opinion pushing Descente’s own plans closer to Itochu’s, and introducing the possibility of significantly more hostility to come, with a much higher likelihood Itochu can win the proxy wars to come. 

In-depth analysis below the fold.

Previous insights on the situation and its runup are listed below.

2. China Housing: City Picks For The Near-Term Cyclical Upside

Based on our CityScreener(TM) methodology using house price, sales volumes, land sales and new starts metrics, we highlight the major cities in China where we believe the housing markets (new home sales) either enjoy a strong sustained momentum or have a potential cyclical upside relative to other cities. 

3. China Risun (中国旭阳) IPO Quick Note: Past the Peak of Coking Cycle

China Risun, a leading coking coal refining player in China, is seeking up to USD 243 million via a listing in Hong Kong. In this insight, we will discuss the following topics:

• Company’s business and the value chain of coking coal
• Industry backdrop of the coking coal processing industry in China
• Shareholders and investors
• Thoughts on valuation

4. China Housing: Early Indicators For Sales Volumes In 2019

China housing markets start 2019 off a record high base in 2018 in terms of new home sales volumes. With the official NBS January-February data at the national level only expected to be published mid-March, we take a brief look at the early indicators for January-February in the weekly data to February 24 and January data for some major cities and average contract sales for select developers.

5. Memory Chips and the Elasticity Myth

During recent earnings calls memory chip makers have postulated that the market will return to higher margins once price elasticity causes demand to increase.  This popular myth needs to be treated with great skepticism since, as this Insight will reveal, short-term price elasticity has a negligible impact upon memory chip sales if it has any impact at all.