China Resources Enterprise, the brewer of Snow Beer, China’s No 1 beer in terms of sales volume, said it will raise the number of its retail outlets regardless of the uncertainties in the economy. Net profit of the beer-to-retail conglomerate rose 36.5% year on year to HKD2.2 billion in the first six months of this year, boosted mainly by the disposal of non-core businesses and gains from asset revaluation. Underlying earnings, however, dropped 6.3% year on year, dragged down by higher start-up costs for new supermarkets and the new joint venture with Japan’s Kirin Brewery. Frank Lai, Chief Financial Officer of China Resources, said: “We want to get ahead of our competitors as they delay their expansion amid the grim economic outlook.” The company opened some 200 retail outlets in the first half and plans to follow it up with 300 more in the second. Staff costs went up 20% to 25% year on year in its retail units, which could only be partially passed on to customers, leading to a 4% drop in profits in those units to HKD650 million. Snow Beer, which has a 22% market share in China, saw volumes grow 6% year on year to 5.4 million kiloliters in the first half. Profit from the beer unit rose 14% year on year to HKD375 million. Snow Beer’s net profit margin was 5%, against the global average of 10%. The company is in the process of upgrading its product mix to improve its margin. The beer is priced in a wide range, from as low as CNY1 to CNY80 per bottle, depending on branding and sales location.

Chinese universities have taken 42 spots in the top 500 in the 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities, compared with 35 last year. Among the 42 universities, 28 are based on the Chinese mainland, five more than last year. Tsinghua University, Peking University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Zhejiang University rank among the world’s top 200. China overtakes the United Kingdom, which has 38 universities in the Top 500, and becomes second in the world in terms of the number of universities joining the list. However, no Chinese university is ranked among the top 100 yet. Chinese universities have performed well in categories such as the number of articles published in international journals, but still lag in terms of internationally recognized scholars and articles of world influence. The ranking puts Harvard University on the top of the list for the 10th time, followed by Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Cambridge, Caltech, Princeton, Columbia, Chicago and Oxford.  The annual ranking has been released by the Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University since 2003.

West China Cement denied allegations of fraud by U.S. short seller Glaucus Research Group, which included falsifying profit margins, suspiciously overpaying to buy loss-making cement plants and borrowing money at unusually high interest rates. On June 28 Italcementi agreed to pay CNY504 million to acquire a 6.25% in West China Cement in return for selling its stakes in Chinese cement plants to West China Cement. When West China Cement listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in 2006, raising GBP22 million, its production capacity was 1.5 million tons, which grew to 10 million tons in 2010 when it listed in Hong Kong. The company has an annual cement production capacity of 23.7 million tons, of which 21.1 million tons is in Shaanxi province and the rest in Xinjiang, according to its website. It became the first Chinese company to quit AIM and transfer its listing to Hong Kong, where it raised HKD1.4 billion in August 2010. Zhang co-founded West China Cement with 13 employees of the company in 1997, when it was called Shaanxi Pucheng Yaobai Special Cement, according to its Hong Kong IPO prospectus. The firm subsequently relocated its headquarters from Pucheng to Xian. In December 2009, Zhang became Chairman of the Shaanxi Province Cement Association, the South China Morning Post reports.

Song Liping, Chief Executive of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, has said B-share companies would be encouraged to voluntarily withdraw the listing of their shares and relaunch A-share public offerings. The Shanghai Stock Exchange also said in a statement that those B-share companies that voluntarily privatize would be able to relaunch A-share initial public offerings (IPOs) without going through the lengthy application process. A-shares are yuan-denominated while B-shares are traded in foreign currencies. The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) created the B-share market in 1992 to help state-owned companies raise funds in foreign currencies. In the past decade, there hasn’t been a single IPO on the B-share market, where some 100 companies are traded. B-shares are now trading at a huge discount to their A-share counterparts. There are more than 20 companies with only B-shares listed. The remaining B-share companies are also listed on the A-share market. Analysts say companies with dual listings could conduct share-swap deals to convert their B-shares into A-shares. This conversion would benefit holders of B-shares because of the relatively high valuations and strong liquidity on the A-share market. Early this month, Tsann Kuen (China) Enterprise’s B-shares traded below the equivalent of CNY1 for 18 straight sessions before the company announced it would pursue a bailout plan. The company was on the verge of being expelled from the Shenzhen exchange because of the newly published delisting rule under which a firm can be delisted if its stock price trades below CNY1 for 20 straight sessions. Tsann Kuen’s experience triggered panic selling as B-share investors worried about a flood of expulsions.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) announced that foreign shareholders can have a total stake of as much as 49% in a joint venture securities company, up from the previous limit of one third. The regulation also lowered the standards for Sino-foreign securities joint ventures to expand their business scope. Joint ventures can apply for new services after two years’ operation, compared with five years in the past, the CSRC said. Their scope can be expanded into brokerage services and financial consultancy, alongside the investment banking business. The new policy is expected to give a shot in the arm to China’s securities joint venture business, while also increasing brokers’ competitiveness. The business performance of 11 Sino-foreign securities joint ventures was lackluster this year, influenced by the gloomy stock market and economic slowdown. In the first six months of this year, only three of the 11 securities joint ventures gained a total of five IPO underwriting projects, raising CNY4.96 billion, according to Wind Information Co. In the A-share market, 33 securities companies raised CNY73.4 billion by underwriting 108 IPOs in the first half. “Compared with local Chinese securities companies, the joint ventures enjoy very limited strengths in the investment banking business,” said Wang Xianyi, Researcher on China at the Samsung Economic Research Institute.