Haihua will own majority in Carlyle Venture

(Shanghai Daily)
Updated: 2007-06-08 15:52

Shangdong Haihua Co said its parent Shandong Haihua Group will own the majority stake in a venture with Carlyle Group, Bloomberg reported today.

The group, a Chinese state-owned company that produces soda ash and other chemicals, said Haihua Group will offer assets including its own shares in the venture while Carlyle, a Washington D.C.-based private equity firm, will put up cash, Shandong Haihua said today in a statement to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The statement didn't provide any financial or production details of the venture.

Haihua, based in Weifang city of eastern China's Shandong province, signed an initial memorandum for the venture which will be effective until July 5, it said in the statement, without elaborating.

Phone calls to the Weifang city State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the group's controlling shareholder, weren't answered.

Li Guangqiang, investor relations manager at Shandong Haihua, declined to comment when reached by phone today. Dorothy Lee, a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for Carlyle, also declined comment when called by Bloomberg News.

Shandong Haihua's shares rose by the Shenzhen stock exchange's daily limit of 10 percent, trading at 15.74 yuan (US$ 2.06) as of 2:42pm. The shares have more than tripled since the beginning of this year, compared with an 87 percent gain in the benchmark CSI 300 Index.

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