Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Deutsche Bank

Chinese Facebook Clone Renren.com Filing To Go Public In U.S.

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:51:25 +0000

Renren.com is a social networking website based in China that looks almost exactly like Facebook. Renren has hired Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse Group, and Deutsche Bank AG to advise them on a $500 million expansion plan through an IPO in the U.S.

Renren.com was able to grow quickly because Facebook and Twitter is blocked in China through a web filtering process. Facebook launched a Chinese-language version in 2008, but it was blocked entirely in China. The Chinese government did not explain why Facebook was blocked.

Renren means “everyone” in Chinese and they have over 160 million users. It started one year after Facebook and tens of millions of college students signed up.

[WSJ]

HomeAway.com In Talks For A $300 Million IPO

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 01:22:53 +0000

HomeAway.com is in talks with several banks about a $300 million IPO according to BusinessWeek sources. The banks that HomeAway is talking to include Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Goldman Sachs.

HomeAway was founded in 2005 and raised $500 million in private funding from Austin Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Technology Crossover Ventures, and Institutional Venture Partners (IVP).

HomeAway is a website where you can rent houses, apartments, condos, etc. for vacations on a nightly or weekly basis. HomeAway currently has about 540,000 rental listings across 120 countries. Homeowners pay an annual fee of about $300 to post their properties.

[BusinessWeek]

BREAKING: T-Mobile Parent Company Deutsche Telekom Considering Buying Sprint

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 06:01:32 +0000

Deutsche Telekom has called on Deutsche Bank advisers to study if it is possible for the telecommunications giant to buy Sprint. Sprint is the third largest telecommunications company in the United States. This possibility arises at a time when T-Mobile UK may be tying their operations with Orange to create the biggest mobile phone company in the United Kingdom.

Sprint has a market cap of $10.6 billion and Deutsche Telekom may submit a bid within the next few weeks. Deutsche Telekom has a market cap of $60.5 billion. T-Mobile U.S. continues to struggle against AT&T and Verizon Wireless in retaining customers. Both AT&T and Verizon have advanced 3G networks while T-Mobile has been slow at jumping on the bandwagon.

In order to buy out Sprint, Deutsche Telekom would need a cash injection from shareholders and the German government. The German government owns about 32% in Deutsche Telekom.

Satoru Kikuchi Of Deutsche Bank Believes Nintendo Is Peaking

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 07:57:48 +0000

When I think of Nintendo, the last thing I can think of is that the company is peaking. But apparently Deutsche Bank analyst Satoru Kikuchi believes the gaming company is giving a sell rating on Nintendo’s stock. Kikuchi claims that Nintendo is peaking and is going to face a downwards trend. He predicts that the company will slow down especially in 2010 and 2011.

The Wii and the DS will slow down as the market gets saturated with other consoles.

However, Kikuchi isn’t taking into account the new content that Nintendo plans on publishing in the next two years and the release of the DSi later this year. The DSi is already doing very well in Japan.

What are your thoughts? Do you think Nintendo will peak in the next two years? Leave a comment.

[via G4TV]

Rumor: eBay Hires Deutsche Bank To Find StumbleUpon Buyer

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:41:54 +0000

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) is rumored to have hired Deutsche Bank to find a buyer to sell off StumbleUpon, the social bookmarking site that they acquired for $75 million. This rumor was started by a source of TechCrunch. The price for selling off StumbleUpon is unknown. I think it is still a mystery for why eBay bought the company in the first place. What would eBay do with a social bookmarking site?

As far as traffic measurements go, StumbleUpon had about 1.3 million global visitors and 25 million pageviews this past July. About a year earlier, the site was bringing in 4.4 million global visitors and 31 million pageviews according to Comscore. The number of registered users have gone up from 5 million to 6 million in the last 5 months. StumbleUpon is growing at a moderate pace. The more registered users, the more your valuation goes up. I wouldn’t be surprised if eBay was able to resell StumbleUpon for what they paid.

I’m estimating that Digg has about 3 million registered based on the fact that they had about 1 million users one month ago and their current growth rate. And they were looking for an acquisition price somewhere north of $200 million. It was rumored that they were in talks with Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), but it didn’t work out.

Lately it seems like eBay is barking up a lot of the wrong trees. eBay is expected to have massive lay-offs. They are fighting with Craigslist and several fashion designer companies in a legal battle. A lot of their sellers are leaving due to the fixed-price model shift. eBay is even having cognitive dissonance about their purchase of Skype.

Two of the best acquisition deals that eBay made thus far was PayPal and StubHub. There is actual synergy there. PayPal runs the whole payment system around eBay auctions. And StubHub is going to bank when selling the PSLs for the New York Jets.

TheMarkets.com Raises $30 Million From 11 Top Investment Banks/Owners

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:46:37 +0000

TheMarkets.com is a website that reports financial resources and estimations to institutional investors.Â Today the company announced that it has “completed a $30 million Series S Rights Offering to its existing broker-owners^[1].”

“This investment is a tangible validation of our business model to provide value-added content and workflow solutions to the buy-side,” stated David Eisner, the CEO and President of TheMarkets.com. “Together with our already strong cash flow and balance sheet, this round of financing will propel our growth in the coming years. The funding will enable us to pursue strategic investments and acquisitions, as we continue to expand globally by leveraging our existing distribution platform and our unique relationships with the sell-side to introduce new products and services requested by our clients.”

Who owns TheMarkets.com?Â The company was formed in 2000 by eleven of the top investment banks: Banc of America Securities, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Kleinwort, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS Investment Bank.Â Â The site also offers information regarding company financial filings and pending equity deals straight from the source.Â TheMarkets.com is based in New York and also has offices in London.

TheMarkets.com serves over 1500 firms in 43 countries.Â “TheMarkets.com has a proven management team and a sound business model,” stated Mark Steinert, a new Board Member of and also a Global Head of Research at UBS. “We view the Company as an ideal vehicle through which to develop new tools for the buy-side that uniquely leverage our services, and we were delighted to be a significant investor in the round.”

[1] TheMarkets.com Press release: TheMarkets.com Closes $30 Million to Fund Strategic Growth Plans

References:
[2] PaidContent: Online Financial Researcher TheMarkets.com Closes $30 Million Investment