Pear Oriental Cyberforce [988] has acquired 70% share interest in HealthPhone.com. Last week, Pearl has formed an alliance with China Sanjiu Group to set up a similar web site called HealthCyber.com. The group is planning to invest US$20m into the two web sites this year. HealthPhone.com, which provides free information on Chinese medicine, is targeting the North American and European market. It has attained a break-even position. The group's management expected it to grow by 100% annually from $5m projected revenue this year.
Comment:
Pearl is shifting its core business from property development to technology investments. The group has acquired controlling share interest in a number of web sites, such as ebid.com and stockonline last year. HealthPhone.com is the second Chinese-medicine portal operator being acquired by the group after HealthCyber.com. As we all know that rich content is the key to success in web business. I doubted if the group's management has sufficient skills to manage so many sites with different contents.
We are disappointed that Pearl did not disclose the acquisition price for each of its web sites. It would be difficult for investors to access the value of the share price without knowing such important information.
Recommendation:
Pearl Oriental (0988) - AVOID¡@