Results tagged “morganstanley”

• Oop! Que Jingde, a high-level town government official who was a major shareholder in the Minhang building that collapsed, has now been arrested for corruption. [Shanghai Daily]
• The United Nations Environment Programme has taken stock of Shanghai's environmental efforts and said that the city has actually made strides in "greening" itself. [UN News]
• Morgan Stanley has sold The Exchange, a 52-story office and retail tower in Jing'an, to SOHO China Ltd. for $358.5 million. For those of you who are interested, only 30% of the building's space is currently rented. [AP

• Morgan Stanley’s Chinese Land Scandal [NYTimes] "Last month, with property prices here and elsewhere in free fall, the bank dropped a bombshell: in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, it said it had fired an executive in its China real estate division after uncovering evidence that he might have violated the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars American business people from bribing foreign officials."
• U.S. Pavilion at Shanghai Expo to break ground on schedule [Xinhua] "Despite fund raising problems, officials of the U.S. Pavilion for the Shanghai World Expo 2010 say they are confident they will break ground to build a national pavilion on schedule this April."
• Premier Wen urges journalists to write "true, accurate" stories [Xinhua] "Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Saturday urged journalists to write 'true and accurate' news stories because it is a fundamental principle and a lifeline for the media. Wen told a group of Xinhua News Agency staff that Xinhua should take the lead in doing so and carry on its tradition of reporting news accurately, effectively and timely."

The President of China Investment Corp, Gao Xiqing, has made his way to the U.S. with Wei Christianson, CEO and Managing Director of Morgan Stanley China, sparking rumours that the Chinese sovereign wealth fund may buy up to 49% of the beleaguered investment bank. Gao has been scheduled to meet Morgan Stanley executives in San Francisco after the New York-based company plunged 42% after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch sold itself to Bank of America.

5. China remembers the Nanking Massacre

What should a Wall Street firm do when it loses billions on risky bets in the mortgage securities market? Have its CEO call the Chinese government for a capital infusion of course. Bear Stearns did it back in October. Yesterday, Morgan Stanley announced a USD $5 billion equity investment from China Investment Corp. after writing down USD $9.4 billion of its mortgage securities portfolio, ouch! China Investment Corp. is the USD $200 billion sovereign wealth fund that the Chinese government has setup to invest its massive foreign currency hoard, estimated at roughly USD $1.4 trillion.

It's not the New York Times and it is certainly a bit slanted towards Beijing by the nature of its source, but the list of top ten books noted by users of book club site Douban.com is a whimsical glimpse into what young, plugged-in Chinese are reading offline these days. Here is the list as it stands today:

The song that got the most votes was the folk ballad, "My Wonderful Home Town," followed by "I Love China," "Singing Praises of Motherland" and 27 others, Xinhua news agency said.

Shanghaiist called it a long, long, looooong time ago: Senator Chuck Schumer is a blithering idiot.