The Era of Alt Data is Upon Us (Again)

The China PCAOB audit: The Bad, The Good, and What to Actually Worry About: The PCAOB found issues, but those probably aren't the ones you should be worrying about.

Early Winners of China's New AI Regulations: The new regulations on AI services are out for review. They seem pretty well-designed for China, but look burdensome, and will create winners and losers.

The Chinese Tech Innovation Sweeping Southeast Asia: VIEs: As tech companies in Southeast Asia seek to emulate the success of their northern counterparts they've started embracing VIEs to help expand in the restrictive regulatory landscape.

Why Tencent’s Golden Share Arrangements Could Be Worse for Investors Than Alibaba’s: While Alibaba's golden share arrangement was relatively limited, the same is unlikely to be true for Tencent. The company's corporate structure is likely to expose it to a more meaningful intervention

Zhang Yiming transfers stake in Bytedance’s mainland assets: The founder has seemingly transferred his 98.8% stake in the company's main Chinese VIE, raising questions about how the company will align interests between foreign investors and the new VIE owners.

Alibaba’s spinoffs: more clarity, more complexity: Alibaba's new spinoff plan doesn't actually look that new, and is likely to increase the complexity of one of the worlds most complex corporate structures.

The China PCAOB Audits: Neither Dead nor Done: After a very long time it appears we finally have a deal between the PCAOB and the CSRC for audit inspections that would allow Chinese companies to stay listed in the US. This has come as a surprise to many, myself included, and after the announcement, lo the hot-takes did fly. So lets take a little step back and look at what’s actually happened, what all the fuss is about, and what might lie ahead.

Is your VIE structure HK compliant?: As the trickle of US-listed Chinese companies moving to HK becomes a steady stream some of them might have issues living up to HK guidance on the use of VIE structures.

Time to prepare for a PCAOB no-deal: With the recent decision by numerous large Chinese SOEs to effectively end their time on the US markets, the writing seems to be on the wall for a deal between the PCAOB and their Chinese counterparts to reach a deal on audit inspections. Thus likely pushing US-listed Chinese companies off the US exchanges, and setting in motion a sea-change in the landscape for investors in Chinese equities.

No, China has not stopped investments into VIEs: They appear to have stopped companies creating offshore listing structures, which is an entirely different and potentially broader problem.

VIEs as Control Mechanisms: As the new age of regulation sweeps over the Chinese business landscape, VIEs are likely to take a central role in how the government asserts control over tech companies.

Wait a SEC: The SEC letter on VIEs starts with a fallacy on how VIEs work, and proceeds to demand disclosures that mostly already exist.

That's Not the VIE You're Looking For: With VIE's in the headlines there is plenty of risk analysis to go around. However, much of it seems to misunderstand some basics of how VIEs work, or sometimes even what a VIE is.

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