Monday, January 17, 2011

Eddie Leung buys back exhibitions from Info Comm


It appears that Info Comm's exhibition business is finally free. Hong Kong-based Info Communication has been in quite a mess since 2008 which the company changed ownership and made a failed attempt to buy a coal mine in China. Since then there has been a jumble of law suits, tinkering with shares (Info Comm is a listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange), new owners, a name change (the company now trades under the name Sage International) and finally a new core business. Sage International is now focused on... funeral services in China.


In November last year, the company announced it would sell its exhibition business, with details to follow. The details of the transaction were sent to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last week. The transaction involves Sage’s 99.5% stake in subsidiary exhibition organising company, Infosky. The purchaser’s has been identified as a director of Infosky, namely Info Comm’s founder Eddie Leung Tin Fu who has paid HK$3 million (US$385,000) for the exhibition business.


The company's exhibition-related revenues have fallen from a high of US$11.4 million for the year ended 31 March 2008 down to US$6 million in 2010. The exhibition business posted a loss of US$1.3 million in 2010, but now that the exhibition operations are back in the hands of its founder, we can expect Leung to get back to business. In July, he signed a deal with the HKTDC to jointly launch the Better Living Expo. We also anticipate that Eddie Leung will return the company to the pre-listing brand name, "Paper Communications" since that is the name he used to sign the deal with HKTDC last summer.


Perhaps now Kenfair can get its house in order. Kenfair also tried to buy a coal mine in China in 2007. Since then it has gone all wrong and Kenfair, now renamed Sino Resources Group, has had its shared suspended since June 2009!


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