HoHoHo, it was a good idea until June

In mid June I wrote this https://atans1.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/ho-got-this-one-right/

Temasek was part of a consortium that funded the delisting of Focus Media from the stock market in the US, and relist in China.

Focus Media Holding’s plan to float shares inside China suffered a setback in late June,

Zhu Dehong, the chairman of Jiangsu Hongda New Material, the shell company Focus Media plans to use for its backdoor listing in Shenzhen, resigned for “personal reasons,” the rubber maker said in a filing to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Tuesday.

Mr. Zhu’s resignation comes a week after Hongda said regulators wereinvestigating the company and Mr. Zhu for allegedly violating Chinese securities laws. Hongda gave no details on whether these investigations were linked Focus Media’s plan to return to its home turf through what is known as a reverse merger. WSJ

Then the collapse of the Chinese stock markets led the authorities to, among other things, suspend new issues of shares.

HoHoHo. There’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip.

Ho got this one right

It was reported earlet that one of the funders of the US delisting was Temasek.

CARLYLE-BACKED COMPANY REACHES $7.4 BILLION DEAL FOR CHINA LISTING Focus Media, a Shanghai advertising company that was delisted from the Nasdaq two years ago after being targeted by the short seller Muddy Waters, on Wednesday reached a $7.4 billion deal to list on the Shenzhen stock exchange, Neil Gough writes in DealBook. Focus is returning to the market through a so-called backdoor listing, in which its main assets are sold to a company already listed in Shenzhen in exchange for shares that represent a controlling stake in the listed company. On Wednesday, Jiangsu Hongda New Material, a Shenzhen-listed manufacturer of silicone rubber products, said it would pay 45.7 billion renminbi, or $7.4 billion, mostly by issuing new stock, to acquire control of Focus.

In 2011, Focus Media was still listed on the Nasdaq when Muddy Waters accused it of overstating the number of screens in its LCD advertising network by about 50 percent, allegations that Focus Media denied. In 2013, the company was acquired and taken private by its chairman and a group of Chinese and foreign private firms that included the Carlyle Group, at a valuation of $3.7 billion.

NYT Dealbook