SHANGHAI, June 1 (Reuters) – Chinese game operator Shanda Games (GAME.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is in acquisition talks with some social and mobile gaming firms in the United States and Asia, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

Shanda Games, which reported market-topping first-quarter results on Tuesday [ID:nL3E7GV3IT] and operates online games such as “Mir 2″ and “Woool” in China, is seeking to expand its overseas footprint and make a concerted push into social and mobile gaming.

“We are definitely in talks with some of them,” the firm’s Chief Executive Officer Alan Tan told Reuters.

“Companies like Renren have opened up opportunities for us to expand because if you look at Facebook as well, a key application is games,” Tan said. Social networking site Renren (RENN.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) has been dubbed China’s Facebook.

Shanda Games hopes to see more than 20 percent of its revenue from international markets in two to three years, up from 5.4 percent currently. The firm’s president told Reuters last month that it is planning to push into the United States, South Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia this year. [ID:nN02222409]

Shanda Games will also be opening an operation base in Singapore in July or August this year and plans three more such bases internationally; one will be in Taiwan or Hong Kong, one in the United States and another in Europe.

“We will bring our games operating platform to other countries,” Tan said adding that the firm has not decided whether or not the operation bases in the United States and Europe would be set up by Shanda Games or bought from another company.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – In a country where being connected is seen as crucial, Ushi, China’s answer to LinkedIn, expects explosive growth over the next few years in the world’s largest Internet market.

The professional-social networking site plans to have 10 million users in two years from the current 300,000, and aims to raise $5 million by the end of June, Dominic Penaloza told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

“We’re aiming to ultimately serve a very large portion of China’s 40 million Internet users who are white collar or entrepreneurs. Call it 10 million in two years,” said Penaloza.

“There’s more proportion of Chinese who will only do business with people they have met before and people who have a mutual friend,” said the Filipino-Chinese who grew up in Canada.

Venture capitalists and private equity funds have flocked to Chinese Internet firms, with U.S. IPOs of companies such as Youku and Dangdang surging as they market themselves as the YouTube and Amazon of China.

The growth is being fueled by China’s Internet industry which has more than 450 million users.

Ushi, which launched in October, is backed by Milestone Capital, US-based Richmond Management, Li & Fung private equity and Simon Murray & Co.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The U.S. audit watchdog expects an agreement with China later this year that will allow greater transparency of Chinese companies listed in the United States, its chairman told Reuters on Thursday.

Worries over accounting practices of some Chinese firms has been mounting among U.S. investors and has been cited as a reason for a plunge in shares of Chinese social networking site Renren following its initial public offering earlier this month.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), which was created following the Enron scandal to oversee auditors of public companies and broker-dealers, has been lobbying China to allow U.S. inspectors check up on auditors of Chinese companies listing on U.S. exchanges.

James Doty, chairman of the PCAOB told Reuters, the breakthrough came during the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue that took place in Washington last week.

“Both sides have agreed to accelerate efforts, including undertaking a process for negotiations and engaging in technical assistance activities, to reach a bilateral agreement governing cross-border audit oversight,” Doty said in an emailed statement.

“The hope and expectation is that the PCAOB’s discussions with the Chinese authorities in the coming months will provide the framework for a definitive bilateral agreement later this year.”

Chinese firms have come under scrutiny recently after a flurry of research reports analyzing a few of these Chinese “reverse merger” companies showed them to be scams. A reverse merger is a type of backdoor listing in which a foreign company merges with a U.S. shell company.

SHANGHAI, May 19 (Reuters) – The U.S. audit watchdog expects an agreement with China later this year that will allow greater transparency of Chinese companies listed in the United States, its chairman told Reuters on Thursday.

Worries over accounting practices of some Chinese firms has been mounting among U.S. investors and has been cited as a reason for a plunge in shares of Chinese social networking site Renren following its initial public offering earlier this month.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), which was created following the Enron scandal to oversee auditors of public companies and broker-dealers, has been lobbying China to allow U.S. inspectors check up on auditors of Chinese companies listing on U.S. exchanges.

James Doty, chairman of the PCAOB told Reuters, the breakthrough came during the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue that took place in Washington last week.

“Both sides have agreed to accelerate efforts, including undertaking a process for negotiations and engaging in technical assistance activities, to reach a bilateral agreement governing cross-border audit oversight,” Doty said in an emailed statement.

“The hope and expectation is that the PCAOB’s discussions with the Chinese authorities in the coming months will provide the framework for a definitive bilateral agreement later this year.”

Chinese firms have come under scrutiny recently after a flurry of research reports analyzing a few of these Chinese “reverse merger” companies showed them to be scams. A reverse merger is a type of backdoor listing in which a foreign company merges with a U.S. shell company.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s yuan will one day play a major role as a global reserve currency, although the U.S. dollar will remain an important currency, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said on Wednesday.

“We live in a multi-polar world and a multi-currency world more and more, and that’s the case for the rise of the euro as a reserve currency. The dollar stays as an important currency,” Van Rompuy said during a visit to a Shanghai business school.

“But in the upcoming decades, there will be huge changes and in the far future the Chinese currency will play a role,” he added. “The Chinese currency will play a major role in world reserves because China is so important in world trade and currency; money follows trade.”

For that to happen, however, China would need to make the yuan — also known as the renminbi, or people’s currency — fully convertible, and the government has given no clear indication of when that might happen.

Beijing has been trying to increase the global clout of its currency by promoting foreign trade settlement in yuan and signing bilateral currency swaps with other countries. But analysts believe it will take a long time for the yuan to become a global reserve currency.

Van Rompuy also took the opportunity to press China obliquely on the yuan’s exchange rate, which some people say Beijing keeps purposefully cheap to boost exports.

“Exchange rates have to translate into economic realities and fundamentals, as was agreed at the G20 Summit in Seoul last year. Non-appropriate exchange rates contribute to internal imbalances as external ones,” he said. “Moreover, the impact of one’s exchange rate on the global system is bigger to the extent one’s economy grows. The correction of imbalances can be gradual and has to be mutual of course.”

SHANGHAI, May 18 (Reuters) – China’s yuan will one day play a major role as a global reserve currency, although the U.S. dollar will remain an important currency, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said on Wednesday.

“We live in a multi-polar world and a multi-currency world more and more, and that’s the case for the rise of the euro as a reserve currency. The dollar stays as an important currency,” Van Rompuy said during a visit to a Shanghai business school.

“But in the upcoming decades, there will be huge changes and in the far future the Chinese currency will play a role,” he added. “The Chinese currency will play a major role in world reserves because China is so important in world trade and currency; money follows trade.”

For that to happen, however, China would need to make the yuan — also known as the renminbi, or people’s currency – fully convertible, and the government has given no clear indication of when that might happen.

Beijing has been trying to increase the global clout of its currency by promoting foreign trade settlement in yuan and signing bilateral currency swaps with other countries. But analysts believe it will take a long time for the yuan to become a global reserve currency.

Van Rompuy also took the opportunity to press China obliquely on the yuan’s exchange rate, which some people say Beijing keeps purposefully cheap to boost exports.

“Exchange rates have to translate into economic realities and fundamentals, as was agreed at the G20 Summit in Seoul last year. Non-appropriate exchange rates contribute to internal imbalances as external ones,” he said. “Moreover, the impact of one’s exchange rate on the global system is bigger to the extent one’s economy grows. The correction of imbalances can be gradual and has to be mutual of course.”

SHANGHAI, May 18 (Reuters) – PopCap Games Inc, the maker of popular smartphone and Facebook games “Bejeweled” and “Plants vs Zombies”, could list as early as November, it chief executive David Roberts said on Wednesday.

“We are very much in the process of preparing a listing. We expect to be ready to be listed as early as November this year,” Roberts told reporters at a news conference.

“Whether we go, will depend on the market…we don’t want to rush into it,” Roberts added.

Roberts said in April the company had spoken to both Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange but a Nasdaq listing was more likely. It also gave “test road shows” to potential institutional investors to gauge the viability of the IPO. [ID:nN11114817]

The company is also seeking partners to develop more casual game projects and has no intention to develop more complex games, Roberts said.

“We have got many requests (from Chinese companies to ask for cooperation), we will try to find the best way to expand our brand,” Roberts said.

PopCap announced on Wednesday a tie-up with Chinese social-networking site Renren Inc to launch their games in China. China, which has more than 477 million Internet users, has a booming online games industry with millions of young people thronging Internet cafes to play games.

LONDON/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Darren Hosie knows all the best bars on Shanghai’s historic Bund.

There’s the Bar Rouge with its flaming drinks, house music and turbocharged hedonism; M on the Bund which channels 1930s sophistication; and Lounge 18 whose expensive wood panelling and wall to ceiling glass windows exude a more modern glamour.

Hosie has lived in China for the past three years and is well accustomed to the tastes and whims of the country’s new business elite — the legions of bankers, entrepreneurs, traders and second-generation wealthy, known as “princelings”, who think nothing of dropping $200 on a bottle of French wine or $1,000 on a bottle of scotch whisky that they’ll then mix with green tea.

Tonight the Scotsman is in the Shanghai Tang bar, watering hole of China’s best known luxury label. Sitting on a straight-backed, wooden chair in front of a tasting audience, Hosie is clean-shaven ahead of an evening of whisky-nosing and tasting sessions.

Born and bred in Glasgow, the 37-year-old has spent the past seven years working for scotch whisky giant Pernod Ricard (PERP.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and since August 2007 he has lived in China as international brand ambassador for the firm’s top whisky brands Chivas Regal, Ballantine’s and The Glenlivet.

In a lilting Scottish accent, Hosie explains the joys of whisky and its sure-footed advance into China. As he describes the different types of whisky that the spellbound audience are about to taste — malty, peaty, smoky — a few give approving responses.

Hosie says that for palates accustomed to baijiu, China’s fiery sorghum- or rice-based spirit, the flavour and smoothness of whisky can have instant appeal. Mix it with what you like — water, ice or green tea — he says. Just remember the care that has gone into ageing and blending the best.

SHANGHAI, May 16 (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc and Alibaba Group will find it difficult to resolve their feud over the Chinese company’s transfer of a major Internet asset, raising questions over how long its troubled marriage would last.

Yahoo shares have fallen 11 percent since Tuesday when the U.S. Internet company said Alibaba had restructured Alipay, an online e-commerce payment system similar to eBay Inc’s PayPal, to Alibaba Chief Executive Officer Jack Ma.

Analysts said this reduced the value of Yahoo’s 43 percent stake in Alibaba – considered one of its most valuable assets.

After initially issuing contradictory statements, both companies said in a joint statement that they were in negotiations and were committed to resolving the dispute.

However, analysts said the soured relationship between Alibaba and its major shareholder is a deep-rooted one and any attempts to improve ties will not be easy.

“You will see more difficulties in communication and potential disagreements probably until the day Yahoo decides to sell back its stake in the company,” said Mark Natkin, managing director of Marbridge Consulting.

Yahoo said it was blindsided by the Alipay deal, while Alibaba countered that Yahoo was aware of the transaction by virtue of having a board seat, now held by former Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang, who is also a Yahoo director.

SINGAPORE/BANGALORE (Reuters) – China’s Sina Corp plans to ramp up investment in its hot Twitter-like product, Weibo, for the rest of the year in order to fend off competition from Tencent Holdings and attract a wider user base.

Sina, which has seen its stock soar on investor hopes that Weibo will be monetized sooner rather than later, reported a 39 percent decline in quarterly net profit after it invested heavily in the platform.

While investors want the site to be monetized quickly, Sina wants focus on expanding its current user base of white-collar users to include students and users in lower-tier cities. Sina hopes to have more than 200 million Weibo users by the end of the year, up from 140 million currently.

“I hope we can build up scale quickly and move to monetization quickly,” said Sina’s chief executive, Charles Chao, on an earnings conference call.

“I think the trend is to go deeper into the market in terms of geographical location so we can get more users,” Chao said.

China’s largest Internet firm, Tencent, has 160 million registered users for its Weibo product and is Sina’s main competitor. Sina hopes to build scale to make it harder for its rivals to compete.

Sina said on Wednesday it earned a first-quarter net profit of $15 million, or 23 cents a share, compared with $24.4 million, or 37 cents a share, for the same period a year ago. Excluding one-off items, it earned 25 cents a share, missing the average forecast of earnings of 26 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.