BVI Company News

French nuclear energy group Areva launched an agreed takeover for UraMin Inc., having valued it at more than $2.5 billion, which is a 21% premium over UraMin 20-day average trading price as of June 8, 2007.� It was announced that Areva and UraMin entered into an agreement in respect of Areva’s friendly cash offer for 100% of the share capital of UraMin, while Areva already owned 5.5% of UraMin. The cash offer was pitched at $7.75 per UraMin share.

Also, in connection with the offer, all directors and some other shareholders representing approximately 25% of the outstanding UraMin shares have entered into lock-up agreements with Areva pursuant to which they have agreed to tender all their UraMin shares to AREVA’s offer.

The support agreement entered into between Areva and UraMin provides for, among other things, in case a superior proposal is accepted by UraMin, a right to match in favour of Areva. The agreement also includes a break up fee of US$ 75 million in favour of AREVA under certain circumstances.

UraMin is an emerging Africa-focused uranium producer, having mineral rights in Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana, Chad and the Central African Republic. The company was registered in February 2005 in the British Virgin Islands and is listed on London and Toronto stock exchanges. The Company currently has working capital of approximately US$285 million, and a market capitalization of approximately US$2 billion.

UraMin’s shares, which have already doubled this year, jumped another 10% after the sale announcement. The company has three projects that are due to start production by the end of 2009.

A 51% stake in a newly established British Virgin Islands-registered subsidiary BSI Logistics has been acquired by Grand Power Express International through Parkway Global.

About C$207,774 was planned to be invested for a 51% interest in BSI Logistics by Grand Power Express. The remaining 49% were acquired by the minority shareholder, Centervision International. The acquisition came into effect on June 1.

To oversee the operations of BSI Logistics, Grand Power Express will appoint all of the directors to the BSI’s board. It should be noted that the principals of Centrevision International are pioneers in the airfreight industry in Hong Kong having big experience in both the European and North America markets.

In May 2006, BSI was incorporated as a Hong Kong-based freight forwarding and logistics company to offer a comprehensive variety of supply chain management services and logistics solutions as well as such value-added auxiliary services as pre-shipment estimating, banking, and documentation for different industry customers.

The president & CEO of Grand Power Logistics, Ricky Chiu, said that this acquisition is relatively small, however it is valuable because it provides the company with another efficient and well-established access to cargo consolidation markets. According to him, since the middle of  2006, the company was focused more on direct clients, rather than the co-loading or air-cargo consolidation, therefore working with a specialist company in order to consolidate cargo meant for Europe and North America is valuable for Grand Power. Chiu also added that the company hopes to contribute between C$1 million and C$1.5 million in sales revenue to the company by means of this arrangement.

UTi Worldwide Inc., global provider of freight and supply chain services, registered in the British Virgin Islands, has reported a 6.2% drop in first-quarter earnings. The main reasons of decline are higher operating and other expenses, despite solid revenue growth. Company’s gross and net revenues were up 22% and 24%, respectively, helped by organic growth and acquisitions.

BVI company’s net income for the quarter declined to $18.12 million or $0.18 per share, from $19.32 million or $0.20 per share a year ago. For the fourth quarter 2006, company’s net income was $23.6 million or $0.24 per share.

The company’s total gross revenue rose 22% in the first quarter to $944.74 million from $733.7 million in the first quarter of 2006. Total net revenue for the quarter reached $336.04 million, that is up 24% from $271.63 million in the same period of the last year. The increase in quarterly revenue was attrubuted by company analysts to organic growth across all geographic regions and contributions from the company’s acquisitions made since February 1, 2006.

UTi Worldwide also informed that its operating income for the quarter rose $31.4 million, from $30 million in the same quarter of fiscal 2006. The company also recorded net interest expenses of $4.09 million in this quarter, higher than the $2.87 million reported last year.

The company announced its new strategic plan for 5 years and affirmed its earnings per share outlook for fiscal year 2008. Going forward, UTi confirmed its previously announced fiscal 2008 earnings per share guidance in the range of $1.14 - $1.22.

BVI-registered TNK-BP International Limited has reported the increase of US GAAP net profit on 40%, from $4.744 billion in 2005 to $6.629 billion in 2006.

Revenue, excluding export duties and excise taxes, grew 11.3% to $24.66 billion in 2006. Total amount of overall operational expenditures in 2006 was $18.176 billion, up 14.5% from  $15.869 billion in 2005.

BVI-registered TNK-BP is part of TNK-BP  Group, one of the largest oil and gas industry companies of global scale.  TNK-BP is the owner of TNK Industrial Holdings Ltd, which is owned by TNK International Ltd. TNK Internastional includes TNK-BP Holding plus 49.5% of Slavneft, and owns 63% of RUSIA Petroleum and 75% of the sales company Petrol Complex Equipment Company.

National Realty and Mortgage, Inc. has announced the acquisition of World Through Limited, a corporation registered in the British Virgin Islands.  The deal took place on June 6, 2007. Also, on June 6 Daqing Sunway completed a private placement of $6.7 million through the sale of shares and attached warrants. Subject to certain restrictions, the Series B Convertible Preferred Stock is convertible into an aggregate of 4,962,963 shares of common stock.

BVI-based World Through Limited controls Daqing Sunway Technology Co., Ltd., a Chinese operating company, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Sunway World Through Technology (Daqing) Co., Ltd., a wholly foreign owned entity organized under the Chinese corporate law.

he control is carried out through a series of contractual arrangements, which give Daqing control over Sunway’s business, personnel and finances as if it were an indirectly wholly-owned subsidiary. Sunway is working in the business of designing, manufacturing and selling logistic transport systems and medical dispensing systems and equipment. The principal product of the company is a pneumatic tube logistic transport system which is used by hospitals and other medical facilities.

Over the past two years, Sunway’s business has shown significant growth, with revenues for the year 2006 increasing to $8,914,139, compared to $5,047,365 for the prior year. Revenues for the three month period ended March 31, 2007 were $2,467,228. For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2006, Sunway’s net profits were $4,029,553, compared to $2,352,996 in 2005.

Sundia MediTech Company Ltd. and Shanghai United PharmaTech Ltd. announced last week about their merger. A letter of intent agreeing to combine these two companies was signed by Sundia CEO Dr. Wang Xiaochuan and United PharmaTech CEO Dr. Shi Xiongwei.

Under the terms of the merger, both United PharmaTech and Sundia MediTech will become subsidiaries of Sundia Investment Group, the BVI-based holding company which is currently the owner of Sundia MediTech.

Dr. Wang will become the new company’s Chairman and CEO, and Dr. Shi will obtain the positions of Director and Executive VP. The senior management teams of both companies will join together into a combined management team.

Sundia CEO Dr. Wang said that part of the reason for the merger is that  it will combine United PharmaTech’s and Sundia’s technical expertise in different fields. Dr. Wang expects this merger to help the new company move to the forefront of the industry.

Dr. Shi stated that the merger was made easier by the similar background and future goals of Sundia and United PharmaTech. He said: “Our businesses are highly complementary and since we have had great success cooperating in the past, the agreement to merge came naturally.”

Sundia MediTech and United PharmaTech were both founded between 2002 and 2003 in Shanghai to provide drug development CRO services in different stages and fields. Over the past three years, both companies have thrived and built strong reputations in their respective specialties.

Copenhagen Airports has announced that it has sold its 20% stake in China’s Hainan Meilan International Airport Company (HMA) to Oriental Patron Resources Investment Limited, the company registered in the British Virgin Islands. The amount of sale of HKD544 mln. caused currency losses due to which the full year pretax profit announced by Copenhagen Airports is reduced by 51 mln Danish Krones. The stake in HMA was acquired by the group in November 2002.

Copenhagen Airports representatives said that the currency losses realised due to the sale of the HMA shares will, together with transaction costs and the absence of profit from the investment for the remainder of 2007, reduce the annual profit before tax.

The deal between the Copenhagen Airport and the above-named BVI company took place on June 5, and was actually part of Airport’s strategy to focus on airport in Copenhagen. The proceeds for the sale of Hainan Meilan International Airport Company are planned to be used to repay debt and fund future capital expenditure.

China’s first US publicly traded steel manufacturer, General Steel Holdings, Inc., has published a press release saying that it agreed to acquire from Victory New Holdings Ltd. the remaining 30% outstanding shares of its subsidiary, Tianjin Daqiuzhuang Metal Sheet Co., Ltd. The sole shareholder of Victory New Holdings, registered in the British Virgin Islands, is mother of the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Steel.

For the acquisition, General Steel Holdings agreed to issue an aggregate of 3,092,899 shares of its Series A Preferred Stock, at a price of $2.00 per share. The new shares will have voting power of 30% of the combined voting power of GSHO’s common and preferred stocks. According to an independent appraisal report, the appraised value of the 30% interest is $9,304,796, but the purchase price is $ 6,185,797.

After the closing of the acquisition, General Steel Holdings, Inc. will own 100% of BVI company’s subsidiary Daqiuzhuang Metal. Daqiuzhuang Metal is the producer of hot-rolled steel sheets used mainly in the construction of small agricultural vehicles; the company has a 50% China market share in this product niche.

Jingwei International Investments Ltd., a leading technology services provider in China, announced that it has completed a reverse merger and share exchange with the shareholders of Neoview Holdings Inc., a company registered in the British Virgin Islands and having its main office in Chicago.

According to the share exchange agreement, the Chinese company, which is also incorporated under the law of the BVI, completed a $16.9 million private placement with certain accredited investors. In the share exchange transaction, the newly issued shares of the Neoview Holdings were exchanged for shares held by Jingwei shareholders.

Sign of the agreement was preceded by the negotiations between the two BVI companies, on potential acqusition or business combination. As a result of the current transaction, the shareholders of Jingwei own approximately 87% of Neoview’s shares, and Jingwei becomes a wholly-owned operating subsidiary of Neoview.

Neoview is going to amend its Articles of Incorporation to change its name to Jingwei International Ltd. Neoview will also replace its current management team by the executives of Jingwei and will follow the current business plan of Jingwei.

Jingwei International Investments provides software and data mining services, operates under exclusive licensing and revenue sharing agreements with China Mobile and China Unicom, and having software installations with several additional Chinese telecom companies.