Here's a metric for you:
Kweichow Moutai, which trades in Shanghai under the ticker 600519 and has been an outstanding investment play on official corruption and rent-seeking, recently paid the largest dividend in the history of China’s stock markets.
Bill Bishop thinks he had some but isn't so sure. I think I had some when a friend split a bottle with me on my birthday back in the early nineties, back in the days when the real stuff used to dribble out in small quantities, in bottles carefully and clumsily designed to resemble thermos flasks, available only from the top shelves of Chinatown groceries. It was pretty damn good, one of those superficially foul but rapidly convincing and ultimately transcendental playtime occupations (i've had bad baijiu, and it was like waking up poisoned, not just hungover). Anyway, here's a business plan:
Xi Jiu historically has been a mid-tier Baijiu brand, but 2012 may turn out to be Xi Jiu’s year. Xi Jiu has two things going for it, in addition to having a name that is a homonym for 喜酒, or “wedding banquet liquor”. One, it may be more acceptable for bureaucrats to imbibe, if Wen’s crackdown is real. Two, and more important, the character for the “Xi” in “Xi Jiu” is the same character 习 as the surname of Xi Jinping 习近平, China’s presumed next leader.
I first heard about Xijiu last December, when a friend told a few of us that he knew the main Beijing distributor for Xi Jiu and that the company was planning a 400 Million RMB marketing blitz, including ads at the start of the CCTV Evening News, to capitalize on the ascension of Xi Jinping. Part of the marketing pitch was that Chinese gift-givers and their official recipients would be clamoring for Xi Jiu by the 18th Party Congress in late 2012.
Judging by what's going on in the premium puerh tea market, I think the new baiju brand will probably fail in getting the bubble blown.
Posted by: shah8 | June 04, 2012 at 12:57 AM