Summary: In this episode of China Money Podcast, guest Chris Rynning, CEO and founder of Beijing-based private equity firm Origo Partners, talks to our host Nina Xiang about the performance of his London AIM-listed shares; how did he find an investment opportunity in a lithium battery maker in Xinxiang City, Henan province; and how he plans to exit his clean tech investments. Read an excerpt below, but be sure to listen to the full interview in audio above. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast in the iTunes store to automatically receive future podcasts. Q: China's November official PMI number just came out this weekend at 51.4, unchanged from Oct's 18-months high. What is your feeling of the business environment in the sectors you are involved in? A: If you look beyond the headline numbers, you will see that the largest enterprises are expanding the fastest while the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) indicators are receding. It shows that the largest companies are benefiting from China's fixed asset investment and infrastructure built up, but the SMEs are not doing so well because of the credit tightening. Q: Give us an introduction of Origo Partners? A: We are a private equity firm listed in London and headquartered in Beijing. We focus on investing in SMEs in the natural resources and clean tech sectors in China. We have three funds in addition to managing our own balance sheet. The value of our balance sheet fluctuates, but is roughly about $300 million. Our funds combined have over $100 million. The bulk of our money is in foreign currencies but we have some RMB capital. We have about 20 to 25 portfolio companies, some are legacy companies in the traditional natural resources sector and some are Chinese clean tech companies. Q: Some statistics of your shares listed on London AIM (Alternative Investment Market) market look intriguing. For 2012, your revenue was -38.72 million pounds, and earnings per share growth was -2696.33%. Can you explain? A: The liquidity of London AIM is relatively low, so small volumes can move the stock very significantly. During good times, we have been trading at a premium to our net asset value. But now we are trading at a deep discount to our net asset value. One key reason is that the IPO market has been shut for the past a year and half. It's difficult to exit our portfolio companies. The traditional sectors that we are involved in such as coal, copper and gold, have underperformed. On top of that, the global macro environment has been anemic. Our revenue and earnings have come down significantly during the past year or two. That is the result of our investments' being recorded mark-to-market. Yes, our revenues and earnings are very bumpy. Now things are brightening up a bit. The hopes are that China comes back and emerging markets come back, we will be able to sell some of our assets. In the meantime, we are focused on building our existing portfolio companies. ......
