China-US Alert, Shanda Set To Win From Cloudary IPO Spin-Off (SNDA, READ)

Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd. (NASDAQ: SNDA) may be winning in the weeks or months ahead from an indirect spin-off of its online authorship portal.  A foreign issue called Cloudary Corporation has filed for an initial public offering in the United States.  The filing noted that Shanda Investment Holdings Limited is the company’s parent and existing sole shareholder, and that unit is a wholly owned subsidiary of Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited.

The company has applied to list its ADS on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock ticker of “READ.”  It also listed Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs (Asia) as its underwriters for the offering.  Terms are not set other than “up to $200 million” and that means that this may not be a true spin-off.  It might even resemble more of a tracking stock.

The company’s self-description is as follows: “We are the largest online community-driven literary platform in China. Our platform comprises an expanding library of original and copyrighted third-party literary works and a large and highly engaged community of users which can be monetized across multiple media formats and devices. Our platform includes six original literature websites covering a wide array of genres which in the aggregate attracted an average of over 69.0 million monthly unique visitors in the first quarter of 2011, according to monthly statistical reports issued by iResearch. Since our inception to March 31, 2011, approximately 1.3 million authors had created over 5.2 million literary works on our websites.”

The company also noted that its qidian.com unit is the largest Chinese original literature website, and it claims 43.4% of China’s online literature market in terms of revenues in 2010 per iResearch report data.  In short, the company offers a medium for authors to publish literary works in the internet age.

Shanda Interactive has a $2.2 billion market cap and its $38.81 close on Thursday compares to a 52-week range of $35.15 to $54.20.  The full F-1 filing is here.

JON C. OGG