Inspired by Andreas’ (German) and Flavio’s posts about Facebook’s valuation, I want to take a closer (approximated) look at today’s values of Alibaba and PetroChina in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Where possible, I tried to use projected future values.
Please note that the following numbers are rough estimates with lots of potential rounding errors. Just interpret them as a rough indication that might point in the right direction - not more and not less.
Facebook
Andreas stated, that Facebook is worth:
- $50 Mio. per employee
- $217 per unique visitor
- a hundred times it’s revenue
- five hundred times it’s income (Google 52 times, Microsoft 22.5 times)
Alibaba.com
(approximate market cap of $25.7 bio.)
- $66 mio. per employee
(careful: based on figure from 2006)
- $141 per unique visitor
- 20 times it’s 2006 sales (2006 sales growth was 68%)
- 306 times it’s 2007 projected profit (Source: FT asia)
- 55 times it’s 2008 projected profit
Alibaba.com, part of the Alibaba group that also includes auction website Taobao and e-payment system Alipay, raised US$1.5bn in the world’s biggest internet offering since Google’s flotation in 2004.
(Source: FT asia)
PetroChina
Note that the PetroChina stocks are partly listed at the Hong Kong stock exchange and therefore (Mainlanders are not allowed to buy stock in Hong Kong and vice versa) the valuation here is far below the one in Shanghai. I use 1 trillion USD as the approximate cumulative value of PetroChina.
- $2.3 Mio. per employee
(1 trillion divided by the number of employees as of december 31st, 2006)
- $944 per barrel of oil equivalent produced (total crude oil and gas)
- 11.2 times it’s revenue
- 51.5 times it’s 2006 profit
Even though the numbers might not look as odd as Facebook’s, note that it’s worth almost as many times it’s profit as the often “bubbleized” Google and that it’s worth $944 per barrel of oil equivalent produced, which, in my opinion, is quite a lot. Furthermore Facebook still didn’t go public and therefore the valuation is just a rough estimation whereas PetroChina has gone public and these numbers are facts!
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November 7th, 2007 at 4:10 am
Interesting would be Petrochina’s multiple per mmboe of reserves (proved and probable, 2P, and maybe also possible, so 3P). I guess the valuation is also highly sensitive to the oil price. Would be interesting what a DCF on Petrochina reveals as oil companys usually trade quite realistically to DCF values.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Soweit ich mich an die Zeitungslektüre heute morgen erinnere, ist die Kapitalisierung von 1 Billion Dollar die von der Shanghaier Börse und liegt deutlich über der von Hongkong oder? Du sagst, die Numbers sind Facts, allerdings wird die Shanghaier Bewertung überall mit sehr grosser Skepsis gesehen und selbst Investoren in China lassen die Finger lieber davon. Insofern finde ich, kann Petrochina nicht als Rechtfertigung dafür dienen, dass Facebook doch so hoch gar nicht bewertet sei.
Vgl. u.a. hier:
http://www.handelsblatt.com/news/Default.aspx?_p=303437&_t=ft&_b=1347662
November 7th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
At the time I wrote this article, the 1 trillion dollar valuation was the cumulative value of both, the value at the Shanghai as well as the value at the Hong Kong stock exchange. My post was just meant to be a comparison of numbers and I clearly state that facebook is valued too high (”Even though the numbers might not look as odd as Facebook’s” where odd = “merkwuerdig / skurril”).
If investors in China didn’t buy PetroChina shares, then most probably the index wouldn’t have dropped at the subscription date and the two days before the opening. Local media keep writing about a potential new “oil” bubble but also report that at the time of the Asian financial crisis the money came from foreigners only whereas today there is enough capital, economic strength (and money supply) available in the Chinese market to support the investments. Hong Kong’s hottest issue is the permission for mainlanders to buy shares at the Hang Seng (which, according to one party, might drive the stock prices skywards).