January 25, 2010, 11:13 PM EST
Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) — Jia Sheng Holdings Ltd. jumped the most in six years after agreeing to sell a HK$292 million ($38 million) stake to billionaire Li Ka-shing and announcing plans to buy a maker of batteries for electric vehicles.
The company soared as much 67 percent, the biggest intraday gain since July, 2003, to HK$1.50, and was at HK$1.24 as of 11:40 a.m. in Hong Kong trading. The stock was suspended for the past six days.
Jia Sheng will use some of Li’s money to build plants for making batteries, after buying Union Grace Holdings Ltd. and units for HK$2.8 billion to access lithium and yttrium-based technologies. Warren Buffett bought a stake in Chinese battery- maker BYD Co. last year as environmental concerns spur demand for electric vehicles.
“Even market rumors about Li investing in a company can push shares through the roof, never mind an official announcement,” said Vivien Chan, an analyst with SinoPac Securities Asia Ltd. in Hong Kong. “His influence is much like Buffett’s in the U.S.”
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. last year bought a 9.9 percent stake in BYD for HK$1.8 billion. BYD is also the largest car maker outside state control in China. The country last year surpassed the U.S. as the world’s biggest auto market.
Jia Sheng also plans to raise about HK$262.5 million through a placing of 366 million shares at HK$0.73 apiece in addition to the 400 million shares it will sell to Li’s Jade Time Investments Ltd., it said in a statement today. The Hong Kong-based company will pay for Union Grace using a combination of cash, shares and convertible bonds.
Li’s 400 million shares will represent a 2.5 percent stake once all of the other new shares and bonds are issued.
–Tian Ying with assistance from Stanley James in Hong Kong. Editors: Neil Denslow, Anand Krishnamoorthy.
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