BYD may get mainland stock market listing in '10

Shanghai, September 1 (Gasgoo.com) Chinese rechargeable battery and electric car maker BYD Co. (1211.HK) is keen on a stock market listing in mainland China and may look to do so in 2010, media reported yesterday, citing BYD's chairman and CEO Wang Chuanfu.

BYD has planned to issue up to 100 million A shares on the Shenzhen stock exchange to raise capital for battery and electric car development projects. The company is awaiting regulatory approval for the listing in Shenzhen, where the company is based, and will also seek shareholder approval for the listing plan in a meeting in mid-September.

U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett, after earning $1 billion from its initial investment, intends to raise his stake in BYD. Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings acquired 10% stake in BYD for $230 million from Sept., 2008 to July, 2009, sparking a five-fold rally in the largest Hong Kong-listed auto stock.

BYD, which started up as a maker of rechargeable batteries in Shenzhen in 1995, is in talks to sell its batteries to multinational carmakers including Volkswagen. BYD has recently signed a contract with SAIC to supply lithium batteries to the Chinese auto giant.

In the first half of this year, BYD's net income rose 98% to 1.18 billion yuan ($173 million). Revenue increased 30% to 16.1 billion yuan. The company more than doubled first-half auto sales to 176,814 units, and hopes to sell more than 400,000 vehicles in 2009.

BYD originally proposed a Shenzhen or Shanghai listing in January last year but delayed the plan due to the weak performance of the A share market in 2008.