TBG in the News

TBG has been ranked among the top five China-based boutique investment banks by ChinaVenture. The ranking was announced at the 2008 Piper Jaffray-ChinaVenture Investment Conference.

Mining companies in China have increasingly sophisticated options for financing their operation.

The Financial Post profiled five businessmen united under one incredible challenge: introducing Canada's best-known banks and insurance companies to the Chinese. Howard Balloch was among the select five interviewed.

The Balloch Group (TBG) today announced the expansion of its business to include an office in Wuhan, Hubei. This is the firm’s first subsidiary office as it joins in the rapid development of this Chinese industrial city.

The Canadian business community in China is hoping a visit by two federal ministers will promote closer ties between the two countries.

A trip to China by Minister of International Trade David Emerson began Sunday and extends through Jan. 19 with stops planned for Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai. Emerson will also be joined by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

As an ex-ambassador, Howard Balloch knows about diplomatic snubs. And as a Canadian investor in China, he is deeply troubled by the snubs that are ricocheting back and forth between Beijing and Ottawa this year.

Mr. Balloch's investment firm, with 40 staff at three offices in China, has a major stake in Canada's relationship with Beijing. But now, he says, that relationship is in danger of withering into irrelevance, at a substantial cost to Canada.

Alberta and the oilsands still stand out as targets for investment or takeovers on the financial street in Beijing.

The Chinese only tasted of Fort McMurray resources by paying $255 million last year for minority shares in the Northern Lights and Christina Lake projects.

"They'll be back," Howard Balloch predicted in an interview.

The Balloch Group, together with Cutfield Freeman in London, advised Zijin Mining Group on their recent acquisition of approximately 20% of the equity of Ridge Mining PLC.

On August 24, 2006, Wugang Jiangbei Co. and The Balloch Group (TBG) held a signing ceremony in Wuhan, celebrating an agreement between the two entities. The two companies will work together to secure foreign investment funds for the development of Jiangbei’s downstream production capability.

Canadian investors hope wealthy wanderers will hop aboard luxury train to Tibet Canadian investors have found a new way to exploit the Tibet boom. They are launching a luxury train that will charge each passenger about $1,000 (U.S.) a day for lavish services and panoramic views of this long-isolated mountain land.

Convincing more Canadian firms to take the plunge

New ways of doing business might be worth the risk

Balloch contends doing business there is often quite easy.

Howard Balloch was a career diplomat for 25 years, but doesn't mince words any longer, especially when it comes to the issue of China.

"Investors must ask companies in Canada what their 'China strategy' is and if they say they looked at China and there was this problem or that problem, fine. But if they say they don't have a China policy and haven't looked at it, then dump the stock," he said.

We need to wake up: Our major competitors are flooding into China's markets, and how we respond will affect us all, says Howard Balloch.

China seems to be everywhere in the news today, driving down prices for everything it produces, driving up prices for everything it consumes, building steel mills in Brazil, buying bauxite companies in Australia, and even bidding for mining giant Noranda Inc.

Our resources will be target of shopping spree as Asian nation stretches to become global investor and acquisitor, Gordon Pitts writes.

China Minmetals Corp.'s entry into exclusive negotiations to buy Canada's Noranda Inc. launches the great leap outward by a surging Chinese economy, as it stretches to become a major international investor and acquisitor.