Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Apr 20, 2015 (III)

choi

(3) Cathy Chan and Sheridan Prasso, China’s Former IPO King Looks for a Fresh Start.
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... nk-tries-a-comeback
("China International Capital Corp 中國國際金融有限公司 was once known as China’s answer to Goldman Sachs. Run by Levin Zhu 朱雲來 —the son of then-Premier Zhu Rongji * * * The era of mega-IPOs is gone, and so is CICC’s dominance. It hasn’t been China’s top investment firm since 2005 and has fallen over the past decade from first place in revenue to 21st in 2013. Now Zhu is gone, the bank has new leadership, and it’s planning an initial public offering this year to raise capital and expand into new businesses—moves that Zhu once resisted. * * * The man who ran investment banking at CICC during its heyday, Bi Mingjian 畢明建, returned as its chief executive officer in March, filling the position vacated when Zhu resigned in October")

choi

(4) Joel Warner, Going Clear; An entrepreneur tries to sell prepackaged, unfrozen, flawless ice cubes.
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... prepackaged-product
(“Nestor Villalobos * * * began researching the industry and learned of Frederic Tudor, an early 1800s businessman who became obsessed with selling frozen water internationally from a pond at his Massachusetts home. Procuring cubes to cool drinks and preserve food was incredibly difficult at the time, a luxury limited to the rich.
It took Tudor a while—and stints in debtors’ prison—to figure out how to ship huge, melt-resistant blocks across the ocean. Eventually, he became known as the ‘Ice King.’ In the years leading up to the Civil War, ice became America’s second-largest crop by weight, beaten only by cotton. The boom lasted until the early 20th century, when electric freezers made shipping ice redundant”)

My comment:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: Once the leading investment bank, CICC needs a new strategy

(b) “In the years leading up to the Civil War, ice became America’s second-largest crop by weight, beaten only by cotton”
(i) By weight maybe, but not by value.
(ii) Richard Judd, Ice: A Maine Commodity. Maine History Online, undated
www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/773/page/1182/display
(“In these decades Maine’s ice returned a wealth greater than that of California’s annual gold production”)

(c) Villalobos wants his ice cubes to “crucially, remain free of bubbles or cracks” and be crystal clear. As you read on, he has not succeeded.
(i) I had a Mar 29, 2015 posting titled "Why Do We Love Japanese? Because They Are Goofy." The posting introduced
Jason Clenfield, Japanese Engineers Reinvent Wheel. Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Mar 23, 2015
("Sharp has made a $1,300 fridge that tries to distinguish itself by making clear ice cubes, as opposed to cloudy ones")
(ii) SHARP it.
sharp.com.my/pci/brochure/Avance brochure 2012.pdf
(a 2012 brochure for Avance refrigerator: “Crystal Clear Ice Cube[:] Forming crystal clear ice cubes that are all icem with less air bubbles trapped inside them that make them cloudy. Avance Crystal Clear Ice Cube Maker removed all the trapped air to produce solid ice cubes that are slower to melt. Your drink remians ice-cold longer" page 3)
(iii) So Japanese are not the only nutty people in the world.

(d) Tudor Ice Co
tudorice.com/

does not say its ice will be crystal clear. The Website also says, “Tudor Ice can be stored and transported at ambient room temperatures. The package requires about 5 to 6 hours to freeze prior to use. Tudor Ice is proudly manufactured and bottled in Detroit, Michigan.