you see the same kind of dynamics on weibo, big about sustainable trends. >> weibo, you can fit a lotne post on weibo than twitter. either way, we will follow its road to ipo. thank you. we will see you later. ♪ >> the following is a paid advertisement for scalpmed. >> special television offer. stay tuned and find out how you can try the amazing hair regrowth system for only $29.95. try the complete hair regrowth system for only $29.95. details just ahead. >> does scalp med work? >> i really can see the

you see the same kind of dynamics on weibo a big about sustainable trends. >> weibo, you can fit a lotne post on weibo than twitter. either way, we will fall it's a road to ipo. thank you. we will see you later. ♪ . . >> welcome to "lunch money" where we tie together the best stories, interviews, and video and business. i'm adam johnson. the search for malaysia flight 370 get bigger and there are still no answers. and ali baba gets ready to come right here, going public in the u.s. in sports, time to rack it up. the madness behind the march madness tournament starts this week. and we'll show you the high-tech eco-friendly plan for new york's low lines. and in pixar movies, a canceled tv series hits the big screen

those same structures are here in the weibo filing. excitedody else not too about these tech companies going public in the west -- he worked in china for almost two decades. first of all, what concerns you and about alibaba weibo? >> these companies have invariable interest structures. you have to remember that the structure is the successor to what they did in the telecom sector. in the 1990's, the chinese government basically took the foreign investors out of chinese intercom by taking away their shareholders. , like the vip structure that ali baba is going to use, is probably illegal. you have a situation where the chinese government is submitting the situation -- permitting the situation to continue but can change its mind anytime. >> you have a long list of baba's ipo could be disastrous. the condition of the economy in china. the fact that gdp is growing more slowly than it has been. how much growth will be in the a? they havelibab more transactions than ebay and amazon combined. declining. a it's like 50% already. clearly it's a

post on weibo, either way we will follow his road to ipo.r watching this edition of "bloomberg west." ♪ .. >> i am mark crumpton, this is bottom line, the intersection of business at economics with a main street perspective. russia is hit with u.s. and eu sanctions following crimea's a session vote. malaysian officials investigate possible pilot suicides in the disappearance of flights 370. and we will look at the largest supplier of tram cars. to our viewers in the united states and those of you joining us from around the world, welcome. we

. >> weibo has hit a limit and the number of subscribers is declining. the chinese central government has seen weibo, and the chinese government does not like a lot of what is said. it has started to attack those posters who have big followings. because of the attack on them we have seen conversations become less a vibrant and less popular. when you look at what is happening people are migrating to wechat which is an instant messaging system. they are not exactly the same but we can see a migration of conversations from weibo to wechat and that is not good for ali baba. they were purchased last april at an inflated price. >> all these issues will continue -- we will continue to examine as they follow the road to ipo. we will talk about music streaming. technology is still a huge threat to the music industry. we will it blaine. you can watch a streaming -- a streaming on your tablet or phone. ♪ >> pandora is raising the price of its ad free pandora one service. users will have to pay $48 year when they renew. new subscribers will be charged $60 year. in a

weibo has added morgan stanley, piper jaffray and china renaissance.er the ticker symbol wb on the nasdaq. >> thank you very much, seema mody. >>> tomorrow, japan plans to implement an increased consumption tax, and the bank of japan will release the quarterly manufacturing survey. joining us now to make sense of the trade is dennis gartman. dennis, great to see you. >> always good to be seen, mel. >> some economists are saying that right now their companies are paring back on production because they're worried about inventory levels being too high because of consumption tax is going to have an impact on the japanese consumer. what's your take about how damaging this could be to the economy there? >> well, i think the increase on the consumption tax is silliness of the first order. and there's no question. last time the japanese raised the consumption tax, you had the very normal, very human response. people bought goods months in advance of the imposition of that tax. we've seen the same thing happen this time. you've brought economic activity that wo

internet company, this on the heels of a filing that intends to take its microblogging unit, which is weiboc in the u.s., they're looking to list those american depository receipts. looking to raise $500 million in an ipo. this is like the twitter or facebook of china. it's very heavily used there. they're looking to ipo this unit in the u.s. the listing has yet to be determined yet. it could be nasdaq or nyse. no indicator of what the ticker will be. >> thank you. what do you think of this? we got the facebook/twitter of china coming to the united states. >> it is. there is competition out there. the problem with sina there is competition in this space. the stock is down from 90 to 64. the stock is still not cheap. still in place where i would own it. this news is very good news. we have been hearing it for a week now. lot of competition in this space. it's not a straight line, it's not like they own the entire twitter market in china. we love the nasdaq. we sit here. >> nice job. >> what would i say, what's nice to see, these guys are all considering u.s. exchanges at this point. hong kon

we were on sina weibo. there's an actor here. he says, if you agree, please repost.ther tv host said i've never from malaysia and i don't plan to go. and a writer who has 1 million followers he talks about the dollars that chinese tourists have brought to malaysia last year. he believes at least 1.5 million chinese went to malaysia. he said from now on, i hope the tourism dollars will be zero. you see this emotion going from kuala lumpur and hitting the social media world and getting very emotional. >> pauline chiou has been following the families for some days now. thank you. >>> president obama in a war of words with russia this morning blasting the country as he met with world leaders criticizing its grab for part of ukraine. we're going to take you live and tell you what's happening right now. straight ahead. >>> president obama is in belgium this morning for the e.u. summit, talks expected to be dominated of course by the crisis in ukraine. european leaders will reportedly press president obama for nor natural gas exports from the united states so they can reduc

they're using the microblogging site weibo to urge others to -- not to discriminate against the group. some users have uploaded photos of themselves holding up written messages. one says people in the xinjiang region are not terrorists. a chinese media expert says the government used to have complete control over information on ethnic issues. the expert says the internet has given citizens access to a wide range of information, so they can now decide matters for themselves. >>> sony let go of its building in new york. now it's doing the same to its headquarters in tokyo to stay afloat. ramin mellegard from the biz team has the latest on this. >> gene, as we know, sony is fully focused on trying to get its bottom line back into shape, and this is another step towards achieving that. struggling electronics company sony has decided to accept its former headquarters building in tokyo. this is the latest in a series of steps the company has taken to nurse itself back to financial health. sony says it's signed a contract to sell the ex-headquarters building, as well as another building near

talk about the significance about both ali baba and weibo. >> the market in the u.s. is a little better for shares, for controlling the company. this shows that for ali baba to grow when it gets that big, they have to start to load for other growth areas. there is speculation that they will start to look at u.s. markets and u.s. businesses. >> this is a big question. is this a business that is set up to do business in the u.s.? a lot of the infrastructure -- you see amazon and ebay building up physical infrastructure. can ali baba still get into that game in the u.s.? i think they can do so over selectively. it started to take chinese merchant goods internationally. that is the business model. per capita income increases. also goods from china exporting to the u.s.. >> alibaba has quite an operation in the united states. on the b-2 be side, u.s. businesses actually get their goods through ali baba.com. whether it is a random ingredient to some kind of lotion that they can't get in the united states. maybe it comes from tie haiti or something like that. paul, what do y

. >>> meanwhile, weibo is planning to list in the u.s. market looking to raise $500 million in the share sale. the social networker says they have half as many users at twitter. the ceo makes his first visit to china. he'll meet academic students on his visit to signal the interest in entering the chinese market. twitter is being blocked by chinese since 2009. >>> and vodafone is confirming to buy ono for nearly $3 billion. >>> and many retailers are urged to stop selling tobacco products if they have a pharmacy. "the new york times" suggests letters from 28 states have gone out to rite aid, walgreens, kroeger, safeway and walmart. they also don't mention sales of e-cigarettes which the fda is also considering whether to regulate. >>> and hertz is close to a spinoff of its equipment rental business. this deal could be valued near $4.5 billion. the split is the focus of investor questions for several years. reports say hertz has been exploring either spinoff or a so-called reverse morris trust. the separation combines a spinoff with a merg

social media company weibo is offering its shares also in the united states. now weibo often called the twitter of china launched four years ago by a parent company as a microblogging service like twitter. remember, twitter has been blocked in china since 2009. >> and the china news continues this morning. twitter's ceo dick costello is taking a strip to china and described as a personal tour to learn more about china's thriving technology sector. they have 600 million internet users but they banned twitter in 2009. they are not expected to ask chinese authorities to lift the twitter ban. twitter flatly rejected the possibility of opening an office in china any time soon. shares, though, of twitter are on a wild ride over the past year. now 52.84. still above the ipo, but down significantly from that high plus the $75 a share. >>> in other corporate news this morning, honda is recalling nearly 900,000 odyssey minivan that is could catch fire. the automaker says from 2005 to 2010 the odysseys that were built in alabama have a fuel pump part that could crack and

you have weibo and other companies as well. you are seeing the door being opened to some extent.a moratorium on chinese initial public offerings last year. if you look at companies listed in china last year, there were zero but there were 100 and hong kong but it was almost triple that in the u.s. and there were about 18 chinese companies that chose to list in the u.s. last year. it has been an interesting evolution of some of the business coming from china. >> have we seen overall fewer listings of chinese companies? >> we had seen that over the last couple of years. it was because there was that chinese moratorium. there were fewer listings of chinese companies in the u.s. because there had been more scrutiny of chinese companies. you saw carson block and others scrutinizing the accounting practices of many chinese companies. you saw a pullback from the u.s. market from 2010-2012 for that reason. now they are coming back. >> thank you so much. veronica mars, the new movie based on the tv series was funded by kick starter donors who were offered the unprecedented chance to watch

>>weibo has twice as many users as twitter.ittle bit different, it's a combination of twitter and facebook. 1/3 ofassively popular, chinese internet users are honest. the chinesest accounting? >> well we have not seen it but no, we don't trust it. ob, theu have the pca chinese auditors cannot even close the book. , that is ado an ipo huge accounting breach. backn the u.s. auditors go and look at the documents that went into the audit which they are not allowed to do right now. >> you should come by more often. >> thank you for having me. >> he's here again? ok. visit the 21ill club later. ditching of hotels is the orient express. it will rename itself next monday as though mod. joining us now is john scott. >tell us about the name change. why make the change and what are the limitations of's associated with a rail excursion? >> it was about what is the right thing to do with the company. i have been the ceo for a year now i traveled around to our great properties around the world and what resonated is that the individual proper

for their democratic rights to have most morsy reinstated however we may have also at the same time weibo protest groups supporting the military coming down through the streets there are a lot of people here in egypt to do regard them as a brotherhood as abiding to organization on the protesters as having a time security forces and they will defend the government so we will see i think quite sort of action on the streets in the coming days as these rival protest groups take to the streets to defend their positions and this is all happening of course in the lead up to the presidential elections which is due to take place in just a few weeks so to be very tense times here in egypt and i was artie's belled through reporting from cairo. while it seems president obama takes the cake when it comes to international traveling according to a forthcoming study from the national taxpayer union foundation a conservative lobbying group obama spent more time traveling abroad than any other u.s. president in history at the same point in their presidencies the study shows that after five years in the whi