This is a partial transcript from Your World with Neil Cavuto, June 3, 2003, that was edited for clarity. Click here for complete access to all of Neil Cavuto's CEO interviews.
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NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: China (search) may be the largest untapped financial center left on the globe, but my next guest aims to change all that by opening the doors to financial information inside the People’s Republic and beyond. Fredy Bush is her name, and she heads up Xinhua Financial Network.
Good to have you.
FREDY BUSH, CEO, XINHUA FINANCIAL NETWORK: Thank you. Good to be here.
CAVUTO: You know, when I think, Freddy, of Xinhua, I think of -- fairly or not -- maybe slightly slanted stories coming out of China that demean or say awful things about the West. Now is it different?
BUSH: I think China would say that about the West, that the West sort of paints China in not a very fair fashion, and I think that’s one of the reasons that my company exists, is sort of, as you just said, to open that door and to allow more free flow of information, particularly for the financial markets.
CAVUTO: So the financial markets really depend on fair, accurate, sort of like unbiased financial arbiter taking a look at all the various stocks and investments that might be available there.
BUSH: Right. Exactly.
CAVUTO: They’re not quite convinced that China is up to doing that.
BUSH: I think that’s true. China has a challenge in front of it in that it needs more disclosure and more transparency. Xinhua Financial Network -- while we do do the financial news, we also have an index series, and we also do credit ratings for China.
CAVUTO: So you’re kind of like a McGraw Hill out there...
BUSH: Yes, more like an S&P, yes, where we actually are providing products that push transparency and disclosure in China, while also providing the news.
CAVUTO: And they’re cooperative with you?
BUSH: Actually, Xinhua News Agency is very supportive of it because there is a very large push, particularly since China entered the WTO, to open the capital markets, and China needs foreign investment to fund its growth in the future.
CAVUTO: But they’re, you know, the largest shareholder but they’re not putting up any cash, right?
BUSH: Well, they own 35 percent, they’re the largest shareholder, but the international investors actually are the majority shareholders. So we have companies like PR Newswire, Futsi, Informa, REFCO that are shareholders in the company as well as financial investors.
What Xinhua committed to doing for the company was basically providing us a 20-year exclusive whereby they see Xinhua Financial Network as the financial news and services arm and provide us access and ability to do some of the things in China we couldn’t otherwise do.
CAVUTO: But did you ever contemplate a different name because -- fairly or not -- I’m not saying Xinhua is like Baghdad Bob, but I mean the perception among many was that it was. So did you ever consider a different name because maybe the association to western investors is not good?
BUSH: Right. Well, actually, we didn’t, and the reason is because most people -- if you think about China and you say, OK, who really has an ability and authority in China to do financial news, indices, credit ratings, and so forth -- if we called ourselves China Financial Network, we’d just be another company. The Xinhua name is a double-edged sword.
CAVUTO: Yes. But you see China still as this big power everyone says it is, it’s a diamond in the rough, it’s getting bigger, more powerful, influential.
BUSH: Absolutely. Several things are happening that most people in the West don’t realize.
China, for the first time in its history, has opened its capital markets. So now investors internationally can invest in the primary stock market.
And the bond market is now about to open in the next three to four months, so corporate bonds will now be issued, that foreign investors can invest in.
CAVUTO: Fredy Bush, I wish you well.
BUSH: Thank you so very much.
CAVUTO: Good luck. I don’t know how you deal with all these various time zones.
Fredy Bush is the Xinhua Financial Network, the CEO, and she’s got a lot of work on her hands.
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