Warren Buffett Has A Whopping 9,000% Gain On His Washington Post Investment

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Warren Buffett Has A Whopping 9,000% Gain On His Washington Post Investment

ROB WILE AUG. 5, 2013, 5:24 PM 5,951 2

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Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett reacts at a newspaper throwing competition before the company’s annual meeting in Omaha, May 4, 2013.

Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos just spent $250 million purchasing  The Washington Post. You may recall that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is the largest and among the longest-tenured shareholders in the Washington Post Company, which owns the paper along with a bunch of other stuff including test prep firm Kaplan. (Buffett also served 25 years on the Post’s board, having spent part of his youth in DC.) So, what gains has he seen on the investment? Buffett started accumulating shares in 1973.  As of 2004, he owned 1.7 million shares at a cost basis of $11 million, according to 24/7 Wall Street. According to Berkshire Hathaway’s most recent 13-F, he owns the same amount of shares today. That position was valued at $772 million at the end of Q1. However, the stock has been on a tear, up 55% since the beginning of the year. In after-hours trading, Washington Post Company is at $598, which values Buffett’s 1.7 million shares at $1.01 billion. Assuming the $11 million cost basis holds, that’s a whopping 9,080% return. Wow. Meanwhile, the stock is up about 1.5% after hours Monday.

Filed under Investing Process, Life

Being Great At Math Is More Important Than Ever

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Being Great At Math Is More Important Than Ever

GREG SATELL, DIGITAL TONTO AUG. 5, 2013, 2:38 PM 2,265 1

When media first started going digital, journalists feared that they would be judged by the numbers, rather than on the mastery of their craft.  To a large extent, that actually happened, but it wasn’t so bad after all.  Most were able to adjust. So there was no small amount of irony surrounding the recent high profile negotiations between ESPN and The New York Times over the services of Nate Silver. The stakes were enormous, as Mr. Silver accounted for as much as 20% of the Grey Lady’s web traffic. Math, it seems, has become more than a means to evaluate, but journalism itself.  Whereas before, a reporter’s main tools were sources and shoe leather, now algorithms are on the job too.  Most of all, Nate Silver is a sign of the zeitgeist.  In this new age of big data, math is no longer an ancillary activity, but plays a central role in helping organizations compete. Read more of this post

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Leadership Lessons from the Cherokee Nation: Learn from All I Observe

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Leadership Lessons from the Cherokee Nation: Learn from All I Observe [Hardcover]

Chad “Corntassel” Smith (Author)

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Publication Date: February 19, 2013

“If you want to be successful, it is this simple. Know what you are doing, love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.” — Will Rogers

When Chad Smith became Principal Chief, the Cherokee Nation was a chaotic and dysfunctional entity. By the end of his tenure, 12 years later, the Nation had grown its assets from $150 million to $1.2 billion, increased business profits 2,000 percent, created 6,000 jobs, and dramatically advanced its education, language, and cultural preservation programs.

How could one team influence such vast positive change?

The Cherokee Nation’s dramatic transformation was the result of Smith’s principle-based leadership approach and his unique “Point A to Point B model”–the simple but profound idea that the more you focus on the final goal, the more you will accomplish . . . and the more you will learn along the way. In other words, “look at the end rather than getting caught up in tanglefoot.”

In Leadership Lessons from the Cherokee Nation, Smith combines Cherokee wisdom handed down from generation to generation with a smart leadership approach that takes today’s very real issues into consideration. He explains why this leadership approach works and how you can apply it to your own organization, whether business, government, or nonprofit. Learn all the lessons that drive powerful leadership, including how to:

Be a lifelong learner

Solve problems with creativity and innovation

Recruit and develop strong leaders

Delegate wisely

Act with integrity and dignity

Don’t be distracted from your objective

Lead by example

More than a simple how-to leadership guide, Leadership Lessons from the Cherokee Nation offers a holistic approach to the subject–how to become a powerful leader inside and direct your energy outward to accomplish any goal you set your mind to. Read more of this post

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Seeing Narcissists Everywhere; A psychology professor has tapped into a rich vein of popular concern, concluding that people in recent decades have grown more self-centered and entitled. But is it true?

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

August 5, 2013

Seeing Narcissists Everywhere

By DOUGLAS QUENQUA

From the triumph of Botox to the rise of social networking and soccer teams that give every kid a trophy, Jean M. Twenge is constantly on the lookout for signs of a narcissism crisis in America. Sometimes it gets personal. “I got a onesie as a gift that I gave away on principle,” said Dr. Twenge, 41, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and a mother of three girls under 7, in an interview at a diner on the West Side of Manhattan. “It said, ‘One of a Kind,’ ” she said, poking at a fruit salad. “That actually isn’t so bad, because it’s true of any baby. But it’s just not something I want to emphasize.” Read more of this post

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Hidden Billionaire Bob Piccinini Found With Grocery Chain Fortune in California by exploiting local zoning laws to thwart bigger competitors and acquiring hundreds of low-performing stores from adversaries. “He’s a wheeler dealer. He’s more interested in the deal than he is in running grocery stores.”

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Hidden Billionaire Found With Food Fortune in California

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The H Street Save Mart grocery store in downtown Modesto, California, is a throwback to a time before supermarkets enticed shoppers with sushi bars and wine tastings. Here, bare florescent lights reflect off scuffed linoleum floors and a Greek chicken wrap is marred by bits of cartilage. To get into the bathroom, shoppers have to seek out a clerk for a key. This store and 225 similar locations operated by Modesto-based Save Mart Supermarkets have made Bob Piccinini, the company’s 71-year-old majority owner, a billionaire. Since securing control of the company from his family in a 1985 leveraged buyout, Piccinini has expanded Save Mart by exploiting local zoning laws to thwart bigger competitors and acquiring hundreds of low-performing stores from adversaries. Read more of this post

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Former Arm chief Warren East taking up his first directorship at Dyson; “Dyson is a bit like Arm really. They’re two UK companies that compete on a global scale, representing British engineering and design – and being good at it.”

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

August 5, 2013 12:02 am

Former Arm chief Warren East joins Dyson

By Andy Sharman

Warren East is taking up his first directorship at a UK company since stepping down as chief executive of chipmaker Arm Holdings, by joining the board of Dyson, the innovative consumer goods company. Mr East, who left Arm last month, has been appointed non-executive director at the Wiltshire-based maker of high-tech vacuum cleaners, hand dryers and fans as it seeks to expand in Asia and Latin America. “Dyson is a bit like Arm really,” the 51-year-old said. “They’re two UK companies that compete on a global scale, representing British engineering and design – and being good at it.” Read more of this post

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What It’s Like Being a Middle Manager Today; Pushed to Do More With Less, Today’s Midlevel Managers Try to Get By

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Updated August 5, 2013, 8:04 p.m. ET

What It’s Like Being a Middle Manager Today

Pushed to Do More With Less, Today’s Midlevel Managers Try to Get By; Loving the Work, but Uncertain Rewards

MELISSA KORN

Middle managers at a range of companies across the country speak about the rewards, frustrations and challenges of life in the middle.

The parking lot at Fair Isaac Corp. FICO +0.89% in San Rafael, Calif., is empty when Michelle Davis pulls in at 6 a.m. For the next 8-½ hours, the 36-year-old analytics director will shuttle through nearly back-to-back meetings at FICO, a company best known for calculating consumer credit scores. At 2:30 p.m., the mother of three will leave work to pick up her children from summer camp. Technically, she’s off the clock, but she’ll keep an eye on her BlackBerry long into the night. Welcome to middle management circa 2013. Fourteen years into her career at FICO, Ms. Davis is sandwiched somewhere between senior leadership and the front lines, overseeing three direct reports along with three other subordinates. Her job affords her the freedom to run projects and pitch new ideas, but it’s not without constraints. Like her midlevel peers in retail, technology and other industries, she has many duties but little authority, people to please both above and below, and days when her schedule is just barely under her control, filled with meetings or consumed with sudden crises. Read more of this post

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China’s Debt Surge Pressures Xi-Li to Avert Lost Decade

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

China’s Debt Surge Pressures Xi-Li to Avert Lost Decade

A Chinese lending spree of the magnitude that tipped Asian nations into crisis in the late 1990s and preceded Japan’s lost decades is putting pressure on top leaders to map out a strategy to tackle the threat.

Half of the economists in a Bloomberg News survey say non-performing local-government and corporate debt will probably have a “significant impact” on China’s credit and economic growth. The central government will deal with bad loans at local governments in the next 18 months by expanding the municipal-bond market and letting localities refinance with direct bond sales, respondents said. Read more of this post

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Caterpillar Board Sued Over ERA Mining Machinery Acquisition for failure to heed “red flags” that should have alerted them the company was overpaying for a Chinese mine-equipment maker

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Caterpillar Board Sued Over ERA Mining Machinery Merger

Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) Chairman Douglas R. Oberhelman and 13 directors failed to heed “red flags” that should have alerted them the company was overpaying for a Chinese mine-equipment maker, a shareholder said in a lawsuit. New Jersey investor Michael D. Wolin accused Oberhelman, the directors and Chief Financial Officer Edward J. Rapp of breaching their fiduciary duties to the company in a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Chicago. Caterpillar, the world’s biggest maker of construction and mining machinery, took a $580 million writedown in January on its 2012 acquisition of Hong Kong-based ERA Mining Machinery Ltd. and its Zhengzhou Siwei Mechanical & Electrical Equipment Manufacturing Co. “The red flags clearly show that Siwei was being overvalued by Caterpillar senior management, including Rapp and Oberhelman,” Wolin said in the complaint. The board “blindly acceded” to the acquisition, he said. Among the factors Caterpillar executives should have considered were the Chinese company’s aging receivables and its need for “an immediate $50 million cash infusion” to continue operating before the deal was closed, Wolin said. Read more of this post

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South Korea Newspaper Hankook Ilbo Media Group Owner Arrested for Embezzlement

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

South Korea Newspaper Owner Arrested for Embezzlement

By Agence France-Presse on 9:31 am August 6, 2013.
Seoul. Police have arrested the chairman of one of South Korea’s major newspapers on charges of embezzling millions of dollars, prosecutors said Tuesday. Chang Jae-Ku, owner of the Hankook Ilbo media group which includes several well-known dailies, magazines and a cable channel, was arrested on Monday night. Chang, 65, is accused of embezzling company funds worth 13 billion won ($11.6 million) for his personal use and causing the group a further financial loss of 30 billion won by offering business benefits to his creditors. The labour union of the Hankook Ilbo — the group’s flagship newspaper — had asked Seoul prosecutors to investigate Chang back in April. The management responded by firing the paper’s editor-in-chief, banning most unionised reporters from entering the newsroom and withholding their salaries. The group — the longtime organizer of the Miss Korea beauty pageant — has suffered financial troubles for years.

 

Filed under Macro Trends, TMT Trends

Don Graham: Here’s Why My Family Just Sold The Washington Post, A Paper We’ve Owned For 80 Years; Bezos Outbid A Half-Dozen and was deemed the “highest and best”

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Don Graham: Here’s Why My Family Just Sold The Washington Post, A Paper We’ve Owned For 80 Years

ALYSON SHONTELL AUG. 5, 2013, 5:22 PM 2,648 1

Don Graham, former owner of The Washington Post, wrote a letter to the paper’s employees about his family’s tough decision to sell the news property they’ve owned for 80 years. Here it is, below:

All,

I have a most surprising announcement. Our company is making it public right now that we have sold The Washington Post to Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. To be clear, the buyer is not Amazon, but a company owned by Jeff personally. The price is $250 million and what we are selling includes the weekly papers called for shorthand The Gazettes and Robinson Terminal… This leaves me with two questions: why are we selling and why to Jeff? The first question is much the harder. All the Grahams in this room have been proud to know since we were very little that we were part of the family that owned The Washington Post. We have loved the paper, what it stood for, and those who produced it. But the point of our ownership has always been that it was supposed to be good for the Post. As the newspaper business continued to bring up questions to which we have no answers, Katharine and I began to ask ourselves if our small public company was still the best home for the newspaper. Our revenues had declined seven years in a row. We had innovated and to my critical eye our innovations had been quite successful in audience and in quality, but they hadn’t made up for the revenue decline. Our answer had to be cost cuts and we knew there was a limit to that. We were certain the paper would survive under our ownership, but we wanted it to do more than that. We wanted it to succeed.

Don  Read more of this post

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Accounting For Pensions, The Boston Globe Sold For Negative $40 Million, 20 Years After Selling For $1.1 Billion

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Accounting For Pensions, The Boston Globe Sold For Negative $40 Million, 20 Years After Selling For $1.1 Billion

MATTHEW YGLESIAS, SLATE AUG. 5, 2013, 8:26 AM 1,306 4

Like everyone else I’ve seen the headlines remarking on the fact that a New York Times Company which bought The Boston Globe for over a billion dollars is selling it this weekend for just $70 million. But if you read the body text of those articles you’ll see that the paper actually sold for much less than $70 million. It in fact sold for a negative quantity of money. That’s because the terms under which John Henry is buying the paper stick the New York Times Company with the Globe‘s pension obligations, which are said to amount to around $110 million. Which is to say that the worth of the overall Globe enterprise is negative $40 million, not $70 million. That’s shocking. What’s even more shocking is that the Globe has been doing great journalism—winning Pulitzers, etc.—and even turning a modest profit. But that’s the difference between a growing industry (where Tumblr can sell for $1 billion with no profits or even meaningful revenue in sight) and a shrinking one.

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Bezos In 2012: People Won’t Pay For News On The Web, Print Will Be Dead In 20 Years

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Bezos In 2012: People Won’t Pay For News On The Web, Print Will Be Dead In 20 Years

GREGORY FERENSTEIN

posted 8 hours ago

Before Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for $250 million, he had some choice words for the ailing print news industry. In a wide-ranging interview with the German paper, Berliner-Zeitung, the newly-minted media mogul said at the time that no one would bother paying for news online and print would be dead in 20 years (translation from our awesome writer, Frederic Lardinois). “There is one thing I’m certain about: there won’t be printed newspapers in twenty years. Maybe as luxury items in some hotels that want to offer them as an extravagant service. Printed papers won’t be normal in twenty years.” said Bezos. That’s a pretty long timeline (think what happened in technology since 1993), but it does given an indication that Bezos may pressure his new newspaper to accelerate abandonment of their print version. Read more of this post

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3D printing reaches tipping point; 3D printing was used in the Melbourne production of King Kong

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

3D printing reaches tipping point

August 1, 2013

Larissa Ham

Once cost-prohibitive, 3D printing is now affordable and becoming mainstream.

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3D printing was used in the Melbourne production of King Kong. Photo: Photo by James Morgan/Global Creatures

He’s now a mammoth, six-metre-high gorilla pounding the boards at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre, but the latest version of King Kong had his features fine-tuned inside a small 3D printer. “There was a lot of debate about how he was going to look – not only his body but his face as well,” says Domenic Di Giorgio, head of digital design at The Creature Technology Company. “He had to convey so much emotion during the performance.” In the past, the West Melbourne business fashioned its maquettes – or small models – from clay, laboriously changing small details until it finally got the design right. However, thanks to the growing quality and affordability of 3D printers, designers are able to tinker with countless iterations of their creatures. Read more of this post

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Ramadan is a month for Muslims to retrain, re-educate and rejuvenate their souls, minds and manners and ‘graduate’ as better persons.

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Updated: Tuesday August 6, 2013 MYT 7:55:10 AM

A virtuous, spiritual journey

BY DR WAN AZHAR WAN AHMAD

Ramadan is a month for Muslims to retrain, re-educate and rejuvenate their souls, minds and manners and ‘graduate’ as better persons.

THE month of Ramadan holds immense importance for Muslims. Highly venerated in Islam, it is distinguished from other months of the Islamic calendar by a number of characteristics, privileges and virtues. Fasting is made compulsory throughout Ramadan on all Muslims who have attained the age of puberty and of sound mind. While fasting, Muslims are not only prohibited from eating or drinking anything from dawn till dusk, but are also required to observe some other added prohibitions, in words and actions, which are otherwise allowed without much restriction outside the sacred month. Ramadan is a month for Muslims to retrain, re-educate, rejuvenate – in greater intensity – their souls, minds and manners. A good external manifestation of one’s behaviour reflects a refined internal condition of one’s heart and soul. Read more of this post

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“There are so many unhappy thyroid patients”; Traditional means for diagnosing and treating the condition don’t work for all patients who are calling for doctors to be open to other therapies

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

August 5, 2013, 8:14 p.m. ET

New Call for More Thyroid Options

SUMATHI REDDY

Hashimoto’s disease, the most common cause of underactive thyroid, is easily treated with hormone replacement drugs. But it’s hard to spot and often misdiagnosed, as the symptoms can have multiple causes. Sumathi Reddy looks at efforts to improve diagnosis. 

Some people with hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroid glands, are organizing and agitating. Their complaint? That traditional means for diagnosing and treating the condition don’t work for all patients. Grass roots patient-activist organizations with names like ThyroidChange and Thyroid Patient Advocacy, and the doctor-founded National Academy of Hypothyroidism, say that the current screening test for hypothyroidism leaves out some symptomatic patients and that the main medication used to treat patients, doesn’t always alleviate many symptoms. They are calling for doctors to be open to other therapies, including a combination of synthetic hormones and the use of natural, animal-based ones. Read more of this post

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Japan’s Fake Food is Real Deal for Tourists; Iwasaki, a leading plastic food maker, has an army of craftspeople who hand paint the molds, which sell for as much as $100 each, or restaurants can lease a fake hamburger set for $6 a month

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Japan’s Fake Food is Real Deal for Tourists

By Kyoko Hasegawa on 3:35 pm August 5, 2013.

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Food samples made of plastic are displayed at a plastic food maker’s shop in Tokyo on May 28, 2013. (AFP Photo/Kazuhiro Nogi)

Tokyo. Alberto Pellegrini doesn’t speak or read Japanese, a deficit that threatened to leave the Italian tourist starving in a nation famous for its gastronomic delights. Fortunately for the hungry honeymooner, restaurants across this food-obsessed nation — where English menus range from sparse to non-existent — often display their wares in the form of intricately-made plastic replicas. The sight of a giant hotdog slathered in condiments doesn’t faze the average Japanese restaurant goer, and these fake food parades are often so similar to the real thing that they almost dare potential customers to take a bite. Read more of this post

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LVMH buys luxury services five-star Hotel Saint-Barth Isle de France and storied Milanese cafe Cova; As Baby Boomers look for new ways to treat themselves and Millennials define themselves more by what they do than what they own, luxury brands are expanding beyond fashion and accessories

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Arnault Lets Them Eat Cake Amid Luxury Hospitality Push: Retail

By Andrew Roberts – Aug 5, 2013

French billionaire Bernard Arnault wants you to spend the night and eat his pastries.

After decades of acquiring luxury goods that consumers can drink and wear, the chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA (MC) last week bought the five-star Hotel Saint-Barth Isle de France and in June added a storied Milanese cafe, accelerating his push to meet all his well-heeled clients’ earthly needs. The summer spending spree, which bookended LVMH’s $2.6 billion acquisition of Italian cashmere clothier Loro Piana SpA, expands Arnault’s $95 billion empire in hospitality, part of a broader shift by luxury brands into high-end services. As Baby Boomers look for new ways to treat themselves and Millennials define themselves more by what they do than what they own, luxury brands are expanding beyond fashion and accessories as they aim to keep customers interested. Read more of this post

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Taxi apps are gaining traction in everywhere but Indonesia. Why is that so?

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Why is there a lack of taxi apps in Indonesia?

DailySocial 5, Aug 2013Indonesia 

Taxi apps are gaining traction in everywhere but Indonesia. Why is that so?

The proliferation of taxi apps and private car hire services around the world is inevitable with companies such as Uber, Lyft, Hailo, EasyTaxi, GetTaxi, and myTaxi leading the charge. With these apps making their ways into cities across the world, Indonesia is one of the countries which have yet to see serious play by these apps and services.

The taxi industry in Indonesia is not very tightly regulated as it may be in many other countries. Cab drivers easily come and go and they easily switch not only between taxi companies but also outside of the industry. Unlike in other territories, there is no such thing as a medallion, certificate, or specific license that drivers need to apply for or purchase. Anyone with a driver’s license for a car can walk in to a cab company and apply to be a driver. Read more of this post

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Memebox is Korea’s no. 1 beauty subscription commerce service that provides its customers with five to six beauty items every month for a nominal monthly fee of US$15; next stop: Thailand

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Beauty curation service Memebox dominates Korea, next stop: Thailand

beSUCCESS 3, Aug 2013Asia 

With positive feedback from its home market in South Korea beauty curation service Memebox seeks global growth, starting from Southeast Asia.

Memebox-header

Memebox is Korea’s no. 1 beauty subscription commerce service that provides its customers with five to six beauty items every month for a nominal monthly fee of US$15. Memebox aims to deliver the most exciting beauty experience to consumers in a one-stop service for beauty shopping. Now they are looking to expand their sights beyond the borders of their home country and establish themselves globally, starting first by entering the Southeast Asian market. Read more of this post

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Chinese mobile chat app WeChat’s first operator deal Weixin Woka SIM card attracts 700,000 customers within 24 hours

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Chinese mobile chat app WeChat’s first operator deal attracts 700,000 customers within 24 hours

By Kaylene Hong, 3 hours ago, 05:33am

China Unicom’s joint SIM card collaboration with Chinese Internet giant Tencent, which includes an independent data package for its messaging service WeChat (known as Weixin in China), has received overwhelming response on the first day that pre-orders were opened to the public. A Techweb report notes that more than 700,000 users have already placed their orders for the SIM card, called Weixin Woka, by local time 10pm on August 5. The company started accepting pre-orders at midnight. Read more of this post

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Cheaper soybean imports hurting China’s expensive domestic producers; Soybean is produced in the US, Brazil and Argentina through mechanized production, a method which allows high output at a low cost

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Soybean imports hurting China’s domestic producers

Staff Reporter

2013-08-06

China purchased US$13 billion of soybeans from the United States last year, surpassing the funds spent on Boeing 787 Dreamliners to become the largest single item imported from the US, says Zhang Xiaoping, the Chinese representative at the US Soybean Export Council. The imports have hurt local soybean farmers, however, reports the Beijing Youth Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Youth League in Beijing. Soybean originated in China, but 80% of its market has been taken over by genetically modified soybean imports. Read more of this post

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Hong Kong developers show little interest in Qianhai zone

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Hong Kong developers show little interest in Qianhai zone

Staff Reporter

2013-08-06

Excellence Real Estate Group made its first payment of 6 billion yuan (US$980 million) on July 30 for two plots of lands acquired at the first auction held for the Qianhai special zone in Shenzhen a week earlier. But at the auction on July 26, there were no bids offered by Hong Kong’s major developers, who had been expected to take part. The bids offered by mainland Chinese companies were rather conservative. The prime land will cost the Shenzhen-based Excellence 12.3 billion yuan (US$2 billion) in total — 5.19 billion yuan (US$847 million) for T201-0077 and 7.18 billion yuan (US$1.27 billion) for T201-0075. Read more of this post

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Specialized newsrooms abuzz on WeChat

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Specialized newsrooms abuzz on WeChat

English.news.cn   2013-08-06

BEIJING, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) — Lu Jiuping starts working at 4 a.m. every day, but the retired 50-year-old businessman has never made a cent from his current occupation. He starts his day by reading several financial websites, picking out valuable bits of business or IT news. Not satisfied to digest the information alone, he posts these news items in “Tearoom 90,” an official account he registered on WeChat, a popular mobile social networking platform developed by Chinese IT giant Tencent. Since it was set up in February, Lu’s free subscriber service has attracted a readership of over 14,000, quickly turning it from a “tearoom” to a “newsroom,” much to the delight of the amateur media strategist. “I am working as the chief editor of an e-magazine,” Lu said. The Official Account is one built-in WeChat function that offers broadcast messaging. Operators of each account can share anything in any format with their subscribers and receive instant feedback. Read more of this post

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Tencent Commercializes WeChat to Tap Mobile Users’ Pocket

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Tencent Commercializes WeChat to Tap Mobile Users’ Pocket

Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) –Tencent Holdings Ltd. (700), China’s biggest Internet company, yesterday began allowing its WeChat users to make online payments, less than a week after Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. said it blocked the messaging app.

Users in mainland China — which excludes Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan — can buy goods and games from some WeChat accounts, said Jerry Huang, an investor relations director for Tencent in Shenzhen. Accounts abroad will be limited to buying animation stickers, he said. WeChat has more than 300 million users with more than 70 million registered outside of mainland China. Read more of this post

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Shale Explorers Outperforming International Oil Titans

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Shale Explorers Outperforming International Oil Titans

Oil explorers focused on high-margin shale drilling from Texas to North Dakota are set to outperform Big Oil this year.

EOG Resources Inc. (EOG), Pioneer Natural Resources Co. (PXD) and Continental Resources Inc. are poised to reap bigger returns for investors than energy titans 15 times their market values as they devote almost all their drilling capital to higher-margin, domestic crude wells, said Gianna Bern, founder of Brookshire Advisory and Research Inc. in Chicago. Houston-based EOG is estimated to more than triple profit in 2013 to $1.92 billion. Read more of this post

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China Resources Group, embroiled in corruption allegations, has been accused of theft and illegal asset transfers in a previously unreported case involving British investors in the Chinese resort island of Hainan

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

August 5, 2013 4:55 pm

China Resources arm faces theft accusations

By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing

A subsidiary of China Resources Group, the Hong Kong-listed Chinese conglomerate embroiled in corruption allegations, has been accused of theft and illegal asset transfers in a previously unreported case involving British investors in the Chinese resort island of Hainan. Executives of Bloom World, a subsidiary of the China Resouces group that employs 400,000 people and boasts assets worth more than $120bn, are alleged to have forged documents in order to illegally transfer land in 2011 out of a company controlled by Keith Darby, a British real estate developer and former steeplechase jockey. The latest revelations come as a Hong Kong court on Monday began hearing a case against China Resources board members brought by minority shareholders who allege the company massively overpaid for several coal mines in northern China in 2010. Read more of this post

Filed under Investing Process, Macro Trends

IBM Gets Allies to Chip Away at Intel; Google, Others Join Effort to Break Big Blue’s Power Designs Out of a Niche

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

August 5, 2013, 8:35 p.m. ET

IBM Gets Allies to Chip Away at Intel

Google, Others Join Effort to Break Big Blue’s Power Designs Out of a Niche

DON CLARK

International Business Machines Corp. IBM +0.17% has enlisted Google Inc.GOOG -0.17% and some other high-tech allies for a collective effort to catapult an IBM chip technology out of a shrinking niche. The alliance the companies plan to announce Tuesday would allow many companies to license IBM microprocessor designs—based on a technology dubbed Power—that are now only found in Big Blue’s own server systems. Licensees could incorporate IBM-designed circuitry in their own chips, with members of the alliance working on related products such as servers, networking and storage devices, participants said. Read more of this post

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Three years ago China National Travel Service took control of the Shaolin temple with promises of greater investment. But the investment never materialized, and now the UNESCO World Heritage Site is plagued with conflict and scandals

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

The Shaolin Soap Opera – Economic Observer Online

By Liu Jinsong (刘金松)
July 16, 2013
Three years ago, the local government of Dengfeng City in central Henan Province ceded their controlling stake in the “Shaolin Monastery Scenic Area” to China National Travel Service (CTS). The price was very low in order to attract greater investment, and the CTS vowed to carry out several major construction projects around the ancient site, the birthplace of Chan (Zen) Buddhism and symbol of Chinese marital arts. Read more of this post

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The Political Anxiety of Chinese Entrepreneurs

August 6, 2013 Leave a comment

The Political Anxiety of Chinese Entrepreneurs – Economic Observer Online

By Qiu Feng (秋风)
Issue 629, July 22, 2013
In China, politics is something that worries and tangles up the minds of businessmen, perhaps more than others. Two recent events shed new light on what we can call the political anxiety (政治焦虑症) of Chinese entrepreneurs. The first incident came after the remarks of Liu Chuanzhi (柳传志), the recently retired Chairman of Legend Holdings and one of China’s best known business personalities, during a forum for Chinese entrepreneurs on Zhenghe Island. Liu stated that China’s “economic trend is currently in a state of uncertainty” and that “the most important thing for Chinese entrepreneurs is to mentally focus and concentrate.” Responding in an article, Huang Lilu (黄丽陆), chairman of Zhenghe Island, then interpreted what Liu actually meant by “focusing” and “concentrating.” Read more of this post

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