Zhang Ying, the wife of Alibaba founder Jack Ma; “Ma Yun is not a handsome man, but I fell for him because he can do a lot of things handsome men cannot do”

October 1, 2013 Leave a comment

Zhang Ying, the wife of Alibaba founder Jack Ma

Staff Reporter

2013-09-30

Zhang Ying-162034_copy1

Zhang Ying is the wife of Ma Yun, the billionaire founder and former chairman of Chinese internet giant Alibaba.

Zhang met Ma at the Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute, now known as Hangzhou Normal University, when the two were students. The couple married shortly after graduating in the late 1980s and both began working as teachers. “Ma Yun is not a handsome man, but I fell for him because he can do a lot of things handsome men cannot do,” Zhang said. Despite being named as one of the 10 best young teachers in Hangzhou, Ma decided to quit his job and open his own translation company. In 1995, Ma started China Yellowpages, widely believed to be one of China’s first internet-based company, before setting up Alibaba, China’s first business-to-business commerce website, in 1999, along with 16 other partners. Read more of this post

Filed under Life

Facebook Woos TV Networks With Data

October 1, 2013 Leave a comment

Sep 29, 2013

Facebook Woos TV Networks With Data

EVELYN M. RUSLI

Facebook is laying down a new gauntlet in its battle with Twitter to dominate online conversation around television: more data for broadcasters. This week, Facebook says it will begin sending weekly reports to America’s four largest television networks, offering a glimpse of how much chatter their shows are generating on the social network. The reports will reveal how many “actions” — likes, comments, or shares — a television episode has inspired on Facebook and how many members participated in an action. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

Sovereign wealth funds: transparently inadequate; Many SWFs are failing to comply with their own governance standards

October 1, 2013 Leave a comment

September 29, 2013 5:28 pm

Sovereign wealth funds: transparently inadequate

Many SWFs are failing to comply with their own governance standards

Capital markets are in awe of sovereign wealth funds. Many high-profile investments of recent years – the rescue of western banks, buying trophy assets or scooping up natural resources – have involved an SWF as lead investor or chief moneybags. That is helping these institutions to go more mainstream. But as capital markets have changed to adapt to SWFs, it seems that the funds themselves areslower to adapt to the norms of the capital markets. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Small business caught in Hong Kong property trap

October 1, 2013 Leave a comment

September 30, 2013 10:10 am

Small business caught in Hong Kong property trap

By Josh Noble in Hong Kong

Tucked away above the dazzling storefronts of Cartier and Jaeger-LeCoultre, The People’s Recreation Centre seems completely out of place. The cramped little Mao-themed bookshop has so far managed to hold out, despite finding itself wedged among the world’s most expensive retail space. Burberry, a fellow resident on Russell Street in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay shopping district, pays around US$1m a month in rent. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

India seeks to regulate its booming ‘rent-a-womb’ industry

October 1, 2013 Leave a comment

India seeks to regulate its booming ‘rent-a-womb’ industry

1:01pm EDT

By Nita Bhalla and Mansi Thapliyal

ANAND, India, Sept 30 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Dressed in a green surgical gown and cap, British restaurateur Rekha Patel cradled her newborn daughter at the Akanksha clinic in northwestern India as her husband Daniel smiled warmly, peering in through a glass door. “I can’t believe we have our own child at last,” said Patel, 42, gazing in wonderment at five-day-old Gabrielle. “We are really grateful to our surrogate mother who managed to get pregnant and kept our little daughter healthy. She gave nine months of her life to give us a child.” Read more of this post

Filed under Life, Macro Trends

Pesticide ban cuts South Korea’s high suicide rate – a bit

October 1, 2013 Leave a comment

Pesticide ban cuts South Korea’s high suicide rate – a bit

3:13am EDT

By Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) – Jang Chang-yoon was drunk and weepy one rainy night, troubled by debts from his divorce. On a dark impulse, the South Korean waiter bought a bottle of pesticide to end it all with a few toxic swigs. At the last minute, he changed his mind when his young daughter grabbed his arm and begged him: “Daddy, don’t die.” Unlike Jang, many people do not pull back from the brink in South Korea, which has had the highest suicide rate in the developed world for nine straight years, often drinking pesticide as their way out. But a decade after Jang’s brush with death, a ban on fatal pesticides is credited with cutting the number of suicides by 11 percent last year, the first drop in six years. The government restricted production of Gramoxone, a herbicide linked to suicides, in 2011 and outlawed its sale and storage last year. Read more of this post

Filed under Life, Macro Trends

Hedonism Makes Comeback as Monaco Pitches Post-Crisis Yachts

October 1, 2013 Leave a comment

Hedonism Makes Comeback as Monaco Pitches Post-Crisis Yachts

The largest vessel at the Monaco Yacht Show last week was the Quattroelle, an 88-meter boat with marble floors, bronze balustrades, Murano glass chandeliers and a baby grand piano — evidence expensive toys are back. With a charter price of $1 million a week, the super-yacht at the annual trade show that ended Sept. 28 also had a “collectable art” blue and white zigzag painted helicopter perched on one deck and a Porsche 918 Spyder parked on another. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Banks Face Basel Debt Limit Capturing Off-Balance Sheet Risks

October 1, 2013 Leave a comment

Banks Face Basel Debt Limit Capturing Off-Balance Sheet Risks

Banks are set to face a broad international leverage limit that will catch off-balance sheet risks and prevent them from hiding their debt, according to the head of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The Basel group is seeking to put a ceiling on indebtedness that will prove robust no matter how complicated a bank’s business model, Stefan Ingves, its chairman, said in an interview. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Foreigners Stay Away From Malaysia 30-Year Bond

October 1, 2013 Leave a comment

September 30, 2013, 7:32 a.m. ET

Foreigners Stay Away From Malaysia 30-Year Bond

Bankers Say Domestic Pension Funds, Insurers Bought the Inaugural Issue

ANJANI TRIVEDI

With markets jittery over the looming shutdown of the U.S. government, Malaysia’s central bank sold 2.5 billion ringgit of 30-year bonds, the country’s longest-maturity offering ever, but foreign investors stayed away. Malaysia has seen cash flow out of the country as investors became convinced the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee would scale back the Federal Reserve’s monetary easing—also known as quantitative easing or QE—sending the local currency down 9% from its peak. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

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