Influx of cheap foreign beer costing Malaysia over US$78m in lost taxes

Influx of cheap foreign beer costing Malaysia over US$78m in lost taxes

Shaun Ho and Christina Chin, The Star/ANN, Petaling Jaya | Business | Fri, October 18 2013, 11:15 AM

There is an influx of cheap foreign beer in the Malaysian market and it may be costing the country up to 250 million ringgit (US$78 million) in lost taxes annually. Industry sources claim that beer with high alcohol content from Thailand, the Philippines, China and Europe have flooded the market and are being sold at almost half the price of locally-produced beer at coffeeshops, convenience stores, medical halls and even some established supermarkets here. Read more of this post

Rich Americans Snap Up Irish Castles for Love and Discounts

October 15, 2013

Rich Americans Snap Up Irish Castles for Love and Discounts

By KERRY HANNON

FIRST-TIME visitors to Humewood Castle in Kiltegan, County Wicklow, can’t help it. They simply say, “Wow.” It’s that big, that stunning — that, well, fairy tale. It’s vast and turreted, and the view toward the mountains looks like a Hollywood backdrop. Humewood, an Irish estate on 427 acres, roughly a 90-minute drive from Dublin, includes 15 bedrooms, a ballroom, a banqueting hall and a billiards room, among other amenities. And an American, John Malone, now owns it. Last November, the 72-year-old billionaire chairman of the cable and telecom giant Liberty Global got it for a song. Read more of this post

On the Baltic slow train: The geopolitics of the EU’s flagship railway project

On the Baltic slow train: The geopolitics of the EU’s flagship railway project

Oct 19th 2013 |From the print edition

THE 600km-long human chain that stretched from Vilnius via Riga to Tallinn in August 1989 came to be the emblem of the Baltic states’ struggle for freedom from the Soviet Union. But more than two decades after they regained independence, their three capitals have no direct passenger train service linking them to each other, let alone to the rest of the European Union. In terms of infrastructure the Baltics are still “captive nations”: the railways run east to Moscow and St Petersburg; the electricity grids are synchronised with Russia’s; and they are largely dependent on Russia for gas. Read more of this post

How not to rescue an airline: The Italian government is pumping even more cash into its ailing carrier

How not to rescue an airline: The Italian government is pumping even more cash into its ailing carrier

Oct 19th 2013 | ROME |From the print edition

ONLY the most gullible or optimistic Italians ever believed that the Phoenix Project launched with great fanfare five years ago would allow Alitalia, Italy’s bankrupt flag-carrier, to soar to profitability. Half-year results approved on September 26th showed a net loss of €294m ($386m), taking total losses since the end of 2008 to well over €1 billion. Its share capital eroded, bleeding cash, with only €128m left, including unused credit lines, Alitalia has run into near-terminal turbulence. Read more of this post

The Economist explains: Why are no-frills airlines so cheap? Ryanair boss promises it will stop being quite so horrible to customers

The Economist explains: Why are no-frills airlines so cheap?

Oct 17th 2013, 23:50 by C.R.

IN THE 1950s flying was a privilege enjoyed by only the wealthiest. The costs of flying were simply too high for most ordinary folk. In 1952 a London-to-Scotland return flight would set the average Englishman back a week’s wages; a trip to New York might require saving up for five months. But in 2013 flying is a mass market, due in no small part to the growth of “no-frills” airlines offering flights at very low prices. Ryanair, an Ireland-based no-frills airline, has even been known to give tickets away for free. How can no-frills airlines be so cheap? Read more of this post

High-yield bonds: An appetite for junk; Companies have taken advantage of investors’ growing willingness to buy speculative bonds

High-yield bonds: An appetite for junk; Companies have taken advantage of investors’ growing willingness to buy speculative bonds

Oct 19th 2013 |From the print edition

WHEN cash deposits pay virtually zero, investors have an incentive to take risks in search of higher returns. That has been good news for the high-yield, or junk, bond market, where companies with poor credit ratings (below the investment-grade threshold of BBB) turn for finance. Many companies can now borrow at rates that governments would have been pleased to achieve two decades ago. Indeed, so low have borrowing costs fallen that some wags have dubbed the market “the asset class formerly known as high-yield”. Read more of this post

Family-owned Dr. Martens footwear and clothing brand nears deal to sell for $484 million

OCTOBER 17, 2013, 11:49 AM

Dr. Martens Nears a Deal

By CHAD BRAY

LONDON – The private equity firm Permira is in “advanced negotiations” to possibly acquire the family-owned Dr. Martens footwear and clothing brand, according to a person familiar with the discussions. The R. Griggs Group, the family business that owns Dr. Martens, is in talks for a deal that could be worth roughly £300 million, or $484 million, the person said. It is unclear whether the deal will result in the family selling the brand or just a license for the name. Read more of this post

The Tequila Curse; the Mexican tequilla industry produces 300 million liters of tequila per year, earning revenue of 21 billion pesos ($1.6 billion) in 2012

The Tequila Curse

By Ted Genoways October 17, 2013

Every year on the Day of the Dead, Guillermo Erickson Sauza invites family and friends to join him at the graves of his great-great-grandfather, Don Cenobio Sauza, and great-grandfather, Don Eladio Sauza, in the Panteón de Mezquitán in Guadalajara. The streets outside are packed with vendors selling skull candles, skeleton dolls, and loaves of bread baked into the shape of crossbones. Visitors throng at the wrought iron gates, so Erickson Sauza sprinkles a trail of marigold petals for his guests to follow and drapes his ancestors’ crypts with bright-orange garlands and wreaths arranged to read “Familia Sauza.” Read more of this post

Russia Roofing Billionaires Seen Among Country’s Youngest; “We earned two degrees, one in physics and one in roofing”

Russia Roofing Billionaires Seen Among Country’s Youngest

Sergey Kolesnikov and Igor Rybakov spent their summers in the early 1990s fixing rooftops around Moscow, a job that paid them about $500 a month. The work gave the aspiring scientists, who were roommates at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia’s top research university, a chance to become entrepreneurs after the fall of the Soviet Union. “We earned two degrees, one in physics and one in roofing,” Kolesnikov said in an interview at his central Moscow office. Read more of this post

How China May Lose a Chance for Reform; The top monopolies run by state enterprises may have cost China $311 billion in lost growth since 2010. An overhaul of state companies looks less and less likely

How China May Lose a Chance for Reform

By Dexter Roberts October 11, 2013

In the runup to November’s big Communist Party confab, known officially as the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, expectations among reform advocates are high. At the third plenum in 1978, paramount leader Deng Xiaoping announced gaige kaifang, or reform and opening-up, ending the self-imposed isolation of the Cultural Revolution and exposing China’s economy to market forces. “Thirty-five years after the Communist Party of China lifted the country out of 10 years of chaos and started economic reform and opening up, analysts say the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC has the potential to be a landmark event,” China’s official news agency, Xinhua, wrote on Oct. 9. Read more of this post

Hey China, Stop Laughing at the U.S.; Schadenfreude is easy. Maneuvering and handling the internal politics of reform is hard

Hey China, Stop Laughing at the U.S.

By most accounts, the past few weeks have exposed a drastic maturity gap between the U.S. and Chinese governments. The purported icon of democracy watched its system descend into chaos and petty political gamesmanship, coming within hours of a default that would have sparked global economic disorder. Publicly, Chinese leaders remained statesmanlike and above the fray, withholding comments on the circus in Washington. At the same time, and unsurprisingly, surrogates in the Chinese news media and commentators in the intelligentsia were less restrained. They gleefully piled on with op-ed articles arguing for “de-Americanizing” the world and rapidly reducing China’s purchase of U.S. Treasuries. It is notable that some of these commentaries only appeared in the English-language press, both within China and globally: They were clearly aimed at a Western audience. So was the showy downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt by China’s Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. — a feature of the last debt-ceiling crisis, too. Read more of this post

China set to announce reforms of creaking pension system

China set to announce reforms of creaking pension system: sources

5:13pm EDT

By Natalie Thomas

BEIJING (Reuters) – China is close to announcing long-awaited reforms to its pension system, whose assets are estimated to have already fallen $3 trillion behind projected future payouts, as it seeks to create a sustainable safety net for a rapidly ageing population. The reforms, which may be announced as early as this month, could include merging separate state and private sector employee pension schemes, increasing coverage and broadening the range of assets pension funds are invested in to boost returns and improve efficiency, said sources with knowledge of the discussions. Read more of this post

Chasing the Chinese Tourist Yuan; Countries Including the U.S. and U.K. Look to Ease Visa Headaches for Travelers From China

October 17, 2013, 10:51 a.m. ET

Chasing the Chinese Tourist Yuan

Countries Including the U.S. and U.K. Look to Ease Visa Headaches for Travelers From China

WEI GU

The U.K. is the latest country to relax visa rules for visitors from China. The WSJ’s Wei Gu speaks fund manager Jim Rogers about why investors should look beyond the U.S. debt deal and focus on the opportunity offered by Chinese travelers.

Money trumps politics. That rule is being proved again as more Chinese venture abroad—and countries seek to capture that tourist spending by making the visa process easier. So for China’s richest man, Wang Jianlin, the formalities ahead of a trip to the U.K. earlier this year didn’t include lining up at the U.K. Embassy in Beijing. Instead, the U.K. visa service went to him with the equipment to take his application, fingerprints and photograph. The visa service’s efforts paid off: Mr. Wang, the chairman of China’s largest commercial property developer, Dalian Wanda Group, went on a shopping spree. He bought British yacht builder Sunseeker for £300 million ($478 million), and plowed another £700 million into a London site to build Western Europe’s tallest residential tower. Read more of this post

Can Wuhan Become the Detroit of China?

October 17, 2013, 5:02 PM

Can Wuhan Become the Detroit of China?

Colum Murphy for The Wall Street Journal

Wuhan is a city with attitude, known for its hot weather and hot-and-dry noodles. It’s also famous as the birthplace of modern China. The 1911 Xinhai Revolution that brought an end to the Qing Dynasty and led to the establishment of the Republic of China took place here. Today Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, harbors another aspiration for greatness: It wants to become the Detroit of China (minus the bankruptcy, of course). Read more of this post

StanChart’s Private Bank Assets Stagnate in Wealthier Asian Hunt

StanChart’s Private Bank Assets Stagnate in Wealthier Asian Hunt

Standard Chartered Plc (STAN)’s Asian private-bank asset growth has stagnated this year as the lender focused on wealthier clients and investment returns were curtailed by volatility in regional financial markets. Assets managed in Asia excluding the Indian sub-continent and the Middle East have stayed at about $35 billion, the same as at the end of 2012, said Rajesh Malkani, the private bank’s head of Northeast and Southeast Asia. Globally, Standard Chartered started increasing from late last year the investment threshold for private-bank clients to $2 million, double the previous level, he said. Read more of this post