Thousands in Hong Kong Protest Government’s TV Decision

Thousands in Hong Kong Protest Government’s TV Decision

Thousands of demonstrators in Hong Kong yesterday protested the government’s refusal to explain why it denied a free-to-air license to Hong Kong Television Network Ltd. even as it granted two other permits. Black-clad marchers waved banners showing officials on puppet strings after the government granted the first free-TV licenses in almost 40 years to PCCW Ltd. (8) and I-Cable Communications Ltd. (1097) last week. Police said that there were 21,800 protesters at the demonstration’s peak, while a spokesman for HKTV said at least 10,000 people had marched as of 3 p.m. yesterday, Radio Television Hong Kong reported. A call to the police’s public relations office yesterday went unanswered. Read more of this post

Shanghai Studies Traffic Congestion Charge to Control Pollution

Shanghai Studies Traffic Congestion Charge to Control Pollution

Shanghai, which inaugurated a free trade zone last month and is targeting to become a global financial center, is studying whether to impose a traffic congestion charge as part of a broader plan to fight pollution. A congestion charge is one of the measures being considered as part of a white paper on transportation, Gao Yiyi, an official with the Shanghai Municipal Transport and Port Authority, said today at a joint departmental briefing. The city also pledged to cut levels of PM2.5 — the most damaging particulate matter — by 20 percent by 2017 from last year’s levels, according to the environmental protection bureau. Read more of this post

China Inc. Battles Big Oil for Century’s Biggest Find

China Inc. Battles Big Oil for Century’s Biggest Find

For Chinese oil companies, competing in Brazil’s auction today for the giant Libra field represents a change in strategy. A successful bid would be their riskiest Latin American investment. Cnooc Ltd. (883) and China National Petroleum Corp. are among 11 companies registered to bid for what may become one of the world’s two largest deep-water fields, requiring an estimated $185 billion investment. Libra holds as much as 12 billion barrels, or three years of China’s consumption, Brazil’s oil regulator estimates. Other bidders include Royal Dutch Shell Plc. and France’s Total SA. Read more of this post

When the Best and Brightest Leave India and China

When the Best and Brightest Leave India and China

In the 1970s, long before the word “globalization” achieved common currency, the buzzword in India was “brain drain” — an apparent problem that almost everyone in my family and circle of friends wanted to be part of. Many young men and women educated at highly subsidized public institutions started leaving the country in the 1960s to deepen or monetize their skills in First World countries. Unlike short-term contract workers servicing the construction boom in the Persian Gulf and Southeast Asia, these expensively educated seekers of greener grass, many of whom ended up as prominent bankers, entrepreneurs, innovators and scholars abroad, seemed unlikely to return to a slow-growth economy. Read more of this post

Najib’s Fiscal Pledge Faces Test in 2014 Budget: Southeast Asia

Najib’s Fiscal Pledge Faces Test in 2014 Budget: Southeast Asia

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s promise of measures to curb the budget gap and avert a credit rating downgrade helped send three-year government bond yields to a four-month low. His resolve is about to be tested. Najib, also finance minister, will deliver his 2014 budget speech to parliament on Oct. 25 after cementing his leadership in a May general election. Having given handouts to the poor and pay increases for civil servants to woo voters earlier, he may now introduce a potentially unpopular consumption tax, delay projects and raise the levy on property gains, according to United Overseas Bank Ltd. (UOB) and DBS Group Holdings Ltd. Read more of this post

U.S. Steel to Take $1.8 Billion Writedown amid excess global production capacity and higher imports

U.S. Steel to Take $1.8 Billion Writedown Amid Higher Imports

U.S. Steel Corp., the country’s largest steelmaker by volume, said it will take a writedown of about $1.8 billion on North American assets amid excess global production capacity and higher imports.  The non-cash goodwill impairment charge will be taken in the third quarter, Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel said today in a statement. The writedown won’t have a tax benefit or affect liquidity and compliance with debt covenants, the company said. U.S. Steel said its North American flat-rolled steel unit and its Texas operations carry almost all of its goodwill. The writedown at the flat-rolled business is largely attributable to the “protracted” economic recovery and surplus global capacity, the company said. The writedown in Texas was driven by a drop in prices for welded tubular steel following “high” import levels and plans for additional domestic capacity. Steelmakers in the U.S. have struggled to be profitable amid low prices and competition from imports since the global financial crisis began in 2008. U.S. Steel has posted net losses for the past four years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, and is expected to lose $226.6 million this year, according to the average of nine analysts’ estimates.

To contact the reporter on this story: Simon Casey in New York at scasey4@bloomberg.net

Quebec Train Fire Prompts New Oil Railway-Shipping Costs

Quebec Train Fire Prompts New Oil Railway-Shipping Costs

New rules will boost costs to transport crude by rail in North America as trains are forecast to carry as much as 2 million barrels a day, about equal to daily output from Norway. “You’re going to see a massive flood of spending to get ahead of these government regulations,” Jerry Swank, managing partner at Dallas-based Swank Capital, said yesterday during the Bloomberg Link Oil & Gas Conference in Houston. Read more of this post

Japanese Fund Managers Look Beyond Yen-Driven Export Stocks

Japanese Fund Managers Look Beyond Yen-Driven Export Stocks

Lesser-Known Small and Midsize Companies Are Gaining Favor

YUMI OTAGAKI

Oct. 20, 2013 11:39 a.m. ET

TOKYO—Forget Toyota Motor Corp. 7203.TO -0.16% or Sony Corp. 6758.TO -0.83%When fund manager Hideo Shiozumi looks for Japanese stocks to buy these days, he shuns the big-name exporters that saw sharp gains earlier this year as the yen’s sudden drop made their goods more competitive on global markets. Instead he seeks lesser-known small and midsize companies he thinks will benefit from deeper structural changes that many economists say need to happen for Japan to enjoy a deeper recovery beyond the quick fix of a cheaper currency. Specifically, the manager of U.K.-based Legg Mason’s Japan Equity Fund is weighted toward e-commerce companies that can gain from shifts in consumer behavior, and health-care firms that can profit from the country’s aging population. Read more of this post

Abe Invokes Thatcherism in Reform Push Raising Disparity Risks

Abe Invokes Thatcherism in Reform Push Raising Disparity Risks

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe evokes the late Margaret Thatcher as he repeats “there is no alternative” to his platform of economic change. One of the byproducts: prospects for a Thatcherite division of wealth. Tomoko Kawamura, 33, a pharmaceutical-company worker in Tokyo, bought a Louis Garneau bicycle costing about 50,000 yen ($510) and a MacBook Air laptop with proceeds from stock investments this year. She owns a one-bedroom apartment in Tokyo’s well-heeled Meguro district. Eight hundred kilometers (500 miles) to the southwest in Ehime prefecture, Miyoko Yamazaki, 81, is struggling to cover the rising cost of gasoline for her regular hospital trips. Read more of this post

Monsoon Bonanza Makes India’s Farmers New Target for Tata; “This year is a good year for us farmers. Prices of tomatoes, onions, grapes and vegetables have been good. Everybody’s had a good harvest.”

Monsoon Bonanza Makes India’s Farmers New Target for Tata: Cars

For Dayanand Sakharam Kute, it seems money is finally growing on trees.

Well, not trees exactly. But it’s sprouting from the ground. This year’s crop of tomatoes and ivy gourd on his 4 acre farm in the village of Pimpri Pendar is looking so bountiful that the 58-year-old farmer is thinking of buying his first car. That’s manna from heaven to Eknath Pardeshi, a salesman for Tata Motors Ltd. (TTMT), who’s been coming over every few days since September to pester Kute, riding his motorbike about 30 kilometers each way along potholed roads east of Mumbai. Read more of this post

Securitisations resurface in Singapore; Courts, Southeast Asia’s largest electrical and furniture retailer has launched the region’s first-ever multi-jurisdiction, multi-currency and multi-seller securitisation

Securitisations resurface in Singapore

Fri, Oct 18 2013

* Two asset-backed bonds priced this week

* Local investors again warming up to the structure

* Banks prompting issuers to diversify loan funding

By Neha d’Silva

HONG KONG, Oct 18 (IFR) – Two Singapore firms completed private placements of asset-backed securities this week in a level of activity for structured bonds not seen since the 2008 financial crisis. “People are finally warming up again to securitisation, and we expect the market-opening trades to have follow-on trades,” said Peeyush Pallav, vice president, structured debt solutions at DBS Bank. Read more of this post

Sacks of Cash in Myanmar Hard to Displace for MasterCard, Visa

Sacks of Cash in Myanmar Hard to Displace for MasterCard, Visa

A year ago, Myanmar had no automated teller machines and not a single hotel or restaurant able to swipe the credit cards proffered by throngs of foreigners arriving in the newly opened country, who instead had to bring crisp U.S. dollars to pay for everything in cash. It has come a long way since: 2,500 credit- and debit-card machines, known as point-of-sale terminals, and 450 ATMs including at least three at the gates of Yangon’s Shwedagon Pagoda, according to Kanbawza Bank Ltd., known as KBZ, the country’s largest privately owned bank. Read more of this post

Party Vote Leaves Malaysian Leader a Weakened Winner

October 20, 2013, 5:48 PM

Party Vote Leaves Malaysian Leader a Weakened Winner

ABHRAJIT GANGOPADHYAY

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Allies of Prime Minister Najib Razak fought off challenges from conservatives in high-stakes party elections on Saturday night, leaving Mr. Najib in firm control — at least for now — over the United Malays National Organization. Prime Minister Najib Razak, who wasn’t contested in Saturday’s party elections, has made a series of moves to the right after a weak showing in national elections in May. Read more of this post

The Yale University endowment is lowering the percentage of assets dedicated to private-equity investments for the first time since 2005

Yale Endowment Shuffles Portfolio’s Allocations

Private Equity, Real Estate Will Play a Smaller Role

LAURA KREUTZER

Updated Oct. 20, 2013 6:52 p.m. ET

The Yale University endowment is lowering the percentage of assets dedicated to private-equity investments for the first time since 2005. The New Haven, Conn., college’s endowment totaled $20.8 billion as of June 30 and is closely watched for changes in its holdings of stocks, bonds, hedge funds, private equity and other investments. Yale Investments Office, which manages the endowment, said last month that it cut the endowment’s target exposure to private equity to 31% of assets for the fiscal year that began July 1. Read more of this post

Sun Life’s Mecca Pilgrims Drive Growth; Sun Life offers Islamic-compliant savings and insurance plan for the Mecca trip; “It’s the top 80 million today that can afford the kind of products we offer but the true Shariah market is the next 80 million — the middle to lower-middle income classes.”

Sun Life’s Mecca Pilgrims Drive Growth: Corporate Canada

Dyah Apsari, a 55-year-old Indonesian woman in Saudi Arabia this month for Hajj, is the kind of customer Sun Life Financial Inc. (SLF) is betting on for the insurer’s expansion in Asia. Hajj, the religious pilgrimage required of all Muslims, cost Apsari about $8,000, half of what she and her husband earn in a year. Sun Life, the only North American life insurer in Indonesia to offer an Islamic-compliant savings and insurance plan for the trip, is targeting the nation’s Muslim population of 216 million, the highest in the world. Read more of this post

Hedge Funds Seek to Trade in Comfort as Bankruptcy Insiders

Hedge Funds Seek to Trade in Comfort as Bankruptcy Insiders

Hedge funds that invest in bankrupt companies are demanding protection from insider-trading lawsuits before agreeing to take part in restructuring talks — a reaction by the industry’s top performers to an obscure court decision involving the 2008 collapse of Washington Mutual Inc. The ruling by a Delaware federal judge let shareholders pursue allegations that four hedge funds involved in the bankruptcy traded on inside information about talks between WaMu, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Read more of this post

Hard work, long hours: French find Chinese recipe sour

Hard work, long hours: French find Chinese recipe sour

7:12am EDT

By Alexandria Sage and Nicholas Vinocur

PARIS (Reuters) – A newspaper open on the bar of this Paris cafe tells of a row over France’s Sunday trading rules. But the bar owner, Zhang Chang, says he has little time to follow such debates. He’s too busy working. While French workers worry the country’s long economic downturn could mean the end of laws banning Sunday trading and enforcing a 35-hour week, Zhang and Chinese immigrants like him are quietly getting ahead the old-fashioned way – 11 hours a day, six days a week. Read more of this post

ECB Men-Only Club Threatened as Draghi Sifts Bank Chief Resumes

ECB Men-Only Club Threatened as Draghi Sifts Bank Chief Resumes

Last-minute resumes sent to Mario Draghi for the European Central Bank’s new financial supervisor job are unlikely to feature many men. Ten months after Yves Mersch joined the ECB’s board in the wake of an outcry that its top management would become an all-male club, the next senior appointment needs to be a woman, said four euro-zone central bank officials. The leading candidate is Daniele Nouy of the Bank of France, they said on condition of anonymity because the hiring process is ongoing. Read more of this post

David Rosenberg, one of Wall Street’s leading bears has turned more bullish, riling some longtime clients. “Cancel my account, and tell Dave I don’t recognize his work. He used to be the straightest shooter out there…it is too much for me to have another cheerleader.”

Top Bear’s Bullish Tilt Has Followers Growling

GREGORY ZUCKERMAN 

Oct. 20, 2013 9:07 p.m. ET

One of Wall Street’s leading bears has turned more bullish, riling some longtime clients. David Rosenberg, a former chief economist at Merrill Lynch & Co. who since 2009 has been chief economist and market strategist at Toronto money manager Gluskin Sheff & Associates Inc., GS.T +2.86% spent a decade warning about the fragile health of the U.S. economy, urging caution about stocks and recommending safe U.S. bonds. Read more of this post

Saudi Heartland Dictates Pace of Modernization for King Abdullah

Saudi Heartland Dictates Pace of Modernization for King Abdullah

Abdulrahman al-Moshaigeh remembers leaving his mud-brick house and walking on unpaved roads to what was then the only elementary school serving Buraidah. “There’s no comparison,” said the former member of King Abdullah’s advisory Shoura Council, born in 1945, as he contemplates the changes that have swept his hometown, the capital of Qassim province in Saudi Arabia’s conservative heartland. “Now we have more than 150 elementary schools for boys, and it’s difficult to find a girl not in school,” al-Moshaigeh said as he sat at a banquet where two roasted lambs were served with local dishes in a villa in the city. Read more of this post