Victoria’s Secrets’ Parent L Brands Coach ‘Cut Their Own Throat’ With Discount Stores; Physical stores among top Victoria’s Secret attributes

LIMITED BRANDS CEO: Coach ‘Cut Their Own Throat’ With Discount Stores

HAYLEY PETERSON OCT. 17, 2013, 12:44 PM 1,562 4

The CEO of Victoria’s Secret parent L Brands Inc. blasted Coach on Wednesday for seeking “easy money” by becoming a discount outlet, the Wall Street Journal reports.  “Coach became a discount outlet,” L Brands CEO Les Wexner said at an analyst meeting in New York. “They cut their own throat. The outlet business is easy money, [but] discounting yourself is the beginning of the end. I can’t find the exception. It’s hard to have a dual identity. Outlet doesn’t build a brand. We don’t milk it.” Coach’s net income dropped a staggering 12% in the second quarter as the luxury handbag maker faces intense competition from Michael Kors, Kate Spade and Tory Burch. Coach’s outlet stores have grown to 60% of its retail sales in North America from about 30% in 2006, The Journal reported in July. The outlets have become more profitable for the brand than its full-price stores, bringing in about $600 more in sales per square foot.  Wexner said Wednesday that L Brands is moving Victoria’s Secret in the opposite direction with plans to close one of the lingerie brand’s four outlet locations.

Physical stores among top Victoria’s Secret attributes: L Brands CEO Wexner

October 16, 2013, 4:10 PM

By Andria Cheng Read more of this post

Soft drinks in Mexico: Fizzing with ragel A once-omnipotent industry fights what may be a losing battle

Soft drinks in Mexico: Fizzing with ragel A once-omnipotent industry fights what may be a losing battle

Oct 19th 2013 | MEXICO CITY |From the print edition

LA MANSION steakhouse inside Mexico’s lower house of Congress has become the headquarters of a lobbying effort the likes of which congressmen say they have never seen before. There is so much wining and dining that one lawmaker, proposing a bill on October 15th to regulate the lobbyists, claimed he was talking to a half-empty floor because his colleagues were too busy being schmoozed at La Mansion. Read more of this post

The Hong Kong dollar: Buy now at 1983 prices; After 30 years, Hong Kong’s peg to the American dollar is still going strong

The Hong Kong dollar: Buy now at 1983 prices; After 30 years, Hong Kong’s peg to the American dollar is still going strong

Oct 19th 2013 | HONG KONG |From the print edition

“WHATEVER exchange-rate system a country has, it will wish at some times that it had another one,” according to Stanley Fischer, a former central banker. Many countries find it hard to cope with a floating currency and even harder to stick to a fixed one. It is therefore remarkable that Hong Kong this week celebrated the 30th anniversary of its currency’s peg to the dollar. Read more of this post

Petrobras: Unfulfilled potential; Fuel subsidies have thwarted the Brazilian state oil company’s ambitions to become a global power

October 17, 2013 6:55 pm

Petrobras: Unfulfilled potential

By Samantha Pearson and Joe Leahy

Fuel subsidies have thwarted the Brazilian state oil company’s ambitions to become a global power

Pharaoh’s motel in the industrial outskirts of São Paulo is typical of Brazil’s 5,000 secretive “love hotels” found in the suburbs of big cities. Just visible from the 10-lane highway that runs to the coast, rows of secluded, air-conditioned lodges offer the usual combination of round beds and thematic quirks – in this case, murals of Cleopatra and a selection of hieroglyphs. However, Pharaoh’s biggest, and perhaps dirtiest, secret is locked away in one of the back rooms: a diesel-guzzling generator. Like other remote hotels cut off from the main gas system, it runs on a generator at peak times to avoid expensive electricity tariffs, taking advantage of diesel prices that are kept artificially low in Brazil. Read more of this post

Tata Looks to Public Transportation in Indonesia

Tata Looks to Public Transportation in Indonesia

By Muhamad Al Azhari on 10:43 am October 18, 2013.

Tata Motors Indonesia president director Biswadev Sengupta with the recently introduced Tata Super Ace model. (GA Photo/Suhadi)

Tata Motors Indonesia, the local unit of Indian automotive giant Tata Motors, has announced it is eyeing a piece of the domestic small-engine commercial and public transportation vehicle market. The company’s planned Indonesian public transport and commercial foray follows the company’s introduction of passenger car models last month. “We feel that Tata Motors is well placed. With the right approach, we can provide good solutions [for Indonesia],” said Biswadev Sengupta, president director of TMI. The company, established a year ago, serves as the sole distributor of Tata Motors vehicles in the archipelago. Read more of this post

Sweeping Civil Service Reform Gathers Pace in Indonesia; ‘To clean up a very dirty place, you have to use a special method’: Azwar

Sweeping Civil Service Reform Gathers Pace in Indonesia

‘To clean up a very dirty place, you have to use a special method’: Azwar

By Anastasia Winanti Riesardhy on 9:47 am October 18, 2013.
The government has vowed to minimize political influence in the civil service, particularly in the appointment of senior bureaucrats, including ministers. Azwar Abubakar, the minister for state administrative reform, said on Thursday that the new measures would be enshrined in the civil service bill, currently being deliberated at the House of Representatives to eventually replace the 1999 and 1974 laws on the civil service. Read more of this post

Suddenly people are talking about dynasties in Indonesia

Keep It in the Family

By Yanto Soegiarto on 10:24 am October 18, 2013.
What’s wrong with dynasties? Suddenly people are talking about dynasties in Indonesia. Everybody’s making comments, even the president. Lawmakers argue for amendments. Activists demand the arrest of the governor of Banten. The magnitude of the controversy about dynasties seems to be overshadowing the real issues the nation is facing: how to deal with such mega-scandals as the Constitutional Court bribery case, Bank Century and Hambalang. Read more of this post

Jakarta Property Slowdown Takes Effect

Jakarta Property Slowdown Takes Effect

By Francezka Nangoy & Dion Bisara on 8:20 am October 18, 2013.
The once hot property market in Jakarta showed signs of cooling during the third quarter, with demand for office space in the central business district down as some companies delayed their expansion plans, and sales of condominiums weakening under new regulation, according to J ones Lang LaSalle Indonesia . Anton Sitorus, head of research at the property consultancy firm’s Jakarta office, told reporters on Thursday that net take-up for office space — which measures the change in occupied space — in the July-September period fell to 61,000 square meters from 93,400 square meters in the second quarter. The decline was caused by the economy slowing this year, a depreciating rupiah and rising borrowing costs. Read more of this post

A new business idol: Why Indian firms are rooting for Narendra Modi

A new business idol: Why Indian firms are rooting for Narendra Modi

Oct 19th 2013 |From the print edition

INDIAN industry is in a funk and has decided that one man is the answer. “We’re waiting for NaMo,” says a tycoon. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that almost everyone in a suit and with a pulse in the private sector wants Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat state, to become prime minister after elections due by May 2014. Private-equity types, blue-chip executives and the chiefs of India’s big conglomerates all think he can make the trains run on time. Some Western investors hope Mr Modi, the son of a tea-stall owner, will be India’s Margaret Thatcher, a populist reformer who forces through measures that put the economy on a higher growth path. Bankers in Mumbai reckon the stockmarket will jump by 20% if Mr Modi wins. Read more of this post

The revised Asean Corporate Governance scorecard will be adopted in Thailand next year in an effort to boost listed companies’ attractiveness in the eyes of foreign investors

Scorecard ‘to spruce up Thai listed firms’

Varin Trino
The Nation October 18, 2013 1:00 am

The revised Asean Corporate Governance scorecard will be adopted in Thailand next year in an effort to boost listed companies’ attractiveness in the eyes of foreign investors, according to the Thai Institute of Directors (IOD). Listed companies would be evaluated in five main categories – the same as the scorecard currently in use, but the evaluation will be given greater depth, as the number of questions will be raised from 148 to 243, said IOD president Bandid Nijathaworn.  Read more of this post

Two Taiwanese fund managers suspected of making personal fund investments after being entrusted to handle the investments of labor pension funds were indicted by the Special Investigation Division (SID)

SID indicts fund managers on insider trading, costing government NT$3.8 billion

By Katherine Wei,The China Post
October 17, 2013, 12:03 am TWN

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Two fund managers suspected of making personal fund investments after being entrusted to handle the investments of labor pension funds were indicted by the Special Investigation Division (SID) yesterday. Former JihSun Funds (日盛投信) manager Chen Ping (陳平) and former Yuanta Funds (元大寶來投信) manager Chu Nai-cheng (瞿乃正) were accused of buying stocks under the names of relatives, friends and employees when they were responsible for investing in the nation’s labor pension funds. After Chen and Chu secured a large amount of stocks in the market, they introduced the pension funds and sold their private stocks when the prices rocketed, allegedly benefiting enormously from the procedure. Read more of this post

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