Italy Loses Its Taste for Pasta; Consumption Has Dropped 23% in Past Decade

Italy Loses Its Taste for Pasta

Consumption Has Dropped 23% in Past Decade

MANUELA MESCO

Oct. 11, 2013 2:27 p.m. ET

MILAN—When Sara Chiauzzi was growing up in Naples, pasta had pride of place on the family table, and she and her family often ate it twice a day. But now that she has a family of her own, the 38-year-old mother of two wouldn’t dream of serving so much pasta. Worried about its fattening effects, she and her husband eat it no more than a few times a week, favoring couscous, meat and vegetables instead. “Metabolism changes when you approach 40,” she says, “and pasta is out of the question.” Read more of this post

Number of Chinese Billionaires Skyrockets

October 11, 2013, 8:30 AM

Number of Chinese Billionaires Skyrockets

Asia sprouted a new crop of millionaires over the past year, with growth of wealth in China topping the charts. According to a report this week by Credit Suisse, the country now has 6% of the world’s total of ultra-high-net-worth individuals, or those with fortunes in excess of $50 million. That’s second only to the United States, which commands nearly half the world’s total.

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Billionaire’s Metro Builder Downgraded in Crunch: India Credit

Billionaire’s Metro Builder Downgraded in Crunch: India Credit

Indian corporate debt ratings are deteriorating at the fastest pace since 2010 amid a cash crunch created to buoy the rupee and a deepening economic slowdown. Billionaire Anil Ambani’s Reliance Infrastructure Ltd., which holds 69 percent in a venture building a metro network in Mumbai, and Apollo Tyres Ltd., which plans India’s largest acquisition in North America, were among 478 companies that had their rankings cut in the last six months at Crisil Ltd., the local unit of Standard & Poor’s. Only 417 firms were upgraded, a ratio of 0.87 against downgrades that was the lowest since September 2010. Read more of this post

Mondi Tracks Pampers to China in Bet on Packaging Boom

Mondi Tracks Pampers to China in Bet on Packaging Boom

Mondi Ltd. (MND), the South African packaging company that joined the U.K.’s benchmark FTSE 100 Index last month, is opening factories in China and Iraq as it follows clients into emerging markets to boost earnings. Customers including Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) and Nestle SA (NESN) are tapping booming local demand for products such as diapers and microwaveable food and Mondi has to stay close to meet specific requirements in each market, Chief Executive Officer David Hathorn said in an interview in Johannesburg. Mondi this year inaugurated a plant in China’s Jiangsu province to supply stretchy films for P&G’s range of Pampers diapers, he said. Read more of this post

China to install GPS in government cars to track misuse

China to install GPS in government cars to track misuse

6:29am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will install GPS systems in government cars to thwart personal use by officials, domestic media said on Friday, citing the Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog, as it cracks down on the profligate lifestyles of corrupt officials. Almost 200,000 government cars have been misused for private purposes, the Beijing Times newspaper said, citing the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Read more of this post

Lavish nights at Club Godfather opened door to Japan pension fund bribery case

Lavish nights at Club Godfather opened door to Japan pension fund bribery case

Thu, Oct 10 2013

* Pension fund exec handed suspended 18-mth jail term

* Two KTOs fund execs also given suspended sentences

* Regulator cracking down on excessive client entertainment

* Regulator also probing unrelated cases at investment banks

By Nathan Layne

SAPPORO, Japan, Oct 10 (Reuters) – When a Tokyo-based investment manager set out to win business from a pension fund in northern Japan, the cost included dozens of nights drinking at Club Godfather, a discrete watering hole with a $200 cover charge and kimono-clad hostesses. Kazuyoshi Takahama, now 71, was treated to more than 50 nights out at the club in Sapporo as KTOs Capital Partners, a hedge fund, lobbied for a share of the $245 million pension fund he helped oversee as its chairman, prosecutors say. Takahama favored shochu, a local liquor, while his free-spending hosts ordered up expensive wines. Read more of this post

AlphaMetrix Fires CFO as Cash Shortage Hits Commodity Fund; The revelations are another blow to confidence in the futures industry after it suffered two of its largest failures with the collapse of MF Global and Peregrine

AlphaMetrix Terminates CFO as Cash Shortfall Hits Commodity Fund

AlphaMetrix Group LLC, which connects investors with hedge fund managers and futures traders, said it’s experiencing “significant cash flow issues” and fired its chief financial officer. The Chicago-based company runs a business known as a commodity pool operator, AlphaMetrix LLC, which lets customers invest in futures accounts managed by professional traders. The parent company told clients in a letter yesterday that both its liabilities and those of the commodity pool operator “greatly exceed” liquid assets and that the net asset values of some pools may be affected. Read more of this post

IEA Sees Oil Output Outside OPEC Rising Most Since 1970s

IEA Sees Oil Output Outside OPEC Rising Most Since 1970s

The International Energy Agency estimates that oil producers outside OPEC, led by the U.S., Canada and Kazakhstan, will bolster supplies next year by the most since the 1970s, undermining the need for OPEC’s crude. Producers outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will increase output by a near-record 1.7 million barrels a day next year to 56.4 million, the IEA said, boosting its forecasts from a month ago by 300,000 barrels a day. Supply losses in OPEC members Libya and Iraq, which reduced the group’s output to a two-year low, are preventing the new shipments from calming oil prices, the Paris-based adviser to energy-consuming nations said. Read more of this post

U.S. Said to Open Criminal Probe of FX Market Rigging

U.S. Said to Open Criminal Probe of FX Market Rigging

The U.S. Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation of possible manipulation of the $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market, a person familiar with the matter said. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is also looking into alleged rigging of interest rates associated with the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, is in the early stages of its currency market probe, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the inquiry is confidential. Read more of this post

Danes With World-Beating Debt Loads Prepare To Dig Deeper

Danes With World-Beating Debt Loads Prepare To Dig Deeper

Danish households, which already have the world’s biggest debt load relative to incomes, are about to use a real estate recovery to go further into the red. Five years after the country’s real-estate crash ripped through home equity and drove up the number of borrowers owing more than their properties are worth, homeowners are ready to take on bigger loans amid the first signs prices are rising, according to Nordea Bank AB (NDA), Scandinavia’s largest lender. Read more of this post

‘We Might as Well Settle the Hog Futures Contract to the Price of Peaches’; Shutdown Shuts Down U.S. Data, So Commodities Traders Fly Blind

October 11, 2013, 3:48 p.m. ET

Shutdown Shuts Down U.S. Data, So Commodities Traders Fly Blind

‘We Might as Well Settle the Hog Futures Contract to the Price of Peaches’

ALEXANDRA WEXLER

NEW YORK—Commodities traders and investors are struggling to stay on top of their markets as the U.S. government shutdown cuts off the flow of data they rely on to place bets on everything from corn to cotton to oil. Since the shutdown began on Oct. 1, the government has stopped polling farmers about the state of their crops and also isn’t releasing data on the import and export of raw materials, among other tasks. On Friday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, one of the few agencies still collecting and releasing data, said it would cease publishing its weekly oil supply and demand surveys for the first time since the surveys began in 1979. Read more of this post

Shin Je-yoon, chairman of the Financial Services Commission, said “I will make sure Tong Yang Group’s majority shareholders take responsibility for the recent turmoil of the group.”

FSC chief: Major stakeholders are to blame for Tong Yang debacle

Lee Jin-myung, Park Seung-chul

2013.10.10 17:51:18

Shin Je-yoon, chairman of the Financial Services Commission, said “I will make sure Tong Yang Group’s majority shareholders take responsibility for the recent turmoil of the group.” “The consistent principle underlying corporate restructuring has been that majority stakeholders take responsibility and protect innocent victims,” chairman Shin told reporters of Maeil Business Newspaper Thursday. The chief of the regulator added “I am also willing to meet with individual investors who bought commercial paper issued by Tong Yang Group’s subsidiaries.” His comment refers to the nationwide defaults on credit card payments in 2004 and the debacle regarding the LIG Group’s commercial paper, in which majority stakeholders were held accountable. As for some other cash-strapped conglomerates, chairman Shin said “the government executes restructuring in accordance with capitalism and rule of law.” Therefore, “the government cannot determine either to stifle or keep a company that still runs a business beforehand.” He said “corporate restructuring is entirely left to the hands of the market and creditors,” and in this regard, “Tong Yang Group’s fate has been determined by the market.” Prior to his comment, chairman Shin and Choi Soo-hyun, governor of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), discussed measures to deal with the embattled Tong Yang Group with Chung Hong-won, prime minister, and Hyun Oh-seok, deputy prime minister and finance minister Tuesday following a meeting of cabinet members. The FSS has decided to thoroughly examine Hyun Jae-hyun, chairman of Tong Yang Group, and his family regarding the insolvency of the Group’s affiliates, and track down his hidden assets, with the help of the investigative authorities when needed.

The Tongyang Group fiasco that flared during the Chuseok holiday last month continues to spiral downward with reports of damage piling up

Market assesses Tongyang fallout

Oct 10,2013

The Tongyang Group fiasco that flared during the Chuseok holiday last month continues to spiral downward with reports of damage piling up. With financial authorities now turning the case over to the prosecutor’s office, the question in the market is how much impact the Tongyang crisis will have on the retail corporate bond market. Some market experts say retail investors will be hesitant to invest in corporate bonds and commercial paper, especially those issued from companies with low credit ratings. As a result, such companies will struggle more to secure capital inflows, which have been dwindling since late last year.

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