The weak construction industry in China is affecting two heavy machinery companies here in Korea. Doosan Infracore and Hyundai Heavy Industries are thus making changes to accommodate their declining market share; Doosan held 18.9% of the market in China in 2006 but last year, the figure dropped to 8.5%

2013-09-30 16:17

Slump in China hits Doosan, Hyundai

By Yi Whan-woo
The weak construction industry in China is affecting two heavy machinery companies here in Korea. Doosan Infracore and Hyundai Heavy Industries are thus making changes to accommodate their declining market share. Doosan Infracore, Korea’s largest construction equipment manufacturer, held 18.9 percent of the market in China in 2006 but last year, the figure dropped to 8.5 percent, according to latest data from the China Construction Machinery Association (CCMA). Read more of this post

Sportswear brands ride fitness boom in Korea

2013-10-01 18:12

Sportswear brands ride fitness boom

By Rachel Lee
As an increasing number of consumers here take an interest in fitness and a healthier lifestyle, sports brands are entering the fitness industry as a way of attracting them.
According to industry sources, some established sportswear makers have already begun to work with local gym and yoga professionals and launched their own training apparel collection.  Read more of this post

45% of South Koreans aged 65 and over live in poverty

45% of South Koreans aged 65 and over live in poverty

By Lily Kuo @lilkuo 11 hours ago

The world is aging fast and many countries, even wealthier ones, aren’t prepared for it, according to a new index accessing the economic well-being of elderly people around the world. In most cases wealthy countries outranked poorer ones in terms of supporting their elderly populations. Sweden and Norway were at the top of the index while Pakistan, Tanzania and Afghanistan ranked last. The index, compiled by the United Nations and the elderly rights group HelpAge International, looked at areas including income security, life expectancy, and employment, education and social support of elderly people. By 2050, people over the age of 60 will outnumber those under the age of 15, the report said. Read more of this post

Hong Kong companies: control freaks

Hong Kong companies: control freaks

Make a note of these names: Wharf Holdings, Henderson Land and Hang Lung. In 1987, these Hong Kong giants were among those reported by the Financial Times to be interested in seeking, along with Li Ka-shing’s Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa, dual-class share structures. The storm stirred by these blunt bids for control stopped any of them doing so. It also ushered in the ban that far more recently, helped produce Alibaba’s contorted proposal, dismissed by Hong Kong, to instead control its board via a partnership. Now the Alibaba ruckus is pushing Hong Kong to debate how it can attract such exciting companies. But one look at how its biggest companies are already controlled suggests Hong Kong needs to think also about how it could make its existing market more enticing. Read more of this post

Alibaba’s demands have echoes in Hong Kong’s history; when Li Ka-Shing announced B share plans for his two corporate redoubts, Cheung Kong and Hutchison, other tycoons followed, sending Hang Seng down 5% in the next few days

October 1, 2013 3:48 pm

Alibaba’s demands have echoes in Hong Kong’s history

By Paul Davies

Hong Kong forced to think again about ownership and control

Brian Powers was a hotshot investment banker in his mid-30s when he arrived in 1986 as chief strategist at Jardine Matheson, Hong Kong’s original conglomerate trading house. It took less than a year for the US-born financier – a former American football player – to provoke a mini-crisis in the city’s stunted, under-developed stock market by trying to divorce ownership from corporate control. Read more of this post

No end to China’s impractical skyscraper craze

No end to China’s impractical skyscraper craze

Staff Reporter

2013-10-02

Andrew Lawrence, a securities analyst at Deutsche Bank, put forward the Skyscraper Index in 1999, which expounded the theory that investment in skyscrapers peaks when a business cycle is close to a downturn —in other words, when buildings go up, the market goes down. Based 2010 figures, China has seven out of the world’s 10 tallest buildings. The figure did not include those under construction, however, with the total number of buildings over 300 meters tall in China coming to 77. Among the 77, there are 14 in northern China’s Tianjin alone, followed by Chongqing in southwest China with seven. Read more of this post

Factory ‘boys’: the changing face of China’s production lines

October 1, 2013 8:44 am

Factory ‘boys’: the changing face of China’s production lines

By Demetri Sevastopulo in Shenzhen

In a Shenzhen factory, workers sit along a production line, packing expensive headphones that in just days will land in the hands of consumers across the world. 

Young Chinese women have long churned out products for western shoppers. But the scene on the line points to a big change – roughly half the workers are men. Liam Casey, chief executive of PCH International, which owns the plant, says factories in south China are turning to men as they cannot hire enough women. “When I would go to the factories before, back in the 1990s and right through the early 2000s, it was always women on the production lines,” says Mr Casey. “Now it is a lot of men . . . It is a complete change.” Read more of this post

An increasing number of young people in China are choosing to have plastic surgery to improve theirappearances and start new lives

Students go under the knife in search for betterjobs

Updated: 2013-10-02 00:48

By He Na ( China Daily) Read more of this post

Multinational companies are buying more financial protection against swings in emerging market currencies, after being hit by a summer of volatility in countries that account for an increasingly large share of their business.

October 1, 2013 6:54 pm

Volatility pushes companies to buy more forex protection

By Delphine Strauss

Multinational companies are buying more financial protection against swings in emerging market currencies, after being hit by a summer of volatility in countries that account for an increasingly large share of their business. Citigroup, the market leader in foreign exchange trading by non-financial institutions, said its business with companies hedging exchange rate risk in emerging markets had risen 12-13 per cent since the sell-off in these currencies gathered pace in June. Read more of this post

European groups buffeted by emerging market currency volatility

October 1, 2013 1:54 pm

European groups buffeted by emerging market currency volatility

By Chris Bryant in Frankfurt and Rachel Sanderson in Milan

Unilever’s warning that “significant currency weakening” in emerging markets would cause quarterly sales growth to slow reminded investors this week that currency effects will weigh on European third-quarter corporate results. Over the past two years fast-growing sales in emerging markets have provided a much-needed cushion for large European multinationals, offsetting stagnation or decline in their core home markets. Read more of this post

New accounting rules make axing reactors cheaper?

New accounting rules make axing reactors cheaper

KYODO

OCT 1, 2013

The government revised accounting rules Tuesday for utilities to prevent their business from deteriorating abruptly if they decommission nuclear reactors earlier than planned. Power firms are required to set aside reserves for scrapping each of their reactors while they are still in service. The new rules allow them to continue to recoup the funds through electricity rates for up to 10 years beyond the end of a reactor’s operational life. Read more of this post

Thailand uses slaves from Myanmar to peel its shrimp

Thailand uses slaves from Myanmar to peel its shrimp

By Gwynn Guilford @sinoceros 10 hours ago

In some ways, Thailand is a fairytale of economic development. Thanks in large part to exports, its GDP per capita is now eight times what it was in 1980. Its people live 15 years longer than they did in 1970. They’re now better educated, so they are doing more high-value jobs. It’s also an exemplar of family planning; 80% of the reproducing population uses birth control, compared with just 15% in 1970. Which helps explain why Thailand’s unemployment rate is just 0.9%—the lowest among the world’s major economies. Read more of this post

Apple Now Holds 10% of All Corporate Cash: Moody’s

October 1, 2013, 4:43 PM ET

Apple Now Holds 10% of All Corporate Cash: Moody’s

By Emily Chasan

Senior Editor

Apple Inc.’s $147 billion cash hoard now counts for nearly 10% of all corporate cash held by nonfinancial companies, according to an analysis by Moody’s. U.S. nonfinancial companies held $1.48 trillion in cash as of June 30, according to Moody’s review of the more than 1,000 companies it rates. Cash stockpiles have grown by about 2% from $1.45 trillion at the end of last year, and up 81% from $820 billion at the end of 2006. Read more of this post

Bitcoin buzz grows among venture investors, despite risks

Bitcoin buzz grows among venture investors, despite risks

7:47pm EDT

By Wanfeng Zhou and Nick Olivari

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Venture capitalists show no sign of shying away from investing in startups related to Bitcoin even as authorities step up their scrutiny of the virtual currency and its possible connection to money laundering and other illegal activities. Investment has jumped in recent months as Bitcoin, the prominent digital currency not backed by a government or central bank, has begun to gain a footing among businesses and consumers, a key step for it to go mainstream. Read more of this post

Investors have lost billions on Australian toll roads and tunnels but that isn’t stopping others from following in their path

Oct 1, 2013

Australian Toll Roads, Tunnels Offer Divergent Paths for Investors

GILLIAN TAN

SYDNEY—While some investors have found that Australian toll roads amount to expensive wrong turns, others are choosing to follow them. Investors have collectively lost billions of dollars on the toll roads and tunnels in recent years because of too much debt and overestimates on traffic volume. Now, sharply lower prices for those assets and more-realistic traffic assessments are adding up to opportunities for others. Read more of this post

The Myth of Indonesia’s Resource Nationalism; Jakarta’s new mining and oil regulations are really about rent-seeking and corruption

October 1, 2013, 12:58 p.m. ET

The Myth of Indonesia’s Resource Nationalism

Jakarta’s new mining and oil regulations are really about rent-seeking and corruption.

JOHN KURTZ AND JAMES VAN ZORGE

Lately, the Indonesian government has unleashed an array of policies that are keeping mining and oil executives awake at night across this vast and geologically rich archipelago. The unpopular new regulations, aimed at reforming the mining and oil industries, are promoted in the name of “national interest.” Yet left uncorrected, they will inevitably lead to a dramatic decline of output in Indonesia’s extractive industries, damaging foreign investment and economic growth. Read more of this post

Luxury Yachts Find Rich Asian Buyers as Ranks of Wealthy Swell

Luxury Yachts Find Rich Asian Buyers as Ranks of Wealthy Swell

Singapore businessman Adrian Lee Chye Cheng, 33, is the super-yacht industry’s dream come true. Young, wealthy and passionate about boats, he embodies an emerging market that shipyards and brokers see looming large on the horizon. “The new market is in Asia,” Lee said in an interview on one of the panoramic decks of the Ocean Paradise, a 55-meter luxury yacht he and his brother Lionel acquired two months ago. Read more of this post

Unilever’s Emerging Market Pain Heralds Forecast Cuts; Asia and Latin America were the salvation for many European companies during the height of the debt crisis. Now, they’re eating into earnings

Unilever’s Emerging Market Pain Heralds Forecast Cuts

Asia and Latin America were the salvation for many European companies during the height of the debt crisis. Now, they’re eating into earnings. Unilever on Sept. 30 blamed weakening currencies in Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa and India for a sales slowdown, following Adidas AG (ADS) and Prada SpA in saying that the euro’s strength is eroding profit. Schneider Electric SA, Heineken (HEIA) NV and Danone (BN) are among companies most vulnerable to a profit reduction from emerging markets, analysts and investors estimate. Read more of this post

Nestle Draws Up Divestment Shortlist After Laggards Identified; “We have allowed underperformers to underperform for too long. We want to be in business, not agony.”

Nestle Draws Up Divestment Shortlist After Laggards Identified

Nestle SA, (NESN) the world’s biggest food company, has a shortlist of businesses it is looking to sell after identifying laggards that it cannot fix, Chief Executive Officer Paul Bulcke told investors today. The maker of Nescafe coffee has completed a review of 97 percent of its 1,800 distinct business units, Bulcke said at an investor seminar at Nestle headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland. There is a “slightly longer list” of units that the company will try to improve, he said, as it seeks to rebound after posting its weakest quarterly revenue growth in four years. Read more of this post