Why Chinese People Buy So Many Homes in Palo Alto

Why Chinese People Buy So Many Homes in Palo Alto

By Matt Sheehan

Palo Alto’s proximity to Stanford University, pictured above, is among the reasons it has become a very attractive destination for Chinese home buyers. (nappa/Flickr)

The rise of the Chinese consumer on the global stage has had a tremendous effect on world markets, shaking up everything from the price of milk powder to impressionist paintings. Now, the impact is being felt all the way in Palo Alto, the Silicon Valley town next to Stanford University. Over the past two years, Chinese buyers have been snapping up property in the city, driving up prices and possibly contributing to an emerging bubble. Chinese nationals have tripled their share of home purchases in Palo Alto since 2011, now accounting for around 15 percent of transactions in the cityaccording to Ken Deleon, founder of Deleon Realty, a local firm that has invested heavily in catering to Chinese buyers. Read more of this post

Petitioners ‘living in fear’ as police crackdown ahead of third plenum; Police and local governments across the mainland have been rounding up petitioners, keeping activists under close watch and warning rights lawyers to keep a low profile

Petitioners ‘living in fear’ as police crackdown ahead of third plenum

Thursday, 07 November, 2013, 12:47pm

Verna Yu verna.yu@scmp.com

Police and local governments across the mainland have been rounding up petitioners, keeping activists under close watch and warning rights lawyers to keep a low profile as security is stepped up ahead of the Communist Party Central Committee’s third plenary meeting that begins on Saturday. Large numbers of petitioners from across the country, wishing to bring their grievances to the attention of party leaders, have congregated in the capital in recent days ahead of the key four-day meeting where key decisions on the country’s future are expected to be made. Read more of this post

Milk Bests Maotai as Xi Curbs Cadres’ Boozing: Chart of the Day

Milk Bests Maotai as Xi Curbs Cadres’ Boozing: Chart of the Day

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on booze-filled bureaucrats and support for the tainted dairy industry have led milk producers to supplant liquor makers as the nation’s top-performing beverage stocks. The CHART OF THE DAY shows five of the largest dairy companies by market value rallied an average 114 percent since November 2012, the month Xi was promoted to party secretary pledging to curb extravagant banquets. The four biggest distillers and vintners dropped an average 52 percent, while the Shanghai Composite Index added 2.9 percent. Read more of this post

How Big Formula bought China; “They support only this brand, and they don’t let your baby drink other brands. The nurses told us not to use our own formula. They told us if we did, and something happened to the child, they wouldn’t take any responsibility.”

How Big Formula bought China

8:43pm EST

By Alexandra Harney

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – In the two days after Lucy Yang gave birth at Peking University Third Hospital in August 2012, doctors and nurses told the 33-year-old technology executive that while breast milk was the best food for her son, she hadn’t produced enough. They advised her instead to start him on infant formula made by Nestle. “They support only this brand, and they don’t let your baby drink other brands,” Yang recalled. “The nurses told us not to use our own formula. They told us if we did, and something happened to the child, they wouldn’t take any responsibility.” Read more of this post

Chinese Party Meeting to Test Xi’s Clout on Reforms

Chinese Party Meeting to Test Xi’s Clout on Reforms

After a Year in Office, Leader to Outline Economic Plan

JEREMY PAGE

Nov. 7, 2013 1:36 p.m. ET

BEIJING—Since taking power a year ago, Xi Jinping has cast himself as China’s strongest leader since Deng Xiaoping, the man who unleashed market reforms at a historic meeting of the Communist Party’s Central Committee in 1978. A similar meeting of the Central Committee that starts Saturday could determine whether Mr. Xi can go beyond stagecraft and show he has the authority and vision to emulate Deng by setting China on a new development path, party insiders and analysts say. Read more of this post

China’s ailing solar panel makers see the light, on a farm

China’s ailing solar panel makers see the light, on a farm

4:11pm EST

By Charlie Zhu

HONG KONG (Reuters) – China’s loss-making solar panel makers believe they may have found a way out of their nightmare – by becoming one-stop renewable energy shops with their own solar farms. Manufacturers of solar panels, hit hard by the scaling back of solar-power subsidies in Europe, are taking advantage of a new package of government subsidies at home and diversifying into solar-power generation. Read more of this post

China Singles Day Record Seen as BMWs Sell Cheap Online

China Singles Day Record Seen as BMWs Sell Cheap Online

By Bloomberg News – Nov 7, 2013

Shanghai office worker Xue Feng says he’s been resisting the crave to shop for the past month. Come midnight on Nov. 11, the 34-year-old plans to scratch that itch with an online shopping blitz for clothes, sneakers and snacks as websites in China slash prices. “I’ve already chosen more than 50 items for my list,” Xue said. “And I may buy more.” What started out as “Singles’ Day,” a modern Chinese take on Valentine’s Day, Nov. 11 has morphed into the country’s biggest excuse to shop — and that has e-commerce firms flooding the Internet with promotions. Websites run by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to Suning Commerce Group to Tencent Holdings Ltd. are slashing prices by 50 percent or more, setting the stage for this year’s sales to reach a record. Read more of this post

China Muni-Bond Stalling Shows Debt Threat as Party Meets

China Muni-Bond Stalling Shows Debt Threat as Party Meets

By Bloomberg News – Nov 7, 2013

Two years after China started a trial municipal-bond program, plans to take it nationwide have stalled, leaving local authorities reliant on off-budget funding through land seizures that have sparked public protests. While authorities added two provinces to the trial this year, a draft budget proposal authorizing national sales with approved quotas was dropped in June 2012 and has yet to be revived. This year’s municipal-bond issuance is equivalent to less than 1 percent of local-government borrowing as of 2010, the last official tally. Read more of this post

Apollo to KKR Seek Australian IPOs as Memory of Myer Flop Fades

Apollo to KKR Seek Australian IPOs as Memory of Myer Flop Fades

For the last four years private-equity firms have taken few of their Australian companies public. The main culprit: a lackluster initial public offering by the country’s largest department-store chain that soured investors. Now there are signs the freeze is over. In October, OzForex Group Ltd. (OFX), an online currency broker whose owners include U.S. buyout firms Carlyle Group LP (CG) and Accel Partners, jumped 28 percent on its debut. It was the biggest first-day gain for any Australian IPO of at least $100 million in more than six years, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Read more of this post

Coca-Cola to Invest More than $4 Billion in China From 2015-2017

Coca-Cola to Invest More than $4 Billion in China From 2015-2017

Coca-Cola Co. (KO), the world’s largest beverage company, plans to invest more than $4 billion in China from 2015 to 2017 as it builds factories and adds new products to meet demand and counter rising competition. The Atlanta-based company is also open to acquisitions in China and may consider deals with complementary businesses, such as makers of juices or plant-protein drinks like almond milk, David Brooks, president of Coca-Cola’s Greater China and Korea business unit, said in an Nov. 6 interview in Shanghai. Read more of this post

Crude Traders Stick With Brent Amid Manipulation Claims

Crude Traders Stick With Brent Amid Manipulation Claims

The alleged fixing of oil prices is unlikely to sway traders from using Brent as a benchmark for buying and selling oil in the $5.7 trillion commodity market, according to analysts and brokers from London to Tokyo. Four energy traders claim in a lawsuit that some of the world’s biggest oil companies including BP Plc (BP/), Statoil ASA (STL) and Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) conspired with Morgan Stanley (MS) and energy traders such as Vitol Group to fix spot prices for Brent for more than a decade. The North Sea oil price as assessed by Platts, a unit of New York-based McGraw Hill Financial Inc. (MHFI), is used to price more than half the world’s crude including Australia’s Cossack, Malaysia’s Tapis and Castilla in Colombia. Read more of this post

China Hesitates as Washington OKs Natural-Gas Exports

November 7, 2013, 7:37 AM

China Hesitates as Washington OKs Natural-Gas Exports

KEITH JOHNSON

On paper, it’s a perfect match: The U.S. is awash in new supplies of natural gas, while China is trying to get off coal and use cleaner-burning fuels. Plus, the U.S. Department of Energy this year has begun approving new terminals to export liquefied natural gas around the world. But a Washington trade-policy expert says the political case for U.S. exports of natural gas to China isn’t as strong as the business case. Damian Ma of the Paulson Institute says China’s fear of increasing reliance on the U.S. could trump its need for natural gas. Read more of this post

Mattel Gives Barbie a Makeover for China; U.S. Toy Maker Launches Fresh Effort to Endear All-American Doll to Chinese Consumers

Mattel Gives Barbie a Makeover for China

U.S. Toy Maker Launches Fresh Effort to Endear All-American Doll to Chinese Consumers

U.S. toy manufacturer Mattel is aiming to fill Chinese toy chests by outfitting its Barbie dolls and other products to better suit Chinese tastes. Laurie Burkitt speaks with Mattel’s Asia-Pacific Senior Vice President Peter Broegger about the company’s new strategy in China.

LAURIE BURKITT

Updated Nov. 7, 2013 8:16 p.m. ET

BEIJING—Barbie closed her swank Shanghai mansion two years ago, after China’s parents turned up their noses at her pink ball gowns and Ken’s polo shirt-and-sweater ensembles. Now Mattel Inc. MAT -1.56% is making a new effort to sell Chinese on the impossibly proportioned all-American doll, with an appeal to Tiger moms who would rather have their children reading books than plugging body parts into Mr. Potato Head. New, low-price offerings include “Violin Soloist” Barbie, complete with bow and sheet music. Read more of this post

BMW Offers Money-Can’t-Buy Perks to Keep Biggest Spenders

BMW Offers Money-Can’t-Buy Perks to Keep Biggest Spenders

German ski legend Rosi Mittermaier passed on racing tips at Austria’s Zillertal resort last winter to a group of 10 students who all had one thing in common: they owned a BMW 7-Series sedan. Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW), the world’s biggest maker of premium cars, last year began offering perks that money can’t buy to owners of its flagship model in a bid to keep its most profitable clients loyal. Daimler AG (DAI)’s Mercedes-Benz quickly followed suit with a similar program of its own. Both were responding to down-market shifts by the more exclusive Maserati and Jaguar brands as competition for elite buyers intensifies. Read more of this post

Rotting Grapes From Bordeaux to Burgundy Cut French Wine Outlook

Rotting Grapes From Bordeaux to Burgundy Cut French Wine Outlook

France cut its outlook for wine production for a fourth time after botrytis rot due to wet weather caused grape losses in Bordeaux and Burgundy, adding to damage from poor flowering and summer hailstorms. The volume of the 2013 vintage may rise 2.2 percent to 42.3 million hectoliters (1.12 billion gallons) from 41.4 million hectoliters in 2012, the Agriculture Ministry wrote in a report late yesterday. The forecast was cut by 1.74 million hectoliters from a month ago, equivalent to 231 million bottles. Read more of this post

Rebuilding Lego for Today’s Kids; Lego, which controls about 60 percent of the construction-toy business, is wooing older children with a $350 robot set

Rebuilding Lego for Today’s Kids

By Katarina Gustafsson November 07, 2013

Lego fans no longer need to fret about the cat or dog knocking over their constructions. They can ward off bothersome pets or nosy siblings with a plastic-brick creation such as the R3ptar. The robotic snake, which can be programmed from a smartphone app, is equipped with a snapping mechanical jaw and fangs that will send even the boldest kid brother packing. Read more of this post

General Mills to McDonald’s Got Jump on FDA Trans Fats Cuts

General Mills to McDonald’s Got Jump on FDA Trans Fats Cuts

The U.S. government’s decision to deem artificial trans fats unsafe for human consumption may have little impact on foodmakers and restaurant chains because they’ve been phasing them out for years. Under pressure from activists such as the American Heart Association and city and state governments, companies from General Mills Inc. (GIS) to McDonald’s Corp. have been ridding their products of partially hydrogenated oils, which contain trans fats linked to a type of artery-clogging cholesterol. Read more of this post

Thailand’s Big Brother Drama

Thailand’s Big Brother Drama

“Welcome to the Republic of Thaksin.” You won’t see these words displayed in the customs hall when arriving in Thailand, but the Land of Smiles has indeed morphed into the land of Thaksin Shinawatra. That should be giving Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy plenty to frown about. Seven years after the former prime minister was ousted in a coup, Thaksin’s long shadow continues to dominate Thai politics. Since then, the country has seen six prime ministers, the most recent one being Thaksin’s baby sister, Yingluck Shinawatra. Read more of this post

Unhappy bondholders of Fraser and Neave (F&N) are fretting that the conglomerate could play hardball and accept default rather than pay more to obtain waivers for the listing of its property business.

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 08, 2013

Bondholders rattled as F&N plays tough

They feel it’ll be willing to push ahead with FCL listing and enter technical default

KENNETH LIM KENLIM@SPH.COM.SG

F&N, a beverage and property conglomerate, is asking holders of about $808.25 million of bonds to waive certain default terms on their notes and to allow the company to buy back the bonds at par plus half the coupon plus accrued interest – PHOTO: REUTERS

[SINGAPORE] Unhappy bondholders of Fraser and Neave (F&N) are fretting that the conglomerate could play hardball and accept default rather than pay more to obtain waivers for the listing of its property business. But observers said that for F&N to do so would be highly unusual, mostly because such an extreme solution usually comes with very high costs. F&N, a beverage and property conglomerate, is asking holders of about $808.25 million of bonds to waive certain default terms on their notes and to allow the company to buy back the bonds at par plus half the coupon plus accrued interest. Getting those waivers will allow F&N to split off and list its Frasers Centrepoint (FCL) property business without triggering a technical default. Early-bird acceptances tendered by yesterday’s close would have received an additional $625 per $250,000 of notes, while acceptances tendered from today to Nov 12 will receive $375 per $250,000 of notes held.

Philippines Billionaire Razon Jumps to Casinos from Containers

Billionaire Razon Jumps to Casinos from Containers

Enrique Razon doesn’t gamble and says he feels more comfortable operating a port crane than he does glad-handing in a crowd of high-rollers. “I am just not the person that likes being around plenty of people,” Razon says. “So you wonder why I’m in the casino business, right?” Razon joined the gaming fraternity in March, when he opened the Solaire Resort & Casino on a plot of reclaimed land along Manila Bay, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its December Billionaires Issue. The glittering Solaire is the first of four resorts slated to occupy a Las Vegas-style complex called Entertainment City along a 120-hectare (300-acre) strip in Bay City. Read more of this post

Exec chairman: AirAsia still an aggressive animal, more promotions coming

Updated: Friday November 8, 2013 MYT 8:53:03 AM

Exec chairman: AirAsia still an aggressive animal, more promotions coming

BY LEONG HUNG YEE

KUALA LUMPUR: Newly-appointed executive chairman of AirAsia Bhd Datuk Kamarudin Meranun said competition is forcing his airline to “hit back aggressively”. “We may have been complacent in recent months and our yield had been slightly affected but AirAsia has always been an aggressive animal. “We are coming back with more promotions, cost reductions and new ancillary income streams,” Kamarudin said in an interview a day after he replaced Datuk Aziz Bakar as executive chairman of AirAsia. Read more of this post

Value Fund Managers Go on a Buyer’s Strike

Value Fund Managers Go on a Buyer’s Strike

By Charles Stein November 07, 2013

Wally Weitz beat 90 percent of his rivals in the past five years by buying stocks he deemed cheap. Now he says bargains are so scarce that he’s letting his cash pile up. “It’s more fun to be finding great new ideas,” says Weitz, whose $1.1 billion Weitz Value Fund (WVALX) had 29 percent of its assets in cash and Treasury bills as of Sept. 30. “But we take what the market gives us, and right now it is not giving us anything.” Read more of this post

Saudi King Needs Wahhabi Muslim Support to Modernize Country

Saudi King Needs Wahhabi Muslim Support to Modernize Country

By Glen Carey November 07, 2013

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,” says the former member of King Abdullah’s advisory Shoura Council. Since his birth in 1945, many changes 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 says. Read more of this post

Rate revolution forces advisers to be bond kings; After Gross and Gundlach, the deluge: It’s no longer a set-it-and-forget-it core world

Rate revolution forces advisers to be bond kings

After Gross and Gundlach, the deluge: It’s no longer a set-it-and-forget-it core world

By Jason Kephart

Nov 7, 2013 @ 1:12 pm (Updated 3:51 pm) EST

Financial advisers got their first real taste of a rising interest rate environment in the second quarter and it’s led to a complete upheaval of the fixed-income landscape. The days of simply handing over a client’s fixed-income assets to a core fund, even those run by bond kings Bill Gross and Jeffrey Gundlach, seem to be over as the threat of further interest rate rises forces advisers to take the crown and rule over their own bond portfolios. Read more of this post

Over-the-Counter Stock Trading Halted in U.S. on Data Issue

Over-the-Counter Stock Trading Halted in U.S. on Data Issue

Over-the-counter stock trading was halted for three-and-a-half hours today after a malfunction prompted regulators to shut the main venue. Trading of U.S. stocks that change hands on over-the-counter markets was stopped because of a “lack of current quotation information,” the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said. OTC Markets Group Inc. resumed trading around 3 p.m. after a “network provider issue” was resolved, Chief Executive Officer Cromwell Coulson said in an e-mail. Equities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were paused, not companies listed by NYSE Euronext (NYX) or Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. Read more of this post

Don’t Jump Onto Europe’s Bandwagon

Don’t Jump Onto Europe’s Bandwagon

November 07, 2013

Recent stirrings of optimism about Europe’s economy have been interrupted: New jobs figures and signs of a slide into deflation have ended some premature celebrations. The region’s economic crisis isn’t over. The danger of a relapse into recession is real. The U.S. Federal Reserve and (belatedly) the Bank of Japan (8301:JP) are buying assets on an enormous scale with the aim of lowering long-term interest rates. This quantitative easing has risks, but in both cases the evidence suggests it has worked. The European Central Bank, though, has largely refrained. It bought bonds at the height of the crisis but neutralized the effect of the transactions on the money supply. It also undertook a big program of short-term lending to banks, but that’s winding down. No doubt there are legal and, above all, political impediments in the European Union to Fed-style asset purchases, but these must be overcome, and the ECB is best-placed to make the argument. Read more of this post

Bring Shadow Banking Into the Light

Bring Shadow Banking Into the Light

November 07, 2013

The business of banking is inherently perilous. It turns short-term savings (such as customer deposits) into long-term investments (such as mortgages and corporate loans). This is risky: If too many savers want their money back at once, the bank can’t pay. It must either liquidate its assets or freeze its accounts, either of which can trigger a broader panic. Read more of this post

Billionaire Lures Funds With Record HCL Margin: Corporate India

Billionaire Lures Funds With Record HCL Margin: Corporate India

HCL Technologies Ltd. (HCLT), a software exporter founded by Indian billionaire Shiv Nadar, is attracting funds including UTI Asset Management Co. after profit margin widened to a record. The Indian software maker has climbed 78 percent in this year’s best performance among the 50 stocks that make up the CNX Nifty Index. The stock’s consensus rating, or the average of analysts’ recommendations, is at 4.39, the highest among India’s four largest information technology companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS), Asia’s biggest software exporter by market value, has a rating of 3.94. Read more of this post

Goldman Bets on Modi as Credit Suisse Backs Rajan: India Credit

Goldman Bets on Modi as Credit Suisse Backs Rajan: India Credit

Global investment banks are recommending buying Indian assets on optimism a leadership change at the central bank will be followed by a new government that businesses favor next year. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. prefers stocks, saying investors are hopeful the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party under Gujarat state Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership will win national elections, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh takes the blame for the slowest growth in a decade. Credit Suisse Group AG advises buying the rupee, betting Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan will curb inflation, while Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. is positive on sovereign debt. Read more of this post