Sitting on farm fence in global bidding war for Warrnambool Cheese & Butter; While big business battles for control of the Warrnambool dairy producer, farmers are undecided.

Sitting on farm fence in global bidding war for Warrnambool Cheese & Butter

While big business battles for control of the Warrnambool dairy producer, farmers are undecided.

November 9, 2013

Jared Lynch

Nick Renyard’s farm is far from the clang and clatter of city traffic and investment bankers’ offices. Bush and bird song line the road to the third-generation dairy farmer’s property nestled in the rolling green hills south of Timboon, in Victoria’s Western District. Mr Renyard’s association with Warrnambool Cheese & Butter is more than just that of a supplier and processor. His father John was director at the company, and Mr Renyard, 39, has owned WCB shares longer than he can remember. ”I’ve had them since I was a little kid,” he said. ”I can’t remember exactly how long I’ve had them but when I got them they were $2 ordinary shares and there were 500.” Almost all of Australia’s main milk processors, including NSW’s Bega Cheese and the country’s biggest milk processor, Murray Goulburn, have entered a global bidding war for WCB, which until recently was little known outside its home base in south-west Victoria. Read more of this post

New China Cities: Shoddy Homes, Broken Hope

November 9, 2013

New China Cities: Shoddy Homes, Broken Hope

By IAN JOHNSON

HUAMING, China — Three years ago, the Shanghai World Expo featured this newly built town as a model for how China would move from being a land of farms to a land of cities. In a dazzling pavilion visited by more than a million people, visitors learned how farmers were being given a new life through a fair-and-square deal that did not cost them anything. Today, Huaming may be an example of another transformation: the ghettoization of China’s new towns. Read more of this post

Forest Misuse Costs Indonesia $7 Billion in Revenue, Report Says

Forest Misuse Costs Indonesia $7 Billion in Revenue, Report Says

Illegal logging and mismanagement of Indonesia’s forestry industry may have prevented more than $7 billion flowing to state coffers from 2007 to 2011, costing the government more than its health budget, Human Rights Watch said. In contrast, the Indonesian government’s 2011 revenue from timber royalties and reforestation fees was $300 million, said Emily Harwell, the lead author of a report released by Human Rights Watch. Read more of this post

‘Western concept’ Chinese shares see US resurgence

‘Western concept’ Chinese shares see US resurgence

Staff Reporter

2013-11-10

Chinese companies seeking a stock listing in the US have seen a resurgence in 2013, but most US investors are not pursuing China concept shares but rather seeking Chinese companies with an “American shadow,” the Shanghai-based First Financial Daily reports. On Oct. 31, 58.com, a Chinese local classified-ad website, launched an IPO with a price of US$17, giving it a market value of more than US$1.4 billion. The company’s share price jumped 42% on debut. Read more of this post

Only 6% of employees in China ‘engaged’ in their work, less than half the average of 13% in other countries

Only 6% of employees in China ‘engaged’ in their work: poll

Staff Reporter

2013-11-10

Only 6% of people in China’s workforce are fully engaged in their jobs, less than half the average of 13% in other countries, according to a Gallup poll which surveyed 142 countries and regions between 2011 and 2012. The company asked employees to answer 12 questions including whether they learned new things on the job, whether their efforts were recognized and whether they made friends in the workplace. The employees were divided into three categories: “actively disengaged, “not engaged” and “engaged.” The report suggests engaged employees will bring benefits and innovation to their companies but their efforts could be sabotaged by those that are actively disengaged. Read more of this post

Spanish winemakers eye China’s wine frontier

Spanish winemakers eye China’s wine frontier

POSTED: 10 Nov 2013 14:20
Wines from Spain and the New World are gaining ground in China at the expense of their French counterparts, as increasingly adventurous Chinese wine enthusiasts push back the frontiers of a surging market, say experts. HONG KONG: Wines from Spain and the New World are gaining ground in China at the expense of their French counterparts, as increasingly adventurous Chinese wine enthusiasts push back the frontiers of a surging market, say experts. Read more of this post

Henry Blodget: Be Prepared For Stocks To Crash 40%-55%

Be Prepared For Stocks To Crash 40%-55%

HENRY BLODGET NOV. 9, 2013, 8:14 AM 49,411 140

The stock market continues to set new highs, which is exciting and fun for those of us who own stocks. I own stocks, so I’m certainly enjoying it. I hope stocks continue to charge higher, but I can’t find much data to suggest that they will. I only have a vague hope that the Fed will continue to pump air into the balloon and corporations will continue to find ways to cut more costs and grow their already record-high earnings. Meanwhile, every valid valuation measure I look at suggests that stocks are at least 40% overvalued and, therefore, are likely to produce lousy returns over the next 10 years. Which valuation measures suggest the stock market is very overvalued? These, among others:

• Cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratio (current P/E is 25X vs. 15X average)
• Market cap to revenue (current ratio of 1.6 vs. 1.0 average)
• Market cap to GDP (double the pre-1990s norm)

Read more of this post

One More Systemic Risk to Worry About: M-REIT

One More Systemic Risk to Worry About

Borrowing lots of money overnight to buy long-term assets is a great way to blow up the world economy. That’s why everyone from Federal Reserve Governor Jeremy Stein, to the International Monetary Fund, to Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett is worried about the systemic danger posed by mortgage real estate investment trusts, which collectively own about $500 billion in assets, according to the IMF. The good news is that this risk can be reduced with the help of a little financial engineering. Read more of this post

Treasure Hunters of the Financial Crisis

November 9, 2013

Treasure Hunters of the Financial Crisis

By PETER LATTMAN

Five years ago, the global financial system was falling apart. Lehman Brothers had imploded. Banks had stopped lending. Foreclosure signs were as common as weeds on the front lawns of suburban homes. And Bruce A. Karsh saw the buying opportunity of a lifetime. Mr. Karsh, a low-key money manager from Los Angeles, had spent his career analyzing and trading the debt of companies. With the world economy buckling, the prices of corporate debt had plunged to levels suggesting that much of American industry was hurtling toward bankruptcy. So Mr. Karsh, through his Oaktree Capital Management firm, plowed money into distressed debt at a torrid pace, investing more than $6 billion over a three-month stretch. Read more of this post

Corporate disclosure, though frequently valuable, also has serious drawbacks, often leading to adverse unintended consequences that can outweigh its benefits?

November 8, 2013

Against Disclosure

By DAVID M. PRIMO

IN the policy world, corporate disclosure is widely seen as an unalloyed good. Publicly traded corporations are under growing pressure to reveal more information about C.E.O. compensation, political spending and even the dangers that climate change poses for the company. Shareholders need such information, advocates say, in order to hold managers accountable and reduce risks to the company and its reputation. Democracy itself, the argument continues, benefits when voters know more about how corporations operate. But a number of recent studies, including some of my own, suggest that this view is shortsighted. Disclosure, though frequently valuable, often leads to adverse unintended consequences that can outweigh its benefits. Read more of this post

When big beer goes small; MillerCoors had success this summer with its craft beer division. Other big brewers have dipped their toes into the craft category, but some are staying far away

When big beer goes small

November 8, 2013: 12:42 PM ET

MillerCoors had success this summer with its craft beer division. Other big brewers have dipped their toes into the craft category, but some are staying far away.

By Daniel Roberts, writer-reporter

FORTUNE — “The taste is flat out lemonade … maybe an eyedropper of booze,” writes the user Sammer on ratebeer.com’s page for Leinenkugel Summer Shandy. On Beer Advocate, where the brand has a 72 rating (“okay”), the user Alphagnome writes, “Honestly, it’s not good … BUT it’s refreshing.” Perhaps that’s all that matters for a seasonal drink; Leinenkugel’s lemonade-flavored beer had enormous success this summer. The second-best selling and fastest-growing craft beer, it outsold all of Leinenkugel’s other beers combined in the time it was on shelves. Shipments were up 24% over last year. And it has helped the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company go from producing 60,000 barrels a year when the Miller Brewing Company bought it in 1988 to now nearly 1 million. Read more of this post

Michael Pettis Cautions Abe (And Krugman): “Debt Matters”

Michael Pettis Cautions Abe (And Krugman): “Debt Matters”

Tyler Durden on 11/09/2013 16:16 -0500

“Debt matters… even if it is possible to pretend for many years that it doesn’t,” is the painful truth that, author of “Avoiding The Fall”, Michael Pettis offers for the current state of most western economies. Specifically, Pettis points out that Japan never really wrote down all or even most of its investment misallocation of the 1980s and simply rolled it forward in the form of rising government debt. For a long time it was able to service this growing debt burden by keeping interest rates very low as a response to very slow growth and by effectively capitalizing interest payments, but, as Kyle Bass has previously warned, if Abenomics is ‘successful’, ironically, it will no longer be able to play this game. Unless Japan moves quickly to pay down debt, perhaps by privatizing government assets, Abenomics, in that case, will be derailed by its own success. Read more of this post