India Office Boom Turns Glut With Vacancies: Real Estate

India Office Boom Turns Glut With Vacancies: Real Estate

India’s slowing economy has left its big cities with a glut of office space, pushing up vacancy rates, freezing development and prompting some builders to convert commercial projects into housing. Vacancy rates in the financial center of Mumbai and capital New Delhi topped 20 percent in the third quarter, the highest in Asia after Chengdu, China, where 32 percent of offices are empty, according to broker Cushman & Wakefield Inc. Six Indian cities are among the 10 office markets with the worst vacancies in the region, according to Cushman. Read more of this post

Toil for oil means industry sums do not add up

Last updated: November 25, 2013 5:29 pm

Toil for oil means industry sums do not add up

By Mark Lewis

Rising costs are being met only by ever smaller increases in supply

The most interesting message in this year’s World Energy Outlook from theInternational Energy Agency is also its most disturbing. Over the past decade, the oil and gas industry’s upstream investments have registered an astronomical increase, but these ever higher levels of capital expenditure have yielded ever smaller increases in the global oil supply. Even these have only been made possible by record high oil prices. This should be a reality check for those now hyping a new age of global oil abundance. Read more of this post

China investors give cash-hungry Asian hedge funds shot in the arm

China investors give cash-hungry Asian hedge funds shot in the arm

4:13pm EST

By Nishant Kumar

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Capital-starved Asian hedge funds may have got the lifeline they’ve been waiting years for – investors from China, some of whom are willing to risk very large sums of money. This new source of capital is a potential game changer for an industry that has been dependent on the whims of U.S. and European fund flows. It may also represent a key turning point in the movement of Chinese wealth offshore as the world’s second-biggest economy becomes more flexible about inbound and outbound investments. Read more of this post

A son of billionaire philanthropist Eric Hotung is suing an accounting giant and the surveying firm that HK Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying used to head, for fraud

Tycoon’s son names CY firm in fraud suit
Mary Ann Benitez
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
A son of billionaire philanthropist Eric Hotung is suing an accounting giant and various other entities, including the surveying firm that Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying used to head, for fraud. CY Leung & Co, which merged with property consultant DTZ in 2000, is named as one of 10 defendants in a writ filed yesterday in the High Court by Sean Eric Mclean Hotung. Read more of this post

Chinese real estate developers hit back at claims of unpaid RMB3.8 trillion ($623 billion) tax

Nov 25, 2013

CCTV Real Estate Exposé Triggers Business Backlash

A critical report by China’s official television broadcaster over the weekend has set off a rare public dispute between the powerful propaganda organ and business leaders. China Central Television reported on Sunday that property developers neglected to pay more than 3.8 trillion yuan ($623 billion) in land appreciation taxes from 2005 to 2012 (in Chinese). The report said 45 listed developers – including major well-known developers such as Soho China and China Vanke Co.000002.SZ +0.12%, owe land appreciation taxes. The one with the highest bill was Guangzhou-based Agile Property Holdings3383.HK +0.23%, with  8.3 billion yuan at stake, the report said. Read more of this post

China Said to Plan Crackdown on Banks’ Evasion of Lending Limits

China Said to Plan Crackdown on Banks’ Evasion of Lending Limits

China has drafted rules banning banks from evading lending limits by structuring loans to other financial institutions so that they can be recorded as asset sales, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The rules drafted by the China Banking Regulatory Commission ban borrowers from using resale or repurchase agreements to move assets off their balance sheets, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to discuss the rules publicly. Read more of this post

More than a million seek China government jobs

More than a million seek China government jobs

Monday, November 25, 2013 – 18:45

AFP

BEIJING – More than one million people took China’s national civil service exam at the weekend in a modern version of an age-old rite, but faced huge odds against clinching one of the few government jobs available. A total of 1.12 million took the National Public Servant Exam, according to figures from the State Administration of Civil Service figures. Read more of this post

Qualcomm’s China Growth Plans Threatened by Anti-Monopoly Probe

Qualcomm’s China Growth Plans Threatened by Anti-Monopoly Probe

Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM)’s growth prospects in the world’s largest mobile-phone market may be under threat after China’s National Development and Reform Commission began an investigation related to an anti-monopoly law. Qualcomm disclosed the probe yesterday, saying the NDRC advised that specific details are confidential. The San Diego-based company said it knows of no charge by the agency that it violated the law. Qualcomm gets revenue from sales of smartphone chips and collects license fees from wireless providers for the shipment of most Internet-capable handsets. Read more of this post

Cinda IPO unveils secrets of a Chinese bad debt factory

Updated: Tuesday November 26, 2013 MYT 7:54:26 AM

Cinda IPO unveils secrets of a Chinese bad debt factory

HONG KONG: China Cinda Asset Management Co Ltd lifted the lid on how Beijing turns bad loans from its banks into profits, issuing a prospectus for an initial public offering that has reeled in some of the world’s biggest investors. The IPO, seeking up to US$2.5bil, is set to be the largest in Hong Kong this year as sovereign wealth funds join hedge funds in betting that soured loans will be a growth business in China’s slowing economy. Cinda plans to list shares on Dec 12. Read more of this post

Brokers Beat Banks as China Revamps Economy: Chart of the Day

Brokers Beat Banks as China Revamps Economy: Chart of the Day

Investors are betting China’s brokerages will gain more than commercial banks and other companies from a plan unveiled this month to make market forces the “decisive factor” in the world’s second-largest economy. The CHART OF THE DAY shows the average price-to-book ratio for the three Chinese brokerages whose shares are traded in Hong Kong — China Galaxy Securities Co., Citic Securities Co. and Haitong Securities Co. — compared with a similar measure for the five largest banks and the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, which tracks 40 mainland companies. Since the Communist Party announced a package of 60 reforms on Nov. 15, the brokers’ ratio surged to 1.76, while banks lagged behind at 1.08. Read more of this post

M&A Mystery: Why Are Takeover Prices Plummeting?

M&A Mystery: Why Are Takeover Prices Plummeting?

VIPAL MONGA

Nov. 25, 2013 8:26 p.m. ET

Mergers and acquisitions have been dominated by cheapskates this year. U.S. companies are paying just 19% more, on average, than their acquisition target’s trading price one week before the deal was announced.  That’s the lowest takeover premium since at least 1995, as far back as records go at Dealogic, which analyzed the data for The Wall Street Journal. Historically, the premiums have averaged 30%. Read more of this post

Turn on the tap, F&N – show what’s brewing in Myanmar

Turn on the tap, F&N – show what’s brewing in Myanmar

Monday, Nov 25, 2013

Kenneth Lim

The Business Times/MyPaper

Looking at Fraser and Neave’s (F&N’s) latest results announcement, one would think that all is fine and dandy at its Myanmar Brewery business. But there is more than just beer brewing in that business, and F&N needs to shed more light on the ongoing dispute with its Myanmar partner that threatens a significant part of its beverage business. In its full-year results announcement earlier this month, F&N appeared to paint a fairly robust picture of its Myanmar beer business. Read more of this post

China at a crossroads

China at a crossroads

By Robert J. Samuelson, Monday, November 25, 8:52 AM

It has been only a few years since China was widely regarded as an unstoppable economic colossus. For three decades, its economy grew about 10 percent annually; China seemed to be gliding through the global economic storm. Well, maybe not. Many economists — Chinese and foreign — think China’s economic model is unworkable. Without a new model, they say, China will someday face a collapse of growth or worse. The outcome has huge implications for China’s internal stability and its global economic footprint. The precedent of Japan, a highflier laid low, suggests that rapid growth can’t be taken for granted. Read more of this post