In Retailing Years, PetSmart Shows Its Strength

In Retailing Years, PetSmart Shows Its Strength

SPENCER JAKAB

Nov. 21, 2013 4:40 p.m. ET

Before Americans became obsessed with 140-character bon mots or status updates, cat videos dominated cyberspace. Even today, we spend over 10 times as much on our pets as the combined U.S. revenue of Twitter Inc. TWTR +2.46% and Facebook Inc. Fluffy and Fido aren’t only big business but fairly recession-proof, as shareholders ofPetSmart  Inc. PETM +1.44% happily discovered. The retailer went public 20 years ago but spent the first 15 tracking the broad stock market. It fell hard in the early months of the financial crisis as investors figured superpremium pet foods, if not pets themselves, would be a casualty of the downturn. Read more of this post

Rivals Aim to Break German Hold on China Luxury-Car Market

Rivals Aim to Break German Hold on China Luxury-Car Market

U.S., British and Swedish Car Makers Spending Billions of Dollars to Crack Growing Demand

COLUM MURPHY

Nov. 20, 2013 2:01 p.m. ET

GUANGZHOU, China—For Chinese car buyers, luxury means German. Audi AGNSU.XE +0.30% , BMW AG BMW.XE +0.31% and Daimler AG DAI.XE +0.12% ‘s Mercedes-Benz combined hold more than 70% of the country’s about $40 billion annual market for high-end vehicles. Now, a club of smaller scale luxury brands have China in their cross hairs. In the past yearGeneral Motors Co. GM -0.84% ‘s Cadillac, Tata Motors Ltd. 500570.BY -0.61% ‘s Jaguar Land Rover, and Chinese-owned Swedish brand Volvo have detailed plans to spend billions of dollars on factories in China that would bring at least half a million additional luxury cars to the market beginning 2015. Read more of this post

Reforming China’s state-owned firms: From SOE to GLC; China’s rulers look to Singapore for tips on portfolio management

Reforming China’s state-owned firms: From SOE to GLC; China’s rulers look to Singapore for tips on portfolio management

Nov 23rd 2013 | HONG KONG |From the print edition

SHORTLY before his confirmation as China’s “paramount leader” in 1978, Deng Xiaoping paid a visit to fast-growing Singapore. He planted a tree on a hill overlooking Jurong, a bustling industrial park built on what was once marshy wasteland close to the city-state’s harbour. Singapore’s success as a trading hub impressed Deng, who imposed his vision of economic reform on China’s Communist Party the following month, at an historic meeting known as the “third plenum”. Read more of this post

PBOC Says No Longer in China’s Interest to Increase Reserves

PBOC Says No Longer in China’s Interest to Increase Reserves

By Bloomberg News – Nov 20, 2013

The People’s Bank of China said the country does not benefit any more from increases in its foreign-currency holdings, adding to signs policy makers will rein in dollar purchases that limit the yuan’s appreciation. “It’s no longer in China’s favor to accumulate foreign-exchange reserves,” Yi Gang, a deputy governor at the central bank, said in a speech organized by China Economists 50 Forum at Tsinghua University yesterday. The monetary authority will “basically” end normal intervention in the currency market and broaden the yuan’s daily trading range, Governor Zhou Xiaochuan wrote in an article in a guidebook explaining reforms outlined last week following a Communist Party meeting. Neither Yi nor Zhou gave a timeframe for any changes. Read more of this post

On China’s roads, where luxury risks becoming ordinary

On China’s roads, where luxury risks becoming ordinary

4:19pm EST

By Samuel Shen and Norihiko Shirouzu

GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) – Luxury car dealers are resorting to offering customers massages, mini-golf and other gimmicks, hoping this will give them an edge in a ferociously competitive Chinese market where brand loyalty is less common than in the West. Premium car sales slowed in China last year as the economy eased off the throttle and new Communist Party leadership was installed, but momentum is returning, and China is set to overtake the United States as the world’s top luxury car market by 2020 with annual sales of close to 3 million cars. Read more of this post

Luxury Car Dealers In China Are Using All Sorts Of Gimmicks To Lure Customers

Luxury Car Dealers In China Are Using All Sorts Of Gimmicks To Lure Customers

SAMUEL SHEN AND NORIHIKO SHIROUZU, REUTERS 48 MINUTES AGO 633

GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) – Luxury car dealers are resorting to offering customers massages, mini-golf and other gimmicks, hoping this will give them an edge in a ferociously competitive Chinese market where brand loyalty is less common than in the West. Premium car sales slowed in China last year as the economy eased off the throttle and new Communist Party leadership was installed, but momentum is returning, and China is set to overtake the United States as the world’s top luxury car market by 2020 with annual sales of close to 3 million cars. Read more of this post

ICBC chairman sees inevitable rise in China bad loans

Last updated: November 20, 2013 6:14 pm

ICBC chairman sees inevitable rise in China bad loans

By Simon Rabinovitch and Paul J Davies in Beijing

The head of China’s biggest bank has warned that bad loans will inevitably rise and weaker lenders will be wiped out as the government relaxes its grip on the economy. But Jiang Jianqing, chairman of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country’s largest lender by assets, also hit back at those foreign critics who have raised questions about the resilience of China’s banks after the lending spree that powered the country through the 2008 global financial crisis. ICBC was prepared for the challenges and should not be held to impossibly high standards, he said. Read more of this post

Electric VS hydrogen: China iIs battleground for auto giants

Updated: Friday November 22, 2013 MYT 1:16:52 PM

Electric VS hydrogen: China is battleground for auto giants

GUANGZHOU/BEIJING: German auto giants Volkswagen AG, BMWand Daimler see China’s future as being electric – encouraged by generous government subsidies – but that bet puts them at odds with some of their Asian rivals. While the Europeans were heralding the all-electric vehicle at the Guangzhou auto show this week, Toyota Moto and Honda Motor  were unveiling hydrogen fuel cell cars at shows inTokyo and Los Angeles. Read more of this post

China’s State TV Grapples With Advertising Slowdown

China’s State TV Grapples With Advertising Slowdown

CCTV Departs From Practice of Disclosing Ad-Auction Results as Companies Find New Ways to Reach Out to Customers

LAURIE BURKITT

Updated Nov. 20, 2013 10:38 p.m. ET

China Central Television is feeling the shift of advertising to the Internet. Shown, Communist Party officials with CCTV’s Spring Festival cast. Xinhua/Zuma Press

SHANGHAI—China’s most powerful propaganda outlet is grappling with a problem familiar to media companies world-wide: How to keep advertisers in the digital age. China Central Television this week departed from past practice and declined to disclose results of a closely watched auction for advertising slots for next year. In a written response to questions, the state-run broadcaster said only that its ad-auction sales growth this year was in line with the country’s economic growth. China’s economy grew 7.8% in the third quarter from a year earlier. Read more of this post

China’s Smaller Cities Thirst for the Luxe Life

November 20, 2013

China’s Smaller Cities Thirst for the Luxe Life

By JEN LIN-LIU

CHENGDU, China — Just yards away from the enormous statue of Mao Zedong in Tianfu Square, Chengdu’s two most exclusive malls are doing a brisk business on a Wednesday afternoon. Shoppers in the Louis Vuitton flagship at the Yanlord Landmark mall are buying this season’s handbags in bright purples and blues. Just outside the store, a woman in crystal-encrusted high heels and a man carrying a bulging Dior shopping bag walk by. And two men stroll along arm-in-arm, one holding a black Bottega Veneta hand-braided clutch. Read more of this post

China’s Bribery Culture Poses Risks for Multinationals

China’s Bribery Culture Poses Risks for Multinationals

To the risks of doing business in China — an authoritarian government, sprawling market, worsening pollution — add another one: running afoul of local and U.S. anti-corruption laws. Multinational companies are working to navigate bribery risks in China, where possible corruption by JPMorgan Chase & Co., GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Avon Products Inc. have sparked probes by the U.S. or Chinese authorities. Read more of this post

China regulator drafts new rules to tame shadow banking

China regulator drafts new rules to tame shadow banking

Thu, Nov 21 2013

* Banks use complex deal structures to evade lending curbs

* Risky corporate credit disguised as interbank loans

* Trust firms used for loans to real estate, local govts

* Rules target use of secret “drawer agreement” guarantees

By Hongmei Zhao and Gabriel Wildau

SHANGHAI, Nov 22 (Reuters) – China’s financial regulators are preparing new rules to crack down on explosive growth in complex interbank transactions used to evade lending restrictions, senior bankers who have seen drafts of the regulations told Reuters this week. The measures, likely to be put in place early next year, aim to curb excess credit growth to prevent a debt crisis as China’s economy slows. Despite a string of new rules earlier this year, banks have found ways to expand credit through shadow-banking channels that have raised concerns over the potential for systemic risk. Read more of this post

China corporate financing squeezed as reform plans spark rate spike

China corporate financing squeezed as reform plans spark rate spike

Thu, Nov 21 2013

* 10-year government bond yields at 8-year high

* Market expects interest-rate reform to raise funding costs

* Spike in rates forces firms to delay bond sales

* Policymakers seek de-leveraging to avoid debt crisis

By Gabriel Wildau

SHANGHAI, Nov 21 (Reuters) – Chinese bond yields have surged as the market starts pricing in interest rate reform, a development that makes borrowing more expensive and threatens China’s fragile economic recovery. Chinese bond prices have been hammered in recent days on expectations that reforms to loosen government control of interest rates will cause funding costs to rise. Bond prices move inversely to interest rates so when bond prices fall, their yields rise. Read more of this post

China Central TV: champion of the people with a blurred picture

November 20, 2013 3:15 am

China Central TV: champion of the people with a blurred picture

By FT reporters

At the end of October, a young journalist in handcuffs, green prison jacket and a freshly shaved head appeared on China Central Television, the state-owned national broadcaster, and confessed to taking bribes in exchange for writing negative articles about a large Chinese company. Just days earlier, the newspaper that employed Chen Yongzhou, 27, had published front-page banner headlines calling for his release, while human rights groups had mobilised to defend him. But after his admission on national television, the issue quickly died away. Read more of this post

Canada’s Tar Sands Oil Boom Yields Toxic Wastewater Lakes

Canada’s Tar Sands Oil Boom Yields Toxic Wastewater Lakes

By Jeremy van Loon November 21, 2013

Canada is blessed with 3 million lakes, more than any country on earth—and it may soon start manufacturing new ones. The oil sands industry is in the throes of a major expansion, powered by C$20 billion ($19 billion) a year in investments. Companies including Syncrude Canada, Royal Dutch Shell (RDS/A), and ExxonMobil (XOM) affiliate Imperial Oil are running out of room to store the contaminated water that is a byproduct of the process used to turn bitumen—a highly viscous form of petroleum—into diesel and other fuels. By 2022 they will be producing so much of the stuff that a month’s output of wastewater could turn New York’s Central Park into a toxic reservoir 11 feet deep, according to the Pembina Institute, a nonprofit in Calgary that promotes sustainable energy. Read more of this post

Beijing’s top tipple heads down market after Communist crackdown

November 22, 2013 1:13 am

Beijing’s top tipple heads down market after Communist crackdown

By Patti Waldmeir in Shanghai

The Chinese Communist party’s favourite drink, ultra-luxury baijiu, is heading downmarket to supermarket shelves and restaurants as a result of Beijing’s ban on top-end white spirits. The prohibition is part of the government’s anti-corruption campaign, which is hitting sales of luxury goods from watches to mooncakes. With expensive drinks from baijiu to Bordeaux now off limits for officials, purveyors of tipples from wine to white spirits are trying to cultivate new drinkers and distribution channels in one of the world’s oldest drinking cultures. Read more of this post

Beijing Looks to Markets to Fix Pollution; Leaders Take Aim at Cheap Use of Resources That Has Led to Environment Problems

Beijing Looks to Markets to Fix Pollution

Leaders Take Aim at Cheap Use of Resources That Has Led to Environment Problems

BRIAN SPEGELE

Updated Nov. 20, 2013 5:00 p.m. ET

BEIJING—China’s leaders are taking aim at the cheap use of resources that has let its industries boom but has choked its air and tainted its soil, looking to markets to play a larger role in commodity prices as a way to fix pollution. The strategy change, endorsed as part of a wide-ranging policy blueprint at a Communist Party meeting that concluded last week, promises to grant markets a “decisive role” in allocating resources, while more harshly penalizing polluters. Read more of this post

Surfstitch claims it’s now the world’s largest online sports apparel and fashion retailer

Surfstitch considering IPO

November 20, 2013

Alexandra Cain

The Aussie enterprise claims it’s now the world’s largest online sports apparel and fashion retailer. Having just started to dominate European online fashion retailing, after already becoming the market leader in Asia and Australia, Surfstitch is now considering an initial public offer on the Australian bourse. Co-founder Justin Cameron told Fairfax Media the business is assessing its options, with an IPO or trade sale on the cards. “It’s something being considered currently,” he said. According to Cameron, the business is already the largest online action sports and fashion business in the world. Read more of this post

Profits spike, risks multiply in Asia’s derivatives return

Profits spike, risks multiply in Asia’s derivatives return

4:04pm EST

By Lawrence White

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Investment banks in Asia are taking advantage of a regulatory grey area to reap big returns from rising sales of equity derivatives, increasing the systematic risks to the financial system that regulators are trying to eradicate. Derivatives are tempting for yield-hungry investors and banks facing a slowdown in their traditional deals and trading markets because of the higher returns they can offer both sides. But regulators and academics fear banks are using them to circumvent rules intended to stop them risking their own money to boost returns. Read more of this post

Li Ka-shing’s CKI Relies on Consortiums to Keep Debt Low

Li Ka-shing’s CKI Relies on Consortiums to Keep Debt Low

Tycoon’s Utilities Arm Bands Together With Associate Companies to Buy Overseas Assets

YVONNE LEE

Nov. 20, 2013 4:56 a.m. ET

Hong Kong’s utilities companies have been snapping up assets from London to New Zealand in the past few years, but while electricity company CLP Holdings Ltd.0002.HK +0.72% ‘s debt exceeded its equity in 2011, tycoon Li Ka-shing‘s Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Ltd. has kept its debt levels low. Since the 2008 financial crisis, CKI has spent more than US$22 billion on overseas acquisitions, according to Dealogic, to reduce its reliance on the domestic market, where returns on selling electricity are capped. Hong Kong’s other electricity producer and distributor, CLP, has spent just US$2.3 billion, but unlike Asia’s richest man, the company owned by the Kadoorie family can’t count on associate companies to take on debt to fund overseas purchases. Read more of this post

Aberdeen Sees Sensex Earnings Slowdown on Polls: Corporate India

Aberdeen Sees Sensex Earnings Slowdown on Polls: Corporate India

Profit growth at Indian companies is set to slow from the fastest in six quarters as elections delay projects and higher borrowing costs hurt economic expansion, said Aberdeen Asset Management Plc and Bank of America Corp. Read more of this post