Believe in your dream and choose investing partners who share your vision

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Updated: Tuesday January 14, 2014 MYT 7:54:46 AM

Believe in your dream and choose investing partners who share your vision

BY JEANISHA WAN

After I wrote the article about not giving up (Star MetroBiz, Oct 22, 2013), a number of people wrote to me echoing similar sentiments and suggested meeting up to continue to spur and inspire each other in our journey of entrepreneurship. And so we did. A small group of us met up several weeks ago and I was encouraged by their stories. Read more of this post

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Australian scientists microchip bees to map movements, halt diseases

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Australian scientists microchip bees to map movements, halt diseases

Wed, Jan 15 2014

By Thuy Ong

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian scientists are gluing tiny sensors onto thousands of honey bees to track their movements in a trial aimed at halting the spread of diseases that have wiped out populations in the northern hemisphere. Read more of this post

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Anheuser-Busch InBev: Here’s to payday; Sell assets, win bonuses. Buy them back, keep bonuses. Nice work

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Anheuser-Busch InBev: Here’s to payday; Sell assets, win bonuses. Buy them back, keep bonuses. Nice work

Jan 18th 2014 | From the print edition

PAYING $4 billion for a business you sold for $1.8 billion five years ago is not much of a way to make money. But Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI), a giant brewer, may be about to do just that. It is reported to be negotiating to buy Oriental Brewery of South Korea from its private-equity owners, including KKR, to which it had sold the firm in 2009. The sale helped ABI hit financial targets which unlocked $2.5 billion of bonuses for its executives, including $289m for its boss, Carlos Brito. Although the sale may now be reversed, it appears that the bonuses will not. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Corporate culture: Learning the lingo; Forget annual reports. Go to the canteen for what makes a company tick

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Corporate culture: Learning the lingo; Forget annual reports. Go to the canteen for what makes a company tick

Jan 11th 2014 | From the print edition

Leverage: The CEO’s Guide to Corporate Culture. By John Childress. Principia Associates; 353 pages; $24. Buy from Amazon.com

IN JULY 2012 the treasury committee of Britain’s House of Commons summoned the boss of Barclays, Bob Diamond, to face the music. Barclays had been caught taking part in an industry-wide conspiracy to fix Libor, a benchmark interest rate, and the members of parliament wanted to know what was going on. Why had friendly high-street banks been transformed into financial casinos? And why did scandals keep piling upon scandals despite outrage from the public and promises to mend their ways from banking CEOs? Much of the answer, according to both Mr Diamond and his interrogators, lay in a phrase that was used more than 50 times during the hearing: “corporate culture”. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends, TMT Trends

Business communities: All together now; What entrepreneurial ecosystems need to flourish

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Business communities: All together now; What entrepreneurial ecosystems need to flourish

Jan 18th 2014 | From the print edition

BLOCK 71 HAS long been slated for demolition. A look at the tenant list for the seven-storey industrial building on Singapore’s Ayer Rajah Crescent helps explain why it is still standing: nearly 100 startups live there officially and perhaps as many again informally. Their often strange monikers are interspersed with the more conventional names of venture-capital firms, accelerators and the like. Read more of this post

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Build it and they may come: Management schools are on a building spree. That is a risk for some

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Build it and they may come: Management schools are on a building spree. That is a risk for some

Jan 18th 2014 | From the print edition

BUSINESS-SCHOOL students are a pampered bunch. Scholars sipping a glass of red in the posh rooftop bar of Oxford’s Saïd Business School could be forgiven for thinking they had wandered into the nearby Randolph Hotel by mistake. Stanford students can view an impressive modern-art collection housed in its own museum. Harvard Business School MBAs can book a masseuse to relieve the stress of a hard day slaving over case studies. Read more of this post

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Cryptography: Unsafe and sound; Ciphers can now be broken by listening to the computers that use them

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Cryptography: Unsafe and sound; Ciphers can now be broken by listening to the computers that use them

Jan 18th 2014 | From the print edition

EAVESDROPPING, be it simply sticking an ear against a door or listening to and analysing the noises made by tapping different keys on a keyboard, is a stock-in-trade of spying. Listening to a computer itself, though, as it hums away doing its calculations, is a new idea. But it is one whose time has come, according to Adi Shamir, of the Weizmann Institute, in Israel, and his colleagues. And Dr Shamir should know. He donated the initial letter of his surname to the acronym “RSA”, one of the most commonly used forms of encryption. Acoustic cryptanalysis, as the new method is known, threatens RSA’s security. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

Come home, son! Guangzhou mom buys front page of Melbourne paper

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Come home, son! Guangzhou mom buys front page of Melbourne paper

Staff Reporter 2014-01-17

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A Chinese mother bought the entire front page of the Chinese Melbourne Daily to urge her son to come home from Australia for the upcoming Lunar New Year, promising that she will not pressure him to get married this time. “(I) have called you several times and you did not take my calls. Maybe the only way to get my message to you is here. Mom and Dad will not pressure you to get married ever again. Please come back home for New Year! Love, Mom,” read the front page ad in the Chinese-language newspaper on Jan. 14. L)

Read more of this post

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Business strategy and technology: The Big Bang Theory; How to identify threats—and then see them off promptly

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Business strategy and technology: The Big Bang Theory; How to identify threats—and then see them off promptly

Jan 11th 2014 | From the print edition; Ya Kun ko[o?

Big Bang Disruption: Strategy in the Age of Devastating Innovation. By Larry Downes and Paul Nunes. Portfolio; 278 pages; $29.95 and £14.99. Buy fromAmazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

FOR years Sleep HealthCenters, an American company that ran clinics at which people with sleep disorders could stay overnight to have their ailments diagnosed, grew nicely and steadily. But in 2012 its dream business turned sour as folk began using cheap, wearable devices that let experts monitor them while they snoozed in the comfort of their homes. Sleep HealthCenters closed some of its facilities as its revenue fell, but its fortunes faded rapidly and the following year it threw in the towel. Read more of this post

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New year, new tricks: scams to steer clear of

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

New year, new tricks: scams to steer clear of

January 17, 2014 – 1:19PM

The new year has brought fresh warnings for consumers to be on the lookout for fraudsters who are trying various ways to separate us from our money. Many scams are old tricks – but updated with new twists or technology. Other cons have emerged in response to better detection and policing. Financial Fraud Action UK says fraudsters are targeting consumers directly through “deception” crimes – where they try to dupe people into parting with information – because the security features on payment cards have improved. The frauds listed here have been recorded in the UK – but criminals are ingenious and creative, so don’t think they won’t try them in Australia. Read on – and beware. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Measuring management: It is no longer just a plausible theory that good management boosts productivity

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Measuring management: It is no longer just a plausible theory that good management boosts productivity

Jan 18th 2014 | From the print edition

MANAGEMENT is one of the most successful industries of the past century. In 1914 it was a mere infant. The Harvard Business School (HBS) was just six years old. Management literature consisted of Frederick Taylor’s “The Principles of Scientific Management” (1911) and a few other scraps. Today it is a loud-mouthed adult. A quarter of American graduate students study business. Some of the world’s most profitable businesses peddle the modern equivalent of Taylor’s “Principles”.

Read more of this post

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How to build companies from a kit

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Building companies: Rocket machine; How to build companies from a kit

Jan 18th 2014 | From the print edition

WHY BOTHER WITH accelerators? Why not just hire a bunch of clever youngsters, provide them with the necessary cash, support and technology, and tell them to pursue a business idea with a proven success record? That should make it possible to start a new company in weeks, not months or years. Read more of this post

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Tales from an overworked City

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

January 16, 2014 4:44 pm

Tales from an overworked City

By Emma Jacobs

During an internship at Goldman Sachs, one undergraduate, who prefers not to be named, learnt a great deal about banking – and himself. “I know that I can work 15 to 20-hour days without collapsing,” he says, although he admits to nodding off in the toilet a couple of times. Such stamina “is a useful skill to have”, the student reflects. Read more of this post

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Accelerators: Getting up to speed; The biggest professional-training system you have never heard of

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Accelerators: Getting up to speed; The biggest professional-training system you have never heard of

Jan 18th 2014 | From the print edition

IT FEELS LIKE some prayer meeting. Two middle-aged men start by telling the audience how important it is to pitch in. A booming voice announces the acts, greeted by loud cheers; then some enthusiastic young people jump onto the stage and start talking about their missions. One wants to help women sell their unused clothes and shoes; another to teach children to manage money more responsibly; a third to bring the reinsurance market online at last. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Bad Corporate Marriages: Waking Up in Bed the Morning After

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Bad Corporate Marriages: Waking Up in Bed the Morning After

Ye Cai Santa Clara University – Leavey School of Business

Hersh Shefrin Santa Clara University – Leavey School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

December 27, 2013

Abstract: 
This paper examines corporate risk taking behavior in the wake of unsuccessful merger activities. We find that relative to other firms, firms that made bad acquisitions take both more systematic risk and more idiosyncratic risk. Moreover, higher risk is associated with greater value destruction and stronger corporate governance. The increased risk can be traced to increased cash flow volatility, increased leverage, decreased asset liquidity, more investment in R&D, and more equity-based executive compensation. These findings are in line with the behavioral approach suggesting that in the domain of losses, decision makers generally become more tolerant of risk.

Filed under Research

Baby Birth Costs Vary 10-Fold in Hospitals, Study Finds

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Baby Birth Costs Vary 10-Fold in Hospitals, Study Finds

The cost of giving birth at a hospital can vary by tens of thousands of dollars, a price range that is “largely random” and unexplainable by market factors, a California study found. Read more of this post

Filed under Health

WeChat to manage wealth

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

WeChat to manage wealth

BEIJING, Jan. 17 (Xinhuanet) — Tencent Holdings Ltd pushed into the nation’s booming online financial services sector on Thursday as it announced plans to launch a wealth management service on its dominant mobile messaging app WeChat. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

Hardware startups: Hacking Shenzhen; Why southern China is the best place in the world for a hardware innovator to be

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Hardware startups: Hacking Shenzhen; Why southern China is the best place in the world for a hardware innovator to be

Jan 18th 2014 | From the print edition

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OH NO, NOT another accelerator, you may think. But this one is different. On the tables are not just the obligatory laptops and smartphones but circuit boards, cables, screwdrivers and a few items which look only vaguely familiar. One resembles a very old mobile phone with an oddly shaped knob attached to it. Another, a set of small blocks with switches and buttons, calls to mind a disassembled mixer in a recording studio. Yet another might be the microphone of a computer headset, but is mounted on a pair of glasses.

Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

The Rise of China’s Innovation Machine

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

The Rise of China’s Innovation Machine

Once Mostly Known for Manufacturing Prowess, Chinese Tech Firms Are Challenging Market Leaders

JURO OSAWA in Hong Kong and PAUL MOZUR in Beijing

Jan. 16, 2014 3:00 p.m. ET

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China has long been the factory floor that churns out popular gadgets for companies world-wide, but the country’s own technology products were rarely viewed as leading edge. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

The founder and controlling shareholder of the company that makes equipment for China’s Beidou navigation system has been arrested on charges of misappropriation of funds

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

01.16.2014 17:04

Founder of Company that Makes Beidou Equipment Arrested for Taking Funds

Scandals in Chengdu expand to include He Yan, head of firm that is linked to China’s prized satellite navigation project

By staff reporter Liu Zhuozhe

(Beijing) – The founder and controlling shareholder of the company that makes equipment for China’s Beidou navigation system has been arrested on charges of misappropriation of funds. Gotecom Electronic Technology Co. Ltd. made the announcement regarding He Yan, 53, on January 15. The firm, which is based in Chengdu, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, said the episode is not affecting its business. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Private Chinese Companies Struggle to Invest in America, Expert Says

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

01.17.2014 11:47

Private Chinese Companies Struggle to Invest in America, Expert Says

Executive at company that advises Chinese firms says 90 out of 100 that were interested in going to U.S. saw their attempts fail

By intern reporter Ge Qing

(Beijing) – Investments by private companies into the United States rose last year, but one expert says a large number of firms are seeing their attempts to head to America fail. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

ICBC Won’t Repay Troubled China Trust Product, Official Says

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

ICBC Won’t Repay Troubled China Trust Product, Official Says

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. is rejecting calls to bail out a troubled 3 billion-yuan ($495 million) trust product, a bank official with knowledge of the matter said, stoking concern that the nation’s first default on such high-yield investments may be looming. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Fewer Employees Moved to China in 2013; The heady days of people rushing to China in search of opportunity are waning.

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Jan 16, 2014

Fewer Employees Moved to China in 2013

The heady days of people rushing to China in search of opportunity are waning.

At least one relocation firm has found that more people moved from China to the U.S. last year than the other way around, the first time this has happened since St. Louis-based UniGroup Relocation, which moves more than 260,000 families yearly, started compiling this data in 2006. Meanwhile, the move of household goods into China tracked by another relocation firm, Asian Tigers Mobility, fell 10% in 2013, the largest drop in more than a decade. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Farming cooperative turns Sichuan village into rich town

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Farming cooperative turns Sichuan village into rich town

Staff Reporter

2014-01-17

The farming cooperative has found itself an exemplar in a village in southwest China’s Sichuan province. Its residents, known now as “tuhao” (nouveau riche), made 13 million yuan (US$2 million) in 2013. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Davos Teaches China to Ski as New Rich Lured to Slopes

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Davos Teaches China to Ski as New Rich Lured to Slopes

Davos has attracted Bill Clinton, Angelina Jolie and Bill Gates. Now the Swiss Alpine village is deploying a 27-year-old Chinese ski instructor to appeal to the world’s most populous nation. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Credit tapering in China to continue in 2014: JP Morgan

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Credit tapering in China to continue in 2014: JP Morgan

Xinhua

2014-01-17

China’s lending moderated in 2013 and the growth of broad money supply slowed, triggering forecasts that credit tapering will continue in 2014. China’s new renminbi-denominated lending stood at 8.89 trillion yuan (US$1.5 trillion) in 2013, up 687.9 billion yuan (US$113.6 billion), the central bank announced on Wednesday. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

CPC senior adviser’s 1990 book on corruption revisited

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

CPC senior adviser’s 1990 book on corruption revisited

Lou Yin and Staff Reporter

2014-01-17

The website of Hong Kong’s Ta Kung Pao newspaper recently published a digest from a 1990 book by Wang Huning on corruption, containing insights shared by the former senior adviser to China’s leaders. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Could Chinese Regulators Make Bill Ackman Richer?

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Could Chinese Regulators Make Bill Ackman Richer?

Dealing with regulators can be a challenge for any business. It’s especially true for companies that might be declared lawbreakers at any time.

So it’s no surprise that shares of Nu Skin Enterprises Inc. have plummeted about 37 percent since the Chinese government said that it would investigate the personal-care company on the grounds that it might be an illegal pyramid scheme. The probe comes a day after the publication of a report on the company in the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Compounding China’s Bank-Capital Blues

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Compounding China’s Bank-Capital Blues

Beijing’s Misguided Rules Prevent Fund Raising When It’s Most Needed

AARON BACK

Jan. 16, 2014 3:17 a.m. ET

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Chinese banks are in capital-raising mode after gorging on aggressive lending. Outdated rules barring banks from issuing equity below book value are needlessly hindering the process. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

CNY holidays a stressful time for single offspring

January 17, 2014 Leave a comment

CNY holidays a stressful time for single offspring

Friday, January 17, 2014 – 14:00

Zhang Yue

China Daily/Asia News Network

A Chinese woman bought a full front-page ad in a popular Chinese-language newspaper in Melbourne on Tuesday to publish a letter asking her missing son studying in Australia to get in touch with the family. In it, she asked the young man, Peng, to come home for Chinese New Year celebrations and promised to stop trying to force him into marriage. Peng had ignored phone calls from his parents because they were pressuring him to marry, according to media reports.

The Chinese Melbourne Daily published the front-page ad with the six-line letter from mother to son on Jan 14.Written in bold characters, it read: “Peng, we have tried to reach you so many times by phone, but in vain. So maybe you will hear from us here. We hope you will come home for Lunar New Year. Dad and Mom will never again pressure you to marry. Love you, Mom.” Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

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