Evening Bamboo Insight: 23 Jul 2014

Evening Bamboo Insight: 23 Jul 2014

Macro

1. Investors to Directors, ‘Can We Talk?’ Boards have long shunned speaking with investors for several reasons, including concern about accidentally disclosing sensitive information

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/investors-to-directors-can-we-talk/?ref=business

2. Cash Crops With Dividends: Financiers Transforming Strawberries Into Securities; With its steady income stream, farmland is proving to be a ripe offering for sophisticated investors

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/cash-crops-with-dividends-financiers-transforming-strawberries-into-securities/?ref=business

3. How Low Can Volatility Go? Why Tranquility Keeps Traders Awake at Night

http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/Popups/PrintArticle.aspx?ArticleID=3363708

4. “Hide No Harm” Bill Goes After Top Executives; Could new legislation help law enforcement successfully prosecute a company’s highest executives for corporate misdeeds?

http://ww2.cfo.com/fraud/2014/07/hide-harm-bill-goes-top-executives

5. FASB Mulling a Revamped Income Statement

http://ww2.cfo.com/gaap-ifrs/2014/07/fasb-mulling-revamped-income-statement

Asia Pacific

1. Empowering elderly people key to Japan’s growth: ADB think tank chief

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/07/21/business/economy-business/empowering-elderly-people-key-to-japans-growth-adb-think-tank-chief/#.U84Mw_mSxqU

2. (China) – More autonomy for China’s top graft watchdog: Duowei

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20140722000079&cid=1101

3. (HK) – Next Media/Apple Daily and former Giordano boss and China pariah Jimmy Lai Chee-ying has close links with Burma’s political and military leaders, hobnobbing with its president during a June 2013 trip with a former US defense secretary

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=147610&sid=42661669&con_type=3

4. (HK) – Beleaguered MTR Corp chief executive Jay Walder will step down a year before his contract expires – over the two-year delay of the high- speed rail link to Guangzhou. MTRC risked ‘indigestion’ with five projects at once

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=4&art_id=147559&sid=42655779&con_type=1&d_str=20140721&fc=1

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=11&art_id=147425&sid=42633001&con_type=3&d_str=20140717&fc=7

5. (HK/China) – Shares of China Packaging Group (0572) plunged 39 percent after the company was informed that its major shareholder, Able Success Asia, would no longer be able to exercise its voting right

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=2&art_id=147506&sid=42641304&con_type=1&d_str=20140718&fc=8

6. (India) – Sanitation in India: The final frontier; Fixing dreadful sanitation in India requires not just building lavatories but also changing habits

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21607837-fixing-dreadful-sanitation-india-requires-not-just-building-lavatories-also-changing#sthash.r0fjEZLT.dpbs

7. (India) – India to investigate corruption in healthcare after TV sting operation

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/22/us-india-corruption-idUSKBN0FR0KP20140722

8. (China/Tech) – China has more people going online with a mobile device than a PC

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/21/us-china-internet-idUSKBN0FQ0UL20140721

9. (Isia) – Battered by election, Indonesia’s new president faces party clash

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/22/us-indonesia-election-party-insight-idUSKBN0FR2EU20140722

10. (China) – China’s secretive military cracks open door for glimpse inside

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/22/us-china-defence-idUSKBN0FR0KH20140722

11. (Japan) – Once again, Japan’s baby boomers are asking: What am I?

http://news.asiaone.com/print/news/asia/once-again-japans-baby-boomers-are-asking-what-am-i

12. (India) – Modi’s Ganges clean-up plan may sink amid tough challenge

http://news.asiaone.com/print/news/asia/modis-ganges-clean-plan-may-sink-amid-tough-challenge

Life

1. In an emotional farewell email to colleagues, co-founder Wayne Hsieh criticized Asus’s management style, saying the company’s leaders do not use people based on their abilities but on their personal relationships with them

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20140721000124&cid=1602

2. Successful R&D management

http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2992342

3. Hello Kitty designer defends cat as brand turns 40

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/print/412623.htm

4. Australian invents ‘world’s smallest washing machine’; Australian inventor hopes his ‘travel size washing machine’ will help revolutionise the camping and trekking industry

http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/entrepreneur/australian-invents-worlds-smallest-washing-machine-20140702-3b8qv.html

5. In new comics, paintings and popular books, depictions of Hindu deities are being reimagined

http://online.wsj.com/articles/in-india-hindu-gods-get-a-muscular-makeover-1405996202

6. Why Power in the Workplace Makes People Feel They Control Time; Positions of Authority Create a Sense of Control Over the Clock, Studies Find

http://online.wsj.com/articles/why-power-and-status-in-the-workplace-make-people-feel-they-control-time-1405984403?mod=WSJ_hp_Asia_EditorsPicks

7. In the late 1800s, William Lever was looking at the slums in London and his mission statement is to make cleanliness commonplace. He believed that the humble bar of soap could have a major social impact by being a force for good

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/07/reinventing-the-chief-marketing-officer-an-interview-with-unilever-cmo-keith-weed/

8. Hointer: How a mathematician got micro-robots to sell you jeans

http://www.theage.com.au/business/retail/hointer-how-a-mathematician-got-microrobots-to-sell-you-jeans-20140722-zvqel.html

9. Why the human resources department must go

http://www.brw.com.au/p/leadership/why_the_human_resources_department_QN8cMWKajxMWn0yNHhyaQK

10. Rob Arnott turned the world of passive index investing upside down; Funds running Arnott’s models manage almost $200 billion dollars

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-07-21/masters-in-business-rob-arnott

11. 7 Ways You Can Easily Increase Your Willpower

http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2014/07/willpower/

12. 9 Tricks For Waking Up Earlier

http://www.businessinsider.sg/how-to-wake-up-earlier-2014-7/#.U84VtvmSxqU

13. Does Your Company Keep Its Promises? Despite best intentions, many businesses struggle with “commitment drift.”

http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00267?tid=27782251&pg=all

14. How to Re-Discover Your Motivation

http://www.fastcompany.com/3033268/hit-the-ground-running/how-to-re-discover-your-motivation

15. Why You Lead Determines How Well You Lead

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/07/why-you-lead-determines-how-well-you-lead/

16. Engagement the only way to transcend fear

http://www.todayonline.com/print/707476

17. Do-It-Yourself Leadership Training in China

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/do-it-yourself-leadership-training-in-china

TMT

1. Finland cashes in on cold by luring data storage firms

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/print/412852.htm

2. (Tech/Media) – Netflix, Growing, Envisions Expansion Abroad

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/22/business/media/netflix-says-it-topped-50-million-subscribers.html?ref=business&_r=0

3. Using The Computer to Predict Tech Startup Success; Correlation Ventures trusts only a computer to figure out which tech startups to bet on next. So far it appears to be working

http://forbesindia.com/printcontent/38248

4. (China/Tech) – Alibaba Says It Relies on Markets, Not Connections, To Drive Its Business

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/alibaba-says-it-relies-on-markets-not-connections

5. Corporate computing: Big Blue Apple; A novel alliance may reshape mobile computing for companies

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21607858-novel-alliance-may-reshape-mobile-computing-companies-big-blue-apple

6. Little things that mean a lot: Businesses should aim for lots of small wins from “big data”, that add up to something big

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21607816-businesses-should-aim-lots-small-wins-big-data-add-up-something-big-little

Consumer

1. Fashion: A better business model; Inditex has become the world’s largest fashion retailer. But how long can its dizzying expansion last?

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/a7008958-f2f3-11e3-a3f8-00144feabdc0.html#slide0

Healthcare

1. Probiotics might help lower blood pressure

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/21/us-probiotics-blood-pressure-idUSKBN0FQ20M20140721

2. Probiotic Logic vs. Gut Feelings; Like all over-the-counter dietary supplements, probiotics undergo no premarket screening for safety, effectiveness or even truth in packaging

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/probiotic-logic-vs-gut-feelings/?ref=health

3. Low-cost fertility treatment: In vitro fertilisation, once seen as miraculous, is now mainstream in rich countries. Soon it may be cheap enough to help infertile people in poor places, too

http://www.economist.com/news/international/21607881-vitro-fertilisation-once-seen-miraculous-now-mainstream-rich-countries-soon#sthash.Xs0WKqIX.dpbs

4. Tests for Alzheimer’s are improving. Treatment is still some way off

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21607761-tests-alzheimers-are-improving-treatment-still-some-way-recherche-du

5. A new home for orphans: Shire’s focus on rare-disease treatments may prove a long-term advantage

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21607859-shires-focus-rare-disease-treatments-may-prove-long-term-advantage-new-home-orphans

Investing Process

1. Research – Agency Theory in Practice: a Qualitative Study of Hedge Fund Activism in Japan

2. Research – Large Shareholders, Shareholder Proposals, and Firm Performance: Evidence from Japan

3. Research – Politically Connected Firms and Earnings Informativeness in the Controlling versus Minority Shareholders Context: European Evidence

4. Equities’ great survivors and the value of compounding

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ad4c8714-f85a-11e3-815f-00144feabdc0.html

5. Research – How Many Patents Does it Take to Signal Innovation Quality?