Yeo’s Lures Suitors Seeing to Win Over Owners: Real M&A

Yeo’s Lures Suitors Seeing to Win Over Owners: Real M&A

Yeo Hiap Seng Ltd. (YHS) would be among the most alluring targets in Asia’s booming drinks market if it weren’t for the Singaporean company’s controlling family. With a factory in China and sites planned for Cambodia and Indonesia, Yeo’s offers acquirers a ready-made distribution network, said CMC Markets. The $1.18 billion seller of soy milk and chilled melon tea has more than doubled its profit in two years, and rivals such as Suntory Beverage & Food Ltd. (2587) are seeking food and drinks assets in emerging markets. Read more of this post

The isotonic drink 100Plus was the first to be formulated and launched in Malaysia as a sports drink under the F&N Group in 1983

Updated: Saturday November 16, 2013 MYT 1:42:46 PM

F&N, already famous brand not resting on its laurels

BY JOY LEE
PHOTOS BY BRIAN MOH

The isotonic drink 100Plus is a brand not unknown to many. The drink was the first to be formulated and launched in Malaysia as a sports drink under the F&N Group in 1983. And Khalid Alvi, managing director of F&N Beverages Marketing Sdn Bhd believes that 100Plus continues to enjoy a loyal and significant following among Malaysians. Read more of this post

Increase transparency in property prices; Companies factor in sales gimmick freebies into the cost of the property

Updated: Saturday November 16, 2013 MYT 9:00:04 AM

Increase transparency in prices

BY CHANG KIM L OONG

Companies factor in freebies into the cost of the property

DEVELOPERS often offer sales gimmicks and marketing ploys like free legal fees, rebates, air-conditioners and furniture. Budget 2014, however, seems to make it a requirement that developers be transparent about their property prices. Read more of this post

London Lures Billionaires as Mansions Seen as Safe Haven

London Lures Billionaires as Mansions Seen as Safe Haven

“We’ve had offers of around 25 million pounds, but they aren’t quite high enough,” says Noel de Keyzer, a veteran broker for Savills Plc (SVS), a London-based real estate agency. We are standing in a surprisingly sunlit subterranean family room beneath the garden of 29 Brompton Square in Knightsbridge, on the market for 27.5 million pounds ($44.3 million). Damien Hirst butterfly prints hang on the earth-tone walls of the recently renovated, fully furnished 1820s house. Read more of this post

Young and Educated in Europe, but Desperate for Jobs; “But that doesn’t stop the feelings of guilt. On the bad days, it’s really hard to get out of bed. I ask myself, ‘What did I do wrong?’”

November 15, 2013

Young and Educated in Europe, but Desperate for Jobs

By LIZ ALDERMAN

MADRID — Alba Méndez, a 24-year-old with a master’s degree in sociology, sprang out of bed nervously one recent morning, carefully put on makeup and styled her hair. Her thin hands trembled as she clutched her résumé on her way out of the tiny room where a friend allows her to stay rent free. She had an interview that day for a job at a supermarket. It was nothing like the kind of professional career she thought she would have after finishing her education. But it was a rare flicker of opportunity after a series of temporary positions, applications that went nowhere and employers who increasingly demanded that young people work long, unpaid stretches just to be considered for something permanent. Read more of this post

Why should Britain build new towns when it already has great cities? Awarding prizes for the urbanisation of the countryside makes no sense while existing cities are given Cinderella status

Why should Britain build new towns when it already has great cities?

Awarding prizes for the urbanisation of the countryside makes no sense while existing cities are given Cinderella status

Simon Jenkins

The Guardian, Thursday 14 November 2013 20.31 GMT

I still wake at night sweating over the time at school when I came bottom in art. The teacher felt he should embrace town planning and told the class to design a city. We were each given a large sheet of paper with a wavy line across it for a river. We were issued with rulers, compasses and set squares. I was nonplussed. Others were beavering away with grids and circles while I gazed at the paper in despair. I saw no city. At last I doodled some roads wandering away from the river. I drew bridges and spattered the page with random lanes, streets, squares and factories. The teacher looked over my shoulder and was appalled. “You have simply drawn London,” he said. He tore up my masterpiece and put me bottom of the class. He apparently expected me to design Brasília, or at least Crawleynew town. I was mortified. Read more of this post

What Yellen Didn’t Tell Congress And Why It Matters

What Yellen Didn’t Tell Congress And Why It Matters

ALISTER BULL, REUTERS NOV. 17, 2013, 8:05 AM 1,195 3

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The most revealing thing about Janet Yellen’s widely praised Senate confirmation hearing performance last week might not have been what she said, but what she didn’t say – and how she didn’t say it. President Barack Obama’s nominee to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve smiled and nodded her way through a two-hour hearing on Thursday without giving the Senate Banking Committee any real clues as to how she views near-term monetary policy choices. Read more of this post

What the financial media don’t want you to know: the myth of the merger scoop

What the financial media don’t want you to know: the myth of the merger scoop

By John McDuling @jmcduling November 15, 2013

The “merger scoop” has been a staple of financial journalism for decades. Careers, and even entire business models, have been built around being the first to report that Company Y is buying Company Z. But there is an alternate view that deals scoops are far from the pieces of hard-hitting, journalistic brilliance they are often portrayed to be: In fact they are almost always the result of strategically calibrated leaks in the endgame of a given deal. Read more of this post

Rate rise set to put stake through heart of zombie companies

November 14, 2013 6:10 pm

Rate rise set to put stake through heart of zombie companies

By Brian Groom, Business and Employment Editor

Stores Unlimited, not its real name, looked a classic “zombie company” – a topic back in the news as the prospect of higher interest rates means more struggling businesses face insolvency. Four years ago, the southeast England retailer, with a turnover of £30m, was losing £2m a year and barely generating enough cash to pay the interest on its £10m debt. In previous recessions “it would have been curtains”, said the turnround professional sent in to rescue it. Read more of this post

Markets are betting QE cannot last much longer

November 15, 2013 11:29 am

Markets are betting QE cannot last much longer

John Authers

Cracking the code of the new Federal Reserve chief will be key

Ultimately, the Federal Reserve will remove its extreme policies of monetary stimulus, because ultimately the US economy will stage a recovery. And ultimately, the remarkable onward march of the US stock market will be thwarted and go into reverse. The problem is to work out what “ultimately” means, and exactly when these things will happen. Read more of this post

Italy’s luxury property sector proves beacon of hope in recession

November 15, 2013 1:39 pm

Italy’s luxury property sector proves beacon of hope in recession

By Guy Dinmore and Giulia Segreti in Rome

An imposing bronze statue of a gladiator armed with trident and net overlooks the lobby paved with delicate yellow Siena marble illuminated by Murano crystal chandeliers from Venice. There is no mistaking the Italian character of the Regina Baglioni in Rome’s renowned Via Veneto, but its new owner is the ruling family of Qatar, which bought the five-star hotel through its Mayhoola for Investments fund after acquiring Italian designer Valentino last year for a reported $850m. Read more of this post

It’s Fed Versus Moody’s for ‘Most Wrong’ Crown

It’s Fed Versus Moody’s for ‘Most Wrong’ Crown

Who was more wrong in the run-up to the financial crisis of 2008: the Federal Reserve or Moody’s Investors Service? This isn’t an academic question; both organizations are still hugely relevant to shaping the way we see our financial system and the risks it contains. And both are now apparently underestimating the dangers again. To be fair, the thinking at both places has shifted, but not anywhere close to enough. The reason for this is simple: The incentives that encouraged their misperceptions before 2008 remain in place today. Read more of this post

El-Erian: Have we overestimated the power of the central banks?

Have we overestimated the power of the central banks?

Governments that once resented central banks’ power are now happy to have them compensate for their own economic-governance shortfalls

Mohamed El-Erian

theguardian.com, Wednesday 13 November 2013 15.29 GMT

History is full of people and institutions that rose to positions of supremacy only to come crashing down. In most cases, hubris – a sense of invincibility fed by uncontested power – was their undoing. In other cases, however, both the rise and the fall stemmed more from the unwarranted expectations of those around them. Read more of this post

Forget data and rhetoric, Fed liquidity’s the only show in town

Forget data and rhetoric, Fed liquidity’s the only show in town

8:27am EST

By Jamie McGeever

LONDON (Reuters) – For all the fevered speculation about when the Federal Reserve will begin scaling back its monetary stimulus, market volatility has been taking a leisurely nap, suggesting investors see no major shocks on the horizon to derail their bets. Low market volatility is a sign markets expect no “taper” any time soon, or that they are steeled for a reduction in the pace of the Fed’s bond-buying if it comes. Read more of this post

Fair value lessons from ‘London whale’; Regulators determined to safeguard investors’ interests as valuation models vary

November 15, 2013 11:24 am

Comment: Fair value lessons from ‘London whale’

By Mark Hepsworth

Regulators determined to safeguard investors’ interests as valuation models vary

The US justice department’s civil and criminal charges against two traders at JPMorgan in connection with the so-called “London whale” trading losses have kept the methods employed by banks and investors for valuing complex securities in the spotlight. Valuing a bond or a derivative can be challenging for a variety of reasons. Foremost among them is that a large portion of these instruments do not trade frequently, if at all, in over-the-counter markets. Read more of this post

Dubai Expat Rents Exceed Pay Hitting Competitiveness

Dubai Expat Rents Exceed Pay Hitting Competitiveness

Sarah El-Said is relocating for the fourth time since coming to Dubai from New Jersey in 2008. The mother of two and her husband will pay 43 percent more for a similar-sized apartment, moving their children away from friends after disagreeing with their landlord over terms of a new lease. “This is insane,” said El-Said, who pays 8,750 dirhams ($2,400) per month for an apartment on the Palm Jumeirah manmade island. “It’s like you have to move house every two years. You feel no stability in where you live and you’re always at the mercy of landlords whose sole interest is making more money.” Read more of this post

Caught in Unemployment’s Revolving Door; Some economists fear that the long-term unemployment crisis affecting millions of Americans might be a permanent change, with far-reaching and damaging consequences

November 16, 2013

Caught in Unemployment’s Revolving Door

By ANNIE LOWREY

On a cold October morning, just after the federal government shutdown came to an end, Jenner Barrington-Ward headed into court in Boston to declare bankruptcy. It took weeks to put the paperwork together, given that her papers and belongings were scattered across the country — there was a broken-down car and boxes of paperwork in Virginia Beach, clothes in Colorado and personal possessions at a friend’s house in Somerville, Mass. She managed to estimate her income — maybe $5,000 last year, but maybe half that this year — from odd jobs. Soon, she would officially have nothing. Read more of this post

Buying Low Thwarted by Narrowest Stock Valuation Gap Ever

Buying Low Thwarted by Narrowest Stock Valuation Gap Ever

Cheap is converging with expensive in the American equity market, narrowing options for investors looking for bargains after the broadest rally on record lifted almost 90 percent of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index this year. The difference in valuations shrank to the smallest since at least 1990 after companies such as Hormel Foods Corp. and CenterPoint Energy Inc. rose to levels that match Ralph Lauren Corp. and Citrix Systems Inc., whose five-year average profit growth rate is twice as big. A measure of the dispersion of price-earnings ratios in the S&P 500 compiled by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. narrowed to 41 percent in June, the lowest on record, and held around that level since. Read more of this post

Bond Investors Should Brace for Higher Rates

Bond Investors Should Brace for Higher Rates

Rise Will Likely Be More Gradual Than Last Summer’s

TOM LAURICELLA

Nov. 16, 2013 8:32 p.m. ET

After a sharp selloff hit the bond market earlier this year, investors have gotten a reprieve: The Barclays BARC.LN -0.22% Capital U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, a widely watched benchmark tracking total returns on government and corporate bonds, was down as much as 3.9% for the year at the start of September. As of last week, it was down only 1.8%. But bond-fund managers warn that investors should brace for a resumed rise in interest rates—and the potential for more losses—over the coming year. Read more of this post

Andy Kessler: Private Startups, Where Investor Dollars Often Go to Die; Now anyone can join the crowd to fund startups—but most are crapshoots. Trust me, I know

Andy Kessler: Private Startups, Where Investor Dollars Often Go to Die

Now anyone can join the crowd to fund startups—but most are crapshoots. Trust me, I know.

ANDY KESSLER

Updated Nov. 15, 2013 6:57 p.m. ET

When President Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act in April 2012, he hailed it as “exactly the kind of bipartisan action we should be taking in Washington to help our economy.” Well, maybe. Some JOBS Act provisions kicked in right away. “Emerging growth companies”—those with under $1 billion in revenues—are exempt from many reporting provisions of Sarbannes-Oxley. And so Twitter, TWTR -1.59% for example, only had to show two years of audited results (instead of three) in its IPO filing. And private companies can now have 2,000 investors, up from 500, before they have to file annual reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Less information is never better. Read more of this post

Aluminium traders accused over Bahrain fraud

Last updated: November 15, 2013 9:42 pm

Aluminium traders accused over Bahrain fraud

By Caroline Binham, Legal Correspondent

Aluminium traders from Glencore, Mitsui and Sojitz made payments to one of Bahrain’s most senior royals who is at the centre of a high-profile corruption trial, a London court heard. Sheikh Isa bin Ali al-Khalifa, the former chairman of Alba, Bahrain’s state-run aluminium producer, and who was also the minister of finance and close to the Gulf state’s influential prime minister, ordered the system as a way “to control the flow of money” to and from Alba, a jury heard on Friday amid the trial of Victor Dahdaleh, a “power broker” accused of creaming 10 per cent off contracts that he negotiated. Read more of this post

Don’t ignore Myanmar politics, Suu Kyi tells EU investors as it heads towards crucial 2015 elections

Don’t ignore Myanmar politics, Suu Kyi tells EU investors

Thursday, November 14, 2013 – 21:43

AFP

YANGON – Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi told investors at a European Union forum Thursday that business leaders should not ignore the country’s political challenges as it heads towards crucial 2015 elections. The veteran activist, who rejected suggestions that her party would slow economic progress if it came to power, said constitutional change was imperative for the economic development of the nation, seen as a key regional developing market. “Anybody who encourages business or investment or any other activity in Burma while at the same time totally ignoring the need to amend the constitution is not being pragmatic,” she said, using the country’s former name. Read more of this post

Is This a Bubble? As stocks Hit Records, Some Analysts and Economists Are Getting Worried. Here’s What to Do Now

Is This a Bubble?

As stocks Hit Records, Some Analysts and Economists Are Getting Worried. Here’s What to Do Now.

JOE LIGHT

Nov. 15, 2013 5:59 p.m. ET

At first, it sure looks like a bubble. Some hot stocks have more than doubled in price so far this year. The initial-public-offering market has been torrid. Small investors are buying stocks again. The “bubble talk” flared up even more afterTwitter TWTR -1.59% started trading on Nov. 7, when the social-media company’s shares surged 73%. They still are up 69%. Electric-car company Tesla MotorsTSLA -1.56% has rocketed 300% higher in 2013, and online retailing giant Amazon.comAMZN +0.48% has jumped 47%. There are so many superlatives in the stock market that it is easy to forget the S&P 500 has set 36 records this year on the way to its 26% gain—or that the federal debt-ceiling crisis threatened to disrupt the economy just a month ago. During the U.S. Senate confirmation hearing Thursday for Janet Yellen, the nominee to replace Ben Bernanke as head of the Federal Reserve, Sen. Mike Johanns (R., Neb.) said he thinks the Fed’s loose monetary policy is pumping up the stock and real-estate markets. “What am I missing here?” he said. “I see asset bubbles.” Ms. Yellen responded, “We have to watch this very carefully, but I don’t see this as an asset bubble.” Read more of this post

Hong Kong Property Still in Danger of Overheating, HKMA Says, and a rise in interest rates would “indisputably” affect the city

Hong Kong Property Still in Danger of Overheating, HKMA Says

Hong Kong’s property market is still in danger of overheating and a rise in interest rates would “indisputably” affect the city, Norman Chan, chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority said today. The outlook for Hong Kong’s property market was uncertain and it wasn’t clear whether it had entered a downward cycle, Chan said at a legislative briefing. Emerging markets would face the risk of capital outflow, currency depreciation and a decline of asset prices once the U.S. Federal Reserve starts tapering stimulus, he said. Read more of this post

Playing China’s Investing Frontier; The move by China to open its local stock markets is triggering a new wave of ETFs

Playing China’s Investing Frontier

The move by China to open its local stock markets is triggering a new wave of ETFs.

MURRAY COLEMAN

Nov. 15, 2013 6:28 p.m. ET

The $1.2 trillion stock market in mainland China—home to the world’s second-largest economy—is opening up even more to foreign investors, but hazards still abound. The Deutsche Bank‘s DBK.XE -0.35% db X-trackers Harvest CSI 300 Index ETF,ASHR +4.36% the first U.S.-listed exchange-traded fund to invest directly in China’s A-shares, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Nov. 6. A-shares, which trade on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges, have been largely closed off to foreign investors. Read more of this post

In win for Big Oil, U.S. proposes biofuel mandate cut

In win for Big Oil, U.S. proposes biofuel mandate cut

6:09pm EST

By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration proposed on Friday slashing federal requirements for U.S. biofuel use in 2014, bowing to pressure from the petroleum industry and attempting to prevent a potential fuel crunch next year. It was the first cut to renewable fuel targets written into a 2007 law, and seen as a clear win for oil refiners and a loss for biofuel producers. It followed a prolonged lobbying blitz on both sides of the issue. Read more of this post

Beware Beijing’s Commitment Issues; First Up on the Reform Plans: Tackling Overcapacity

Beware Beijing’s Commitment Issues

AARON BACK

Nov. 15, 2013 10:50 a.m. ET

China is once again promising an ambitious reform agenda. The latest policy vision is a welcome indication that Beijing understands the economic challenges the country faces as it tries to shift to a consumption-led model from an investment-driven one. Still, given Beijing’s track record of over-promising and under-delivering, skepticism is in order. Read more of this post

Could You Live Without Private Equity? A Reporter’s Quest to Ditch PE-Backed Products Means Giving Up Movies, Social Media — Even, Sometimes, the Bathroom; PE firms spent $398 billion buying up a total of 2,176 U.K. companies from 2002 to 2012

Could You Live Without Private Equity?

A Reporter’s Quest to Ditch PE-Backed Products Means Giving Up Movies, Social Media — Even, Sometimes, the Bathroom

BECKY PRITCHARD

Nov. 15, 2013 1:01 p.m. ET

It can be hard enough finding a public toilet in London. Try finding one that doesn’t use bathroom fittings made by a private equity-backed company. That is just one of the challenges I faced after deciding to spend a week avoiding anything touched by this giant industry. I couldn’t go to the office. I had to give up FacebookFB +0.04% and Twitter. Even brushing my hair was a no-no. Read more of this post

Malaysia’s seafoood industry hit with millions of ringgit worth of charges when a new ruling comes into effect today, eroding the competitive edge of the local seafood industry

Seafoood industry hit with millions of ringgit worth of charges

Friday, November 15, 2013 – 09:36

David Tan

The Star/Asia News Network

GEORGE TOWN – The seafood industry is likely to be hit with millions of ringgit of export and import charges annually when a new ruling comes into effect today, eroding the competitive edge of the local seafood industry. Malaysian Frozen Foods Processors’ Association (MFFPA) secretary Saw Hai Earn told StarBiz that the Malaysian Quarantine & Inspection Services (Maqis) was imposing exportation and importation inspection charges of RM2.50 for not more than 50kg of seafood, RM5 per container of less than 100kg of seafood and RM0.05 per kg of seafood for exports of more than 100kg of fish. Read more of this post

China to ease one-child policy

China to ease one-child policy: Xinhua

Friday, November 15, 2013 – 20:58

AFP

BEIJING – China will relax its hugely controversial one-child policy, state media said Friday, in a major policy shift announced days after a meeting of China’s top Communist Party leaders. Couples will be allowed to have two children if one of the parents is an only child, the official news agency Xinhua reported, citing a “key decision” made by leaders at this week’s gathering, known as the Third Plenum. The policy was brought in during the late 1970s to control China’s huge population, the world’s largest. But it has at times been brutally enforced, with authorities relying on permits, fines and, in some cases, forced sterilisations and late-term abortions, with pictures of the results causing horrified reactions. Read more of this post