The Future of Energy: Predicting what the energy landscape will look like in 20 years

The Future of Energy

Predicting what the energy landscape will look like in 20 years

Updated Nov. 11, 2013 4:19 p.m. ET

Consider how the energy landscape has changed in the past 20 years. In 1993, the price of oil was a bit over $18 a barrel; it’s around $100 a barrel now. In 1993, the life of a cellphone battery was hardly a concern because there were only 34 million cellphone subscribers world-wide, compared with more than 6.8 billion today. The battery for electric cars mattered even less: It would be another three years before the General Motors EV1 went into production and a year after that before the first Prius went on sale in Japan. Wind farms were a novelty, and solar energy barely registered in the statistics. Read more of this post

How to Cure South Korea’s English Fever?

November 12, 2013, 9:52 AM

How to Cure South Korea’s English Fever?

By Jasper Kim 

How much should a country pay to master the English language? Based on the economics and outcomes of English tuition in South Korea today, the country is throwing excessive amounts at the task with meager results. According to Swiss-based language learning company EF Education First, the average South Korean gets nearly 20,000 hours of English education from kindergarten through university. Much of that tuition comes at private institutes known as hagwon that Korean kids flock to stay ahead in the nation’s hyper-competitive educational race. There are currently over 17,000 hagwon that teach English in South Korea. That’s roughly one hagwon for every 647 students. Read more of this post

Behind the Scenes of Tokyo’s Political Soap Opera

Behind the Scenes of Tokyo’s Political Soap Opera

Shinzo Abe faces plenty of roadblocks in his quest to revive Japan’s sluggish economy. His mentor wasn’t supposed to be one of them. Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is easily the most popular Japanese politician of the last 20 years. Not since Yasuhiro Nakasone in the mid-1980s had a Japanese leader made such a splash domestically and globally. Not coincidentally, both were keen reformers — as Abe, too, claims to be. Read more of this post

Jakarta Mulls Gridlock in 2014

Jakarta Mulls Gridlock in 2014

By Hotman Siregar & Deti Mega Purnamasari on 9:08 am November 12, 2013.

With hordes of cheap, new cars and motorcycles continuing to hit the city’s streets, and the two rail-based public transit networks not expected to be ready until at least 2016, experts have warned that Jakarta faces imminent gridlock next year. Azas Tigor Nainggolan, chairman of the city-funded Jakarta Transportation Council, said on Monday that he was concerned about the lack of effort to curb the number of private vehicles from clogging the city’s streets, particularly in the chronically congested downtown area, and the slow pace of improvement in public transportation. Read more of this post

Hyundai Motor Chief Technology Officer Quits Over Quality Issues

Hyundai Motor Chief Technology Officer Quits Over Quality Issues

Hyundai Motor Co. (005380)’s chief technology officer resigned after a series of recalls dented the South Korean automaker’s reputation for quality. Kwon Moon Sik, who was president of the research and development division, quit yesterday along with two other executives over a chain of quality issues, the Seoul-based company said in an e-mailed statement today. It didn’t say who will replace Kwon. Read more of this post

The Singapore brokerage unit of AMMB Holdings Bhd (AmBank Group), AmFraser, is believed to have exposure of close to S$150mil of financing for trades related to the recent fallout from a penny stock crash

Updated: Tuesday November 12, 2013 MYT 8:17:53 AM

Some snowball effect expected

BY GURMEET KAUR AND YVONNE TAN

PETALING JAYA: The Singapore brokerage unit of AMMB Holdings Bhd (AmBank Group), AmFraser Securities Pte Ltd, is believed to have exposure of close to S$150mil (RM384.61mil) of financing for trades related to the recent fallout from a penny stock crash involving Singapore Exchange Ltd (SGX)-listed Blumont Group Ltd, LionGold Corp Ltd and Asiasons Capital Ltd, sources said. Read more of this post

A simmering battle between Singapore conglomerate Fraser & Neave and its bondholders related to the company’s plans to spin off its property division has drawn the attention of the city state’s central bank

MAS Casts Eyes on F&N’s Spat With Bondholders

By Kit Yin Boey on 4:53 pm November 11, 2013.
Singapore. A simmering battle between Singapore conglomerate Fraser & Neave and its bondholders related to the company’s plans to spin off its property division has drawn the attention of the city state’s central bank. The Monetary Authority of Singapore has approached bankers and investors to gather information on a consent solicitation that F&N launched last week. Read more of this post

Capital-hungry Myanmar firms cautiously drawn to Singapore listings

Capital-hungry Myanmar firms cautiously drawn to Singapore listings

4:11pm EST

By Eveline Danubrata and Jared Ferrie

SINGAPORE/YANGON (Reuters) – At Yangon International airport, large blue and white signs in the arrival and departure halls promote Singapore’s stock exchange as the go-to destination for Myanmar businesses seeking capital. The advertisements underscore Singapore’s nascent role as a magnet for Myanmar companies eager to grow as their country emerges from decades of isolation but frustrated by its crippled banking system and barely existing financial markets. Read more of this post

Regulators must hold UK asset managers to higher standards

November 11, 2013 6:20 pm

Regulators must hold UK asset managers to higher standards

By Patrick Jenkins

Pay and churn should be the focus of UK regulatory reform

By the end of this month, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority will come up with its latest proposals to reform the asset management industry. A consultation paper will focus on customer charging structures, raising further questions over the sector’s murky interactions with the research and sales staff of investment banks. Read more of this post

One Answer to the Index Fund: Build a Better Index

NOVEMBER 11, 2013, 11:10 AM

One Answer to the Index Fund: Build a Better Index

By JEFF SOMMER

PAUL A. SAMUELSON made a startling and significant case for index funds in 1974. In a deliberately provocative essay, Mr. Samuelson, who had already won the Nobel in economic science and written the most influential economics textbook in history, said most professional investment managers should “drop dead.” At the very least, he said, they should “go out of business.” Read more of this post

Investors need to starve the hedge fund beast; The industry model mainly benefits intermediaries

November 11, 2013 7:38 pm

Investors need to starve the hedge fund beast

By Jonathan Ford

The industry model mainly benefits intermediaries, writes Jonathan Ford

Asked in the late 1970s how he saw the outlook for the specialist investment vehicles that he is credited with inventing, Alfred Winslow Jones was no optimist. “Thehedge fund doesn’t have a terrific future,” he said gloomily. Hedge funds’ investment styles were too easily copied, and the inefficiencies on which they thrived too swiftly eroded. They would never, Jones thought, become a big part of the investment scene. Read more of this post

Hedge Funds Are Muscling Into the Stodgy World of Municipal Debt

Hedge Funds Are Muscling Into Munis

Sharp-Elbowed Investors See Potential in the Stodgy World of Municipal Debt

MICHAEL CORKERY and MATT WIRZ 

Updated Nov. 11, 2013 8:01 p.m. ET

Hedge funds are making a large bet on municipal debt, bringing aggressive tactics to a $3.7 trillion market long known as humdrum. The strategies include demanding high interest rates in return for financing local governments, buying the debt of struggling municipalities on the cheap, and trying to profit on rising volatility as many mom-and-pop investors who have dominated the municipal-bond market for decades flee amid deepening fiscal problems in many U.S. cities and states. Read more of this post

Financial Innovation Is Depressing

Financial Innovation Is Depressing

DealBook has a special section today on ideas and innovation on Wall Street and let’s just say it will not inspire too many idealistic Stanford undergrads to stop work on their iPhone apps and take that financial-engineering job at Wells Fargo. It’s all pretty sad stuff. My favorite article in the section is of course the one on innovation in fraud, which it turns out is genuinely fertile ground for creativity, though tell that to the Stanford kids. To be fair, though, there is also innovation in catching fraud, specifically a Commodity Futures Trading Commission Rule, adopted in 2011, that outlaws market manipulation. So! Nice work there CFTC. Read more of this post

Eastern Europe: Which way to turn? Former Soviet states that choose to join the EU trade bloc run the risk of Russian retaliation

November 11, 2013 6:40 pm

Eastern Europe: Which way to turn?

By Neil Buckley and Roman Olearchyk

Former Soviet states that choose to join the EU trade bloc run the risk of Russian retaliation

Vladimir Pirogov, 73, who for 50 years was a trainer at the city stadium in Yalta in the well-funded heyday of Soviet sport, perches these days on a stool just off the Crimean resort’s elegant promenade, selling his paintings to tourists. In what is now Ukraine, his generation still looks east to Russia, he says. “We’re not needed in Europe, not our factories, not our economic potential. We’re mostly Russian speakers here,” says Mr Pirogov. “We want to live with Russia.” Read more of this post

Soured deals: Just a handful of companies have taken goodwill write-downs this year on past acquisitions that have soured. Low premiums, high stock prices and new accounting rules may be letting more firms avoid or delay the charges

Companies Get More Wiggle Room on Soured Deals

EMILY CHASAN and MAXWELL MURPHY

Nov. 11, 2013 8:15 p.m. ET

Last year U.S. companies slashed the value of their past acquisitions by $51 billion because the deals didn’t pan out as expected, according to a study set for release Tuesday. That was the highest yearly total for such write-downs since the financial crisis. This year, however, there have been only a handful of big corporate mea culpas. Suitors are paying the lowest premiums for target companies in nearly 20 years, stocks are trading near records, giving companies cover to avoid write-downs on the value of their assets, and new accounting rules may be allowing more of them to delay the charges. Read more of this post

In Malaysia’s culture of ingratiation, ‘Datuks’ are dime a dozen

In Malaysia’s culture of ingratiation, ‘Datuks’ are dime a dozen
(1 hr 20 mins ago)

For centuries, the Malay royal title “Datuk” – Malaysia’s equivalent of “Sir’’— was an honor that unlocked doors to the elite. But Datuks like K. Basil don’t feel so special these days. “Just throw a stone in the street and you’ll hit a Datuk,” complains Basil, a policeman-turned-politician and one of many who feel the awarding of the coveted titles has got out of hand in a status-obsessed Malaysian society, writes Shannon Teoh of AFP. (pictured, a ‘Datuk’ anointed by a self-styled royal Raja Noor Jan Shah Raja Tuah Shah, stand for a photo before attending a private event at a palace in Gombak, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur). Read more of this post

Sobering Up: China Cracks Down on Binge Drinking

November 11, 2013, 5:20 PM

Sobering Up: China Cracks Down on Binge Drinking

China’s culture of binge drinking at official functions has long been accepted as a ritualized part of doing business in the Middle Kingdom, but a backlash may now be brewing. The government over the weekend demoted a provincial official in northeastern Heilongjiang province and suspended his Communist Party membership for a year after state agents in charge of internal discipline accused him of causing the death of a person who died due to excessive drinking after accompanying him to a banquet,state media reported. Neither the official nor the deceased was named in the reports and the Heilongjiang provincial government didn’t respond to a call for comment. Read more of this post

Gold Vault Opens in China as Bullion Goes From West to East

Gold Vault Opens in China as Bullion Goes From West to East

A gold vault that can store 2,000 metric tons, double China’s projected consumption this year, opened in Shanghai this month as owner Malca-Amit Global Ltd. seeks to benefit from rising demand in Asia’s largest economy. The facility is the biggest for the Hong Kong-based company, and it can also store diamonds, jewelry and art, Joshua Rotbart, precious metals general manager, said in an interview. The site could hold bullion worth about $82.7 billion at today’s price, Bloomberg calculations show. China’s total demand may reach 1,000 tons in 2013, the World Gold Council forecasts. Read more of this post

China reform puts executives on defensive as plenum begins

November 10, 2013 7:06 am

China reform puts executives on defensive as plenum begins

By Tom Mitchell and Jamil Anderlini in Beijing

The men and women who command the heights of China’s economy are on the defensive at a meeting that will set the direction and tone of the country’s new leadership for the next decade. Senior executives from large state-owned enterprises joined governors, generals and ministers as the 376 full and alternate members of the Chinese Communist party’s 18th Central Committee gathered in Beijing at the weekend. Of these four constituencies, it is China’s SOE managers who have attracted the most scrutiny in the run-up to the committee’s “third plenum”, which opened on Saturday. Read more of this post

Carlsberg Seen Thirsting for Tsingtao in Asia : Real M&A

Carlsberg Seen Thirsting for Tsingtao in Asia : Real M&A

Carlsberg A/S (CARLB)’s pursuit of faster growth in Asia may make takeover targets out of Tsingtao Brewery Co. (168) and Beijing Yanjing Brewery Co. (000729) The Danish brewer’s controlling shareholder signaled last month that it will give Carlsberg more leeway to pursue deals. The $15 billion company is eyeing about a half-dozen potential candidates, especially in Asia, including Tsingtao and Yanjing, for a possible purchase, said a person with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be identified as the discussions are private. The Chinese companies each produce some of the most popular beer brands in China, the world’s biggest beer market. Read more of this post

Why Australia’s bank profits defy hard times; ”It is no wonder so many Australians see the big four as vampires”

Why Australia’s bank profits defy hard times

November 11, 2013

Clancy Yeates

Ever wondered how the banks manage to churn out ever-higher profits when the economy’s weak and credit growth is near record lows? To the casual observer it may seem puzzling, to say the least. Despite constant talk of a soft economy, the big four racked up $27.4 billion in cash earnings between them this year, an average yearly increase of 9.5 per cent. Bank chiefs repeatedly trotted out phrases such as ”subdued”. And yet their earnings seemed to defy gravity. So what’s going on? If the economy is weakening and banks are highly exposed to the country’s ups and downs, how do earnings keep growing so strongly? Greens MP Adam Bandt summed up the suspicions many of us have that we are being gouged. ”It is no wonder so many Australians see the big four as vampires,” he said after ANZ’s $6.5 billion full-year profit. Read more of this post

Singapore, Malaysia tough rivals to Thailand’s quest to be medical hub

Singapore, Malaysia tough rivals to Thailand’s quest to be medical hub

Monday, Nov 11, 2013
The Nation/Asia News Network
By Bamrung Amnatcharoenrit

THAILAND – Thailand should prove itself more if it wants to become a regional hub for medical tourism in the long term, competing with arch-rivals Singapore and Malaysia. One major barrier to this quest is politics. If political demonstrations become chaotic to the point of closing airports, this will undermine patients’ confidence, and they might decide to go elsewhere, said Pongsakorn Chindawatana, a professional doctor and also senior director of communication at Bangkok Dusit Medical Services. Read more of this post

Korea’s state firms: Poorly managed, heavily indebted

2013-11-10 11:11

State firms: Poorly managed, heavily indebted

Parliamentary audit finds countless irregularities at land ministry-affiliated companies
By Kim Bo-eun

Koreans often refer to state-run corporations as the ultimate workplace because these jobs not only pay well, but also guarantee work until retirement age. Plus, many of these companies offer additional perks like high performance-based bonuses, severance pay and expensive retirement gifts. Based on these extravagant benefits, you might expect these firms to post excellent profits, but annual parliamentary audits show that they are plagued with debt and corruption. This year’s audit was no exception. The recent National Assembly audit exposed poor management, especially at state-run firms under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport headed by Suh Seoung-hwan. While the audit showed mounting debts at public corporations as a whole, firms under the land ministry accounted for 42 percent of the debt accumulated by all state-owned enterprises. Meanwhile, the audit showed these corporations have low levels of integrity, undue benefits for employees, and little willingness to change. Read more of this post

Dongbu and Hanjin groups will be under tighter scrutiny from financial authorities as the two conglomerates show possibilities of financial troubles

2013-11-11 16:10

Dongbu, Hanjin on watch list

Regulator detects signs of financial distress at firms
By Kim Rahn
Dongbu and Hanjin groups will be under tighter scrutiny from financial authorities as the two conglomerates show possibilities of financial troubles, officials said Monday. Although the groups have struggled to solve liquidity shortages, the authorities plan to spur them on in joint efforts with creditor banks. According to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) Monday, Dongbu and Hanjin agreed with their creditor banks this year to improve their financial structure. Read more of this post

Cash-strapped Korean local gov’ts seek to offload property

Cash-strapped local gov’ts seek to offload property

Cho Han-phil, Ji Hong-gu, Woo Sung-duk

2013.11.11 18:07:18

South Korea’s local authorities in financial woes have decided to put their property holdings up for sale. The move seems inevitable for local governments grappling with tax revenue shortfall and difficulties in raising capital for next year’s budget. Local governments plan to sell their property worth a total of around 1.3 trillion won ($1.2 billion, an estimate), according to the Maeil Business Newspaper’s analysis on the 2014 budget plans of city and province municipalities Monday.  Read more of this post

Cookers, chips and consoles: high-tech Japan’s odd parts

Last updated: November 10, 2013 1:30 pm

Cookers, chips and consoles: high-tech Japan’s odd parts

By Jennifer Thompson in Tokyo

Nostalgic portfolios highlight reluctance to restructure

Decades before the PlayStation and the Walkman saw the light of day, engineers at Sony flirted with the mundane rather than the high-tech. A primitive wooden rice cooker and electrically heated cushions were among the roll of household products manufactured by the Japanese electronics maker. Rivals such as Panasonic, Toshiba, Hitachi and Sharpfollowed suit, regarding their ability to offer a broad range of products and components as a source of strength. Read more of this post

U.S. popcorn makers could face long, expensive road to lose trans fats

U.S. popcorn makers could face long, expensive road to lose trans fats

Fri, Nov 8 2013

By Curtis Skinner

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Microwave popcorn makers could face a long and difficult task ridding their snacks of trans fats, if a U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposal to ban the additives goes into effect. Just ask Orville Redenbacher. Redenbacher’s, a division of ConAgra Foods Inc, spent six years changing its leading line of popcorn, company scientists said on Friday, a day after the FDA made its proposal, which the government said would save 7,000 lives a year. Read more of this post

Japanese companies see Taiwan as bridge to China

November 10, 2013 6:30 pm

Japanese companies see Taiwan as bridge to China

By Sarah Mishkin in Taipei

When Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten decided to expand overseas, it looked first to Taiwan, whose close ties with Tokyo have long made it attractive to Japanese companies eager to escape slow growth at home. “You know how bad the economy has been in Japan – it has only recovered recently,” said Ejiri Yuichi, Rakuten Taiwan’s chief executive, of an economy that has been struggling to restart inflation after years of overall meagre growth. With real wages largely flat, “especially in the service industry, it has indeed been a difficult time”, he said. Read more of this post

Full and timely disclosures important for capital market

Updated: Monday November 11, 2013 MYT 10:40:38 AM

Full and timely disclosures important for capital market

BY RISEN JAYASEELAN

FULL and timely disclosures are the essence of a well-functioning capital market. Without such accurate information, investors will be disadvantaged. The recent case of Ranhill Energy and Resources Bhd indicates that the authorities take this seriously and rightly so. The fine imposed by the Securities Commission (SC) on Ranhill, the company, and its head honcho Tan Sri Hamdan Mohamad, is referred. Read more of this post