London’s Crafty Microbreweries Invade Posh Restaurants; “Craft is really accessible, it’s made with passion. Craft brewers do it for love and consumers really embrace that.”

London’s Crafty Microbreweries Invade Posh Restaurants

Tom Byng’s London patrons wash down their burgers with 11,000 craft beers a week, paying 13 percent more for the privilege of supping artisanal Camden Town Gentleman’s Wit rather than mass-produced Peroni Nastro Azzuro. “Craft is really accessible, it’s made with passion,” said Byng, founder of the Byron restaurant chain which has 29 London branches. “Craft brewers do it for love and consumers really embrace that.” Read more of this post

Cath Kidston’s florals are a hit with Asian market as sales boom to more than £100m for the first time since it was founded in 1993; Customers get the quirky Britishness and sense of humour of the brand. In Shanghai, there are a lot of bright printed products, so we fit in really well.

Cath Kidston’s florals are a hit with Asian market as sales boom

Design company now has more stores abroad than in the UK, with annual sales rising over £100m for the first time

Simon Neville

theguardian.com, Monday 12 August 2013 19.08 BST

Cath Kidston’s bright designs have proved to be a recipe for success in China, Japan, Thailand and Korea

Cath Kidston’s floral-print handbags and homeware have proved such a big hit with Asian customers the retailer now has more overseas stores than British ones for the first time. Booming sales in China, Japan, Thailand and Korea helped the designer reach annual sales of more than £100m for the first time since it was founded in 1993. International sales soared by more than 50%. The retailer’s chief executive, Kenny Wilson, said: “The products we sell are universal in their appeal. In Shanghai, for example, there are a lot of bright printed products, so we fit in really well. Customers get the quirky Britishness and sense of humour of the brand. Read more of this post

Regulators Examine Aluminum Warehousing; CFTC Sends Subpoenas to Firms that Store the Metal in Probe Over Prices

Updated August 12, 2013, 8:01 p.m. ET

Regulators Examine Aluminum Warehousing

CFTC Sends Subpoenas to Firms that Store the Metal in Probe Over Prices

SCOTT PATTERSON

WASHINGTON—Federal regulators have begun an investigation into whether some Wall Street banks artificially inflated the cost of aluminum and other metals at the expense of end users and consumers, according to people familiar with the matter. Commodity Futures Trading Commission enforcement officials sent subpoenas last week to firms responsible for storing and delivering aluminum, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. GS -0.27% and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., seeking documents related to their commodities operations as far back as January 2010, the people said. Read more of this post

Iron Ore Gluts Seen Through 2017 on Record Supply

Iron Ore Gluts Seen Through 2017 on Record Supply: Commodities

The seaborne iron ore market is poised for at least four years of expanding gluts as producers from Rio Tinto Group to Vale SA increase supply to a record just as growth in China drops to the slowest pace in a generation.

The surplus will reach 82 million metric tons in 2014, the most since at least 2008, and the glut will keep growing through 2017, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Australia will account for about 66 percent of the supply gains next year, Morgan Stanley says. Iron ore will average $115 a ton in 2014, 17 percent less than now and the least since 2009, according to the median of 10 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Read more of this post

America’s Farm-Labor Pool Is Graying; Growers Say Reliance on Aging Workers Shows Urgent Need for Immigration Overhaul

Updated August 12, 2013, 2:50 p.m. ET

America’s Farm-Labor Pool Is Graying

Growers Say Reliance on Aging Workers Shows Urgent Need for Immigration Overhaul

MIRIAM JORDAN

David Cox, left, tends his almond trees with 20-year employee Domingo Cortez, 58. Mr. Cox says young American workers aren’t as productive. When Bruce Frasier surveys his sprawling south Texas farm during the harvest, he sees “a bunch of grandparents bunching onions,” he says. In California’s Central Valley, nurseryman David Cox says he sees young Americans stacking his trees who are less productive than the older, predominantly Mexican workers he lost to an immigration audit. From Vermont and Michigan to Texas and California, the nation’s long-standing pool of farm labor is graying. “You have to remember that the last amnesty happened 27 years ago,” says Mr. Frasier, referring to a U.S. immigration overhaul in 1986 that legalized 2.7 million immigrants. “The average age I have is pushing 50,” he adds. Government data confirm that the workers who got legal status nearly three decades ago are now 49 years old, on average. The average age of farm workers overall is around 37, according to the data, up from 31 in 2000. Read more of this post

CHART OF THE DAY: How Demographics Will Hinder GDP Growth Around The World For Decades

CHART OF THE DAY: How Demographics Will Hinder GDP Growth Around The World For Decades

ROB WILE AUG. 12, 2013, 5:49 PM 1,598 6

Are demographics the silent GDP killer? This weekend, Cumberland Advisors’ David Kotok pointed us to a recent note from Rob Arnott and Denis Chaves of Research Affiliates that seems to indicate that it’s so. First, they explained a model they developed, which shows that the contribution of real GDP growth per capita increases as ages increase into the mid-30s before turning down. “The average contribution to GDP growth becomes negative between 55 and 60,” they explain. “This does not mean that people begin to consume more GDP than they produce after age 55, only that—on average—workers above age 55 have passed their peak in productivity. Intuitively, the average 60-year-old is more productive than the average 40-year-old, but not so relative to the average 55-year-old. At ages 60 and above, the coefficients decline much more sharply: the mature worker exhibits falling productivity, and in retiring, a worker’s productivity simply falls off a cliff.” Arnott and Chaves then put together estimates of how much of a headwind (and looked back to how much of a tailwind) demographics are giving major economies, based on projected aging trends.

Read more of this post

Irish Banks Chasing Defaulters Who Sleep Well at Night

Irish Banks Chasing Defaulters Who Sleep Well at Night

At the headquarters of Allied Irish Banks Plc in Dublin’s embassy belt, Chief Executive Officer David Duffy is taking aim at borrowers who refuse to repay their home loans.

Strategic defaulters, homeowners who can pay but won’t, account for 20 percent of Allied Irish’s home-loan arrears, the nation’s biggest mortgage lender said on Aug. 1. The bank is fighting back after the government, responding to surging loan delinquencies in the wake of Western Europe’s worst real-estate collapse, made home repossessions easier.

“I want to get past that group as fast as possible because they’re not the people lying awake at night in deep distress,” said Duffy in an interview. Read more of this post

Fed Warns Leveraged ETFs Could Trigger 1987-Style “Cascade” In Stocks

Fed Warns Leveraged ETFs Could Trigger 1987-Style “Cascade” In Stocks

Tyler Durden on 08/12/2013 10:41 -0400

In a 43-page research report, the Federal Reserve has authored a rather concerning tome warning that the mechanical positive-feedback rebalancing of Leverage ETFs (LETFs) resembles the portfolio insurance strategies, which contributed to the stock market crash of October 19, 1987. The impact of LETFs on broad stock-market indexes become significant during periods of high volatility (shown empirically in 2008/9 and H2 2011) as they show that LETF rebalancing in response to a large market move could amplify the move and force them to further rebalance which may trigger a “cascade” reaction. Furthermore, executing orders within a short period of time, such as the last hour of trading, may cause disproportionate price changes (especially in financial stocks). The Fed warns that a significant price reduction at market close may also impair investor confidence with accelerating depressed prices at the close potentially driving large investor outflows overnight. Read more of this post

Louisiana Teachers’ Pension Fund to Invest in Global Junk Bonds

Louisiana Teachers’ Pension Fund to Invest in Global Junk Bonds

The Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana, the manager of $14.7 billion in public employee pension funds, hired AllianceBernstein LP (AB) last week to invest $325 million in global high-yield debt.

The retirement fund reallocated the money, it’s first foray into overseas speculative-grade bonds, to get higher returns in Europe and Asia than are available in the U.S., according to Dana Brown, the system’s director of public markets. Read more of this post

California aims to ‘bottle sunlight’ in energy storage push

California aims to ‘bottle sunlight’ in energy storage push

11:04am EDT

By Braden Reddall and Nichola Groom

SAN FRANCISCO/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – California, whose green ambitions helped the solar and wind industries take root, is taking an essential next step by proposing a sharp rise in energy storage to better integrate renewable power with the rest of the grid. Power from sun and wind fluctuates dramatically, so capturing it for later use makes the supply more predictable. “We can’t just rely on sunlight,” Governor Jerry Brown told the Intersolar conference in San Francisco last month. “We’ve got to bottle the sunlight.” Read more of this post

Oil majors trapped in cycle of spending more but finding less

August 11, 2013 12:17 pm

Oil majors trapped in cycle of spending more but finding less

By Guy Chazan

For the oil majors, quarterly results were once a ticker-tape parade. Last week, they were more like a walk of shame. ExxonMobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell,BP, and Total all suffered a drop in earnings year-on-year. Oil and gas output for all, bar Total, contracted, despite big hikes in capital spending. Costs were up and returns down – even with oil prices at more than $100 a barrel. Companies that just a few years ago bestrode the corporate world like colossi are now in the doghouse, unloved by investors and dismissed by many as dinosaurs. The majors seem trapped in a downward cycle of spending more and more to find and produce less and less oil. Increasingly, investors are ditching them for smaller, more nimble rivals, especially those in the vanguard of North American shale. Read more of this post

Mexico opens up its energy sector to End Mexico’s 75-Year Oil Monopoly; Potentially country’s biggest overhaul since launch of Nafta

August 12, 2013 7:22 pm

Mexico opens up its energy sector

By John Paul Rathbone in Rio de Janeiro and Eduardo Garcia in Mexico City

President Enrique Peña Nieto has unveiled plans to change Mexico’s constitution and open up the country’s energy sector to foreign investors for the first time in 75 years, a move that could unleash billions of dollars of investment from oil majorsstruggling to find new resources elsewhere.

His proposal to loosen the grip on Mexican energy of Pemex, the state oil monopoly, and invite in companies such as ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, is potentially the country’s biggest overhaul since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994. Read more of this post

The boom in corn prices that helped propel the U.S. farm economy is fading amid expectations for a record-high harvest

August 11, 2013, 8:11 p.m. ET

A Corn Boom Starts to Wilt

Expectations for a Record Harvest Sends Prices Tumbling

MARK PETERS And JESSE NEWMAN

OAKLEY, Ill.—The boom in corn prices that helped propel the U.S. farm economy is fading amid expectations for a record-high harvest. Prices are down more than 40% from last year’s all-time highs, to their lowest point in nearly three years. The decline is bringing relief to meat producers and other food companies hurt by steep costs for animal feed and other ingredients made from corn. Lower corn prices also could curb supermarket prices for beef. But the slide is bad news for farmers who saw their incomes surge to the highest levels since the early 1970s, adjusted for inflation, while farmland values ballooned so much that some analysts worried about a bubble. Lower corn prices will squeeze profit margins, farmers who rent land for their crops might struggle to make money, and sales of tractors and other farm supplies likely will suffer. Read more of this post

Reserving a Spot in the Shifting Oil World; For oil companies, resource data are too big to ignore. They carry vital clues about what today’s oil majors will look like tomorrow

August 11, 2013, 8:00 p.m. ET

Reserving a Spot in the Shifting Oil World

For oil companies, resource data are too big to ignore. They carry vital clues about what today’s oil majors will look like tomorrow.

LIAM DENNING

Anyone who watched “Dallas” knows it can be hard to trust oil barons. Yet investors do that every day, particularly on the question of how much oil a baron actually has. While many investors are familiar with proven reserves—which listed U.S. oil companies show in annual reports—executives are also keen to talk up the less-certain barrels beyond these. Despite their more nebulous nature, resource data are too big to ignore. They carry vital clues about what today’s oil majors will look like tomorrow. While there is no agreed definition of resources, energy consultancy Rystad Energy calculates its own estimates. Looking at a sample of 11 of the world’s biggest listed oil companies, there are clear tiers. Royal Dutch Shell,RDSB.LN +1.00% Russia’s Rosneft,PetroChina, 601857.SH +1.50% Exxon Mobil XOM -0.47% and Petróleo BrasileiroPETR4.BR +2.58% are at the top, each holding roughly between 50 billion and 60 billion barrels of oil equivalent, or BOE, under Rystad’s definition. Read more of this post

Tea-Maker’s Woe Signals China Fund Deficit for Entrepreneurs

Tea-Maker’s Woe Signals China Fund Deficit for Entrepreneurs

Dai Jinlian has created more than 200 jobs for villagers picking tea leaves in China’s Zhejiang province since 2008. That wasn’t enough to qualify her for a loan from the nation’s state-controlled banking system. The 65-year-old grandmother, who was denied a 40,000 yuan ($6,500) loan in 2009, relies instead on retained earnings to fund the business she started with 300,000 yuan in savings. “Banks will send you flowers when you are rich, but they won’t even look at you if you’re poor,” said Dai, who sells her “Mother Dai” tea bags through local stores. Read more of this post

Questioning China’s real achievements

Questioning China’s real achievements

Updated: 2013-08-12 02:48

By Andrew Moody ( China Daily)

Sinologist’s views unleash debate about the country’s place in the world and how farit will finally advance

Is China emerging as a potential globalsuperpower or just a partial one? The leadingAmerican Sinologist David Shambaugh makesthe case in his new book, China Goes Global:The Partial Power, that despite being theworld’s second-largest economy, the countryhas a long way to go before it begins to shapethe world in its own image. Read more of this post

China Urbanization to Hit Roadblocks Amid Local Opposition

China Urbanization to Hit Roadblocks Amid Local Opposition

China’s plan to encourage hundreds of millions of rural residents to settle in cities to boost growth faces opposition from local governments, according to Li Tie, an official with the nation’s top economic planning agency.

Officials, researchers and company executives highlighted challenges at an urbanization forum in Beijing on Aug. 10. They cited the strain on local-government finances, the dangers of overbuilding and the cost of scrapping the hukou, or residence permit, system that denies migrants the welfare, health and education benefits of city dwellers.

Premier Li Keqiang has championed urbanization as a “huge engine” for growth as he seeks to shift the world’s second-largest economy toward a model that relies on consumption rather than investment and exports. As policy makers draft plans for the new leadership’s reform agenda ahead of a key Communist Party meeting later this year, Li is grappling with vested interests that could stymie some of his plans. Read more of this post

China trips up retail grocery chains; “The reality is that growing a grocery store chain in Asia is very difficult – ParknShop is dominant in Hong Kong but has struggled elsewhere”

August 11, 2013 2:26 pm

China trips up retail grocery chains

By Paul J Davies in Hong Kong

If Tesco’s joint venture with China Resources is an admission of defeat for the UK supermarket group in the world’s second-largest economy, it is also a warning to potential bidders for ParknShop.

Foreign grocery store operators might be tempted to see the Hong Kong-based chain – the subject of a recently announced “strategic review” by parent Hutchison Whampoa – as a stepping stone into China, but the costs and difficulties of growing a fresh food business in such a vast country are easily underestimated. Read more of this post

China to set up more private banks to help small firms; Banks are encouraged to tolerate higher non-performing loans when they lend to smaller firms

China to set up more private banks to help small firms

1:45am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s cabinet has unveiled plans to set up more private banks to boost financial support for cash-starved smaller firms, in the latest bid to bolster the slowing economy. “We will actively develop small-sized financial institutions and open up the channel for private capital to enter the financial sector,” the cabinet said in a set of guidelines published on the central government’s website: www.gov.cn. “We will promote trials by private capital to initiate the establishment of private banks responsible for their own risks, as well as financial leasing companies and consumer finance companies and other financial institutions.” Read more of this post

China Poised to Gain Control as Shipyard Shakeout Looms

China Poised to Gain Control as Shipyard Shakeout Looms: Freight

China grew into the world’s leading shipbuilder over the last decade as hundreds of private yards opened to compete with state-run companies. Now, the government is poised to regain control as the industry heads for consolidation.

The number of shipyards in China has swollen to 1,647, contributing to a global capacity glut. To stabilize the industry, one third to a half of the yards will probably have to disappear through acquisitions and closings, according to executives and analysts. Read more of this post

Beijing Plates Harder to Win Than Roulette Spur Loopholes

Beijing Plates Harder to Win Than Roulette Spur Loopholes: Cars

Raising the money was once the big obstacle to auto ownership in China. Now it’s getting the right license plates.

To ease congestion in the biggest cities, officials are trying to cap the number of vehicles. In Beijing, residents have a better chance of winning at roulette than in the capital’s monthly lottery for new auto licenses. In Shanghai, buying a set of plates in the city’s auction system can mean spending more than on the car itself.

Small wonder then that resourceful motorists are finding ways around the rules. An entire industry has sprung up to help them, from services that register cars in other towns, to brokers of surplus licenses to thieves and counterfeiters of plates. Read more of this post

A credit crisis in Shenmu, a bustling northwest China county that built its riches on coal, highlights urgency of economic transition

Credit crisis highlights urgency of economic transition

English.news.cn   2013-08-11

XI’AN, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) — A credit crisis in Shenmu, a bustling northwest China county that built its riches on coal, has stoked concerns regarding how quickly the country can complete its economic transition. Hundreds of underground banks that mushroomed in Shenmu during more prosperous times have failed to collect large amount of debts, as prices of coal and real estate have fallen sharply. Lured by annual earnings of 20 percent, more than 20 billion yuan (3.3 billion U.S. dollars) in private funds is believed to have swarmed into local underground banks, which previously lent to investors at annual rates of more than 30 percent, according to a local resident surnamed Meng. The borrowers could invest the funds in coal mines or real estate for higher profits, Meng said. Read more of this post

In North Asia, a Growing Crisis of Confidence in Nuclear Power

In North Asia, a Growing Crisis of Confidence in Nuclear Power

By Faith Hung & Antoni Slodkowski on 3:38 pm August 9, 2013.
Taipei/Tokyo. A nuclear power plant in Taiwan may have been leaking radioactive water for three years, the government has said, adding to a growing crisis of confidence in North Asia about nuclear safety.

Japan is struggling to contain radioactive water pouring out of the Fukushima nuclear plant that was wrecked by a 2011 tsunami. In South Korea, prosecutors are conducting a massive investigation into forged safety certificates and substandard parts at many of its reactors. Read more of this post

UGL to Spin Off Property Unit DTZ After Posting 45% Drop in Profit; Acquired DTZ (Revenue $1.1 Billion) in Dec 2011 for $120.2 Million Vs Singapore’s ERA $103 Million (Revenue $274 Million)

UGL to Spin Off Property Unit After Posting 45% Drop in Profit

UGL Ltd. (UGL), the Australian company that acquired U.K. real estate broker DTZ Holdings Plc in 2011, plans to split its operations into two listed companies by June 2015 to allow each to follow its own growth strategy.

UGL will create two companies, one focused on global property services and the other on engineering, construction and maintenance services in Australia, New Zealand and Asia, it said in a statement to the Australian stock exchange today. The company today reported underlying profit after tax in the 12 months to June 30 fell 45 percent from a year ago to A$92.1 million ($84.7 million). Read more of this post

Ticketmaster Wants in on the Scalping Act; Resellers, Long the Enemy, Invited to List Tickets on New TM+ System

August 11, 2013, 6:11 p.m. ET

Ticketmaster Wants in on the Scalping Act

Resellers, Long the Enemy, Invited to List Tickets on New TM+ System

HANNAH KARP

Live Nation Entertainment Inc. LYV -1.23% and its Ticketmaster subsidiary have a new strategy for dealing with their sworn enemies, ticket scalpers: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Heavy-metal fans looking for tickets to see Black Sabbath at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre near Chicago this month are getting a taste of the new approach. On Live Nation’s website, an unusual seating map lists available face-value seats right alongside pricier seats being offered for resale by others. A block of seats nine rows from the stage was recently listed for their face value of $156 each, including fees; one row back, a reseller was offering a pair for $360.80 each. Read more of this post

AmBev Weathering Brazil’s First Beer Drop-Off in Decade

AmBev Weathering Brazil’s First Beer Drop-Off in Decade

Brazilians are drinking less beer for the first time in a decade. Cia. de Bebidas das Americas, Latin America’s biggest brewer, says it can still boost profit.

AmBev, as the Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ABI) unit is known, is promoting higher-margin premium beers and repackaging cheaper offerings to make them more affordable after a surprise volume drop, Chief Executive Officer Joao Castro Neves said last week in a conference call. It’s also expanding in Brazil’s North and Northeast, where sales aren’t slowing as in other regions.

“Even though we’re expecting volumes to be down, that’s a volume number, not a profit number,” Lauren Torres, an HSBC Holdings Plc analyst, said by telephone from New York. “They could actually still grow their company, still generate cash and pay dividends.” Read more of this post

CFTC subpoenas metals warehousing firm as inquiry heats up

CFTC subpoenas metals warehousing firm as inquiry heats up

2:03am EDT

By Josephine Mason

LONDON (Reuters) – The U.S. commodities market regulator has subpoenaed a metals warehousing firm, seeking all of its documents and communications related to the London Metal Exchange since January 2010, as an inquiry into complaints about inflated metals prices gathers steam.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sent the subpoena last week, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said, after a letter from the regulator last month ordered the warehouse firm to preserve emails, documents and instant messages from the past three years. Read more of this post

Oil Sands Industry Turns to Algae to Appease Obama

Oil Sands Industry Turns to Algae to Appease Obama

Canada’s response to President Barrack Obama’s challenge to reduce emissions of global-warming gases from the oil sands starts with sewage and algae.

The paste-like crude extracted from the oil sands is softened by heat and steam to make it flow though pipelines. Burning natural gas to process the fuel creates carbon dioxide that researchers believe can be combined with waste water and fed to algae, which can be processed into cattle feed and other useful products.

“We’re taking CO2 and making it into a valuable product,” said John Parr, vice president at Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNQ), the country’s third-largest oil-sands producer by market value, in a phone interview. “There’s a business case that can be made for it.” Read more of this post