Casino wars in Asia: Jackpot delusion might hide serious social consequences; Korea has finally jumped into the ”casino wars” gripping East Asia, by opening up its gambling market for foreign operators

Posted : 2014-03-19 16:57
Casino wars in Asia
Jackpot delusion might hide serious social consequences
Korea has finally jumped into the ”casino wars” gripping East Asia, by opening up its gambling market for foreign operators.
It’s not hard to understand why the government does not want to lag behind its regional rivals, as Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan and even the Russian Far East are tapping into this lucrative service sector. If anything, Korea is a late starter.

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Screen maker’s IPO ‘a disaster’; Shares in Japan Display, the world’s biggest maker of screens for smartphones and tablets and a key Apple supplier, lost more than 15 percent of their value Wednesday following a $3.2 billion initial public offering

Screen maker’s IPO ‘a disaster’
BY HIROSHI HIYAMA
AFP-JIJI
MAR 19, 2014
Shares in Japan Display, the world’s biggest maker of screens for smartphones and tablets and a key Apple supplier, lost more than 15 percent of their value Wednesday following a $3.2 billion initial public offering. Read more of this post

POSCO chief to return 30% of salary

Posted : 2014-03-19 16:49
POSCO chief to return 30% of salary
By Choi Kyong-ae
POSCO’s executives will voluntarily return a portion of their salaries to help the steelmaker boost its profits, the company said Wednesday.
At a meeting with executives held Wednesday, POSCO Chief Executive Kwon Oh-joon said he will return 30 percent of his basic pay until the company’s profits begin to rise, the company said in a statement.

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New Alliances in Battle for Corporate Control; The abrupt rise and increasing success of activist investors are forcing big money managers to reassess their traditionally passive role as shareholders

MARCH 18, 2014, 9:40 PM Comment
New Alliances in Battle for Corporate Control
By DAVID GELLES and MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED
For ages, institutional investors like mutual funds and pension funds were content to take stakes in public companies, trust their managements and bet on long-term gains. Companies trusted that these investors would be passive shareholders and not rock the boat.

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Billionaire Tan Sri Tan Chin Tuan: “You know, Khim, diamonds don’t pay dividends.” “It suddenly made me realise that there is a big difference between an item of show and something that generates a return.”

Chew Gek Khim Unlocks Value at Straits Trading
by Jennifer Schultz Wells | Mar 17, 2014

Despite the legacy of her grandfather, she’s proving herself
Chew Gek Khim recalls a day in her early 20s when she was shopping with her maternal grandfather, wealthy Singaporean banker and philanthropist Tan Chin Tuan. They ended up in a jewellery store where she wanted to make a purchase, but he balked and tried to dissuade her. Finally he said, “You know, Khim, diamonds don’t pay dividends.”

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The Amazon.com of Japan is the world’s biggest online retailer of elephant ivory and whale meat

The Amazon.com of Japan is the world’s biggest online retailer of elephant ivory and whale meat
By Gwynn Guilford @sinoceros March 18, 2014
Countries around the world are burning ivory stockpiles. It’s a powerful symbol against the illegal trade in elephant tusks that resulted in as many as 30,000 elephant deaths last year. But those demonstrations can only be so effective when a legal market for ivory trade exists. And according to a new report (pdf) from the Environmental Investigation Agency, an NGO, one of the world’s biggest digital companies is facilitating not only a brisk business in illegal ivory, but also the sale of meat from endangered whales.
Rakuten Ichiba—the Japanese online marketplace of Rakuten Group, a digital giantthat recently bought messaging app Viber—offers products made from endangered animals that can fetch up to ¥2,640,000 ($28,186) (link in Japanese), shows EIA’s investigation. This might be morally outrageous, but it’s not—at least on the face of it—illegal; Japan claims exceptions to international bans on the the commercial trade of elephant ivory and whale meat. And it shows how futile laws protecting threatened animals are as long as they have loopholes.

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Look beyond Yangon, businesses urged

PUBLISHED MARCH 19, 2014
Look beyond Yangon, businesses urged
JAIRA KOH
THE chief ministers of Myanmar’s various regions yesterday urged Singapore businesses to look more at tapping emerging opportunities outside Yangon. They said at a dialogue arranged by IE Singapore that an international airport was coming up in the Bago region and that Mandalay provides opportunities for traders as it has become a major channel for the growing trade between Myanmar, China and India.

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The pending failure of a major Chinese property developer looks a lot like Pets.com

The pending failure of a major Chinese property developer looks a lot like Pets.com
By Heather Timmons and Gwynn Guilford March 18, 2014
The news that Zhejiang Xingrun Real Estate, a property developer, is close to a 3.5-billion-yuan ($570-million) default is the latest in a slew of high-profile Chinese default risks of late. Though defaults have been relatively few given the scale ofChina’s debt woes, analysts have already turned to historical shorthand to make sense of what’s going on, including:
“Bear Stearns moment”—Bank of America/Merrill Lynch’s David Cui recently likened the corporate bond default of Chaori Solar to Bear Stearns’ 2007 bailout of two of its hedge funds, which set off the first wave of panic about bank investment in subprime mortgages.

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The house that China built

The house that China built
David Keohane | Mar 18 10:55 | 1 comment | Share
From the FT:
China’s central bank and one of its largest state lenders are holding emergency talks over whether or not to bail out a defaulting real estate developer…
In a case which offers a microcosm of the cracks emerging in China’s shadow banking system, Zhejiang Xingrun Real Estate, the provincial developer, had been offering usurious rates of interest to individuals after being shut out by conventional banks.

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Will Tesla’s China Story Lose Its Charge?

Nina Xiang, Contributor
3/18/2014 @ 2:10PM |2,163 views
Will Tesla’s China Story Lose Its Charge?
When 35-year-old Eric Zhu deliberated to which car his family should buy, Tesla Motors didn’t stay long in the race.
Zhu, who works as a senior manager at a Western industrial firm in Beijing, is drawn by Tesla’s 100% electric power and zero emissions promise. As a father of a two-year-old boy, Zhu is willing to compromise a lot for the sake of clean air.

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China’s Secret Vaults: Where Is All The Missing Gold?

Shu-Ching Jean Chen, Contributor
3/18/2014 @ 9:50AM |22,526 views
China’s Secret Vaults: Where Is All The Missing Gold?
China has recently become the world’s largest consumer of gold. Uniquely, it also ranks as both the largest producer and the biggest importer of gold. Yet a big question surrounds the true state of the Chinese demand for gold; the answer would determine how global gold prices are likely to fare. The expectation that Chinese investors will sustain a voracious appetite for gold has helped to spark a recent rebound in gold prices.

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CHART OF THE DAY: A Breakdown Of S&P 500 Company Costs Since 1994

CHART OF THE DAY: A Breakdown Of S&P 500 Company Costs Since 1994
SAM RO MARKETS MAR. 18, 2014, 11:27 PM
Corporate profit margins are right at record highs.
Coming out of the financial crisis, fattening profit margins have helped corporate profits surge despite lackluster revenue growth.

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No easy answers in key leases standard debate

No easy answers in key leases standard debate
BY KEN TYSIAC
MARCH 18, 2014
FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) are struggling to find common ground in their efforts to create a converged standard for financial reporting on leases.

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Geely warns of growing international pressure on Chinese brands

March 19, 2014 12:29 pm
Geely warns of growing international pressure on Chinese brands
By Tom Mitchell in Beijing
One of China’s most successful private car companies has warned that “tremendous cost pressure” is building on already flagging domestic auto brands, and also predicted difficulties overseas as political turmoil in Ukraine and Egypt affect two of its biggest export markets.

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Samsonite confident worst of China’s luxury crackdown is past

March 19, 2014 5:11 am
Samsonite confident worst of China’s luxury crackdown is past
By Jennifer Hughes in Hong Kong
The worst of China’s luxury crackdown has passed, according to Samsonite, the premium luggage maker that warned last year that Beijing’s austerity drive was hurting its high-end sales in the country.

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India’s Common Man party oozes charisma on its poll mission

March 19, 2014 8:58 am
India’s Common Man party oozes charisma on its poll mission
By Amy Kazmin in Bhopal, India

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Frustrations over China increase at US companies

March 19, 2014 6:40 am
Frustrations over China increase at US companies
By Tom Mitchell in Beijing
Almost 80 per cent of US companies participating in an annual survey reported that their China revenues had “increased slightly” or were in decline over the past year, as frustrations mount over everything from government investigations to internet censorship.

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US Pacific Fleet commander warns Asia it risks Crimea-like crisis

March 19, 2014 11:35 am
US Pacific Fleet commander warns Asia it risks Crimea-like crisis
By Ben Bland in Jakarta
The commander of the US Pacific Fleet has hit out at China’s “revanchist tendencies” and warned that Asia-Pacific nations must forsake “unilateral actions and inflammatory rhetoric” or risk stumbling into a Crimea-like crisis that would damage the global economy.

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S Korea regulators launch probe into China banks’ operations

March 19, 2014 8:10 am
S Korea regulators launch probe into China banks’ operations
By Song Jung-a and Simon Mundy in Seoul
South Korean financial authorities have launched an inspection of three Chinese banks’ operations in the country, amid worries about booming demand for renminbi-denominated investment products.

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China’s financial distress turns all too visible

March 19, 2014 7:05 am
China’s financial distress turns all too visible
By George Magnus
Country’s economic change will have deflationary consequences
Investors have a lot to worry about without cause to fret about China, but now they have that too. Trend growth is slowing down, and markets have been shaken up by the actions of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), which is trying to tame a virulent credit boom.

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The Erdogan-Gulen showdown

March 18, 2014 7:56 pm
Turkey: The Erdogan-Gulen showdown
By FT reporters
FT reporters profile two men locked in conflict that threatens legitimacy of country’s government
Fethullah Gulen: the exiled preacher
At the beginning of the year the Turkish government appeared to be starting a run on the country’s biggest Islamist bank, writes Daniel Dombey Institutions such as Turkish Airlines, 49 per cent state-owned, began to withdraw their deposits from Bank Asya, founded by the followers of the preacher Fethullah Gulen
. Within days, hundreds of millions of dollars left the bank.

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Investors must collaborate to innovate

Investors must collaborate to innovate
Posted By AMANDA WHITE On 19/03/2014 @ 12:13 pm In ANALYSIS | No Comments
Institutional investors are sheltered by competition, which in some instances can be beneficial, but it also means they are shielded from competitive forces that drive innovation. A new paper by Gordon Clark and Ashby Monk, looks at why the current model of either insourcing or outsourcing investment management doesn’t allow for innovation, and the models of cooperation and collaboration that can change that.

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Brazil’s Debt-Laden Firms Try to Stay Afloat

Brazil’s Debt-Laden Firms Try to Stay Afloat
Some Ethanol, Mining Companies Are Under Stress
EMILY GLAZER And LUCIANA MAGALHAES
March 18, 2014 6:38 p.m. ET
Brazil weathered its largest-ever bankruptcy filing late last year, but there may be more to come for the embattled South American nation.
As its economy weakens and investor confidence flags, a number of firms that loaded up on debt during the nation’s boom years are poised to follow companies controlled by Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista into bankruptcy protection, according to investors who specialize in distressed debt, bankers and restructuring professionals.
To be sure, nothing on the scale of Mr. Batista´s corporate collapse is expected.

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Stress Tests Won’t Prevent the Next Financial Crisis

Stress Tests Won’t Prevent the Next Financial Crisis
Expected losses under invented scenarios tell us little about risk and reality.
ROSA M. ABRANTES-METZ
March 18, 2014 6:58 p.m. ET
On March 26, the Federal Reserve will release the results of the “stress tests” it conducted on the nation’s 30 largest banks. The findings will purportedly reveal how well a bank can withstand a financial crisis, but the Fed’s decision to implement more complex stress tests doesn’t address what caused the financial crisis of 2008.

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Rule Makers Still Split on Lease Accounting

March 18, 2014, 4:19 PM ET
Rule Makers Still Split on Lease Accounting
EMILY CHASAN
Senior Editor
U.S. and international rule makers remained divided Tuesday in the first of two days of meetings aimed at resolving differences on lease accounting.

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Lenovo is still looking to acquisitions to fuel growth, less than two months after announcing a pair of deals valued at $5 billion that already threaten to stretch the company’s resources

Lenovo to Seek Acquisitions for Growth
Still Looking to Acquisitions After Unveiling Pair of Deals Worth $5 Billion.
LORRAINE LUK and JURO OSAWA
March 18, 2014 12:03 a.m. ET
HONG KONG—Chinese personal-computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd. 0992.HK +1.43%said Tuesday it is still looking to acquisitions to fuel growth, less than two months after announcing a pair of deals valued at $5 billion that already threaten to stretch the company’s resources.

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Japan Hits a Sour Note on Music Sales; Changing Consumer Habits Mean Fewer Ringtones, CDs-Dragging Down Global Result

Japan Hits a Sour Note on Music Sales
Changing Consumer Habits Mean Fewer Ringtones, CDs—Dragging Down Global Result
HANNAH KARP And MIHO INADA
March 18, 2014 2:35 p.m. ET
Even with the recorded-music business stabilizing in many countries, global music revenue shrank last year. The biggest reason: Japan’s music market, the world’s second largest after the U.S., is in free fall.

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Compelling Signs the Chinese Property Boom Is Over; Big Bets Begin to Sour, Showing the First Signs of Deeper Trouble to Come

Compelling Signs the Chinese Property Boom Is Over
Big Bets Begin to Sour, Showing the First Signs of Deeper Trouble to Come
ANDREW BROWNE
March 18, 2014 10:15 a.m. ET
BEIJING—For years, China “bears”—a group of Cassandras ranging from hedge-fund managers to media pundits—have been predicting a crash in China’s residential real-estate market, the single-most-important driver of the Chinese economy.

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Beijing’s Money Moves: Political allocation of ever-expanding heaps of credit, restrictions on international capital flows have prevented China’s economy from adjusting to changing economic conditions

Beijing’s Money Moves
Deposit-rate reform counts for more than a wider yuan band.
Updated March 18, 2014 7:47 p.m. ET
China is finally moving on financial reform, and in the early innings the score is one hit and one miss. The central bank chief last week set an ambitious two-year target for liberalizing the interest rate paid on bank deposits. And on Saturday the central bank announced it will widen the band within which the yuan is allowed to fluctuate, to 2% above or below a midpoint set daily by the central bank from 1%.

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