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Mattel Gives Barbie a Makeover for China; U.S. Toy Maker Launches Fresh Effort to Endear All-American Doll to Chinese Consumers

Mattel Gives Barbie a Makeover for China

U.S. Toy Maker Launches Fresh Effort to Endear All-American Doll to Chinese Consumers

U.S. toy manufacturer Mattel is aiming to fill Chinese toy chests by outfitting its Barbie dolls and other products to better suit Chinese tastes. Laurie Burkitt speaks with Mattel’s Asia-Pacific Senior Vice President Peter Broegger about the company’s new strategy in China.

LAURIE BURKITT

Updated Nov. 7, 2013 8:16 p.m. ET

BEIJING—Barbie closed her swank Shanghai mansion two years ago, after China’s parents turned up their noses at her pink ball gowns and Ken’s polo shirt-and-sweater ensembles. Now Mattel Inc. MAT -1.56% is making a new effort to sell Chinese on the impossibly proportioned all-American doll, with an appeal to Tiger moms who would rather have their children reading books than plugging body parts into Mr. Potato Head. New, low-price offerings include “Violin Soloist” Barbie, complete with bow and sheet music. Read more of this post

BMW Offers Money-Can’t-Buy Perks to Keep Biggest Spenders

BMW Offers Money-Can’t-Buy Perks to Keep Biggest Spenders

German ski legend Rosi Mittermaier passed on racing tips at Austria’s Zillertal resort last winter to a group of 10 students who all had one thing in common: they owned a BMW 7-Series sedan. Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW), the world’s biggest maker of premium cars, last year began offering perks that money can’t buy to owners of its flagship model in a bid to keep its most profitable clients loyal. Daimler AG (DAI)’s Mercedes-Benz quickly followed suit with a similar program of its own. Both were responding to down-market shifts by the more exclusive Maserati and Jaguar brands as competition for elite buyers intensifies. Read more of this post

Rotting Grapes From Bordeaux to Burgundy Cut French Wine Outlook

Rotting Grapes From Bordeaux to Burgundy Cut French Wine Outlook

France cut its outlook for wine production for a fourth time after botrytis rot due to wet weather caused grape losses in Bordeaux and Burgundy, adding to damage from poor flowering and summer hailstorms. The volume of the 2013 vintage may rise 2.2 percent to 42.3 million hectoliters (1.12 billion gallons) from 41.4 million hectoliters in 2012, the Agriculture Ministry wrote in a report late yesterday. The forecast was cut by 1.74 million hectoliters from a month ago, equivalent to 231 million bottles. Read more of this post

Rebuilding Lego for Today’s Kids; Lego, which controls about 60 percent of the construction-toy business, is wooing older children with a $350 robot set

Rebuilding Lego for Today’s Kids

By Katarina Gustafsson November 07, 2013

Lego fans no longer need to fret about the cat or dog knocking over their constructions. They can ward off bothersome pets or nosy siblings with a plastic-brick creation such as the R3ptar. The robotic snake, which can be programmed from a smartphone app, is equipped with a snapping mechanical jaw and fangs that will send even the boldest kid brother packing. Read more of this post

General Mills to McDonald’s Got Jump on FDA Trans Fats Cuts

General Mills to McDonald’s Got Jump on FDA Trans Fats Cuts

The U.S. government’s decision to deem artificial trans fats unsafe for human consumption may have little impact on foodmakers and restaurant chains because they’ve been phasing them out for years. Under pressure from activists such as the American Heart Association and city and state governments, companies from General Mills Inc. (GIS) to McDonald’s Corp. have been ridding their products of partially hydrogenated oils, which contain trans fats linked to a type of artery-clogging cholesterol. Read more of this post

Thailand’s Big Brother Drama

Thailand’s Big Brother Drama

“Welcome to the Republic of Thaksin.” You won’t see these words displayed in the customs hall when arriving in Thailand, but the Land of Smiles has indeed morphed into the land of Thaksin Shinawatra. That should be giving Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy plenty to frown about. Seven years after the former prime minister was ousted in a coup, Thaksin’s long shadow continues to dominate Thai politics. Since then, the country has seen six prime ministers, the most recent one being Thaksin’s baby sister, Yingluck Shinawatra. Read more of this post

Unhappy bondholders of Fraser and Neave (F&N) are fretting that the conglomerate could play hardball and accept default rather than pay more to obtain waivers for the listing of its property business.

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 08, 2013

Bondholders rattled as F&N plays tough

They feel it’ll be willing to push ahead with FCL listing and enter technical default

KENNETH LIM KENLIM@SPH.COM.SG

F&N, a beverage and property conglomerate, is asking holders of about $808.25 million of bonds to waive certain default terms on their notes and to allow the company to buy back the bonds at par plus half the coupon plus accrued interest – PHOTO: REUTERS

[SINGAPORE] Unhappy bondholders of Fraser and Neave (F&N) are fretting that the conglomerate could play hardball and accept default rather than pay more to obtain waivers for the listing of its property business. But observers said that for F&N to do so would be highly unusual, mostly because such an extreme solution usually comes with very high costs. F&N, a beverage and property conglomerate, is asking holders of about $808.25 million of bonds to waive certain default terms on their notes and to allow the company to buy back the bonds at par plus half the coupon plus accrued interest. Getting those waivers will allow F&N to split off and list its Frasers Centrepoint (FCL) property business without triggering a technical default. Early-bird acceptances tendered by yesterday’s close would have received an additional $625 per $250,000 of notes, while acceptances tendered from today to Nov 12 will receive $375 per $250,000 of notes held.

Philippines Billionaire Razon Jumps to Casinos from Containers

Billionaire Razon Jumps to Casinos from Containers

Enrique Razon doesn’t gamble and says he feels more comfortable operating a port crane than he does glad-handing in a crowd of high-rollers. “I am just not the person that likes being around plenty of people,” Razon says. “So you wonder why I’m in the casino business, right?” Razon joined the gaming fraternity in March, when he opened the Solaire Resort & Casino on a plot of reclaimed land along Manila Bay, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its December Billionaires Issue. The glittering Solaire is the first of four resorts slated to occupy a Las Vegas-style complex called Entertainment City along a 120-hectare (300-acre) strip in Bay City. Read more of this post

Exec chairman: AirAsia still an aggressive animal, more promotions coming

Updated: Friday November 8, 2013 MYT 8:53:03 AM

Exec chairman: AirAsia still an aggressive animal, more promotions coming

BY LEONG HUNG YEE

KUALA LUMPUR: Newly-appointed executive chairman of AirAsia Bhd Datuk Kamarudin Meranun said competition is forcing his airline to “hit back aggressively”. “We may have been complacent in recent months and our yield had been slightly affected but AirAsia has always been an aggressive animal. “We are coming back with more promotions, cost reductions and new ancillary income streams,” Kamarudin said in an interview a day after he replaced Datuk Aziz Bakar as executive chairman of AirAsia. Read more of this post

Value Fund Managers Go on a Buyer’s Strike

Value Fund Managers Go on a Buyer’s Strike

By Charles Stein November 07, 2013

Wally Weitz beat 90 percent of his rivals in the past five years by buying stocks he deemed cheap. Now he says bargains are so scarce that he’s letting his cash pile up. “It’s more fun to be finding great new ideas,” says Weitz, whose $1.1 billion Weitz Value Fund (WVALX) had 29 percent of its assets in cash and Treasury bills as of Sept. 30. “But we take what the market gives us, and right now it is not giving us anything.” Read more of this post

Saudi King Needs Wahhabi Muslim Support to Modernize Country

Saudi King Needs Wahhabi Muslim Support to Modernize Country

By Glen Carey November 07, 2013

Abdulrahman al-Moshaigeh remembers leaving his mud-brick house and walking on unpaved roads to what was then the only elementary school serving Buraidah. “There’s no comparison,” says the former member of King Abdullah’s advisory Shoura Council. Since his birth in 1945, many changes have swept his hometown, the capital of Qassim province in Saudi Arabia’s conservative heartland. “Now we have more than 150 elementary schools for boys, and it’s difficult to find a girl not in school,” al-Moshaigeh says. Read more of this post

Rate revolution forces advisers to be bond kings; After Gross and Gundlach, the deluge: It’s no longer a set-it-and-forget-it core world

Rate revolution forces advisers to be bond kings

After Gross and Gundlach, the deluge: It’s no longer a set-it-and-forget-it core world

By Jason Kephart

Nov 7, 2013 @ 1:12 pm (Updated 3:51 pm) EST

Financial advisers got their first real taste of a rising interest rate environment in the second quarter and it’s led to a complete upheaval of the fixed-income landscape. The days of simply handing over a client’s fixed-income assets to a core fund, even those run by bond kings Bill Gross and Jeffrey Gundlach, seem to be over as the threat of further interest rate rises forces advisers to take the crown and rule over their own bond portfolios. Read more of this post

Over-the-Counter Stock Trading Halted in U.S. on Data Issue

Over-the-Counter Stock Trading Halted in U.S. on Data Issue

Over-the-counter stock trading was halted for three-and-a-half hours today after a malfunction prompted regulators to shut the main venue. Trading of U.S. stocks that change hands on over-the-counter markets was stopped because of a “lack of current quotation information,” the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said. OTC Markets Group Inc. resumed trading around 3 p.m. after a “network provider issue” was resolved, Chief Executive Officer Cromwell Coulson said in an e-mail. Equities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were paused, not companies listed by NYSE Euronext (NYX) or Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. Read more of this post

Don’t Jump Onto Europe’s Bandwagon

Don’t Jump Onto Europe’s Bandwagon

November 07, 2013

Recent stirrings of optimism about Europe’s economy have been interrupted: New jobs figures and signs of a slide into deflation have ended some premature celebrations. The region’s economic crisis isn’t over. The danger of a relapse into recession is real. The U.S. Federal Reserve and (belatedly) the Bank of Japan (8301:JP) are buying assets on an enormous scale with the aim of lowering long-term interest rates. This quantitative easing has risks, but in both cases the evidence suggests it has worked. The European Central Bank, though, has largely refrained. It bought bonds at the height of the crisis but neutralized the effect of the transactions on the money supply. It also undertook a big program of short-term lending to banks, but that’s winding down. No doubt there are legal and, above all, political impediments in the European Union to Fed-style asset purchases, but these must be overcome, and the ECB is best-placed to make the argument. Read more of this post

Bring Shadow Banking Into the Light

Bring Shadow Banking Into the Light

November 07, 2013

The business of banking is inherently perilous. It turns short-term savings (such as customer deposits) into long-term investments (such as mortgages and corporate loans). This is risky: If too many savers want their money back at once, the bank can’t pay. It must either liquidate its assets or freeze its accounts, either of which can trigger a broader panic. Read more of this post

Billionaire Lures Funds With Record HCL Margin: Corporate India

Billionaire Lures Funds With Record HCL Margin: Corporate India

HCL Technologies Ltd. (HCLT), a software exporter founded by Indian billionaire Shiv Nadar, is attracting funds including UTI Asset Management Co. after profit margin widened to a record. The Indian software maker has climbed 78 percent in this year’s best performance among the 50 stocks that make up the CNX Nifty Index. The stock’s consensus rating, or the average of analysts’ recommendations, is at 4.39, the highest among India’s four largest information technology companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS), Asia’s biggest software exporter by market value, has a rating of 3.94. Read more of this post

Goldman Bets on Modi as Credit Suisse Backs Rajan: India Credit

Goldman Bets on Modi as Credit Suisse Backs Rajan: India Credit

Global investment banks are recommending buying Indian assets on optimism a leadership change at the central bank will be followed by a new government that businesses favor next year. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. prefers stocks, saying investors are hopeful the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party under Gujarat state Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership will win national elections, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh takes the blame for the slowest growth in a decade. Credit Suisse Group AG advises buying the rupee, betting Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan will curb inflation, while Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. is positive on sovereign debt. Read more of this post

India Shoots for Mars

India Shoots for Mars

India is often accused of not asserting itself in world affairs, of being unfocused, introverted, unrealistic or just nonaligned. That may be true, but when it comes to space, India’s ambitions aren’t at all modest — and they just got bigger. On Nov. 5, the Indian Space Research Organization successfully put into Earth’s orbit an indigenous, unmanned spacecraft, the Mangalyaan (“Mars-craft”), which on Nov. 30 will begin a nine-month journey toward Mars. Read more of this post

Red Tape Holding Geothermal Back in Race to Replace Coal in Indonesia

Red Tape Holding Geothermal Back in Race to Replace Coal

By Dion Bisara on 1:34 pm November 7, 2013.
The government needs to streamline regulations and provide financial incentives for investors to boost development of geothermal energy, an industry expert has said. “Government is the single prime mover to accelerate geothermal progress,” said deputy chairman of the Indonesia Geothermal Association Sanusi Satar to reporters on Wednesday. Read more of this post

Vote-buying and ballot fraud are voters’ chief concerns about next year April’s general elections in Indonesia

Election Fraud Worries Eligible Voters: Study

By Jakarta Globe on 8:30 am November 7, 2013.
Vote-buying and ballot fraud are voters’ chief concerns about next year’s general elections, a new study by the People’s Voter Education Network has revealed. Thirty-four percent of the public were worried about the two points People’s Voter Education Network (JPPR) deputy coordinator Masykurudin Hafidz told the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday. Read more of this post

Bumi Proposes Separation From Indonesia’s Bakrie Family

Bumi Proposes Separation From Indonesia’s Bakrie Family

BEN OTTO

Updated Nov. 7, 2013 9:51 p.m. ET

JAKARTA—London-listed coal company Bumi BUMI.LN +4.79% PLC has proposed the company’s separation from Indonesia’s influential Bakrie family after months of wait, setting a shareholder vote for Dec. 4. The company said in a press release dated Thursday that shareholders would vote to sell a 29.2% stake in one of Indonesia’s largest coal companies, the Bakries’ flagship entity PT Bumi Resources, BUMI.JK +1.18% for $501 million, thus ending a relationship with the Bakries that went sour over issues of corporate governance. Read more of this post

Li Ka-shing Sells More Mainland Assets, Eyes Finnish Power Grid

Li Ka-shing Sells More Mainland Assets, Eyes Finnish Power Grid

11-07 10:37 Caijing

The latest sell came as reports say the HK tycoon is interested in purchasing Finland’s electricity distribution work, following a flurry of his investments in Europe.

Li Ka-shing, the richest man in Asia, has sold more of his conglomerate’s assets in the Chinese mainland while on the other hand shows increasing interest in investing in Europe. Changyuan Group, the biggest heat-shrinkable and high-polymer PTC producer in the Chinese mainland, said in a statement on Tuesday that Concord Investment Co., Ltd., its controlling shareholder, a member of Cheug Kong Group has reduced its stake by 5 percent.  Read more of this post