Asia-Pacific

Gautam Adani’s fundraisings offer multiple tests

16 May 2023

His companies are preparing to tap capital markets for some $3 bln, three months after a short attack succeeded in obliterating $120 bln and 50% off his group’s value. It will test the Indian conglomerate’s reputation, his attitude to public equity, and the besieged regulator.

To bet on China’s shoppers, ditch its companies

16 May 2023

While consumer bellwethers Alibaba and Tencent grapple with uneven retail spending, shares in foreign companies like LVMH and Tokyo Electron have rallied thanks in part to strong Chinese sales. With political risk rising, that’s a smarter way to trade the economic recovery.

Oil’s feuding forecasters may both be wrong

15 May 2023

The International Energy Agency, which represents developed-world crude buyers, recently slammed producer club OPEC’s output cuts. Yet the pair share the same demand estimates for 2023. If they’re wrong, IEA fears and OPEC hopes of surging oil prices may prove wide of the mark.

Rich world has three ways to win over global South

15 May 2023

Leaders from the Group of Seven, who gather this week, need to develop a stronger pitch to poorer non-aligned nations. A strategy based on peace, prosperity and protecting the planet could work. It’s more effective than delivering lectures on democracy, says Hugo Dixon.

Capital Calls: Wood Group

15 May 2023

Concise views on global finance: Apollo’s aborted bid for the $1 bln UK infrastructure firm prompted a 35% share price fall.

Vietnam’s Tesla debuts with wrong kind of power

15 May 2023

VinFast is going public at a sales multiple seven times its rival. Merging at a $27 bln valuation with casino mogul Lawrence Ho’s SPAC secures it a listing in the US where the electric-vehicle maker is expanding. But it needs funding and an inflated 2021-style deal doesn’t help.

Big Tech’s AI victims will fall fast

12 May 2023

Online education company Chegg is suffering as students lean on artificial intelligence to help with homework. Hollywood writers are paranoid. While AI is accruing value to Big Tech, smaller companies will quickly – and once again – be annihilated by well-capitalized tech firms.

AI offers leisure, if not happiness

12 May 2023

Technology has outpaced economic growth for 50 years, while workers have long traded higher productivity for more leisure. These trends will continue as artificial intelligence automates more jobs. The salient question is how to distribute the gains – and the free time.

Private equity is being squeezed from all sides

12 May 2023

Buyout firms thrived in the era of low interest rates and deregulation. Both of those factors are coming to an end, argues Edward Chancellor. Higher financing costs and tighter rules suggest a future of depressed investment returns.

Thailand’s election could be a lose-lose scenario

12 May 2023

Sunday’s vote might deliver victory for pro-democracy parties or return the junta-backed government to power. No matter who wins, old hostilities will escalate. While both sides plan populist handouts, neither has an inspiring economic agenda.

Pharma’s obesity gold rush will have limits

11 May 2023

Drugmakers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are vying for a large slab of the weight loss medications market, which analysts reckon could be worth $100 bln by 2031. In this Viewsroom podcast, Breakingviews columnists discuss how investor optimism in a booming market is unwarranted.

Capital Calls: Man Group

11 May 2023

Concise views on global finance: The 2.5 bln pound hedge fund manager has appointed insider Robyn Grew as its first female chief executive, replacing retiring boss Luke Ellis.

Ambani’s finance listing will measure disruption

11 May 2023

The fledgling venture mostly comprises a 6% stake in $200 bln parent Reliance. Yet it may be floated as soon as September. It’s easier to spin out than the conglomerate’s digital and retail businesses. How it’s valued will signal whether investors reckon he can shake up lending.

Lithium miners unearth shovel-ready $11 bln deal

10 May 2023

Australia’s Allkem and US peer Livent are uniting to create an energy-transition titan. EV makers scrambling for battery materials should like a combined explorer and processor with no Chilean exposure. Bigger is strategically better, and helps the merger stack up financially.

Capital Calls: Walt Disney

10 May 2023

Concise views on global finance: Bob Iger’s first full quarter since returning as CEO opened a window onto multiplying challenges across the Magic Kingdom.

ValueAct loses its temper in 7-Eleven

10 May 2023

Boss Mason Morfit prefers to chide undervalued conglomerates behind closed doors. But Seven & i has so provoked him, his firm is publicly calling for chief Ryuichi Isaka’s head. ValueAct has a good case, so the looming showdown will test how rude activists can get in Japan.

Canberra lets energy windfall slip through fingers

10 May 2023

Tweaking an arcane resources tax will bag Australia’s Treasury just $400 mln extra a year. It’s barely a drop of the bumper earnings oil and gas companies drilled from war-stoked commodity prices. A direct levy on outsized profits can better channel cash to the energy transition.

Capital Calls: Amazon, Aramco

9 May 2023

Concise views on global finance: Rising costs and cautious consumers are driving the e-commerce giant to sell goods through mobile games and push incentives; the $2 trillion Saudi oil company’s new dividend policy is one way to interest investors in future share sales. 

Chinese chip investors will prefer a cooler STAR

9 May 2023

Nexchip, two decades behind industry leader TSMC, had a muted IPO debut in Shanghai after pricing shares conservatively. That’s a far cry from the market’s famous triple-digit first-day pops. But it’s a welcome sign STAR is becoming more rational for companies and traders alike.

Geopolitics is shrinking India’s risk premium

9 May 2023

Indian tycoons and financiers are sitting back as the titans of global business come to them. The country’s growing importance as a potential alternative investment destination to China shifts the focus away from the challenges of doing business, and onto what it can offer.