Society

Corona Capital: ESG investing, U.S. moves, P&G

20 Jan 2021

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: ESG opens up investing opportunities; home values in U.S. resort towns rise faster than rural areas; and Procter & Gamble cleans up.

Corona Capital: Satellites, Shoes

15 Jan 2021

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: SoftBank pours cash into satellite startup; and footwear winners and losers.

Germany’s female executive quota is hard to export

15 Jan 2021

The government will soon require the country’s top 70 companies to have at least one woman on their management boards. The long overdue move will force firms to quickly identify a raft of female talent. But Germany’s unusual corporate structure makes it difficult to replicate.

Shared scooters jump into a profitable future

14 Jan 2021

The pandemic has given a new boost to startups offering two-wheeled rentals, previously dented by high operating costs and safety fears. With increased demand, more European cities legalising e-scooters, and funding from investors like SoftBank, the business is gaining speed.

Corona Capital: Target, IPOs keep coming

13 Jan 2021

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Retailer Target gets an extra sales boost from its earlier e-commerce efforts, while buy-now-pay-later company Affirm continues one of 2020’s less-hated features – a smoking hot IPO market.

Guest view: Dislocation will be 2021’s buzzword

13 Jan 2021

Vaccine rollouts offer hope for a return to a pre-Covid normal. But disruptions to supply chains, credit markets and labour will be deep and unpredictable. Withdrawing support now creates costlier longer-term risks, the OECD’s Andrea Garnero and Muzinich’s Fabrizio Pagani write.

Facebook’s four-point defense just about holds up

11 Jan 2021

COO Sheryl Sandberg laid out why the $730 bln social network is on the right side of history, from taking down bad actors to keeping small businesses alive. There are flaws in her argument, but Facebook has probably deflected the worst of the political fury.

Corona Capital: KKR/music, IMF

11 Jan 2021

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Private equity giant KKR buys a stake in hip OneRepublic music royalties; and the International Monetary Fund half-heartedly bumps up its target lending cushion.

Chancellor: Year of extraordinary popular delusion

7 Jan 2021

The pandemic hasn’t just provoked irrational fears; a great speculative fervour also appeared. And the froth of the year of Covid-19 in financial markets exhibits three of the conditions described in Charles Mackay’s classic book on the inflation of speculative bubbles.

Corona Capital: Video rental stores, Conagra

7 Jan 2021

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: A last surviving U.S. video rental chain shutters, Conagra’s boosted sales aren’t enough for investors.

Corona Capital: U.S. college football

6 Jan 2021

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: U.S. college football programs are in a talent arms race for coaches, a bit like companies' quest for top-ranked CEOs, despite the pandemic's impact on revenue.

Dixon: How to make COP26 climate summit a success

5 Jan 2021

Politicians and markets increasingly get the danger of climate change. And technology is advancing fast. But the climate is also deteriorating rapidly. Here are six things that can be done at this year’s summit to make sure the planet doesn’t lose the race against time.

Third lockdown entrenches Britain’s great divides

5 Jan 2021

The virus has already hit smaller companies and the less affluent harder than bigger firms and the rich. New restrictions to control a fresh outbreak mean a deeper slump, until vaccines come to the rescue. Other countries will need to act more quickly to avoid similar pain.

Corona Capital: Commercial real estate, IBM

5 Jan 2021

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Commercial office real estate is Zoom’s mirror image; IBM taps former Goldman-exec Gary Cohn.

Corona Capital: U.S. stimulus, Japanese pain

28 Dec 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: U.S. President Donald Trump climbs down and signs the coronavirus relief and spending package passed by Congress; and Japan's prime minister tries to keep the pandemic in check with a quiet New Year.

Corona Capital: Poverty, Beer cans, Budget hotels

24 Dec 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Hong Kong’s poverty problem was getting worse even before the virus struck; AB InBev sells the family aluminium to cut debt; Whitbread, owner of hotel chain Premier Inn, tries to get its landlords to share the pain.

The Franken-economy that will thrive post-pandemic

24 Dec 2020

The ideal nation to emerge from Covid-19 has South Korea’s superb internet connections and technology know-how. Like Singapore, robots are widely used in industry. And it boasts skilled workers to rival Switzerland, sells high-value exports to China, and leads on green energy.

Corona Capital: Tesla’s Apple snub

23 Dec 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Tesla boss Elon Musk asked to meet with Apple back in the day, and got rebuffed. Musk’s company has been the better investment recently, especially during the Covid-19 period. That doesn’t mean Tim Cook missed out.

5G will zoom from myth to mass-market reality

23 Dec 2020

The mobile technology is much debated and little used. But falling prices mean most handsets sold in 2021 will work on new networks. Post-pandemic consumers may happily pay for extra reliability and speedier downloads. Commercial uses remain vague, but phone envy will kick in.

Corona Capital: Peloton, BioNTech

22 Dec 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: Peloton shareholders are getting a little too pumped up; BioNTech’s boss gives two reasons not to panic about the latest Covid-19 strain.