Technology

Missing China bank boss is the wrong big deal

17 Feb 2023

Bao Fan's disappearance wiped 30% off China Renaissance’s stock. But his boutique investment bank had already shrunk as work from clients like Didi vanished. The broader blow is to financiers waiting for new business to offset Beijing’s common-prosperity and anti-corruption push.

YouTube CEO exit is an unlucky break

16 Feb 2023

Veteran Susan Wojcicki is leaving the helm of the video service at a critical time for parent Alphabet. Advertising is under duress from rivals and regulators want to unwind past acquisitions. Executives come and go, but the last thing Google needs is turmoil from within.

Capital Calls: Schneider’s sustainable CEO

16 Feb 2023

Concise views on global finance: Jean-Pascal Tricoire’s departure as chief executive of the French industrial software group after nearly two decades at the helm defies the trend of short-lived or underperforming corporate bosses.

Capital Calls: Ford and CATL

15 Feb 2023

Concise views on global finance: A new battery plant shows U.S. electric-car makers may struggle to cut China out of supply chains.

Economic war with China would be MAD

14 Feb 2023

The prospect of mutually assured destruction averted nuclear conflict during the Cold War. Hopefully, fear of the economic equivalent will stop a showdown with China. But after the shooting down of a Chinese balloon, tensions are rising and errors are possible, says Hugo Dixon.

Microsoft can answer antitrust “Call of Duty”

13 Feb 2023

UK regulators say selling the video game would ease their concerns over the software giant’s $69 bln purchase of Activision Blizzard. A disposal would be chunky, and boss Satya Nadella won’t want to leave it behind. But even without the franchise, the acquisition still stacks up.

Lyft is second horse in a one-horse town

10 Feb 2023

Mounting losses and a 35% plunge in the ride-sharing firm’s stock price are signals of how far Lyft is falling behind main rival Uber. The two are locked in a race where winning depends on cheaper fares or better-paid drivers. No wonder investors think two is a crowd.

Fear of complacency costs Alphabet $150 billion

9 Feb 2023

The search giant unveiled how it will use AI features on Wednesday, and investors punished the $1.2 trln tech company’s stock. It seems an overreaction. But Microsoft’s experience with perceptions of being a coasting incumbent suggest the problem can be hard to dislodge.

Robinhood’s Wall Street bets aren’t yet working

9 Feb 2023

As retail stock trading and crypto have withered, so have the online brokerage’s main sources of income. So it has slashed costs, and staff, and is aggressively launching new products. But for now, it’s rising interest rates – not happy customers – that are holding Robinhood up.

How Ant fell into fintech’s middle-income trap

9 Feb 2023

The Chinese payments-to-credit superapp once boasted a valuation surpassing banks like ICBC. New rules and capital requirements have cut it down to size. But there's still room for Ant to thrive as a mid-sized lender, provided it weathers its first economic stress test.

Payments darling wisely resists tech layoff trend

8 Feb 2023

Shares in $40 bln Adyen fell 12% after a hiring spree crimped its earnings. Adding more staff is conspicuous at a time when rivals like Stripe are doing the opposite. But boss Pieter van der Does has still-chunky margins, and needs to boost his small in-store payments business.

Meme investors go to bed, take a bath

7 Feb 2023

Near-bankrupt U.S. retailer Bed Bath & Beyond will gain slightly less cash than it burned last quarter by issuing shares after an irrational stock rally. The structure – $225 mln now and up to $800 mln later – isn’t that clean. And delaying the inevitable has an opportunity cost.

Capital Calls: SoftBank, BP

7 Feb 2023

Concise views on global finance: Masayoshi Son’s $69 bln technology investor is out of ammunition when it needs it most; the $108 bln British oil group’s pledge to pump more of the fossil fuel may not boost its lowly valuation.

Paytm is stuck in dealmaking catch-22

6 Feb 2023

A banking licence would help the $4 bln Indian fintech generate earnings and boost its flailing share price. Regulators might only grant it once Ant and Alibaba offload their combined 28% stake. Yet the Chinese firms are unlikely to sell entirely until the stock improves.

China ban would slow, not halt, Western solar push

3 Feb 2023

Reacting to the chip war, Beijing may ban the export of technology for making solar panels, a $235 bln sector it currently dominates. Yet the West already has green energy know-how. Creating a rival industry without Chinese expertise may be slower and costlier but not impossible.

Alphabet’s acorns could use more water

2 Feb 2023

The Google owner’s revenue inched up 1% because of a slowdown in advertising. Marketers have alternatives like TikTok, and regulators have Google’s ad business under the microscope. Now might be a good time for CEO Sundar Pichai to start spending more on leftfield bets.

Apple tries to be both desirable and predictable

2 Feb 2023

The $2.4 trillion iPhone maker’s growth increasingly comes from services – and its valuation has risen as a result. But investors prize some kinds of service more highly than others. They seem to be betting that Apple has zoomed in on the more stable, less cyclical kind.

Crypto’s big unwind is far from over

2 Feb 2023

Investors piled into digital assets last month for the first time since the summer, and prices have recovered from FTX’s collapse. But issues – regulation, fraud, volatility – still threaten popular currencies, like bitcoin. Another big event will wipe out newfound confidence.

Goldman’s Marcus is a lesson in self-made failure

2 Feb 2023

The Wall Street firm’s blueprint for a digital bank was a good idea, until it buckled under an ambitious, top-down culture. CEO David Solomon is taking the blame, partly because almost everyone else who backed Marcus has quit. He can recoup the losses, but not the wasted time.

Investors are ignoring Meta’s hardware reality

1 Feb 2023

The $400 bln social media firm’s shares surged on a strong sales outlook and more stock buybacks. But a better 2023 after revenue fell last year is a long shot. Plus Meta’s big problem is its hardware pivot. Other tech companies that similarly transitioned did not have much luck.