Chinese expansion healthy for City of London May 22, 2011 UNLESS witnessed first-hand, it is difficult to grasp the sheer scale of economic growth in China or the level of international investment that has continued unabated despite the recent financial crisis. As a member of the Shanghai International Advisory Council – whose annual meeting I attended last week – I have been left in no [...]
LINKEDIN SURGES 109% ON DAY ONE May 19, 2011 Flotation of social network sparks fear of new dot.com bubble SHARES in LinkedIn exploded during their first day of trading, racing more than 170 per cent above their float price of $45 before closing 109.4 per cent higher at $94.25. The stock hit a peak of $122.70, bringing back memories of the dot.com boom of [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING May 19, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES MOVE TO QUASH HERMÈS’ POISON PILL Minority shareholders in Hermès have sought to quash the luxury goods group’s poison pill defences devised by its controlling family, potentially bolstering LVMH’s protracted takeover push for its smaller rival. CHINESE SET A NEW STANDARD IN BUYING GOLD China overtook India to become the largest market for [...]
African MBAs – beating Bono at his own game May 18, 2011 GOVERNMENTS, NGOs, rock-stars and politicians of all stripes have tried to help African development. Now a wave of business schools is trying to do its bit. Henley, Edinburgh, Duke, Spain’s IESE and even Shanghai-based CEIBS have all gone into the continent with varying amounts of fanfare. In theory, they should be able to do a [...]
Diamond miner bets on Mellier to sparkle at top May 16, 2011 FRENCH-BORN Mellier moves to the number two diamond producer fresh from Alstom Transport, having been president of the French engineering group since 2003. He started his career at Ford in 1980 as a sales and planning analyst, and went on to spend 19 years there including stints in Portugal, New Zealand and Mexico. Mellier ended [...]
WALL STREET WEEK AHEAD May 15, 2011 THE big money is calling a halt to the surge in stock prices. Declines in oil and metals prices are being seen by an increasing number of fund managers and strategists as a signal to get out of riskier areas of the equity market. And that means avoiding things like Chinese IPOs and sticking to [...]
US banks launch renminbi funds May 12, 2011 Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are to launch rival private equity funds denominated in China’s currency the renminbi to gain greater access to the market. Goldman chief executive Lloyd Blankfein visited Beijing yesterday to sign the fund’s launch agreement with its partner, the Beijing municipal government’s Capital Operation and Management Centre. Morgan Stanley will launch [...]
Gulliver: Commercial banking is our DNA May 11, 2011 HSBC unveiled a strategic overhaul yesterday that will see the bank cut up to $3.5bn (£2.14bn) in costs, cut “subscale” retail operations and review its presence in 39 countries. “We are not going to try to be all things to all people in all markets,” said chief executive Stuart Gulliver as he launched a plan [...]
Don’t worry, the party in commodities isn’t over yet May 11, 2011 COMMODITIES took a big knock in the recent correction, but the fundamentals still point towards continued rises over the medium term. Assuming you aren’t planning to fill your home with sheep, soybeans and platinum, with certain provisos, commodity funds can offer you a route in. THE PARTY ISN’T OVER Investors who joined the commodity party [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING May 10, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES PACE OF UK GROWTH UNDER THREAT Britain’s economy is unlikely to grow as fast as before the financial crisis because its most productive sectors have been hardest hit, jeopardising government plans to cut the deficit. A Financial Times analysis of the sectorial performance of the economy before and after the crash highlights how [...]