Daily Archives: May 16, 2011

Dubai Bank taken over – an isolated case?

May 16, 2011 7:30 pm by Robin Wigglesworth
Share
Share this on

“Extend and pretend”, a common if maligned banking tactic when important clients are unable to repay their loans, can only get you so far, as Dubai Bank, an Islamic bank majority-owned by the debt-laden emirate, has discovered.

The Dubai government has been forced to take over Dubai Bank – wiping out the shareholding of Emaar and Dubai Holding, two other state-owned entities – to protect depositors, and is now considering whether the bank can continue as a standalone entity.

Dubai Bank’s woes raise questions as to the quality of loan books at other local banks. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Middle East, United Arab Emirates |

South Africa: Sasol expands its horizons

May 16, 2011 7:14 pm by Simon Mundy
Share
Share this on

Despite its market capitalisation of $32.5bn and world-leading position in making liquid fuel from coal and gas, Sasol is little-known outside its South African home turf. Yet it is eyeing growth opportunities all over the world, says Pat Davies, chief executive, in a rare interview in Tuesday’s FT. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in South Africa |

The IMF’s crisis: a chance for EM?

May 16, 2011 6:17 pm by Jonathan Wheatley
Share
Share this on

If Dominique Strauss-Kahn is forced to stand down as managing director of the IMF following his arrest on Sunday, the search for a successor would offer the best chance yet for a candidate from an emerging market to take the top job at the world’s lender of last resort.

As Alan Beattie reports in Monday’s FT, emerging governments have questioned the leniency of IMF programmes for western Europe in comparison to the stringent conditions often attached to its loans to the emerging world. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Global |

PayTV: Kenya’s next success story?

May 16, 2011 6:02 pm by Alexandra Stevenson
Share
Share this on

A scene from Africa's first political puppet show, 'XYZ' during a recording session in Nairobi on May 14, 2009. Over the past decade mobile phones have helped to transform African countries like Kenya, giving the financially excluded a cheap way to access credit through mobile banking. It has also been Africa’s most successful growth story: the mobile payment market is forecast to be worth $60bn by 2015. Today, information and communication technology  (ICT) companies are building the infrastructure for what investors believe will be Africa’s next big growth story – PayTV. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Africa, Kenya |

Central Europe: Billionaires want reform

May 16, 2011 5:48 pm by Jan Cienski
Share
Share this on

Four of the wealthiest men in central Europe had a message for their governments: reform or else lose the race to catch up to western Europe’s standards of living.

The four were taking part in a panel at an economic summit in the southern Polish industrial city of Katowice and the most outspoken was Sandor Demjan, a 68-year-old billionaire who made his mark under Hungary’s reformist goulash communism before going on to found TriGranit, one of the region’s leading real estate developers. Continue reading »

Tags: Posted in Czech Republic, Estonia, Europe, Hungary, Poland |

Hungary holds rates as confidence returns

May 16, 2011 5:05 pm by Chris Bryant
Share
Share this on

Hungary’s central bank kept interest rates on hold at 6 per cent on Monday, as analysts had uniformly predicted.

The decision reinforces the more settled outlook surrounding Hungarian assets which emerging market investors have viewed in a much more positive light of late. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Europe, Hungary |

Serbian stocks rise on low liquidity

May 16, 2011 4:51 pm by Neil MacDonald
Share
Share this on

New listings have caused the Belgrade stock exchange to shoot up rapidly this year, bringing a ray of hope to a trading floor battered by the global crisis.

The Belex 15 – the index of the market’s largest companies – has gained 100 points, or roughly 15 per cent in value, since the start of the year thanks mainly to Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS) and to a lesser extent the Belgrade airport company. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Serbia |

Middle East: haves and have-nots

May 16, 2011 4:35 pm by Sarah Mishkin
Share
Share this on

Middle Eastern economies have always run at two different speeds – oil versus no oil, the haves versus the have-nots – but the divergence is widening as high oil prices are boosting the Gulf but kicking Levantine and north African nations while they’re down.

For 2011, GCC oil exporters will see real GDP growth of 6.5 per cent but oil importers will see a contraction of 0.5 per cent, according to recent research by the Institute for International Finance. Continue reading »

Tags: Posted in Global, Middle East |

Guest post: Brazil – prepare for devaluation

May 16, 2011 3:04 pm by beyondbrics
Share
Share this on

By Thierry Apoteker, CEO and chief economist at TAC

Brazil faces some difficult choices ahead, with the end game likely to be a substantial cut in interest rates and a sharp depreciation of the currency.

Brazilian policy makers have pushed up interest rates consistently since the first quarter of 2010, bringing the benchmark Selic rate from 8.75 per cent a year in April 2010 to 12 per cent after the latest 25bp increase on April 20 2011, by far the highest real rate among large emerging economies. Higher rates are weighing down on investment spending but not money supply and credit expansion, and inflation is still accelerating: at 6.51 per cent year-on-year in April, a shade above the central bank’s targeted ceiling. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , Posted in Brazil, LatAm |

BP-Rosneft: the deadline looms

May 16, 2011 2:15 pm by Stefan Wagstyl
Share
Share this on

Bob Dudley, BP chief executive, and Vladmir Putin, Russian prime minister, when the BP-Rosneft deal was announced in January 2011BP was fighting on Monday to save its planned $16bn deal with Russian state-run oil group Rosneft before the deadline on the deals lapses at midnight.

The UK group was in talks with Rosneft and with the Russian oligarchs who have blocked the Rosneft deal to protect their interests in BP’s existing Russian joint venture, TNK-BP. As the FT has reported, a buyout of the oligarchs – possibly for around $30bn – is one of the options of the table. But, with three parties to the negotiations, and the Russian state involved, nothing will be agreed until everything is agreed. Continue reading »

Tags: Posted in Russia |

Fur flies (or doesn’t) in South Korea

May 16, 2011 1:45 pm by Christian Oliver
Share
Share this on

South Korea has a dismal reputation on animal rights. Filthy, unregulated farms where dogs are slaughtered for their meat and black bears are tapped alive for their bile are harrowing yet widely tolerated.

So it is curious that Seoul’s mayor, Oh Se-hoon, is jeopardizing a blue-riband fashion show by demanding that Italian luxury fashion house Fendi not parade models in furs. Fur is back with a vengeance on Milanese catwalks and no-one expected a rebellion in Seoul. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Asia, South Korea |

China: profiting from high speed rail

May 16, 2011 1:13 pm by Stefan Wagstyl
Share
Share this on

China High-speed train in BeijingHow can portfolio investors make money out of China’s high-speed rail project? After all Beijing isn’t looking for partners for the state-run scheme, the largest infrastructure project in history.

Morgan Stanley has come up with a plan – invest in listed companies which stand to profit from the inter-linking of China’s big cities in everything from rolling stock manufacturers to Starbucks.

Morgan Stanley’s report doesn’t say a lot about recent controversies about the project’s management or costs. But perhaps it doesn’t need to – it wouldn’t be the first time a big infrastructure scheme lost money for its owners but generated profits for other people. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Asia, China |

Further reading: betting on China

May 16, 2011 10:20 am by beyondbrics
Share
Share this on

Monday’s best picks from the beyondbrics team: looking at whether China’s economy rebalancing based on nominal and real changes, and why foreign banks have increased their exposure to Chinese banks by 86 per cent from 2009-2010. Continue reading »

Posted in Global |

HSBC: $1bn in India? Maybe

May 16, 2011 9:46 am by Akanksha Awal
Share
Share this on

HSBC Kolkata buildingTo nobody’s surprise, HSBC, in its global strategic review last week, listed India among its strategic markets. Having made $671m in profit before tax from the country in 2010, the bank is aiming to take this figure across the $1bn mark in three years’ time.

But this could be easier said than done. Continue reading »

Tags: Posted in Asia, India |

Shanghai Pharma prices HK listing

May 16, 2011 9:30 am by Josh Noble
Share
Share this on

While Chinese internet companies have been rushing to list in New York, and Chinese banks are set to raise billions with issues on the mainland this year, there’s one sector that looks rather underrepresented in the equity issuance whirlwind – healthcare.

Shanghai Pharma – which announced the pricing of its Hong Kong IPO on Monday – may benefit from a dearth of new options for those looking for a slice of China’s healthcare boom. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in China |
BackOlder entries

Global equities macromap

Number of the day

12.4% Fall in Mail.Ru shares on Monday, on the back of its Facebook stake.

beyondbrics

The emerging markets hub

About this blog Headlines email Blog guide
News and comment from more than 40 emerging economies, headed by Brazil, Russia, India and China.



'Like' our beyondbrics Facebook page, where we showcase a top story of the day
Sign up for our news headlines and markets snaphot service. We have two emails per day - London and New York headlines (sent at approx 6am and 12pm GMT).

To comment, please register for free with FT.com and read our policy on submitting comments.

There is an overall beyondbrics RSS feed, as well as feeds for all our countries, tags and authors. Learn more in our full RSS guide.

All posts are published in UK time.

Get in touch with us - your comments, advice and even complaints. Find out how to contact the team.

See the full list of FT blogs.

BB shortcuts

Regulars Series Archive
Chart of the week
Behind the numbers

Fund flows
Tracking money in and out of EM bonds
12 for 2012
Guest posts on key trends for the year ahead

Brics at 10
A decade of growth
The Diaspora Digest
EM diasporas, seen through their community media (Oct-Nov 2011)
Sick brics (Sep 2011)
Brics and mortar (Aug 2011)
Beyondbrics on the beach (Jul-Aug 2011)
China bubble? (June 2011)
Post-election Nigeria (June 2011)
Hey bric spender (Aug 2010)

Emerging markets data

Archive

« Apr Jun »May 2011
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  

What we are writing about

Apple banking bonds Brazil economy Brics CEE China economy commodities consumer corruption currencies currency war debt energy equities eurozone crisis exports food & drink guest post Hugo Chávez IMF India economy inflation interest rates internet investment IPOs M&A manufacturing mining monetary policy oil & gas politics Repsol retail Russian elections Russian politics tax technology telecoms trade vehicles video World Bank YPF