Carlos Slim: time to double down on KPN?
So will Carlos Slim write off the €1.7bn that he has spent by taking a 28 per cent stake last year in KPN, the now troubled Dutch telecoms group?
KPN’s decision to stage a €4bn rights issue puts Slim’s América Móvil in a quandary. Should it put up more money to maintain its percentage stake or stay put and swallow its pride as well as its losses? Continue reading »
Caracas: most expensive city in the Americas??
Venezuela, the birthplace of “21st century socialism”, is a land of anomalies. Here’s a great example: on Monday we learned that the capital of the socialist state, Caracas, is the most expensive city in the Americas, and the ninth priciest in the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). Continue reading »
Peru: minting new millionaires
Source: Jockey Plaza
Millionaires might seem like chump change in this age of trillion-dollar deficits and billion-dollar bailouts.
But in Peru, new millionaires are just another indicator of the kind of strong economic growth that prompted the International Monetary Fund to brand the Andean economy shock-resistant. A reverse canary-down-the-mine, if you will. Continue reading »
Goodbye Mr Bric
It’s the end of an era. Jim O’Neill, aka Mr Bric, is retiring from Goldman Sachs later this year, the bank said in a surprise announcement on Tuesday.
A larger-than-life figure who made a big impression wherever he went, be it in the foreign exchange trading room where he started his financial career or at Manchester United, the football club he has long supported and once tried to buy. Professionally, he will always be associated with Goldman Sachs, where he rose to be chief economist and later chairman of its asset management arm. Continue reading »
Micex IPO is an FX plan
By Ben Aris of bne
The management of Russia’s MICEX exchange arrived in London on Tuesday on a roadshow ahead of its IPO on Feburary 15. What they are selling is not just a stock exchange but a diversified business that is in many ways unique.
Widely seen as Russia’s leading stock exchange, MICEX is actually a unusually diversified business for an exchange, which means it has managed to earn steadily increasing profits that have been largely unaffected by the 2008 crisis, let alone the notorious volatility that plagues portfolio investors into Russian stocks. Continue reading »
SA farm wage deal: trouble brewing
It’s been a messy fight with violent protests and hostile exchanges between the parties. Monday’s announcement of a farmworkers wage hike may cool some temperatures for now, but the battle is far from over.
Labour minister Mildred Oliphant said the new minimum wage level will increase to R105 per day, up from the current R69. Some workers welcomed the news, but made it clear they still want to put up a fight for their initial demand of R150 per day. Continue reading »
Poland’s Lot: flying blind
The airline’s previous boss, Marcin Pirog, was fired in December after the airline revealed unexpected losses and had to turn to the government for a 400m zlotys ($130m) bailout. In all, the airline may need as much as 1bn zlotys in help to survive. Continue reading »
Randgold chief executive Mark Bristow has criticised a “disturbing” tendency among African governments to increase taxes and regulations on mining investors, as the company disputes its tax bill with the Malian government.
The chief executive of the FTSE 100 gold mining company, which has operations in Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ivory Coast made his statement at the Mining Indaba conference currently taking place in Cape Town. He claimed that revisions to mining laws risked deterring investment on the continent. Continue reading »
Russia: inflation jumps to 7.1 per cent, hitting interest rate cut hopes
Russia’s inflation rate climbed above 7 per cent in January dimming the prospects of an early interest rate reduction despite pressure from the Kremlin for cuts.
The consumer price index rose by 7.1 per cent year-on-year, from 6.6 per cent in December, due to increases in food and public transport prices, and in sales taxes. Continue reading »
Kingfisher Airlines: caveat emptor
What kind of financial results would you expect from a grounded airline with piles of debt and a fuming workforce? Grisly ones, of course.
So Vijay Mallya, the flamboyant billionaire tycoon behind India’s Kingfisher Airlines, must have hoped investors would assume he was taking one manfully on the chin when the company announced an after-tax loss of Rs7.55bn ($140m) for the quarter ending on December 31, 2012. Not manfully enough, according to his auditors. They say the real loss should have been Rs10.9bn. Continue reading »
Kenya: turning radio links into broadband for the countryside
Picture: Katrina Manson
Pupils at a school on the green slopes of Mount Kenya no longer have eyes for the blackboard. Instead they are transfixed by a $500 tablet.
Belinda, 19, touches the screen gingerly and is amazed to discover an icon that allows her to film herself within seconds of her first touch of a computer. So speedy is the take-up of tech know-how in Kenya’s first “white space” rural broadband pilot scheme, its backers hope the idea could one day be copied throughout the continent. Continue reading »
Chinese comedy aims to make Americans laugh
While Chinese filmmakers, bloggers and government officials are pondering how a low-budget comedy dismissed by many as senseless hullabaloo could end up as the country’s best-ever grossing movie, the film itself is on its way into US cinemas.
‘Lost in Thailand’ will start showing on Friday in 29 theatres of AMC, the second-largest cinema company in America. Continue reading »
China: painting by numbers
China consumes 43 per cent of the world’s instant noodles, runs 61 per cent of its toll roads and produces 90 per cent of its PCs. But with 19 per cent of the global population, its share of health spending is only 6 per cent.
These and other fascinating facts are collated in a Bank of America Merrill Lynch report out this week. And behind the gee-whiz numbers, there’s a serious purpose: to see how China might change over the next decade or so. Continue reading »
New York headlines
* Indonesia’s 2012 growth hits 6.2%
* China pumps $72bn into money markets
* India’s central bank tightens rules on banks’ low-coupon bond buys Continue reading »
Foreigners flee South Korea
Foreign investors are selling out of South Korea as the stronger won threatens to cut earnings of major exporters. Although global funds are flowing into emerging markets amid higher risk appetite triggered by signs of economic recovery in the US and China, South Korea is bucking the trend as the won’s strength allows foreign investors to take profits from Korean securities.
Overall, foreign investors sold a net Won2.84tn ($2.6bn) of Korean securities last month, the biggest monthly figure since December 2011. Continue reading »
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