China’s CIC: change of the guard
There is a new man at the top of the China Investment Corporation (CIC), China’s sovereign wealth fund, prompting debate about whether the change in personnel will also mean a change in approach.
Lou Jiwei (pictured), who is still listed in CIC’s website as chairman and chief executive officer, became China’s finance minister in March. His successor has not been formally named but it has been locally reported that he is Tu Guangshao, the executive vice mayor of Shanghai. Continue reading »
Ousted head of Libyan Investment Authority speaks out
The departing chairman and chief executive of the Libyan Investment Authority has said he was about to appoint lawyers to seek compensation from banks including Société Générale and Goldman Sachs – banks he has accused in the past of causing losses worth billions of dollars.
In a wide-ranging interview published in Euromoney magazine, Mohsen Derregia (pictured), who is being ousted from the LIA after just 11 months in the top job, speaks passionately about his removal – which he is challenging – and the importance of the approximately $60bn sovereign fund. Continue reading »
Li Ka-Shing: HK property warning
It has become a truism that the Hong Kong property market is overheated. Residential property prices increased 120 per cent between 2008 and February 2013, according to Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary John Tsang, who gave the figure while announcing a sixth round of cooling measures aimed at curbing the relentless growth. But maybe now the moment of the apex has arrived: because Li Ka-Shing (pictured) says so. Continue reading »
China’s new securities regulator: more reformist than you think
What should we make of the appointment of China’s new top securities regulator? The expectations are: stability, predictability, and no great drive for further market reform. But we might all be surprised.
Xiao Gang (pictured), until this week the chairman of the Bank of China, is being interpreted as a cautious new head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. Continue reading »
Morocco: the view from the train to Rabat Ville
The Arab spring seems a world away on the train from Casablana to Rabat. In one compartment a conversation springs up between a local Moroccan, running a machine parts manufacturing business, and a Saudi from a construction company, visiting Rabat to seek migrant labour to help with the booming development in Saudi’s northwest. Cards are exchanged, then brochures; business is done, right here on the rumbling train. Continue reading »
China: web games company tests the water for US float
A web games company is about to test the appetite for Chinese floats in the US in one of the first such deals since the accounting scandals that rocked many Chinese companies in 2011.
7Road.com is the games subsidiary of Changyou.com, a Chinese online game developer that in turn is majority-owned by Nasdaq-listed Sohu.com. Continue reading »
NQ Mobile: safeguarding smartphones
In 2005 Henry Lin, a young professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, was working with a scientist from mobile maker Nokia when they discovered something unusual. It was malware, on the Symbian platform that powered most of Nokia’s smartphones at the time; the first known instance of malicious software appearing on a smartphone. And to Lin, it was an opportunity.
Lin, his colleague Vincent Shi and five graduate students cobbled together $15,000 from their families and set up NQ Mobile on the premise that mobile phone security was going to become every bit as important as personal computer security. Eight years on, the company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and has 242m users in 150 countries. Continue reading »
Korean covered bonds: false start?
Korea Housing Finance Corp will hit the road this week to sell a benchmark-sized international covered bond. It’s not the first such deal in this nascent market, but it’s certainly the most confusing. Continue reading »
China’s CIC and the Moscow Exchange: benign bonhomie?
The investment by China Investment Corporation in Friday’s flotation of the Moscow Exchange carries several messages for observers seeking to understand the investment approach of China’s sovereign wealth fund. Continue reading »
Last year was supposed to represent the pivotal moment in which sukuk debt – Islamic versions of bonds – came into their own as a deep, mature and liquid source of funding.
Issuance data from January suggest the jury is still out. Continue reading »
India lays out its bewildering stall to first-time retail equity investors
A glut of new investment products appeared in India over the weekend, designed to bring first-time retail investors into the country’s stock markets with a generous tax break. Good news, surely? Well, characteristically for India’s asset management industry, the truth is more complicated than it needs to be. Continue reading »
Sinopec deal: Goldman goes it alone
Last week’s HK$24bn ($3bn) placement for China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, better known as Sinopec, was a striking deal for its sheer size. But perhaps it was most remarkable for the fact that it involved only one bookrunner.
Talk to any equity or debt capital markets banker in Asia and they will swiftly raise a familiar gripe: the trend to put far more bookrunners on a straightforward deal than ever used to be the case. Continue reading »
Taiwan opens for RMB business; but also opens to Chinese banks
Taiwan’s financial services industry enjoyed a landmark moment this week when cross-border renminbi trade settlement services were officially launched in the island state. The prize: the chance to create an offshore RMB market in Taiwan to mirror that of Hong Kong. Continue reading »
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