Tag: Approved
India’s economy is back on track. Can it pick up speed?
IT IS easy to be awed by the Indian railway network. The 23m passengers it carries daily travel, in total, over ten times the distance to the sun and back. It is just as easy to find it unimpressive. Delays are frequent and trains antiquated. It takes 14 hours to get from India’s capital, Delhi, to its commercial hub, Mumbai. The equivalent trip in China—from Beijing to Shanghai, a similar distance—takes just over four hours.
Similarly, India’s economy can be seen in two lights. Its long-term growth rate of 7% a year has proved far more dependable than the rail timetable. GDP has doubled twice in the past two decades. Yet deep poverty still lingers and jobs are scarce. And Indian growth has been left in the dust by the Chinese express (see chart).
After slow running for much of 2017, India is now near to full throttle. Growth of 7.2% in the three months to December put it ahead of China (which grew at a relatively leisurely 6.8%) and…Continue reading
Insurers and undertakers profit as people prepay their last bill
“WHEN are you thinking of dying?” asks John Cleese, a British comedian, in a recent television ad. Dressed as the Grim Reaper, he addresses the viewer as he prepares a cup of tea. “Your loved ones could be left all alone and distressed and facing a whacking great bill,” he warns. His advice? Phone in and buy a funeral plan.
As populations age, ads of this sort, imploring people to make financial preparations for their demise, are appearing on both sides of the Atlantic. Some 1.3m Britons now have a pre-paid funeral plan, up from just over 400,000 in 2005. An estimated 2.5m more have a funeral-insurance policy. Millions of Americans prepay some or all of their funeral costs.
The average American funeral now costs nearly $9,000, according to the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA). In Britain prices have risen by 5.5% on average each year over the past decade, faster than inflation. Add to that stories in the press of…Continue reading
Getting a handle on a scandal
A POPULAR riff doing the rounds in tech circles is that, if data are the new oil, then Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica fiasco is the equivalent of Deepwater Horizon. That was the name of an oil platform that exploded in April 2010, coating the Gulf of Mexico and the reputation of BP, the firm responsible, in a toxic slick.
Yet just how damaging are “Deepwater” incidents for firms and their owners over time? Perhaps they cease to matter after the initial burst of media purgatory, grovelling by executives, celebratory cant from competitors and politicians’ grandstanding.
To answer this, Schumpeter has looked at eight of the most notable corporate crises since 2010, including those at Uber and Wells Fargo. The evidence shows that these episodes were deeply injurious to the companies’ financial health, with the median firm losing 30% of its value since its crisis, when compared with a basket of its peers. Facebook should beware.
When a scandal first breaks, executives at the…Continue reading
More market volatility seems likely
“FASTEN your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” Those famous lines of Bette Davis in “All About Eve” may turn out to be the motto for the markets in 2018. After the “volatility vortex” in February, sparked by concerns about inflation, markets have thrown a “tariff tantrum” after President Donald Trump sparked fears of a trade war with China.
In February stocks sank on heavy hints of American levies on imported steel and aluminium. The prospect of trade measures against China, signalled on March 22nd, again hit shares. Then reports that China and America were making progress in trade talks caused the S&P 500 index to rise by 2.7% on March 26th, its best day since August 2015. It promptly fell again by 1.7% the next day (see chart).
Further volatility seems likely, not least after the appointment of John Bolton, an ultra-hawk on foreign policy, as Mr Trump’s national security adviser. That raises the possibility of increased tension with North Korea, despite the…Continue reading
The EU wants to tax tech giants’ revenues
IT IS a choice that would make Thomas Hobson proud. European officials this week unveiled plans for a quick and dirty tax policy to apply to big digital firms, in theory by the end of the year. The idea, promised since September, would ditch a tradition of taxing profits and instead let collectors in member states take a share, 3% for starters, of the firms’ local revenues. There is a lively debate about where exactly the tech giants create taxable value. Is it where their programmers sit? Or the intellectual property? Or users? The firms have become so adept at tax avoidance that the European Commission is not going to hang around until the argument is settled.
Pierre Moscovici, the commissioner overseeing the proposals, was at pains to say on March 21st that the turnover tax would be an “interim” fix. He denied Americans are his targets. Between 120 and 150 companies would be affected, around half of them American and a third European. (Apple, Google and other American giants would surely get the biggest bills.) Only those with global…Continue reading
Dropbox goes public
DREW HOUSTON and Arash Ferdowsi must have few regrets since they turned down an offer for their startup from Apple’s then boss, Steve Jobs, in 2011. Dropbox hasn’t done too badly in the interim. It rakes in over $1bn in revenue by allowing users—500m at the last count—to store and share data in the cloud. On March 23rd it is due to go public, making it the biggest firm to do so since Snap, a messaging app, floated in early 2017. Dropbox’s range for its share price values it at between $8bn and $9bn. That will comfort other “unicorns”, the tag given to startups valued at over $1bn, that are considering listing.
True, the valuation is less than its early backers were hoping for when they valued the company at $10bn in 2014, when it last raised equity. But as Matthew Kennedy from Renaissance Capital, a research firm, points out, the previous valuation coincided with peak investor exuberance for tech firms. The adjustment may also reflect some doubts about the firm’s long-term prospects.
Its challenge, common to many…Continue reading
Li Ka-shing cedes a sprawling empire to his son
“TOO long” was how Li Ka-shing, known fondly by locals as chiu yan (Superman) for his business nous, described his working life when he announced on March 16th that he would be retiring in May. Asia’s pre-eminent dealmaker has been around for longer than his fictional namesake, scoring and selling assets in ports, telecoms, retail and property to amass a fortune estimated at $36bn.
Few expect Mr Li, who will turn 90 this summer, to hang up his cape for good. He says he will stay on to advise his eldest son, Victor Li, who will inherit his two main businesses. The first is CK Hutchison, a conglomerate with interests in power plants, perfume and much in between. It runs 52 ports and owns 14,000 high-street stores, including Watsons at home and Superdrug in Britain. The second is CK Asset, one of Hong Kong’s biggest property developers. Combined they are worth $79.7bn.
At the press conference the younger Mr Li made all the right noises. “When I return to work tomorrow, it will be the same,” he told…Continue reading
Why tariffs on steel and aluminium are easier said than done
HISTORY will rhyme on March 23rd, when Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium imports are due to come into force. Several previous presidents, from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, also used tariffs in an attempt to protect America’s steel producers from foreign competition. (There are historical echoes, too, in Mr Trump’s plans to slap tariffs on a range of Chinese imports; in the 1980s Japan was the target.) A rhyme is not a repeat. But past experience is not encouraging.
The central problem for America’s policymakers is that trade is like water. Block its flow in one place and pressure builds elsewhere. When many countries are covered by tariffs, trade may simply be diverted through those countries that are let off the hook. Importers will howl for exemptions. As a result, whatever the Trump administration’s broader ambitions with respect to trade, bellicose unilateralism will make them harder to achieve.
In 1982 America browbeat the European Community, the forerunner of the European Union, into limiting its steel exports…Continue reading
Europeans fret that Chinese investment is a security risk
“WE ARE not naive free traders. Europe must always defend its strategic interests,” said Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, last year as he introduced plans to screen foreign investment into the European Union. America has had such rules since the 1970s; they are set to tighten further. The EU used to be more relaxed about acquisitions by foreigners. Now it too is toughening up.
The target is China, whose firms have been on a shopping spree (see chart). Purchases of fripperies such as football clubs and hotels have been curbed by the Chinese authorities, but investment continues to flow into technology and infrastructure, notes James Zhan of the UN…Continue reading
Japan Inc and the government are trying to tackle overwork
SANAE ABUTA is a manager at Panasonic, a giant electronics manufacturer, in Osaka. One day she may work from 9am to 5.45pm. On another she may take a break in the middle, to go to the bank or see a doctor. Or she will stay with her child in the morning and start at 11am. One day a week she works from home. “I appreciate the flexibility,” she says.
Ms Abuta’s schedule is unusual in Japan. Long office hours are seen a proxy for hard work, itself regarded as the cornerstone of Japan’s post-war economic boom. Companies offer to look after employees for life in return for a willingness to dedicate that life to the company, including “service” (ie, unpaid) overtime or moving house on demand. People hesitate to leave the office before their peers, and certainly before their boss. Some sleep at their desks. Convenience stores sell shirts for workers who have no time to go home and change. Death by overwork is so common—191 people in the…Continue reading