Tag: Business and finance

PAYING for pensions is like one of those never-ending historical wars; a confusing series of small battles and skirmishes that can obscure the long-term trend. The latest conflict is in Britain where university lecturers are indulging in strike action over changes to their future benefits.

Let us start by making the long-term trends clear.

1. People are living longer and retirement ages have not kept pace. This increases the cost of paying pensions 

2 Interest rates and bond yields have fallen. This increases the cost of generating an income from a given pension pot

3. Private sector employers have reacted to this cost by closing their defined benefit (DB) schemes (which link pensions to salaries) and switching to defined contribution (DC) schemes (which simply generate a savings pot)

British universities have reacted in a similar way; they are proposing switching future benefits to a DC basis. To avoid confusion, this means…Continue reading

WHEN President Donald Trump tweeted “We want free, fair and SMART TRADE,” on March 1st, trade-watchers groaned. Later that day, after months of back-and-forth between the protectionists and the globalists in the White House, he appeared to deliver the tariffs he has long been promising. He announced tariffs of 25% on imports of steel and 10% on those of aluminium. He promised protection “for a long time”, adding “you’ll have to grow your industries, that’s all I’m asking.” According to the New York Times, he told the assembled executives from steel and aluminium firms whom he met before the announcement that he did not intend to exclude any country from the tariffs.

Mr Trump’s bid to nurse America’s steel and aluminium industries to health could benefit some workers. There is a global glut of both metals, largely driven by an enormous expansion of China’s production capacity since the early 2000s. That created trade flows to America that over 420 separate anti-dumping and countervailing duties could not fully stem.

The avowed aim of the tariffs, though, is national security. Dennis Harbath, who manages the only smelter in America that produces the high-purity aluminium used in some fighter jets, is gratefully preparing to restart some idled production lines as soon as the tariffs are brought in.

Seen more broadly, the proposals…Continue reading

LOOKING back from the vantage point of 2025*, economic historians are starting to write their analyses of the Trump slump. It seemed to appear from nowhere with the economy growing at around the trend rate (2.3% in 2017) and the stockmarket booming. The abrupt change came in March 2018 when President Donald Trump decided to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium imports. Both China and the European Union (EU) retaliated in kind without trying to escalate the tensions. It might have ended there.

But unfortunately, the president’s more mainstream advisers like Gary Cohn had been sidelined by a more aggressive group that saw the trade deficit as the key measure of economic progress. In this mercantilist view, any American deficit was proof of cheating. Unfortunately, the president had also enthusiastically passed a tax-cutting programme which resulted in demand sucking more imports into the country. The trade deficit widened rather than declined. So in late 2018, just before the mid-term Congressional elections, an enraged President passed a general…Continue reading

Last summer, Uber at last started allowing its customers to tip their drivers. There was nothing actually preventing them from tipping before. At the end of the ride a passenger could have pulled out his wallet, fished around for change and handed the driver a few dollars. But it would have seemed absurd to do so, when everything else about the transaction was handled through a few taps of the app. The app didn’t enable tipping, so riders didn’t tip.

All of this highlights the conundrum for hotel housekeepers. Increasingly, people book hotel rooms through their computers or phones. They pay, and often pre-pay, with their credit cards. They get around town with app-based ride-hailing. There’s a good chance they don’t even carry cash. And yet to tip the housekeeper—or the bellhop or concierge—there’s no option but cash.

It is probably no coincidence, then, that tips are tight for housekeepers. According to the New York Times, fewer than…Continue reading

HAVING failed to get Rupert Murdoch’s attention before, Brian Roberts, chief executive of Comcast, certainly has it now. On February 27th the American pay-television giant said it would make a £22.1bn ($30.7bn) offer for Sky, the European satellite broadcaster, potentially disrupting Disney’s agreed $66bn purchase of much of 21st Century Fox.

The surprise announcement comes as Fox, which owns 39% of Sky, is trying to get regulatory approval in Britain for its own purchase of the remaining 61% of the satellite broadcaster, which it would then hand over to Disney after shareholders and regulators approve that deal (perhaps by the end of this year). By putting himself in the middle of that complex transaction, with an all-cash offer 16% richer than that of Fox, Mr Roberts is causing people to wonder what his goal is. He had tried to outbid Disney for Fox’s assets in the autumn, but gave up due to a lack of engagement from Mr Murdoch. He may now only be after Sky, or he may intend to make a still bigger hostile bid to top…Continue reading

Harder to expense

THE private-jet industry advertises itself as the height of luxury for the rich. But travelling through the ramshackle, ugly buildings it used to use as terminals was rather like going commercial. No longer. At one of Dubai’s newest facilities for private jets—built by Jetex, a fast-growing chain—passengers strum guitars on hammock-shaped sofas around a coffee table dressed up as a campfire, before being whisked away to their planes in limousines. Others amuse themselves playing table football or having elaborate spa treatments.

It is unsurprising that such a facility has emerged in Dubai. But the boom in luxurious terminals that look more like playpens for adults than somewhere to fly from is spreading. Jetex has opened 39 of them in more than 20 countries since 2005. Adel Mardini, the firm’s boss, is clear about how he wants to disrupt the industry. He says he wants airport facilities to feel “like a five-star hotel”.

Often…Continue reading

ACCORDING to President Donald Trump, money is pouring into America from abroad. The tax reform he signed into law in December means American firms can no longer defer paying taxes on profits left sitting in foreign subsidiaries. The change has led to some uplifting headlines. Apple said that it would make a one-off tax payment of $38bn relating to its past accumulation of $252bn in foreign earnings. Presumably, it will now start to bring this cash home. “Huge win for American workers and the USA!” tweeted Mr Trump. Yet despite the prospect of large-scale profit repatriations, the dollar has been strangely weak of late. Since the start of November, when tax reform began looking likely to pass, the greenback has fallen by about 3%. What is going on?

Start with the fact that repatriations are mostly not true capital inflows. An analysis by Zoltan Pozsar of Credit Suisse finds that, as of March 2017, American corporations had amassed around $2.2trn of earnings in overseas subsidiaries. About half was…Continue reading

AGUS SACCHAL sells sheets and blankets from a warehouse in Buenos Aires, for which he is paid in Argentine pesos. While the pesos go into his wallet, two other banknotes are stuck to his office window. One is a ten-yuan note from a visit to China, where he went in search of cheap textiles. The other is a $5 bill, pinned next to an invoice, also in dollars. Though he does not trade with America directly, when importing he uses the greenback.

Argentina’s rocky financial history makes the dollar’s dominance there unsurprising. Still, it is an extreme case of a wider phenomenon. After gathering data on 91% of the world’s imports, by value, Gita Gopinath of Harvard University found that America accounts for nearly 10%. But its currency is used in over 40% of invoicing.

Recent research suggests that this creates a link between a weak dollar and buoyant trade flows—and vice versa. Trends since 1999 are suggestive (see chart). During 2017 the dollar depreciated by 7% against a basket of other currencies, as global trade flows surged…Continue reading

THE Jesuits, the US Marines and the Freemasons: McKinsey has been compared to them all, at one time or other. The firm prides itself on being the most prestigious management consultancy, sending out its bright, young footsoldiers to advise executives and policymakers on tricky strategic issues. It is everywhere, counselling 90 of the top 100 firms (as ranked by Forbes magazine). Among its many government assignments it is helping Britain to leave the EU, Lebanon to fix its economy and the Saudis to wean themselves off oil.

Occasionally the company needs new leadership itself. On February 25th the result of a long election process was made public. Kevin Sneader, the Scottish chairman of McKinsey’s Asia unit, will replace Dominic Barton as managing partner—the top job. He inherits a thriving business. The firm remains by far the biggest of the premium consultancies (see table). Over the past decade, annual revenues have doubled to $10bn; so too has the size of the partnership, to more than 2,000.

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Better uses for $1.1bn

RESOURCE-RICH Nigeria has long ignited interest from oil firms, but it can be a dangerously combustible environment when it comes to the risk of corruption. Two firms caught up in scandals are Royal Dutch Shell and Eni, Italy’s state-backed energy group. In 2010 both entered into deferred-prosecution agreements with America’s Department of Justice after being implicated in separate Nigerian bribery schemes. But those pale beside a case involving the two companies that is set to go to trial in Milan on March 5th.

The case centres on the purchase of a big offshore oil field known as OPL 245, and touches the top ranks of both firms. In the dock will be, among others, Eni’s current CEO, Claudio Descalzi, and Shell’s former exploration chief, Malcolm Brinded. Also on trial are the firms themselves, charged with failing to prevent bribery. The individuals face jail if convicted; the companies face fines. All deny wrongdoing.

In 2011…Continue reading