Financial Times (October 5)
“Japan’s demographics — for all the socio-economic hand-wringing they cause — are now arguably the biggest ‘buy’ signal the country has sent for decades…. In several critical areas, Japan’s demographics are aligned to work strongly in favour of companies and investors.” One of these stems from “from labour shortages and the profound psychological difference they make to corporations’ ability to restructure.” This will enable corporations to “divest everything non-core and focus instead on what they are best at.”
Tags: Buy signal, Companies, Demographics, Divest, Hand-wringing, Investors, Japan, Labour shortages, Non-core, Psychological, Restructure, Socio-economic
Institutional Investor (June 14)
“Companies and their stake holders are increasingly anxious to add more women to their boards, a process that can be fraught with controversy…. But for all the hand-wringing,” a recent study from the Wharton School found that “companies do not perform any better—or any worse—when they have women on their boards.” This is “the research diversity experts don’t want you to read.”
Tags: Anxious, Boards, Controversy, Diversity, Experts, Hand-wringing, Performance, Research, Stakeholders, Wharton, Women
Bloomberg (November 11)
“There are reasons to suspect that all the hand-wringing about China pulling down the rest of the world may be a tad overdone. Just as the country’s slump is producing obvious losers…it’s producing winners as well.” They “will help the world withstand a protracted period of sub-par performance by China,” much as the world did “when Japan’s economy downshifted dramatically in the 1990s.”
Tags: China, Economy, Hand-wringing, Japan, Losers, Performance, Slump, Winners, World
