Reuters (September 3)
“Publicly listed family-owned firms, defined as those where the founder of their family owns 20% of shares or votes, returned 3 percentage points more than non-family owned stocks during the virus-struck first half of 2020.” It might be a coincidence, “but the same thing happened after the last crisis…. The effect persists across sectors, regions and company size,” perhaps because the firms have less debt and invest more in R&D.
Tags: 2020, Crisis, Debt, Family-owned, Founder, Listed, R&D, Regions, Sectors, Shares, Size, Stocks, Virus
Billboard (August 17)
The UK music scene “may soon be unrecognizable because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has plunged the U.K. economy into its worst recession on record.” While socially-distanced live music has resumed, under a third of venues can meet the requirements and most “would lose too much money on these reduced-capacity shows for it to be economically feasible.” Music Venue Trust, a charity which represents 670 grassroots venues, estimates that “more than 400 across the country are in crisis.”
Tags: Capacity, Coronavirus, Crisis, Feasible, Grassroots, Live music, Pandemic, Recession, Socially-distanced, UK, Unrecognizable, Venues
Reuters (August 5)
“Lebanon has added tragedy to crisis.” The devastating blast in Beirut “sent seismic shockwaves across the capital, killing at least 100 people and injuring 4,000. A health emergency created by the pandemic may now be followed by a wider humanitarian crisis. Chronic political weakness makes everything worse.”
Tags: Beirut, Blast, Chronic, Crisis, Devastating, Emergency, Humanitarian crisis, Injuring, Killing, Lebanon, Pandemic, Tragedy, Weakness
Responsible Investor (June 9)
“Only in finance can a product lose 24% of its value and be celebrated as success. Since traditional benchmarks have lost more than ESG funds since the beginning of the year, ESG is feted by some as a success, a ‘refuge’.” Kudos, however, are not in order. “The rude fact is that, on the whole, ESG risk management frameworks did not prepare us for the inevitability of the pandemic. They did not help investors and banks anticipate the crisis, nor how to navigate it. The pandemic is a failure of mainstream risk management frameworks. Sadly, it is also a failure of ESG risk management frameworks.”
Tags: Banks, Benchmarks, Crisis, ESG funds, Finance, Frameworks, Investors, Pandemic, Refuge, Risk management, Success, Value
New York Times (May 21)
“Let us not squander another crisis. We need to take a long, hard look at all the ways the pandemic can push this little planet of ours to further ruin — and then work like crazy, together, to stave off the coming hell.”
South China Morning Post (May 12)
In Hong Kong, the “coronavirus crisis is shaping the future of office space…. Net absorption of office space has fallen to an 18-year low…. In the long run, the Covid-19-induced trend towards flexible working arrangements will drive office decentralization.”
Tags: Coronavirus, COVID-19, Crisis, Decentralization, Flexible working, Hong Kong, Net absorption, Office space, Trend
Institutional Investor (May 5)
“Institutional investors have a remedy for the mounting pile of public debt accumulating during the coronavirus crisis: Tax private equity.” In a recent survey 62% of respondents suggested “increasing taxes on private equity, carried interest or performance fees, and special purpose vehicles” as ways “their national governments should adjust tax policies to offset stimulus spending.”
Tags: Carried interest, Coronavirus, Crisis, Governments, Institutional, Investors, Performance fees, Private equity, Public debt, SPVs, Stimulus spending, Survey, Tax
Financial Times (April 16)
“Sadly, it is quite possible that when we meet again we will be no better placed to face the unequal world in which we live. Yet it need not go that way. A concern with equity in crisis management would lessen suffering in many countries now, and offer new ideas to inspire us to build a less unequal world in the future. Since we are less than half way into the crisis, dare we hope this can still happen?”
Chicago Tribune (April 10)
“The coronavirus crisis maddens in myriad ways, and for many victims one of the most vexing is the inability to get tested…. Broader-scale testing is beginning to occur, but the progress is unacceptably slow.” We need to ramp this up to provide “more detail about where exactly the pandemic has struck.” Until we do, “the country will never be able to defeat the coronavirus — and get the economies of Illinois and the rest of the country back on track.”
New York Times (March 29)
The Covid-19 crisis has awakened “a sleeping giant” in China. “How the ruling Communist Party manages the coming months will help shape how hundreds of millions of young people see its authoritarian political bargain for decades to come.” The “generational awakening… could match the defining effects of World War II” and it “could disrupt the social stability on which the Communist Party depends.”
Tags: Authoritarian, Awakened, CCP, China, COVID-19, Crisis, Disrupt, Sleeping giant, Social stability, WWII, Young
