Mansion Global (July 11)
“The market has cooled since June, when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates 0.75% to help curb inflation.” Housing inventory is rising, “finally giving buyers some options and negotiability with sellers.” As a result, “nearly 15% of home contracts in the U.S. were canceled in June,” which had approximately 60,000 cancellations. That’s up 12.7% over May and 11.2% year on year.
Tags: Buyers, Contracts, Cooled, Fed, Housing inventory, Inflation, Interest rates, June, Market, Negotiability, Options, Sellers, U.S.
The Economist (September 29)
“A scramble to replace LIBOR is under way” before it is phased out permanently in 2021. Though scandals have revealed LIBOR’s numerous inadequacies, “a staggering $260trn-worth of financial products, from interest-rate swaps to retail mortgages,” are estimated to be priced using LIBOR and many of the contracts lack fallback clauses. “Creating and then switching to truly market-based alternatives is an almighty task.”
Tags: Contracts, Fallback clauses, Financial products, Inadequacies, Interest-rate swaps, LIBOR, Market-based alternatives, Retail mortgages, Scandals, Scramble, Staggering
The Economist (September 17)
“Investors outside China have about $1trn invested in firms that use” variable interest entities (VIEs). These include Alibaba and Tencent. Yet, it remains “unclear if VIEs are even legal in China,” exposing investors to two risks. “First, the VIEs could be ruled illegal, potentially forcing the firms to wind up or sell vital licences and intellectual property in China. The second danger is that VIE owners seek to grab the profits or assets held within. If they refuse to co-operate, die, or fall out of political favour, it is far from clear that firms can enforce VIE contracts in Chinese courts.”
Tags: Alibaba, Assets, China, Contracts, Courts, Illegal, Investors, IP, Profits, Risks, Tencent, VIEs
Financial Times (February 17)
“Forty governments are signatories to the anti-bribery convention adopted in 1997 by the Paris-based OECD…. So it was reprehensible for Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s former prime minister, to state last week that bribery in pursuit of international contracts was not an offence. It would be unfair on Italian companies to play by rules scorned by competitors, he declared.” Italy is a signatory to the OECD convention.
Tags: Anti-bribery, Competitors, Contracts, Italy, OECD, Prime minister, Signatories, Silvio Berlusconi
