Washington Post (October 1)
“Offices in many of the world’s major cities are struggling to find workers to occupy them.” In contrast, during 2023 “Tokyo will add some 1.26 million square meters… of new office space, with little trouble occupying it…. Foreign investors, some of whom are dumping properties overseas, are snapping up buildings.” While Tokyo’s post-COVID recovery “has been more circuitous…it may be more complete than global peers.”
Tags: 2023, Buildings, Circuitous, Foreign investors, Major cities, Office space, Overseas, Post-Covid, Properties, Recovery, Struggling, Tokyo, Workers
Wall Street Journal (September 24)
“America’s billionaires love Japanese stocks. Why don’t the Japanese?” Despite enthusiasm from overseas, “there are few signs its estimated 125 million residents share in the excitement. Burned by dismal returns since the bursting of Japan’s asset bubble in the late 1980s and early 1990s, generations of families here have stashed most of their money in low-yielding savings accounts rather than trying to increase their wealth through the stock market.”
Tags: 1980s, 1990s, Asset bubble, Billionaires, Dismal returns, Enthusiasm, Excitement, Japan, Low-yielding, Money, Overseas, Residents, Savings accounts, Stashed, Stock market, Stocks, U.S.
Financial Times (June 6)
“The world’s trading system needs to ditch its paper trail.” The current global trading system “is suffocating under a mountain of billions of paper documents.” A recent survey “found 35 per cent of UK companies trading internationally say bureaucracy is a barrier to their business overseas. At the same time, 65 per cent said they will remove paper as soon as laws enable them to do so.” Estimates show that removing paper barriers to trade in the Commonwealth alone, “would deliver $1.2tn in economic growth by 2026. It would also reduce trade transaction costs by 80 per cent and enable more SMEs to participate. If combined with customs digitalisation, this number increases to $2tn.”
Tags: $1.2tn, Barrier, Bureaucracy, Commonwealth, Customs digitalization, Economic growth, Global, Laws, Overseas, Paper documents, Suffocating, Trading system, Transaction costs, UK companies
Reuters (May 2)
“Diversifying abroad looks attractive to many Japanese companies given weak home markets” as demonstrated by Astellas recent $5.9 billion acquisition of Iveric Bio. “For the $28 billion drugmaker, which already earns the bulk of its revenue from overseas, exceptionally low borrowing costs at home may have boosted its offshore appetite even more.”
Tags: Acquisition, Astellas, Attractive, Borrowing costs, Diversifying, Drugmaker, Home markets, Iveric Bio, Japanese, Offshore appetite, Overseas, Revenue, Weak
South China Morning Post (February 17)
“China’s regulators have unblocked the path for companies to list overseas, reopening the avenue of fundraising after a 20-month obstruction to enable businesses to recapitalise for growth in the post-Covid period.” Applications must be vetted by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) while the issuer must adhere to rules established by industry regulators in “disclosures of customers’ data and anything that could be construed as state secret.”
Tags: China, CSRC, Customers’ data, Disclosures, Fundraising, Growth, Industry regulators, Issuer, Overseas, Post-Covid, Recapitalise, Regulators, Reopening, State secrets, Vetted
Bloomberg (July 20)
There seems to be a split “forming between a growing number of bearish yen watchers in Tokyo and their more positive foreign counterparts.” With the yen at a 24-year nadir, “strategists are debating whether one of the year’s hottest macro trades—sell the yen—is overdone.” In Japan, many think “there’s still plenty of time to pile on shorts,” but overseas “analysts from Sydney to Geneva… say time is nearly up on the trade as the yen slips further toward the key psychological level of 140 per dollar.”
Tags: 140 per dollar, Analysts, Bearish, Foreign, Japan, Macro trades, Nadir, Overdone, Overseas, Shorts, Split, Strategists, Tokyo, Yen
The Economist (August 14)
Japan’s “financial heft in South-East Asia” is vastly understated. It still ranks as the biggest “investor in the region’s infrastructure projects.” While “China’s financial reach overseas attracts enormous attention, when it comes to infrastructure in South-East Asia, Japan is still very much the leader…. In total, it has $259bn invested in unfinished projects in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam…compared with China’s $157bn.”
Tags: China, Financial heft, Indonesia, Infrastructure projects, Investor, Japan, Leader, Malaysia, Overseas, South-east Asia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam
Bloomberg (April 3)
“Japan Inc. is on track to overtake China in overseas dealmaking for the first time in six years.” According to Bloomberg data, “Japanese companies have announced $26.9 billion of overseas acquisitions this year, compared with $16.5 billion by Chinese buyers.” The reversal is fueled by “a hunt for growth at Japanese firms…at a time when China’s most prolific acquirers have been hobbled by regulatory probes and new outbound investment rules.”
Tags: Acquirers, Acquisitions, China, Dealmaking, Growth, Japan Inc., Outbound investment, Overseas, Regulatory probes, Reversal
Financial Times (November 8)
Stung by the strong yen, over 100 TOPIX-listed manufacturers have issued profit warnings. Conventional cost cutting is no longer doing the trick. “After decades of building plants overseas and trying to make production leaner and more efficient to address the currency vulnerability, analysts say Japanese companies are facing a sobering reality: the urgency to sell underperforming businesses and join hands with rivals to survive brutal market conditions.”
Tags: Analysts, Cost cutting, Efficient, Japan, Leaner, Manufacturers, Overseas, Plants, Production, Profit warnings, Topix, Underperforming, Vulnerability, Yen
Wall Street Journal (September 3)
“All across American agriculture, production is up and prices are down.” With bumper crops expected, “corn prices have tanked, dropping to about $2.85 a bushel today from $6.50 three crop-seasons ago.” The Department of Agriculture is stepping in to help farmers with some subsidies and other programs, but what farmers really need is for Congress to “approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” which would boost demand overseas substantially.
Tags: Agriculture, Congress, Corn, Crops, Demand, DoA, Farmers, Overseas, Prices, Production, Subsidies, TPP
