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☆ The fog lifts for Didi's path to normalcy
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

HONG KONG, Jan 13 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Didi Global's road ahead looks clearer. The move effectively removes a one-and-a-half year ban on new users for Didi, which has cost it dearly. Its market share has fallen more than 10 percentage points to 72% over the period, according to Bernstein analysts. That should help clear the way to an eventual re-listing in Hong Kong. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ Uniqlo goes out on a limb in salary hike
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

HONG KONG, Jan 12 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Fast Retailing (9983.T), owner of the Uniqlo clothing chain, announced it would hike wages by up to 40% for some roles on Wednesday. The bigger question, though, is how much of an outlier Fast Retailing will be. Although Japan’s labour market is tight, weak growth and rising prices have caused real wages to contract for eight consecutive months through November. Fast Retailing, set to announce earnings today, was a market outperformer last year and is preparing a 3-1 stock split. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ TSMC foots the bill for global chip supremacy
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (2330.TW) on Thursday reported a bumper end to 2022, with December quarter earnings up a blistering 78% year-on-year to a record $9.7 billion. But costs, from overseas expansion, research and development and other factors are forecast to eat into profitability as the market enters a downturn. But TSMC also flagged R&D expenses will rise by a fifth this year, as developing next-generation technology gets pricier. Moreover, the company's new factories in the United States are adding to TSMC's expenses: executives said that construction costs are five times higher in America than in Taiwan. Capital expenditure is also forecast to be as much as $36 billion in 2023, roughly matching last year's level.

☆ Olam’s Saudi-Singapore IPO sign of shifting times
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MUMBAI, Jan 11 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Signs of deepening ties between Asia and the oil-rich Gulf are coming thick and fast. A planned Saudi Arabia-Singapore dual listing this year for Olam Agri, a trader of grains and seeds, is the latest example. Corporate and financial moves underscore how the global pin-code, as Olam’s co-founder and Chief Executive Sunny Verghese puts it, is changing. Between population trends, the Russia-Ukraine war and polarising geopolitics, expect the Gulf and Asia to get cosier. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ China’s wolf warriors start 2023 in retreat
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Pete Sweeney | Thomson Reuters | Asia Economics Editor Pete Sweeney Joined Reuters Breakingviews In Hong Kong In September Previously He Served As Reuters' Chief Correspondent For China Economy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

HONG KONG, Jan 10 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Beijing has taken the mic away from combative foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian. His transfer follows other de-escalatory moves, thawing relations with major trading partners including Australia, Japan and the United States. It will still take years to undo the diplomatic and economic damage his pack of “wolf warriors” has done to Chinese interests. loadingChinese moderates have criticised the wolf warriors’ competence. With the Western democracies demonstrating the durability of their power in Ukraine without firing a shot, Chinese pandemic policy in shambles and its economy reeling, it’s unsurprising if the wolf warriors are quieting their howl.

HONG KONG, Jan 9 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Jack Ma is leading China’s consumer internet out of the sin bin. After his fintech champion Ant said its founder will cede control, shares in affiliate Alibaba (9988.HK), rose 7% in Hong Kong on Monday morning. The company on Saturday announced that Ma's 50%-plus voting stake will be whittled down to roughly 6%, and a fifth independent director will join the board. Follow @mak_robyn on TwitterloadingCONTEXT NEWSChinese financial technology company Ant on Jan. 7 announced its founder Jack Ma will give up majority control of the company as part of a broader "corporate governance optimization". Ma held more than 50% of voting rights in Ant via his investment vehicle, Hangzhou Yunbo, which effectively controlled two other entities that owned a combined 53.46% stake in Ant.

☆ Chip woes short-circuit Samsung's best laid plans
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

HONG KONG, Jan 6 (Reuters Breakingviews) - South Korea's Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) can only defy gravity for so long. The worse-than-expected earnings guidance throws cold water on the chipmaker's aggressive supply and capital expenditure spending plans laid out in October. Analysts at Citi reckon Samsung’s memory chip capex this year will be roughly $25 billion, more than 10% lower than their earlier forecast. Samsung's best laid plans are starting to go astray. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

HONG KONG, Jan 5 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Western Digital (WDC.O) faces a daunting M&A challenge. Both outfits specialise in a type of memory chip called NAND flash, which is used in smartphones, computers and data centre servers. Yet even if the logic for a combination looks more compelling against this backdrop, the M&A hurdles Western Digital faced in 2021 are even more challenging today. The union between Western Digital and Kioxia will be a long slog, but worth it. Shares of Western Digital rose 7.7% to $35.63 during after-hours trading in New York on Jan. 4.

☆ Being ready for anything is top priority for 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Peter Thal Larsen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

In the past three years, the world has been rocked by a string of unexpected and epoch-defining events. Anyone trying to think about what 2023 will bring is confronted by a staggering array of possibilities. Watch whether the United Arab Emirates, which hosts the COP28 climate conference in November 2023, distances itself from the OPEC oil cartel. Encumbered by lower stock prices and pricier financing, merger activity will remain subdued in 2023. Follow @peter_tl on Twitterloading(This is a Breakingviews prediction for 2023.

Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, is gearing up to supply cars, and the chips and batteries that go into them, to global marques. It sees automakers entrusting the company with production in Indonesia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, the United States and beyond. Getting there requires Foxconn ditching a tried and tested business model. To make smartphones, the company relies on a few factories it owns in China and it has little say over the underlying supply chains and which components to use. Foxconn has also tied up with Ohio-based Lordstown Motors (RIDE.O) in the United States; its factory is already making electric pickup trucks and could start supplying to other American brands within a year.

☆ Singapore withstands a global property downturn
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Thomas Shum | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

HONG KONG, Jan 3 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Property is crashing everywhere, except in Singapore. The Asian city-state’s private residential prices are up 14% year-on-year, according to third-quarter data from Knight Frank. That’s a sharp contrast to major cities like Hong Kong and Sydney, which saw decreases of 7% and 4% respectively over the same period. Home prices in Hong Kong, the world’s least affordable property market by far, could fall by as much as 30% by the end of 2023 from 2021 levels, reckon analysts at Goldman Sachs. Still, Leonard Tay, an analyst at Knight Frank, predicts an up to 5% increase for private home prices in 2023.

Elon Musk’s will-they-or-won’t-they Twitter debacle kept readers on tenterhooks via Refinitiv’s platforms and our two websites, Breakingviews.com and Reuters.com. Another piece posing the hard-hitting question, “What is Morgan Stanley (MS.N) smoking in Twitter LBO?”, garnered plenty of clicks on Breakingviews.com and via Refinitiv. Almost a third of the best-read lists tackled the outbreak of war in Europe, and its terrible ramifications. Views on the rouble and the prospect of the country’s economic collapse demanded attention. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ Venture capitalists’ pain could be humanity’s gain
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Pete Sweeney | Thomson Reuters | Asia Economics Editor Pete Sweeney Joined Reuters Breakingviews In Hong Kong In September Previously He Served As Reuters' Chief Correspondent For China Economy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

A record $630 billion poured into venture capital investments that year. Now, as interest rate hikes tear into alternative assets, money going into innovation is being reallocated. Global VC funding fell to $329 billion in the nine months to September 2022, per a report from CBInsights, down 27% year-on-year. The liquidity crunch exposed governance flaws, dumb ideas and solutions looking for problems: metaverses, non-fungible images of bored apes, flying cars. Designing microscopic robots to fight disease and biochemical computers to outperform silicon chips entails higher upfront costs and longer commercialisation cycles than the consumer app plays many Silicon Valley backers are accustomed to.

HONG KONG, Dec 19 (Reuters Breakingviews) - America’s chip war against China will make only partial inroads in 2023. After unveiling sweeping new export restrictions in October, Washington appears to have successfully lobbied friendly governments including Japan and the Netherlands to join. Dutch Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher already said in November her government "will not copy the American measures one-to-one". Rival Nikon (7731.T) made sales of over 153 billion yen ($1.1 billion) in China, some 28% of total. In November, Dutch Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher confirmed the Netherlands was in talks with the U.S. government about new export restrictions.

HONG KONG, Nov 28 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Protests across China underscore a rising fear among people that President Xi Jinping’s stringent pandemic restrictions may be here to stay. Still, new daily cases hit over 40,000 on Nov. 27. Cities accounting for 65% of the country's GDP are under some sort of lockdown as of Friday, per Goldman Sachs analysts. Any end to the near-daily mandatory Covid tests and strict quarantine rules will be bumpy due to a huge unvaccinated population. As of November, about 27 million citizens aged 60 and above have not been jabbed against Covid, Breakingviews calculated from official data, and another 36 million elderly people have yet to receive their second dose.

☆ China’s U.S. audit capitulation is rare win-win
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Pete Sweeney | Thomson Reuters | Asia Economics Editor Pete Sweeney Joined Reuters Breakingviews In Hong Kong In September Previously He Served As Reuters' Chief Correspondent For China Economy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

NISEKO, Japan, Dec 16 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The history of Sino-American diplomatic relations is not replete with unequivocal U.S. negotiating victories. State-owned giants including oil refiner Sinopec (600028.SS) voluntarily decamped while its peer CNOOC (0883.HK) was booted off on a separate government order. Their departure helped erase over half a trillion dollars from the collective value of Chinese companies there between June and September. Scandals overseas do not help: many Chinese investors, for instance, had stakes in Luckin. For their part, Chinese regulators tightened cybersecurity reviews of companies listing abroad, alleviating the concerns of officials who suspect American intentions.

A combination of targeted subsidies and local demand will help. China's dependence on foreign suppliers for lithography machines, used to print patterns onto silicon wafers, light-resistant wafer coatings known as photoresists and other vital tools cannot be understated. A 2021 report found that Chinese chipmakers buy less than a fifth of their equipment by value from local suppliers and that the country has localised less than 8% of annual equipment demand. China's equipment specialists, such as little-known firms NAURA Technology Group (002371.SZ) and Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (688012.SS), are probably too small to effectively absorb massive amounts of government funding anyway. The majority of the funds will be used to subsidise the purchase of domestic semiconductor equipment by Chinese chipmakers.

The Chinese pharmaceutical giant may revive a buyout of its 32%-owned traditional medicine arm listed in Hong Kong. The state-backed group's latest bid for China Traditional Chinese Medicine (0570.HK) looks generous. China TCM's woes are a stark contrast to mainland-listed rivals, including some with heavy exposure to drugs presented as fixes to Covid-19. Assuming some of that enthusiasm can rub off on China TCM, that makes Sinopharm's latest offer look like a steal. Follow @mak_robyn on TwitterloadingCONTEXT NEWSSinopharm is considering reviving a bid for China Traditional Chinese Medicine Holdings, Bloomberg reported on Dec. 7, citing people familiar with the matter.

HONG KONG, Dec 1 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Covid-19 lockdowns and protests across China have highlighted the risks of the mutual dependence between Taiwan's Foxconn and its top customer Apple (AAPL.O). It makes 70% of the world’s iPhones, according to Fubon Research. Meanwhile Apple’s huge investments into Foxconn have paid off: the U.S. company is the most profitable smartphone maker by far. Foxconn has been scrambling to contain the fallout, offering bonuses to temporary workers and shifting production to other facilities. At the time, Foxconn said it was bringing the situation under control and was coordinating with other plants to increase production.

☆ China decoupling takes one step forward, one back
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Pete Sweeney | Thomson Reuters | Asia Economics Editor Pete Sweeney Joined Reuters Breakingviews In Hong Kong In September Previously He Served As Reuters' Chief Correspondent For China Economy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

It has pushed for reshoring production of electric vehicles and silicon chips, and legislated to delist Chinese companies from New York. Europe, Japan, Australia and India have implemented their own measures ranging from restrictions on Chinese investment, excluding equipment from telecoms networks, and banning consumer apps. The impact the pandemic has had on Chinese supply chains has retroactively validated the push to separate. For politicians who hope to replicate the Chinese supply chain via tax tweaks, subsidies and sanctions, it’s worth remembering China started building out the requisite logistical infrastructure in the 1980s. Non-financial outbound direct investment in the same 10-month period rose 10.3% year-on-year to 627.4 billion yuan, Shu said.

HONG KONG, Nov 24 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Pershing Square boss Bill Ackman is taking another tilt at the Hong Kong dollar , betting the government will be forced to break its link to the greenback. His logic is stronger today than when he took the plunge in 2011 but it’s up to Beijing, not Hong Kong. Back then Ackman famously predicted that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority would allow the local currency to strengthen against the U.S. dollar. A secular decline in Hong Kong might ultimately sabotage the peg at some point. On the other hand, Hong Kong is a city, not a country.

HONG KONG, Nov 23 (Reuters Breakingviews) - A Hong Kong stock market debut puts Jakarta at the centre of China’s electric-car boom. Lygend Resources & Technology (2245.HK), a Chinese nickel trader, is looking to raise up to $594 million in an initial public offering to expand in Indonesia. Lygend both trades and produces nickel products, essential for stainless steel and batteries. Around a fifth of the world’s nickel resources are located in the country, which accounted for nearly 40% of ore unearthed last year, according to the company’s prospectus. Hong Kong CATL is the largest cornerstone investor, according to the prospectus.

☆ China reopening hope puts wind in Alibaba sails
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Just ask China's $220 billion e-commerce giant Alibaba (9988.HK), whose New York stock has rallied by a third this month despite tepid performance from its annual Singles Day shopping festival and so-so quarterly results. Revenue from the domestic commerce unit, accounting for nearly two-thirds of Alibaba's top line, fell 1% year-on-year, to $19 billion. Boss Daniel Zhang's cost cuts are paying off, though: the overall adjusted EBITDA margin improved three percentage points to 21%. Zhang's messaging on China's gradual reopening probably resonated with investors more. Shares of Alibaba, rivals JD.com (9618.HK) and Pinduoduo (PDD.O) and other Chinese stocks jumped, too.

☆ BHP’s shinier $6 bln OZ bid stays within reality
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MELBOURNE, Nov 18 (Reuters Breakingviews) - BHP (BHP.AX) boss Mike Henry’s apparent nonchalance about buying OZ Minerals (OZL.AX) always smacked of play-acting. No sooner had the metals miner rejected its larger rival’s A$8.3 billion ($5.8 billion) all-cash overture in August than Henry was fobbing it off as a “nice-to-have, not a must-have” business. Yet on Friday, the target disclosed BHP recently upped its offer 13%, and says it will agree in principle to the revised bid. Henry is now dangling a 49% premium to OZ’s undisturbed share price. Cutting around a third of OZ’s annual expenses would, taxed and capitalised, cover the A$3.1 billion premium.

HONG KONG, Nov 17 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Naspers (NPNJn.J) has a new Tencent (0700.HK) quandary. In June, they launched an open-ended plan to gradually sell Tencent shares and use the proceeds to repurchase stock in both companies. The problem, however, is that Tencent stock has underperformed that of Naspers and Prosus. Over the same period Naspers shares rose 6% while those of its Dutch subsidiary are down 19%. “The Naspers Board and Prosus Board reiterate their continued confidence in Tencent's long term prospects and continue to believe that the share repurchase programme is in the best interests of Prosus, Naspers and their respective shareholders," they said in a statement.

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