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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.

☆ The challenges of being prepared for 2023: podcast
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Peter Thal Larsen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

LONDON, Jan 5 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The global pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed the difficulty of making predictions. Forecasting the coming year is even more fraught than usual. In this Viewsroom podcast, Breakingviews columnists discuss some scenarios that may play out in the next 12 months. Listen to the podcastFollow @peter_tl on TwitterloadingEditing by Katrina HamlinOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. 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’s hamsters sound shrill warning
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

HONG KONG, Jan 5 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Almost a year to the day since Hong Kong culled 2,000 hamsters to combat Covid-19, the city is rescinding a ban on importing the creatures for sale, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. The rodents’ return is a small but welcome landmark in its gradual reopening. Imported hamsters must still test negative for the virus before they can be sold. As Hong Kong prepares to start reopening the mainland border next week, the city needs to cure lingering, illogical bureaucracy, which will hamper urgent efforts to heal the economy, and resurrect normal life. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ 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.

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.

☆ Dealmakers will be lucky to eke out a 2022 repeat
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Jeffrey Goldfarb | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

NEW YORK, Dec 29 (Reuters Breakingviews) - As with often value-destructive mergers and acquisitions, the numbers aren’t adding up for dealmakers. Meanwhile, deal volume tumbled to about $3.5 trillion, 36% down from the same time a year earlier, though it stayed ahead of 2020’s pace. Private equity firms already accounted for an all-time high of 22% of deal volume in 2022. As potentially bleak economic circumstances loom, bankers will be lucky to eke out a repeat of 2022. CONTEXT NEWSWorldwide mergers and acquisitions volume for 2022 stood at $3.5 trillion as of Dec. 12, according to Refinitiv data.

TORONTO, Dec 28 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Like dogs seeking forever homes, stray pet businesses will find new owners in 2023. After a surge in Covid-19 lockdown adoptions, some seven out of 10 U.S. households owned one, according to a recent survey by The American Pet Products Association. Nestlé (NESN.S) boss Mark Schneider, for one, said he is open to opportunities in pet food, while Colgate-Palmolive (CL.N) recently bought additional manufacturing facilities to beef up its Hill’s Pet Nutrition division. Privately held Mars, which acquired Canada-based Champion Petfoods and Nom Nom, also could be on the hunt. Separately, Mars also agreed to acquire pet food brand Nom Nom for an undisclosed price, Bloomberg reported on Jan. 14.

LONDON, Dec 27 (Reuters Breakingviews) - One of China’s biggest exports in 2023 will be its social e-commerce phenomenon. There’s early evidence that selling goods over live social networking works beyond the People’s Republic. Live online shopping revenue will help offset shrinking marketing budgets. By contrast, consultancy McKinsey projects U.S. social media e-commerce sales will increase 20% annually over the same span, to $80 billion. Such anecdotes are what will make e-commerce go viral on Western social media.

☆ Global finance unknowns are more “who” than “what”
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Aimee Donnellan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

LONDON, Dec 27 (Reuters Breakingviews) - After British pension funds narrowly dodged catastrophe in 2022, regulators are hunting enthusiastically for hidden risks in the non-bank financial industry. The key to stopping a crisis isn’t locating the landmines – it’s working out who’s most likely to stand on them. As a result, regulators everywhere, including the G20’s financial stability task force, are on high alert looking for hidden leverage. Emerging market funds are one place to start the search. Before the pandemic, banks, hedge funds and other investors were happy to back corporate takeovers with high levels of debt.

If more female fans tune in, they will help Chief Executive Stefano Domenicali fuel revenue at his motor-racing division. Around 40% of F1 fans are now female, up 8% from 2017, and more women are attending races too, Domenicali said in November. One way to accelerate the trend could be featuring female drivers. She also boasts a fanbase of over half a million social media followers – more than the W Series itself. Unfortunately for Formula One, when financial pressures ended W Series 2022 early, she absconded to Andretti Autosport’s team for the U.S. IndyCar NXT races.

☆ Weed’s next frontier is in Asia
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( Thomas Shum | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

HONG KONG, Dec 23 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Asia is beginning to warm up to the use of cannabis. Thailand legalised marijuana cultivation at home in 2022, while South Korea, Japan and Malaysia are paving the way for pharmaceutical applications. South Korea was the first country in East Asia to legalise pharmaceutical cannabis, and Japan, Malaysia and Taiwan are all considering similar moves. If American experience is any guide, regulated pharmaceutical use will inevitably trickle into the recreation market, boosting aggregate demand. Cannabis in Asia will burn slowly, but where there is smoke there may eventually be fire.

☆ 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.

LONDON/NEW YORK, Dec 22 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Private credit has grown into a $1.3 trillion mountain over the last decade. When banks stopped lending to private equity firms in 2022, private credit firms stayed active. High-yield loans issued by banks and then sold on to investors in the market fell 80% in the first nine months of 2022, according to Fitch Ratings. Specialist private lenders, however, had some $390 billion of spare capital to spend, according to Preqin data. Investors who funded private lenders may be in for a shock.

HONG KONG, Dec 21 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Vietnam is an unlikely home of the next Elon Musk. The 48-year-old is at the wheel of VinFast, a money-losing electric-vehicle maker racing the U.S. entrepreneur’s Tesla (TSLA.O) on Western roads. VinFast has made its name selling gas guzzlers in the Southeast Asian nation, where its parent Vingroup (VIC.HM) is the top conglomerate. CONTEXT NEWSVietnamese electric-car maker VinFast is planning a U.S. initial public offering, an initial prospectus published on Dec. 6 shows. Revenue fell to 10.5 trillion dong, down from 11.2 trillion dong.

☆ Netflix will be next on Microsoft’s shopping list
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Jennifer Saba | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Look for him to add Netflix (NFLX.O) to the list in 2023. Since his 2014 promotion into the technology titan’s corner office, Nadella has embarked on a pricey shopping spree. Later, Microsoft bought LinkedIn for $26 billion and the speech recognition and artificial intelligence software developer Nuance for $20 billion. Even if Nadella loses out on the video-game company for competition reasons, however, owning Netflix would make strategic sense and probably be an easier sell in Washington and Brussels. With a market value 13 times that of Netflix, as of early December, $1.8 trillion Microsoft can afford Netflix.

☆ Polycrisis may lead to polycentric world order
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Hugo Dixon | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Another scenario is possible: a “polycentric order” with multiple centres of authority, where the United States is the leading power but not the hegemonic one. Indeed, the outlines of such an order may already be emerging out of the conflagration of economic, political and other shocks often labelled the polycrisis. A polycentric order would be different from what is often called a “multipolar” system - a dog-eats-dog world where big powers have a licence to dominate their neighbours. The United States is not nearly as powerful as it was. President Joe Biden realises the United States needs allies, says Peter Engelke of the Atlantic Council think tank.

☆ Central bankers will shift inflation goalposts
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Peter Thal Larsen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and others are determined to limit annual price increases to around 2%, in line with their targets. In 2010 International Monetary Fund economists argued a higher target would give central banks more firepower when battling a slump. Take the Fed: During the 1990s, PCE inflation was at or below 2% in just 49 out of 120 months. A revised target would also allow central banks to accommodate longer-term inflationary pressures, such as trade frictions, shrinking working-age populations, and climate change. The so-called core PCE index, which excludes volatile food and energy components, rose 5.0% on a year-on-year basis.

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.

HONG KONG, Dec 12 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Hong Kong’s bankers and officials fantasise about the moment China finally ditches its Covid-19 restrictions. Mainland Chinese firms account for eight of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing’s (0388.HK) ten largest ever IPOs. It remains faster for Chinese companies to list in Hong Kong, rather than join the long queue on the mainland. Hong Kong could also host more offerings from places like the Middle East and Southeast Asia, as Cha envisions. IPOs on the Hong Kong exchange have raised $7.1 billion so far in 2022, according to Refinitiv data for the year up to Dec. 7.

Its dependency on parent Vingroup (VIC.HM) may be a turnoff, too. Success has yet to translate to returns for parent Vingroup, owned by Vietnam’s richest man, Pham Nhat Vuong. VinFast’s net loss nearly doubled to 34.5 trillion dong ($1.45 billion) for the first nine months of 2022 compared with the same period last year, while the top line shrank 6% to 10.5 trillion dong. VinFast reported a net loss of 34.5 trillion dong ($1.45 billion) for the nine months to the end of September, according to the prospectus, widening from 18 trillion dong a year earlier. Revenue fell to 10.5 trillion dong, down from 11.2 trillion dong in the same period last year.

☆ HKEX alum helps Macau take micro-step into finance
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

HONG KONG, Dec 6 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Small is beautiful. Hong Kong’s former stock market Chief Executive Charles Li, key driver of the wildly successful bilateral Stock Connect programme between mainland Chinese bourses and Hong Kong, is kickstarting an asset exchange in Macau. Given Li’s experience running Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing’s (0388.HK) HK$26 trillion ($3.35 trillion) securities market, his entry is a coup for Macau, which is increasingly desperate to diversify beyond gambling into finance. Talk of a yuan-based stock exchange has yet to bear fruit. Macau, which sits outside China’s capital controls like Hong Kong, may want to compete with its neighbour, but it has a long way to go.

☆ China’s messy options for ending zero-Covid: podcast
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Aimee Donnellan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

LONDON, Dec 1 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Protests broke out across the People’s Republic this week as authorities tightened lockdowns to contain the virus. In this Viewsroom podcast, Breakingviews columnists discuss the difficulties of walking back a policy that leader Xi Jinping has convinced the country is necessary. Listen to the podcastFollow @aimeedonnellan on TwitterloadingEditing by Thomas Shum and Katrina HamlinOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Opinions expressed are those of the author. 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, 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.

☆ Singapore Airlines extends its India runway
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

On Tuesday Singapore Airlines (SIAL.SI) and Indian conglomerate Tata agreed to merge their nine-year-old jointly owned carrier Vistara with Air India, whose enterprise was valued at $2.4 billion when Tata bought it just over a year ago. Air India, meanwhile, will get a deep-pocketed partner willing to inject as much as $615 million more in capital over the next couple of years, if needed. Singapore Airlines’ ability to finance the deal with cash speaks volumes about its strong financial position. In any event, its ability to upgrade its seat in India will serve Singapore Airlines well. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

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