Blackstone Seeks Retail Cash: “The logic is simple: There were 7½ times more U.S. households with $1 million to $5 million in assets at the end of 2016 than there were households with $5 million to $25 million, according to market research firm Spectrem Group.”
NYT Dealbook
Same reason why Goldman Sachs has done into internet banking Debt is good
HSBC to Add 4,000 Jobs in 4 Years in China HSBC is planning a 30 percent increase from 13,000 employees in the Pearl River Delta in spite of the bank’s three-year plan to cut global headcount by 50,000 and reduce annual costs by up to $5 billion. (NYT Dealbook)
HSBC has been given permission to issue a Panda bond (a first foe a foreign bank). The greater ability to access to local fundraising bodes well for the bank’s Pearl Delta plans.
What is most striking about George Osborne’s Chinese tour is he is doubling his political and economic bet on the world’s number two economy at a time when that economy is looking its most fragile for 30 years.
His calculation is that China’s economy will slow in a relatively contained way to a more sustainable rate – perhaps 4% or 5% a year compared with the official target of 7% – without a devastating crash that would damage a large number of client economies and engender social unrest in China itself (in employing the great Goldman bull of China Jim O’Neill as his commercial minister, Osborne could hardly wager otherwise).
…
The chancellor’s calculation is that the Chinese will remember who stuck by them when the going got tougher.
And he is also presuming that as the returns from investing in China itself diminish, Chinese institutions – many of them still loaded – will increasingly think owning a bit of Britain isn’t such a crazy idea after all.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34311675
Blackstone Hunts for Property Opportunities in China “Volatility can be your friend if you have a medium-to long-term perspective,” said Christopher Heady, head of the private equity firm’s Asia real-estate business.
(NYT Dealbook)
From yesterday’s Lombard column in FT
Bearish hedgies have confined themselves to shorting shares in Asia-focused fund managers …
Crispin Odey is chief among Mayfair’s prophets of doom. The pioneering hedge fund manager expects collapsing eastern markets to tip the world back into recession. He has accordingly sold 6.4 per cent of Ashmore and 1.5 per cent of Aberdeen in expectation of their shares dropping. About 16 per cent and 8.6 per cent of these fund managers’ free floats have been sold short, according to Markit.
,,, Aberdeen, for example, is a skilled Asian fund manager in the view of pundit Mark Dampier of Hargreaves Lansdown. Short sellers probably just think Martin Gilbert’s group specialises in a product so dangerous that it would be transported in lead-lined vessels if it were a physical commodity.
Shares in asset managers offer geared exposure to the markets in which they specialise. Their overheads stay the same, at least temporarily, even as their assets balloon or deflate in response to fluctuating stock prices and fund flows. Bears are presumably shorting Asian stock index futures too, though less visibly.
If the bears are right, Khong and Blackstone may have to wait to receive their rewards from Sentosa
https://atans1.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/sentosa-cove-god-tells-khong-to-wait-5-yrs-2/
and
“Blackstone seems to look for distressed assets and deep value,” said Vikrant Pandey, an analyst with UOB Kay-Hian Pte in Singapore. “In the U.S. it lapped up mass market apartments for their rental yields and deep value. In Singapore the luxury segment is offering deep value compared to mass market.”
You might not have heard of Glencore. There is little news of its upcoming IPO in our MSM because the US$10bn IPO will be listed in London and HK. This would value the company at US$145bn
Co is a trader in commodities.
With oil at USD120 and demand for most commodities strong, why should this float mark the end of an uptrend in commodities? Well the US Fed is likely to stop printing money and the European Central Bank is likely to join emerging market central banks in raising interest rates. China has juz raised interest rates for the second time in four months.
Remember Blackstone? In 2007, Blackstone, a private equity firm went public at US$36. A year later, the stock was at US$5. The private equity boom had ended. It is now only recovering.
Shrewd money knows when to cash out and Glencore has some of shrewdest minds in the commodities market.
Thoughts of a Cynical Investor 