BUSINESSBUSINESSTuesday 26 September 2017

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India looks to further boost

Qatar LNG import

Qatari & Danish firms to expand cooperation

Dow & Brent before going to press

RasGas signs 15-year LNG deal with PetrobanglaThe Peninsula

RasGas Company Limited (RasGas) sealed a land-mark 15-year liquefied

natural gas (LNG) Sales and Pur-chase Agreement (SPA) with Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Min-eral Corporation (Petrobangla).

The agreement was signed in Doha by Hamad Mubarak Al Muhannadi, CEO of RasGas, and Abdul Mansur Md Faizullah, Petrobangla Chairman.

The event was attended by H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada, Minister of Energy and Industry; the Bangladesh State Minister Nasrul Hamid; Saad Sherida Al Kaabi, the President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum; and Syed Ashfaquzzaman, Sec-retary of Petrobangla.

During the event, Al Muhan-nadi, outlined the size and duration of the agreement, which will see the Qatari energy giant supplying 2.5 million tonnes of LNG per annum to Petrobangla for 15 years.

Deliveries will be to Petrobangla’s floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) near Moheshkhali Island in Bangladesh, marking RasGas’ f i r s t l o n g t e r m

contract delivered to a FSRU. The agreement with Petrobangla asserts RasGas’ continued commitment to ensuring energy security to its customers in Asia, as well as its position as a reliable supplier of LNG, a cleaner, more efficient source of energy.

“Reliable access to energy plays a vital role in driving socio-economic growth, and RasGas has fulfilled our prom-ise to safely and reliably provide this access for more than two decades,” said Al Muhannadi.

“Bangladesh has very ambi-tious growth plans and this landmark partnership between our two countries will support Bangladesh as it strives to achieve its 2021 and 2040 development goals.”

Petrobangla Chairman, Fai-zullah added: “Bangladesh, under the visionary stewardship of Honourable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has already ensured sustainable annual growth of above 7 percent, and we are striving to ensure energy security and a reliable supply of gas to our entrepreneurs.

LNG would play a vital role in the growth of the Bangladesh economy, and we are happy to

enter into this historic partner-ship with Qatar, a long-trusted friend.”

Qatar and Bangladesh’s strong economic, political and cultural ties were highlighted by Dr Al Sada, who went on to state that the SPA “underscores our commitment to our part-nership with Bangladesh, and highlights Qatar’s continued leadership in bringing clean and reliable LNG to new markets and new customers”.

Al Kaabi said: “We are very pleased to see the Republic of Bangladesh join the list of coun-tries that benefit from Qatari gas to support their economic growth and development by using the most environmentally friendly fossil fuel.

I would like to thank Petrobangla for their confidence in Qatar, and we look forward to working with them to secure Bangladesh’s future needs.

This agreement enhances Qatar’s leading position as an LNG provider, and creates broader horizons of growth and development as it moves for-ward under the wise leadership and guidance of the Emir, H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.”

H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada (standing right), Minister of Energy and Industry; Nasrul Hamid (standing centre) Bangladesh State Minister; Saad Sherida Al Kaabi (standing left), Qatar Petroleum President and CEO, witness Hamad Mubarak Al Muhannadi (sitting right), RasGas CEO; and Abdul Mansur Md Faizullah, Petrobangla Chairman signing the landmark 15-year Sales and Purchase Agreement between RasGas and Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation, yesterday.

QDB & QC announce ‘Made at Home’ expo launchMohammad Shoeb The Peninsula

Qatar Development Bank (QDB) and Qatar Chamber (QC) yesterday announced

the launch of ‘Made at Home’ exhibition, a first of its kind opportunity in the country, where local micro-enterprises will be showcasing a wide range of goods produced by home-based businesses. The five-day expo will kick-start on October 1 at Doha Exhibition and Con-vention Centre (DECC).

The upcoming exhibition is part of a broader small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) outreach programme – the Home-based Business National Program (HBBNP) – that was launched by the development bank in 2015 to stimulate the pri-vate sector through facilitating the entry of a greater variety of SMEs into the local economy. Importantly, the upcoming “Made at Home” expo shines a spotlight on homemade prod-ucts and supports home-based entrepreneurs in their challenge to overcome traditional barriers to market entry, a feat that has traditionally been predominantly achievable by larger businesses. To be held under the patronage of H E Sheikha Al Mayassa bint

Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums, Doha Film Institute and Reach Out to Asia, the exhibitions is being organised by QDB and QC in collaboration with the Minis-try of Administrative Development, Labour & Social Affairs (as strategic partner) and Ooredoo (as telecommunication sponsor).

The press briefing, held at QDB headquarters, was attended by Abdulaziz bin Nasser Al Kha-lifa, CEO of QDB; Saleh bin Hamad Al Sharqi, Director-Gen-eral of QC; Najat Al Abdullah, Director of Department of Fam-ily Affairs in the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour & Social Affairs; and Yousef Abdullah Al Kubaisi, Chief Operating Officer of Ooredoo.

Commenting on behalf of QDB, Abdulaziz bin Nasser Al Khalifa, said: “The ‘Made at Home’ exhibition is a first edi-tion of such events where exhibitors are limited to home-based products. The event is in line with efforts in achieving self-sufficiency and economic independence by establishing a vibrant private sector as one of the important pillars of a well-diversified and sustainable economy.” Abdulaziz added: “As we know several home-based

products, with very humble beginning, have grown to big companies and factories. We at QDB are committed to extend all the possible support to help them establish, grow and expand their scale of production.”

Some 144 exhibitors are expected to participate at the event who have been selected meticulously out of the over 250 requests. Products to be dis-played include several types of food products, drinks, handi-crafts and other items.

“The event aims at helping

and encouraging Qatari home-entrepreneurs. It will enable the exhibitors to introduce their products and exploring new opportunities to expand the scale of their production to continue their businesses and grow con-tributing to the local economy,” said Al Sharqi on his behalf of QC.

He said that QC is always ready to extend all its support to productive families, enhance their skills and assist them in marketing their products locally and internationally.

QC, the country’s largest and oldest private industry repre-sentative body, has already facilitated productive families to participate in a number of exhi-bitions such as Made in Qatar, Made in China and Expo Turkey.

The exhibition, which will be held across an area of more than 5,000 square metres at DECC, will contribute to the promotion of productive families, micro-enterprises producing various commodities using 100 percent local hands.

FROM LEFT: Najat Al Abdullah, Director of the Department of family affairs at the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labor and Social Affairs, Saleh Hamad Al Sharqi; Director General of Qatar Chamber, Abdulaziz bin Nasser Al Khalifa; CEO of Qatar Development Bank (QDB), and Yousuf Abdulla Al Kubaisi, COO, Ooredoo Qatar at the press conference at QDB Headquarters, yesterday. Pic: Kammutty VP / The Peninsula

Commercial Bank to tap Taiwanese bond marketReuters

Qatar’s third-largest lender, Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ), is

considering borrowing money on the Taiwanese bond market, its group chief executive told Reuters in Doha.

CBQ could tap the Tai-wan’s Formosa bond market “in the next few months”, depending on appetite, Group Chief Executive Joseph Abra-ham said.

He said that $250m would be the minimum the bank would be interested in rais-ing and the move would give comfort to investors.

“This, to me, is just show-ing that we are tapping into the international markets as we did always, so that again gives them comfort the busi-ness is running as usual,” Abraham said.

Formosa bonds are sold in Taiwan by foreign issuers and denominated in curren-cies other than the Taiwanese dollar.

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22 TUESDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2017BUSINESS

Vice Chairman of Qatar Chamber, Muhammed bin Ahemd bin Towar Al Kuwari (fifth left), Ambassador of India P Kumaran (third right), Head of Indian business delegation, Joy Kunjukutty (fourth left), President of Indian Business and Professional Council, K M Varghese (second right), and other members, at the meeting of Indian business delegation and Qatar Chamber at the Chamber headquarters in Doha yesterday. Pic: Salim Matramkot/ The Peninsula

Qatari & Danish firms to expand cooperationThe Peninsula

Qatar Chamber (QC) yes-terday hosted a meeting of leading Qatari businessmen with the members of

the Danish business mission. Both sides exchanged ideas to expand and deepen bi lateral cooperation.

Mohammed bin Ahmed bin Towar Al Kuwari, Vice-Chairman of QC, in his address, invited Qatari and Danish businessmen to establish partnerships to tap thriving business and investment opportunities in Qatar’s promis-ing sectors, which will be a win-win situation for both coun-tries’ economies.

“This is the right time to make advantage of the investment cli-mate and incentives Qatar provides for foreign investors. There are opportunities in

industry, education, aviation, health, sport, services and all other economic sectors,” said Al Kuwari.

He added: “Despite Qatar and Denmark enjoy distinctive rela-tions but their trade exchange is still below expectations. It reached in 2016 only $70m. Both countries own huge potentials and resources which must be tapped.”

He noted that Qatar has attached great interest to the eco-nomic diversification and exerted

tireless efforts to decrease the dependence on energy revenues as a single source of income. So, in line with the objectives of the Qatar National Vision 2030, Qatar has encouraged the private sector to expand its contribution

in the national economy and to play greater role in the process. “This has stimulated Qatar busi-nessmen to intensify their business inside the state and to find investments abroad and at the same time it attracts foreign

investors to open companies here in Qatar in cooperation with Qatari partners,” Al Kuwari said. At the end he anticipated that the meeting will help create new era of relations between Qatar and Denmark.

Mohammed bin Ahmed bin Towar Al Kuwari (right), Vice-Chairman of QC, with officials of the Danish business mission, here yesterday.

Commercial Bank to tap Taiwanese bond market

Commercial Bank Chief Executive Joseph Abra-ham said As it continues

and they can see Qatar remains resilient and still functioning well, I think they are becoming a little more relaxed.”.

Asian lenders, however, have continued to express appetite for Qatari paper, particularly institutions from China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, he said.

Qatar’s largest lender, Qatar National Bank, this month said it had raised $630m in the Formosa market.

However, Abraham said that other parts of the busi-ness continue to be affected by the crisis.

Board meetings at United Arab Bank(UAB), an Emirati lender 40 percent owned by CBQ, are now held by video conference because of travel restrictions imposed by the UAE, Abraham said.

He also said that the two banks would be unlikely to work together on cross-bor-der loans, as they have in the past, in the current circumstances.

Though CBQ funding costs have risen by about 20 basis points, Abraham said the bank is able to mitigate that by repricing assets and increasing its transaction banking fund base.

Qatar has pumped billions of dollars into local banks since the crisis began in an effort to cushion the sector from withdrawals by the four Arab countries.

“The country has the

reserves and capability to manage,” Abraham said, later adding that “the central bank will do what’s required to ensure the banking system remains solid”.

CBQ has no plans to change its five-year strategy, unveiled late last year, the Gulf crisis having no end in sight, he said.

The bank has since raised its Common Equity Tier 1 ratio, a key measure of a lender’s ability to absorb losses, to 11.4 percent from 10 percent, he said.

Provisioning is expected to normalise at the start of next year and the cost-income ratio has dropped to 38 percent from 45 percent, he said.

He added that the CBQ aims to reduce that to 30 percent.

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Video Home & Jumbo Electronics bag sales achievement award from DometicThe Peninsula

Dometic is the world’s lead-ing supplier of minibars to the hotel industry. In

Qatar its range of absorption Hotel Mini Bars, Safe Boxes and Door Locks are distributed by Video Home & Electronic cen-tre & Jumbo Electronics. Over the years Jumbo Electronics has managed to place Dometic prod-ucts in majority of the leading hotels in Qatar giving it a dom-inant 60% market share in Qatar’s 4 & 5 Star Hotel segment.

As a result Video Home &

Electronic Centre and Jumbo Electronics have been awarded the ‘Outstanding Sales Achieve-ment Award’ from Dometic Middle East FZCO for an excel-lent sales performance during 2016 – 17.

The award was presented by Kester Petersson, Managing Director and Mohammed Muwafi – Regional Sales Man-ager from Dometic Middle East FZCO in Dubai. On behalf of Jumbo Electronics, Pradeesh Kumar – Asst. General Manager & B2B Sales Head received the award and thanked the manage-ment team of Dometic Middle

East for the trust shown in Jumbo Electronics over the years.

Currently, there are over 5 million Dometic Minibars in hotel rooms around the world – making it the market leader in the hospitality industry.

With over 45 years of expe-rience all Dometic products are manufactured in Dometic owned production plants in Germany, Hungary, and China. World over the hospitality industry places its trust in Dometic to deliver high quality and comfort-enhancing solutions for their guests.

In thousands of hotels and

other lodgings across the world millions of sophisticated mini-bars, convenience fridges and safes can be found.

Video Home & Electronics Centre known for being a “Total Solutions Provider” has been associated with many land mark projects in Qatar through Government Institutions, Real Estate Developers, Contractors and Hospitality Clients during their 37 years of successful operations in the State of Qatar. Along with their flagship brand LG, Jumbo Electronics is meet-ing the wide variety of cliet requirements.

Investcorp announces $350m dealINVESTCORP, a leading provider and manager of alternative investment prod-ucts, today announced that its US.-based real estate arm has invested in six multifamily properties in Florida and Ari-zona, for a total purchase price of approximately $350m. The properties are located in key growth markets with strong fundamentals in the multi-family space.

Johannes Glas, Managing Director at Investcorp in Qatar, said: “Real estate investments continue to be a key pillar of our investment strategy. We believe that these newly acquired properties benefit from positive socioeconomic factors and sound business infrastructure in the areas.”

Grand Rapids

Reuters

The Federal Reserve should wait until there are clear signs that American pay-

checks and prices are rising before raising interest rates again, a US central banker said Monday, warning that moving too fast would be a policy “misstep.”

Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans, who votes this year on mone-tary policy, said he broadly agrees with his colleagues who believe rates should rise gradu-ally to about 2.7 percent over the next two years or so, from the current range of between 1 per-cent and 1.25 percent.

But he said inflation, running at 1.4 percent by the Fed’s pre-ferred gauge, is too low, and voiced concerns that low infla-tion expectations will keep it

from rising toward the Fed’s 2-percent inflation goal.

“We need to see clear signs of building wage and price pres-sures before taking the next step in removing accommodation,” Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Economic Club of Grand Rapids. “A gradual and cautious approach continues to be the appropriate strategy.”

His comments stood in stark contrast to the confident tone adopted by William Dudley, chief of the New York Fed, who earlier Monday said inflation weakness is fading.

The Fed has raised interest rates twice this year, and last week policymakers pointed to one more rate hike this year and three next year. Fed Chair Janet Yellen said such increases are justified by improvements in the labor market and the conviction

that inflation will return to 2 per-cent by 2019.

Evans said he is less optimis-tic about inflation. Returning inflation to 2-percent over the medium term, he said, calls for policies that generate at least the possibility inflation could exceed

2 percent.“We should avoid tak-ing policy steps that could be misread as a lack of concern over the inflation outlook,” said Evans. “In my view, that would be a policy misstep that would further delay achieving our inflation objective.”

Fed needs to see prices rise before next rate hike

The Eccles Building in Washington, DC, which serves as the Federal Reserve System’s headquarters.

Video Home officials receiving the award from Dometic.

Trade volume

Trade exchange between the countries reached in 2016 $70m. Both countries own huge potentials and resources which can be tapped

Indian business delegation in Qatar

23TUESDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2017 BUSINESS

India looks to further boost Qatar LNG import volumeSatish Kanady The Peninsula

As Qatar begins ram-ping up its natural gas production, the energy-hungry India expects Qatar’s

enhanced supply capabilities will help boost the country’s LNG import volume very soon.

“Qatar is increasing its LNG output in the next three to four years in huge volume. Obviously, there is much bigger scope for additional supply. Currently, India receives 8.5 million tones of gas per annum from Qatar. We have plans to double the amount of gas used to import to India. Therefore, India is looking at Qatar’s enhanced supply capa-bilities with huge interests”, P

Kumaran (pictured), India’s Ambassador to Qatar told The Peninsula yesterday.

In July, Qatar Petroleum announced that it had to increase natural gas production by 30 percent over the next several years. Saad Sherida Al Kaabi, the company’s CEO, said QP intends to raise production from 77 mil-lion tonnes of natural gas to 100 million tonnes a year by 2024.

Speaking on the sidelines of an Indian trade and investment delegation meeting in Qatar Chamber (QC), the Indian envoy said : “Currently, the Qatar-India trade is in the range of $10-$10.5bn, of which $9-$9.5bn is the value of Qatar’s export to India, mostly LNG and petrochemicals”.

As Qatar ramps up its gas

production, India is looking to enhance its import volume in a big way, he added.

India’s Petronet has already signed an agreement to purchase 7.5 million tonnes of LNG every year from Qatar for a period of

25 years, the first shipment took place in 2004.

The full supplies of 7.5 mil-lion ton began from January 2010. In addition, spot cargoes are purchased from time to time. “Petronet signed (May 2014) a deal to buy 0.8 million tonness LNG from Qatar’s RasGas in the fiscal year that began on April 1, 2014.

The gas is being imported at Petronet’s 10-million-tonne-a-year Dahej regassification terminal in western India. In Dec 2014, Petronet received its 1000th cargo at Dahej from RasGas.

On December 31, 2015, Pet-ronet signed a fresh agreement with RasGas to purchase an addi-tional 1.0 million tons of LNG annually through the remainder

of the existing 25-year contract, ending in 2028”, publicly avail-able document from Indian embassy shows.

India is the third largest export destination for Qatar, behind Japan and South Korea, while import from India to Qatar stand at 10th on the list. India is a major buyer of ethylene, pro-pylene, ammonia, urea and polyethylene from Qatar.

However, India has been a major customer for Qatari crude oil/products. A letter of Intent has been signed with Qatar on set-ting up a Joint Venture fertilizer plant in Qatar, subject to alloca-tion of gas for this project.

According to energy intelli-gence portal The Platt, India’s LNG imports should rise by 10 percent annually over the next

few years, surpassing 30 million mt/year by 2020, versus 19 mil-lion mt/year in 2016. Growth is driven by fast-rising energy demand. The government is increasingly focusing on envi-ronmental issues and existing infrastructure bottlenecks.

To meet this growing gas supply-demand gap, Indian LNG demand should outpace the vol-umes supplied under current long-term LNG contracts signed by Petronet, Gail, and GSPC.

By 2020, currently con-tracted volumes will stand at nearly 22 million mt, but with demand rising to over 30 million mt, around 8.5 million tons of demand would have to be met by spot market purchases in 2021, according to market watchers.

China squeezes $12.1bn from financial systemCHINA’S central bank drained 80 billion yuan ($12.1bn) from the financial system through open market operations yes-terday, with the volume of maturing securities exceed-ing new injections.

China’s central bank said that it pumped 200 billion yuan through reverse repos, with 280 billion yuan of con-tracts maturing, leading to a net withdrawal of 80 billion yuan. The operations included 160 billion yuan of 14-day reverse repos priced to yield 2.6 percent, and 40 billion yuan of 28-day con-tracts with a yield of 2.75 percent.

Unilever to buy SouthKorean skincare companyThe Hague AFP

Anglo-Dutch food and con-sumer products giant Unilever said yesterday

it was buying a leading South Korean cosmetics and skincare company for ¤2.27bn ($2.69bn), seeking to boost its Asian presence.

Describing Carver Korea as the “fastest-growing skincare business in South Korea,” Alan Jope, Unilever’s president for personal care, said the acquisi-tion would “significantly strengthen our position in North Asia”. The Rotterdam-based Unilever is buying the company from Bain Capital Private Equity

and Goldman Sachs. South Korea is the fourth largest skin-care market in the world, Unilever said in a statement, adding that Carver, founded in 1999, had “shown exponential growth over the last five years” with sales in 2016 of ¤321m.

Adding Carver to its wide range of household brands, including beauty and personal care items like Dove, Axe and Sunsilk, “will complement our existing portfolio, enabling us to offer luxury skincare prod-ucts at attainable price points,” Jope said. Carver’s products include the popular AHC brand which offers a range of eye-creams, and moisturisers as well as anti-ageing creams.

Hopes for jobs as Air Berlin picks Lufthansa, EasyJet bidsBerlin

AFP

Insolvent Air Berlin confirmed yesterday it was negotiating with German airline giant

Lufthansa and Britain’s EasyJet to sell off parts of its business, offering hope for the future of its 8,000 employees and 140 aircraft.

“ N e g o t i a t i o n s w i t h Lufthansa AG and the British air-line EasyJet will now continue until October 12,” the firm said in a statement following a board meeting.

Technical details around winding up the carrier to be thrashed out in the coming weeks and any final deal will need to be approved by Euro-pean regulators.

EasyJet is interested only in parts of the passenger airline, while Lufthansa’s bid includes subsidiary LGW and Austrian airline Niki as well as parts of Air Berlin.

At stake are the carrier’s 140 leased aircraft—including those wholly owned by Niki—coveted landing and takeoff slots at Ger-man airports, some prime Berlin real estate and the livelihoods of thousands of employees.

“We are on the way to achieving good job prospects for around 80 percent of our col-leagues with our bidders,” Air Berlin chief executive Thomas Winkelmann said.

The company has some 8,600 employees, including part-time workers, according to DPA news agency.

Air Berlin suffered recently as huge numbers of pilots called in sick in a protest action sparked by the uncertainty over looming job losses.

At the time, Winkelmann said the wildcat strike posed an

“existential threat” to Air Berlin.

“Stable flight operations in the coming days and weeks are essential for success” in the sell-off negotiations, administrator Frank Kebekus said yesterday.

Air Berlin triggered bank-ruptcy proceedings in mid-August after losing a cash lifeline from its biggest share-holder Etihad Airways, giving potential buyers a month to make their offers.

In the race to strip down Air Berlin, Lufthansa reportedly beat out IAG—owner of Iberia and British Airways—and three bids of between ¤500m and ¤600m ($600m and $715m) a piece from private investors.

Despite media reports to the contrary, there was no sign Monday that German competi-tor Condor was still in the bidding process.

Irish low-cost airline Rya-nair stayed out of the bidding as its outspoken chief Michael O’Leary denounced a German “stitch-up” designed to favour Lufthansa’s expansion of its l o w - c o s t s u b s i d i a r y Eurowings.

“Rumours that politics had influenced the selection of investors are completely absurd,” insolvency administra-tor Lucas Floether said in the statement.

The German government, which extended a ¤150m bridg-ing loan to Air Berlin to keep its aircraft aloft, ruled out any one competitor taking over the car-rier whole for competition reasons.

Neither details of the bids from Lufthansa and EasyJet nor the amounts of their offers have been made public.

But the airline said “there is a good chance” that the

government’s loan can be repaid to public investment bank KfW.

German newspaper Bild and Berlin tabloid B.Z. reported at the weekend that creditors expected the sale of Air Berlin assets to br ing in ¤250m-¤350m.

Lufthansa chief Carsten Spohr told journalists last week that the carrier was interested in buying up to 78 Air Berlin planes.

Lufthansa has signalled it could hire up to 3,000 people to go with its new planes, pos-sibly including some from Air Berlin’s ranks.

As European low-cost air-lines engage in dogfights for control of the skies, trade union Verdi fears that some buyers plan to use their own staff to profit from Air Berlin’s aircraft and landing slots, rather than offering existing employees opportunities.

Verdi’s Christine Behle said last week the union expected the successful bidders to “take on responsibility for Air Berlin’s employees and offer them good opportunities for the future”.

But the clock is ticking.Despite the government’s

cash infusion, Air Berlin is run-ning on fumes. It has already been forced to slash most long-haul flights and plans to end the service all together by October 15. Some domestic flights are also being cancelled from the end of the month.

Air Berlin, which trans-ported 36 million passengers in 2016, has assured anxious trav-ellers it will operate its other flights as scheduled until bank-ruptcy proceedings are completed. Passengers who bought plane tickets after August 15 can be reimbursed for their reservations.

Managing Director at Total E&P Qatar and group representative, Guillaume Chalmin (left) shakes hand to welcome his successor Laurent Wolffsheim, during a ‘farewell-welcome’ reception held at Four Season Hotel, yesterday. Pic: Kammutty VP/ The Peninsula

Total ‘farewell-welcome’ reception

24 TUESDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2017BUSINESS

New York AFP

Amid uncertainty over Pres-ident Donald Trump’s growth agenda, US econo-

mists increasingly are worried about risks to the economy, though they see little chance of a recession near term, according to a survey released yesterday.

The National Association for Business Economists quarterly survey showed little change in the forecasts compared with June in key areas such as eco-nomic growth, which was projected at 2.2 percent in 2017 and 2.4 percent in 2018.

But the September survey of about 50 economists showed 48

percent believe the risks to the economy are weighted to the downside, indicating chances for an economic slowdown, while 43 percent see the risks tilted to the upside, meaning growth could outpace forecasts.

That is a shift from June, when upside risks outweighed downside risks by 60 to 36 per-cent. Ken Simonson, a survey analyst for NABE and the chief economist of the Associated General Contractors of America, cited a number of factors behind the somewhat more pessimistic outlook.

“There probably is more concern about North Korea and perhaps the Federal Reserve seems closer to making a move

towards tightening,” he said. However, “Downside doesn’t translate into expectation of recession, but slower growth.”

Simonson also said decreased optimism about the success of Trump’s agenda in Washington likely contributed to the shift. The survey showed 73 percent of respondents believe individual tax cuts will be enacted by the end of 2018, down from 83 percent in the June survey. And 61 percent now see an infrastructure plan enacted, down from 83 percent previously.

And those figures are much higher than those in NABE’s semi-annual survey of a larger group of economists released last

month, which also showed ris-ing concerns. Simonson said he was highly skeptical Washing-ton will produce a major tax overhaul by the end of 2018 given the complexity of the issue and the sharp political polariza-tion in Congress.

Still, nearly three-quarters of panelists viewed the odds of a 2018 recession as 25 percent or lower, with the remaining group seeing the chance as 26 to 50 percent probability. The sur-vey was conducted while Hurricane Harvey pummeled Houston, but before Hurricane Irma hit Florida. The report made no attempt to assess the storms.

Analysts say hurricanes typ-ically depress short-term

growth, but the hit is made up for later as rebuilding fuels eco-nomic activity.

The forecast for monthly nonfarm payroll growth for 2017 was unchanged at 178,000, but unemployment is now seen as averaging 4.4 percent, down from the 4.5 percent in June.

Economists expect the Fed-eral Reserve to continue with a strategy of gradual interest rate increases, with the center of the federal funds target range seen at 1.375 percent at year end, and 2.125 percent by the end of 2018, from 1.00-1.25 percent currently. After the Fed’s two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, analysts see a good chance of a rate increase in December.

Beirut

Reuters

Lebanon still aims to increase taxes to finance a public sector pay rise, a

senior official said yesterday , after the plan was thrown into doubt last week when the con-stitutional council annulled the new tax law.

Many public sector workers went out on strike yesterday after the constitutional council, an arm of the judiciary, decided on Friday to reject the tax law passed by parliament to finance a $917m public sector pay rise.

The official said the govern-ment would adjust its proposed tax hikes as they were the only

way for the heavily indebted state to pay for the wage increase. The proposals included increases in value-added tax, corporate tax, taxes on alcohol and tobacco, lottery prizes and interest on bank deposits, as well as increases in fees and fines. The official said the gov-ernment would address the points raised by the council.

Some economists had expressed concern about the tax hikes and the constitutional council said they were unlaw-ful for a number of reasons, including the government’s fail-ure to approve them as part of a state budget.

Prime Minister Saad Al Har-iri’s government in March

agreed the first state budget in 12 years, but it has yet to be approved by parliament. “Time is running out and we have no alternative to taxes,” the official said. “We cannot finance (the public sector pay rise) without these taxes because this will cre-ate a financial imbalance and increase the strain on the econ-omy and increase the public debt, representing a danger to Lebanon’s credit rating.”

Lebanon has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 148 percent, one of the highest in the world, and recorded a fiscal deficit of $4.9bn last year. Moody’s rat-ings agency downgraded Lebanese sovereign debt in August citing its debt burden.

Athens

AFP

Greece must wrap up its review of economic reforms “before the

end of the year” in order to exit its huge bailout “cleanly”, the head of a group of Euro-zone finance ministers said yesterday.

Following talks with Greek government leaders in Athens, Dutch finance minister and Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said “we share a strong joint commitment to rapidly conclude the review before the end of the year”.

Greece has received two multi-billion euro bailouts since 2010. The third rescue programme, currently finan-cially supported by EU states alone, runs to August 2018 and Athens then hopes to fully return to market financing.

“It’s feasible and should be done,” Dijsselbloem said after meeting Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos. In order to get the green light from its creditors to release the agreed loans, Greece is expected to fulfil 95 committments by December, including reforms to the civil service and social benefits, measures to free the energy market, and an acceleration of privatisation.

Without discounting the constant “problems and dif-ficulties” which have arisen in the negotiations between his country and its creditors, Tsakalotos said he was con-vinced that a common ground will be found. His Dutch coun-terpart stressed that “confidence has returned” in Greece and abroad on the prospects for recovery. His visit coincided with the formal clo-sure of the EU’s disciplinary procedures against Greece, which started in 2009.

Two years after Tsipras’s leftist government nearly crashed Greece out of the euro, and eight years after the coun-try plunged into economic crisis, employment numbers are finally improving.

Zurich

Bloomberg

Swiss engineering com-pany ABB Ltd agreed to buy General Electric Co’s industrial solutions busi-ness for $2.6bn to

strengthen its foothold in the US, the world’s biggest market for electrification products like cir-cuit breakers and switch gears.

ABB will incur costs of $400m over five years to integrate GE’s industrial solutions unit, Chief Executive Officer Ulrich Spiesshofer told journalists yesterday, adding that he’s prepared to offer support and “oxygen” to reverse waning market share and years of under-investment at the business.

“It was a non-core business, and what happens with unloved children is they might not get the right level of attention to be nur-tured or get going,” Spiesshofer said. “We know what needs to be fixed but we are very confident this business will prosper as part of ABB.”

Worth some $30bn, the US is the world’s largest market for electrification, according Spiess-hofer, who is trying to rekindle growth at ABB after a four-year restructuring plan and catch up with the No. 1 company in the seg-ment, Schneider Electric. The

CEO’s latest deal expands ABB’s offering of critical power, trans-formers and related services for customers such as hospitals, data centers and refineries. That’s in contrast to prior calls from activ-ist investor Cevian Capital AB to break the company up.

The profit margin of the GE unit, which was around 8 percent in 2016, will initially dampen prof-itability at ABB’s electrification products division, but the Swiss company said it was committed to returning this to its target

margin corridor of 15 to 19 percent during 2020. GE started a bidding process in December for indus-trial solutions. Bloomberg News reported on Friday that a deal was close.

“ABB’s purchase of GE’s indus-trial-solutions business seems like a defensive move to close the gap with Schneider, which is awaiting completion of its $1.25bn purchase of Asco Power,” Bloomberg Intel-ligence analyst Jawahar Hingorani said in a note. “But justifying the

deal to activist Cevian may be challenging based on expected cost savings, valuation and sus-pension of share buybacks.”

During the prolonged negoti-ations, Spiesshofer said that while GE controlled the pace of the sale process, he stuck to his guns on what he thought industrial solu-tions was worth. Part of the attraction is how the transaction will forge closer links between the two companies, with ABB a key supplier, he said during a Bloomb-

erg TV interview.“We have clearly articulated

the current challenges but also the strength of the business,” the CEO said. “When we look at the over-all ratio between price and value creation potential, we find this acquisition very attractive.” A pre-viously announced share buyback will be put on hold due to the transaction, the Zurich-based company said yesterday. The deal is expected to generate cost sav-ings of about $200m annually.

For GE, the transaction marks the first major portfolio change under CEO John Flannery, who took over on August 1 and is try-ing to reverse this year’s biggest stock slide on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Under pres-sure from activist investor Trian Fund Management, GE agreed in March to deepen its cost-cut tar-gets. Proceeds from the electrical-products division sale would be used to fund restructur-ing, the company has said.

Industrial solutions, one of GE’s smaller divisions, has about 13,000 employees. The sale is part of a broader reorganization of GE Energy Connections & Lighting, the company’s least-profitable unit last year with margins of 2.1 percent. GE has also put its iconic light-bulb manufacturing opera-tions on the market. The company is combining energy connections with GE Power.

Flannery, who handled merg-ers and acquisitions for GE in 2013 and 2014, has said he’ll outline his plans for the Boston-based com-pany and its portfolio in November. Under former CEO Jeffrey Immelt, the maker of gas turbines, jet engines and ultrasound machines tilted toward equipment manufac-turing in recent years while jettisoning most finance and con-sumer operations.

ABB agrees to buy GE unit in $2.6bn deal

The logo of Swiss power technology and automation group ABB is seen in front of a logo of General Electric in Baden, Switzerland, yesterday.

More US business economists see ‘downside’ economic risks

Brussels

Reuters

The European Commission said yesterday that it wants more social protec-

tion and rights for workers on short-term and other non-standard contracts to tackle growing inequality.

The Commission’s consul-tation document on these plans is part of a broader reworking of EU economic priorities under pressure from populist critics who accuse Brussels of having pursued ultra-liberal policies to the detriment of workers.

The document proposes a substantial review of EU social rights that could partly limit employment flexibility and ease insecurity caused by new types of “gig economy” jobs offered by firms like Uber and food-delivery service Deliveroo.

Brussels is proposing to extend full social protection and other forms of security to all workers, including those on very short-term, part-time and zero-hour contracts who in some EU member countries have lower safeguards.

“We want that people are aware of their rights and have basic social rights and social protection,” EU Social Affairs Commissioner Marianne Thys-sen told a news conference yesterday. “We need rules

adapted to new forms of works, with adequate protection,” she added.

Most EU workers have full-time, permanent contracts but a growing number, especially the young, have jobs with ultra-flexible working hours, no regular pay and fewer employ-ment protections.

They accounted for more than one third of the total work force in the 28-country bloc in 2015 and that share is growing, the commission said in its con-sultation paper. Most of these employees have to work under these conditions in absence of alternatives, the document said.

Non-standard workers tend to have lower levels of social and health security and some new contracts, such as casual or voucher-based work, are even more worrying, according to the commission’s document.

The Commission’s propos-als could raise costs for companies like Uber, which is already facing legal disputes in several EU countries and has not had its licence renewed in London.

The Commission is propos-ing that workers should be properly informed about the conditions of their employment and given explanations by employers for not having a per-manent contract after a few years in the same job.

Greece needs to wrap up reforms quickly: Eurogroup chief

EU seeks more protectionfor ‘gig economy’ jobs

The Value-Added Tax (VAT) building in Beirut, Lebanon.

Lebanon aims tax increases

Tapping US market

The deal will strengthen ABB’s foothold in the US, the world’s biggest market for electrification products like circuit breakers and switch gears.

ABB will incur costs of $400m over five years to integrate GE’s industrial solutions unit, Chief Executive Officer Ulrich Spiesshofer said.

25TUESDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2017 BUSINESS

The logo of the new “Joon” lower-cost airline on a plane scale model during a news conference in Paris. Air France yesterday launched Joon, taking its first small steps into the battle for more budget-conscious customers on long-haul routes. Air France describes Joon as a hybrid between low-cost and traditional carriers, which it hopes will attract a younger “millennial” clientele and restore some routes to profitability. Joon flights will have Wifi on board as well as USB charging points at each seat.

‘Joon’ lower-cost airline launched

London

AFP

The chief executive of Uber apologised yes-terday for “mistakes” made by the US ride-sharing app after

London authorities refused to renew its licence, but still vowed to appeal the decision.

“While Uber had revolution-ised the way people move in cities around the world, it’s equally true that we’ve got things wrong along the way,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi (pictured) wrote in an open letter. “On behalf of everyone at Uber glo-bally, I’d like to apologise for the mistakes we’ve made.”

But he insisted: “We will appeal this decision on behalf of millions of Londoners, but we do so with the knowledge that we must also change.”

Transport for London (TfL) on Friday said it would not renew

Uber’s licence to operate in the capital on expiry, owing to pub-lic safety concerns.

Uber, which has about 40,000 drivers and some 3.5 mil-lion customers in the British capital, has 21 days to lodge its appeal and can continue to oper-ate until that process has concluded. Khosrowshahi added in the letter: “We won’t be per-fect, but we will listen to you; we will look to be long-term part-ners with the cities we serve; and we will run our business with humility, integrity and passion.” Uber has seen its global popular-ity explode since it launched in 2009 in San Francisco, but also faces bans in other hubs includ-ing Cape Town, Mumbai, and New Delhi.

TfL has slammed the com-pany for its approach to customer safety, claiming it was “not fit and proper” to operate in London — and gave “public safety and security implications” as reasons for its decision.

The transport body cited Uber’s approach to reporting serious criminal offences, how drivers’ medical certificates are obtained, how criminal record checks are carried out, and its use of technology which allegedly helps it to evade law enforcement.

The capital’s mayor, Sadiq

Khan, welcomed yesterday’s apology from Khosrowshahi. “Obviously I am pleased that he has acknowledged the issues that Uber faces in London,” he said in a statement. “Even though there is a legal process in place, I have asked TfL to make themselves available to meet with him.”

In an earlier interview with the BBC, Khan declared that Uber has “got to play by the rules”. He also attacked the firm for “mak-ing aggressive threats” and hiring an “army of PR experts and law-yers” to fight the ruling.

Uber came under scrutiny in Britain after it emerged that doz-ens of rape and sexual assault claims had been made against their drivers and when one of their drivers used his vehicle in a recent terror attack on Buck-ingham Palace.

TfL questioned also the proc-ess through which drivers obtain their medical certificates and the practice of “greyballing”, when the company uses a fake version of its app to fool regulators in cit-ies where it is banned. More than 750,000 Londoners have so far signed a petition calling for the TfL decision to be reversed.

Meanwhile the move has sparked concern over the plight of Uber’s London drivers, many of whom have car finance deals in place with third-party compa-nies. “People have spent so much money on these vehicles, what are they going to do now?” Abdur Razzak Hadi, 40, told The Guard-ian newspaper.

“There are a lot of people who have bought these new cars on hire purchase. These people will be in massive debt,” added the father of four who has been an Uber driver for three years.

Uber boss says sorry over London ‘mistakes’

Paris

AFP

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced plans yesterday to pour €57bn

($67.8bn) into modernising France’s economy, with a hefty chunk set aside for making it more environmentally-friendly. Spread over five years, the fund will be slightly bigger than the €50bn that centrist Emmanuel Macron pledged when he was elected president in May.

Philippe said the fund would have an “amplifier effect” on the new government’s reform pro-gramme, which includes labour law changes designed to bring down stubbornly high unem-ployment of 9.5 percent. “It’s about giving power and

visibility to our major invest-ment priorities,” Philippe said.

Nearly €20bn will be used to fund a transition towards a greener economy, Philippe said, including €9bn for making buildings more energy efficient and €7bn for renewable energy development. In a bid to cut down on pollution, French driv-ers will be offered a €1,000 cash incentive to trade in cars made before 1997 — or 2001 for die-sel models — for newer and more efficient vehicles.

The government will spend €9bn on digitising the public sector, including by rolling out e-payments for more services and boosting telephone access to doctors to help patients in rural areas. Some €15bn has been set aside for training and

education, including training one million people aged over 25 for new careers as Macron’s government seeks to tackle long-term unemployment.

Around €13bn will be spent on broader innovation, includ-ing €5bn for modernising the agricultural sector in Europe’s biggest food producer. Another €3.5bn of the innovation fund will be handed to scientists, including for developing the artificial intelligence industry.

Philippe said some of the funding would come from exist-ing ministerial budgets and some from the European Invest-ment Bank. The launch comes as Macron’s government pre-pares to announce the first budget of his five-year term on Wednesday.

France launches €57bn investment fund

London

Reuters

Sterling skidded to a 10-day low against a broadly stronger dollar

yesterday with sentiment still sour after Friday’s speech by Prime Minister Theresa May failed to offer the details on Brexit that investors had been looking for.

Data released late on Fri-day showed speculators had cut their bets against the pound to the lowest level in almost two years in the week to last Tuesday after the Bank of Eng-land signalled it would raise interest rates from record lows in the “coming months”.

But the pound slipped on Friday, putting in its joint-weakest performance against the euro in seven weeks on Friday, with investors disap-pointed by the lack of detail on how Britain would ensure that it kept preferential access to the EU’s single market after it leaves the bloc.

It added to its losses against the dollar yesterday, falling as much as half a percent to $1.3432, its lowest since Sep-tember 15. “Sentiment is still slightly negative after Theresa May’s speech,” said ING cur-rency strategist Viraj Patel.

The pound strengthened as much as 0.9 percent to 87.755 pence per euro, as investors priced political risk into the single currency after the German election results, which showed a surge in sup-port for the far right and put the country on course for what could be months of coa-lition talks.

Brussels

Reuters

The European Central Bank is growing increasingly confident that inflation

will rise back to its target, but patience is still needed, not least to make sure the economic recovery lasts, ECB President Mario Draghi said yesterday.

Draghi singled out currency volatility as a source of uncer-tainty that required monitoring and argued that “ample” ECB accommodation was still needed, because a premature and hasty move could unravel its work.

“Overall, we are becoming more confident that inflation will eventually head to levels in line with our inflation aim, but we also know that a very sub-stantial degree of monetary accommodation is still needed for the upward inflation path to materialise,” Draghi said.

“We also have to be sensi-tive to the danger of not halting a recovery through hasty mon-etary-policy decision making,” Draghi told the European Par-liament’s committee on economic affairs in Brussels. “We can’t afford hasty moves.”

With the eurozone econ-omy now growing for the 17th straight quarter, the ECB is expected to wind down its stim-ulus efforts, starting next year, even if inflation looks to remain below the bank’s near 2 percent target for years to come.

Indeed, policymakers speaking to Reuters said that the debate is now about the details of the policy shift, such as whether to keep its quanti-tative easing programme open-ended or whether to sig-nal an intent to phase out bond

purchases. But any change is likely to be incremental. Many policymakers are arguing for a gradualist approach to stop the euro from gaining too much.

“We still see some uncertain-ties with respect to the medium-term inflation outlook,” Draghi said. “Most notably, the recent volatility in the exchange rate represents a source of uncertainty which requires mon-itoring. “We therefore need to be patient and persistent.”

Draghi also noted the effec-tiveness of the ECB’s corporate bond purchases, arguing that they have lowered borrowing costs across the board, helping small and medium-sized busi-nesses gain access to cheaper funding. His support for corpo-rate bond purchases may bolster calls to keep them going even if government bond buy-ing is scaled back next year.

Launched two and a half years ago, the ECB’s €2.3 tril-lion bond-purchase scheme has depressed borrowing costs and helped revive spending and growth with the bloc cre-ating over 7 million jobs since the worst days of Europe’s debt crisis.

But inflation has been unexpectedly slow to respond, leaving the ECB with a dilemma. Keeping price growth just below 2 percent is its sole mandate; inflation was last at 1.5 percent.

But much of its firepower has been exhausted, and the inflation shortfall is at least partly outside its control. That has led policymakers to call for giving inflation more time, accepting that lifting prices will take several years longer than initially hoped.

Tokyo

Bloomberg

Japan’s government raised about 1.3 trillion yen ($11.6bn) selling a stake in Japan Post

Holdings Co, completing the nation’s biggest public offering this century.

The shares were sold to domestic and foreign investors for 1,322 yen apiece, 2 percent lower than the closing price yes-terday, Tokyo-based Japan Post said in a regulatory filing. That compares with the 2 percent to 4 percent discount range previ-ously indicated by the Ministry of Finance.

Almost two years after the company was listed along with its banking and insurance units, Japan is further divesting its

ownership partly to fund the reconstruction of areas destroyed by the 2011 earthquake and tsu-nami in the northeast.

Demand for the offering withstood headwinds including the stock’s underperformance, losses stemming from a botched acquisition, declining mail vol-umes, and low interest rates that are eroding profitability.

Orders from overseas inves-tors were more than double the number of shares being offered to them as of Friday, while demand in Japan was about 1.5 to two times greater than the domestic allocation, people with knowledge of the matter said before the announcement.

About 80 percent of the offering was made to domestic investors — mainly individuals

— and the rest to institutions abroad. Amid the solid demand, a document distributed to underwriters on Friday said Japan Post will give a preference to long-term investors and those who showed an intention to purchase them at an early stage. The document was issued by the global coordinators and obtained by Bloomberg.

Shares of Japan Post closed 1 percent lower at 1,349 yen yes-terday. The stock has slid 3.6 percent since its November 2015 initial public offering, compared with a 9.6 percent gain in the benchmark Topix index.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Daiwa Securities Group Inc. and Nomura Holdings Inc. were joint global coordinators of the deal, which involved 61 brokerages.

Draghi warns against hasty policy moves

A file picture of post box-shaped piggy banks (left and centre) and a penholder are seen at a post office of Japan Post Co in Tokyo, Japan,

Japan raises $11.6bn selling another stake in postal giant

Sterling sinks to 10-day low against dollar

Safety concerns

“While Uber had revolutionised the way people move in cities around the world, it’s equally true that we’ve got things wrong along the way,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said.

Transport for London (TfL) on Friday said it would not renew Uber’s licence to operate in the capital on expiry, owing to public safety concerns.

26 TUESDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2017BUSINESS

INTERNATIONAL MARKETS - A LIST OF SHARES FROM THE WORLD

A C C-A/D 1632.85 -37.55 21810

Aarti Drugs-B/D 645.1 -2 16344

Aban Offs-A/D 257.9 5.25 2513817

Aegis Logis-B/D 152.8 -4.9 49874

Alembic-B/D 45.2 1.25 562076

Alkyl Amines-B/D 311 -4.75 1738

Alok Indus-A/D 3.26 -0.06 574078

Apollo Tyre-A/D 223.55 -0.1 585767

Asahi I Glass-/D 195.8 -8 11076

Ashok Leyland-/D 79.3 -1.4 1029640

Bajaj Hold-A/D 2006.55 8.2 3824

Ballarpur In-B/D 16.08 -0.08 1890335

Bata India-A/D 495.25 -6.7 64621

Beml Ltd-A/D 910.9 3.8 35440

Bh Electronic-/D 1245.2 -9 19084

Bhansali Eng-T/D 21.6 0.1 131667

Bharat Bijle-B/D 756 -15.6 1206

Bharatgears-B/D 149.15 -7.8 22507

Bhartiya Int-B/D 564.7 -12.2 2446

Bhel-A/D 132.35 -2.8 691193

Bom.Burmah-B/D 631.5 -18.5 35213

Bombay Dyeing-/D 60.5 -1.8 2433871

Camph.& All-B/D 710 -20.05 1092

Canfin Homes-B/D 1738.9 -10.8 4169

Caprihans-Xc/D 91.9 0.4 2988

Castrol India-/D 466.1 -7.45 103450

Century Enka-B/D 284.7 -8 69367

Century Text-A/D 933.3 -31.6 183709

Chambal Fert-B/D 57.65 -1.1 84967

Chola Invest-A/D 1185.35 5.7 11690

Chowgule St-T/D 14.9 0.21 2954

Cimmco-B/D 69 -0.9 8223

Cipla-A/D 581.85 1.3 351329

City Union Bk-/D 140.5 0.8 32681

Colgate-A/D 935.85 -29.7 37576

Container Cor-/D 1362 -22.6 5011

Dai-Tichi Kar-/D 517 -3 1833

Dcm Shram Ind-/D 205.5 -6.25 16674

Dhampur Sugar-/D 127.65 -5.85 164870

Dr. Reddy-A/D 3049.6 -29.05 13241

E I H-B/D 107.95 -1.65 6369

E.I.D Parry-A/D 259.4 -14.15 200705

Eicher Motor-A/D 25880 44.9 2394

Electrosteel-B/D 25.2 1.05 560068

Emco-B/D 31.7 -1.95 122460

Escorts Fin-B/D 19.18 1.74 828743

Escorts-A/D 385.5 -13.5 361531

Eveready Indu-/D 258 -0.35 13242

F D C-B/D 219.8 -0.7 11311

Federal Bank-A/D 70.55 -2.3 535971

Ferro Alloys-B/D 6.78 -0.47 151637

Fgp Ltd-Xd/D 2.2 0.1 1000

Finolex-A/D 464.5 3.95 11656

Gail-A/D 413.6 -5 179526

Gammon India-T/D 15.2 -0.45 72707

Garden P -B/D 30.7 -0.5 8165

Godfrey Phil-B/D 1350.45 31.8 49039

Goodricke-B/D 187.25 -7.7 23235

Goodyear I -B/D 865.95 0.3 85475

Hcl Infosys-B/D 49.4 -2.5 1163691

Him.Fut.Comm-T/D 15.29 0.5 1535360

Himat Seide-B/D 269.8 -5.75 12582

Hind Motors-T/D 6.75 -0.14 312488

Hind Org Chem-/D 19.35 -0.8 43764

Hind Unilever-/D 861.95 -14.1 71994

Hind.Petrol-A/D 430.05 -9.15 718846

Hindalco-A/D 155.05 -5.6 736732

Hous Dev Fin-A/D 1338.45 -53.35 87715

I F C I-A/D 26.15 -0.6 941820

Idbi-A/D 68.95 -2.15 603079

Ifb Agro-B/D 413.95 11.65 13350

Ifb Ind.Ltd.-B/D 438.1 -6.95 1118

India Cement-A/D 154.4 -4.85 410512

India Glycol-B/D 128.4 -3.6 52800

Indian Card-B/D 237.9 5.05 3883

Indian Hotel-A/D 126.9 -1.15 76022

Indo-Tcount-T/D 700 -8.35 20597

Indusind-A/D 1218.6 -2.95 173119

J.B.Chemical-B/D 380.55 10.35 52948

Jagatjit Ind-X/D 76.9 2.9 1356

Jagson Phar-B/D 41.15 -2.65 22733

Jamnaauto-B/D 216.25 -9.65 82852

Jbf Indu-B/D 237.4 -7.8 23966

Jct Ltd-B/D 6.96 -0.17 1717699

Jenson&Nich.-B/D 9.78 -0.38 51970

Jindal Drill-B/D 185.5 -4.9 33410

Jktyre&Ind-A/D 157.7 6.05 658082

Jmc Projects-T/D 242.85 -12.25 2234

Kabra Extr-B/D 131.5 -1.55 3098

Kajaria Cer-A/D 710.95 2.9 23596

Kakatiya Cem-B/D 400 -14.45 25268

Kalpat Power-B/D 253.7 0.05 11007

Kalyani Stel-T/D 327.15 -8.95 53534

Kanoria Chem-B/D 81.45 -3.95 72655

Kg Denim-B/D 91 -0.3 24930

Kilburnengg-Xd/D 50.6 -0.6 10390

Kinetic Eng-Xc/D 82.8 -2.4 9718

Kopran-B/D 61.65 -3 229427

Lakshmi Elec-B/D 435.15 -10.7 2433

Lakshmi Mach-A/D 4260.05 -119.5 6450

Laxmi Prcisn-B/D 41 0.65 7228

Lgb Broth-B/D 601 -13.5 1935

Lloyd Metal-Xc/D 12.25 -1.02 75626

Lok.Hous&Con-Z/D 4.27 0.2 97731

Lupin-A/D 1480.4 -35.85 78407

Lyka Labs-T/D 67.05 -1.25 18883

Mafatlal Ind-B/D 310.5 -7.9 2782

Mah.Seamless-B/D 212.5 -3 3460

Maha Scooter-B/D 1660 61.45 5706

Mangalam Cem-B/D 346.9 -14.1 8238

Maral Overs-B/D 27.75 -0.9 6105

Mastek-B/D 131.2 -3 38091

Max Financial-/D 549.95 6.4 58325

Mrpl-A/D 93.3 -1 353963

Nagreeka Ex-B/D 36.9 -0.6 8716

Nagreeka Ex-B/D 36.9 -0.6 8716

Nahar Spg.-B/D 123.6 -4.75 18053

Nation Alum -A/D 50.65 -1.7 481573

Navneet Edu-B/D 100.05 -1.2 8575

Nepc India-T/D 1.52 -0.01 2264

Neuland Lab-B/D 992 -10.45 1515

Nrb Bearings-B/D 127.8 -4.5 2900

O N G C-A/D 272.05 4.55 1044936

Ocl India-B/D 882.4 -17.6 2641

Oil Country-B/D 33.75 -2.8 36129

Onward Tech-B/D 68.15 -4.45 5020

Orchid Pharm-B/D 38.5 -1.35 103268

Orient Hotel-T/D 26.3 -0.6 6034

Orient.Carb.-T/D 704 -12.6 1172

Orient.Carb.-T/D 704 -12.6 1172

Oudh Sugar-B/D 110.8 -3.3 30742

Patspin India-/D 10 0.1 4002

Punjab Chem.-B/D 201 -9.8 4638

Radico Khait-B/D 139.2 -4.5 370633

Rallis India-A/D 226.65 -3.35 57842

Rallis India-A/D 226.65 -3.35 57842

Reliance Indus/D 420.5 -12.05 74180

Ruchi Soya-B/D 23.1 -0.8 87282

S Bk Bikaner-B/D 672.5 -19.7 4263

Saur.Cem-B/D 77.2 -2.45 103355

Sterling Tool-/D 843.3 -38.6 1249

Thirumalai-B/D 606.6 -7.05 90382

Til Ltd.-T/D 224 -0.55 3648

Timexgroup-T/D 57.25 -3.15 144200

Tinplate-B/D 83.3 -2.2 43160

Ucal Fuel-B/D 188.2 13.3 548642

Ucal Fuel-B/D 188.2 13.3 548642

Ultramarine-B/D 167.5 -3.65 13562

Unitech P -A/D 5.74 -0.1 3845652

Univcable-B/D 82.1 -2.4 46697

Uppergsugar-T/D 397.55 -7.2 70407

3I Group/D 921 4 365604

Assoc.Br.Foods/D 3204 -19 232891

Barclays/D 189.7 -1.85 7783875

Bp/D 469.8 3.2 7249577

Brit Am Tobacc/D 4599 -12 874947

Bt Group/D 285.65 2.85 3213652

Centrica/D 189.2 1.1 4942109

Gkn/D 346.9 -0.7 819528

Hsbc Holdings/D 724.6 -2.5 3809279

Kingfisher/D 297.1 0.4 1421016

Land Secs Grou/D 963 0.5 349703

Legal & Genera/D 257.65 -1.8 2682838

Lloyds Bnk Grp/D 66.41 -0.5 22717154

Marks & Sp./D 348.5 3.4 1349056

Next/D 5182.2537 40 92670

Pearson/D 579 2.5 364419

Prudential/D 1753.6515 -20 1065147

Rank Group/D 219.2 1.5 13877

Rentokil Initi/D 295.24 2.3 537341

Rolls Royce Pl/D 885.5 -6.5 611642

Rsa Insrance G/D 630.15 -4.5 440318

Sainsbury(J)/D 234.6 1.3 1213812

Schroders/D 3287 -1 74153

Severn Trent/D 2204 20 284014

Smith&Nephew/D 1326 9 400913

Smiths Group/D 1532 15 563803

Standrd Chart /D 718.5 -11.5 1556137

Tate & Lyle/D 629.5 -2.5 656288

Tesco/D 184.75 0.9 2217688

Unilever/D 4271 7 1016995

United Util Gr/D 861.5 1 798314

Vodafone Group/D 207.05 -1.2 14748722

Whitbread/D 3716 16 48316

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LONDON

QATAR STOCK EXCHANGE

QE Index 8,449.47 0.64 %

QE Total Return Index 14,169.26 0.64 %

QE Al Rayan Islamic Index 3,418.00 0.69 %

QE All Share Index 2,408.83 0.67 %

QE All Share Banks &

Financial Services 2,663.30 0.87 %

QE All Share Industrials 2,576.89 0.54 %

QE All Share Transportation 1,767.91 0.49 %

QE All Share Real Estate 1,812.08 0.82 %

QE All Share Insurance 3,501.73 0.13 %

QE All Share Telecoms 1,012.92 0.12 %

QE All Share Consumer

Goods & Services 5,004.93 0.41 %

QE INDICES SUMMARY QE MARKET SUMMARY COMPARISON WORLD STOCK INDICES

GOLD AND SILVER

25-09-2017Index 8,449.47

Change 53.95

% 0.64

YTD% 19.04

Volume 7,583,527

Value (QAR) 178,565,516.94

Trades 2,622

Up 24 | Down 13 | Unchanged 0024-09-2017Index 8,395.52

Change 34.75

% 0.42

YTD% 19.56

Volume 12,890,469

Value (QAR) 295,173,535.50

Trades 2,999

EXCHANGE RATE

GOLD QR151.9597 per grammeSILVER QR1.0994 per gramme

Index Day’s Close Pt Chg % Chg Year High Year Low

All Ordinaries 5741.737 1.166 0.02 5983.2 5635.1

Cac 40 Index/D 5272.37 -8.92 -0.17 5295.93 4995.07

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Hang Seng Inde/D 27500.34 -380.19 -1.36 28248.12 21883.82

Iseq Overall/D 6691.43 -8.74 -0.13 7157.43 6369.05

Kse 100 Inx/D 42743.65 -6.54 -0.02 53127.24 40686.09

S&P 500 Index/D 0 0 0 2508.85 2245.13

Currency Buying SellingUS$ QR 3.6305 QR 3.6500

UK QR 4.8834 QR 4.9512

Euro QR 4.3002 QR 4.3607

CA$ QR 2.9469 QR 3.0056

Swiss Fr QR 3.7170 QR 3.7699

Yen QR 0.0322 QR 0.0328

Aus$ QR 2.8728 QR 2.9296

Ind Re QR 0.0554 QR 0.0565

Pak Re QR 0.0342 QR 0.0349

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Silicon Valley spent more than a decade finding ways to give company founders more control. When Face-book Inc tried to follow suit, shareholders pushed

back. Google started it with a 2004 initial public offering that gave co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin voting rights well beyond their economic stakes in the search giant. Groupon Inc, Zynga Inc and Facebook did it too, and this year Snap Inc sold stock with no voting rights at all. In each case, investors went along, buying into the argument that founders need control so they can carry out their long-term visions. Sometimes shareholders sued, and invariably lost.

In 2015, Facebook doubled down with a proposed new share class to solidify co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s grip on the social media giant forever, even if he sold almost all his stock. Shareholders sued again, and this time they won. Facebook scrapped its plans on Friday, just days before a class action lawsuit challenging the move was set to go to trial. “This really is the death knell for existing companies trying to adopt a non-voting share class,” said Ken Bertsch, executive director at the Coun-cil of Institutional Investors, a nonprofit group that advocates for strong corporate governance.

There are other signs of sentiment shifting. In politi-cal and regulatory spheres, there’s a new push to rein in US internet companies, which have grown to become the world’s most valuable public corporations in recent years.

In capital markets, S&P Global Inc recently barred stocks with multiple share classes from joining its main US indexes — excluding Snap, although Facebook was grandfathered in. And London Stock Exchange Group Plc unit FTSE Rus-sell announced a list of more than 30 companies it would bar from its indexes unless they raised the percentage of voting rights accorded to public investors. MSCI Inc, another major index provider, also spoke out against these struc-tures recently. “When you create these special classes of shares that are not aligned with the economic interests of the shareholders, some will say that’s poor corporate gov-ernance,” George Maris, portfolio manager at Janus Capital, said. “It’s essentially trying to have your cake and eat it too. You want someone else’s money but the class is divorced from what the shareholders want.”

In the tech sector, these special share arrangements often originate with venture capital investors when com-panies are private. Travis Kalanick had an elaborate way of maintaining control of Uber Technologies Inc, for exam-ple. But even private companies are starting to have to answer to shareholder scrutiny: Kalanick resigned ear-lier this year after a series of scandals at the ride-hailing provider. The lawyers challenging Facebook said that with Zuckerberg taking back his plan, they “achieved eve-rything we could have hoped to obtain,” according to Lee Rudy, a partner at Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP.

“This case is important in the ongoing struggle between Silicon Valley and the belief that founders should main-tain ultimate control,” Stuart Grant, an attorney for shareholders at law firm Grant & Eisenhofer, said. “Once you ask for public money, that changes.”

Not everyone’s convinced Zuckerberg’s decision will dilute other founders’ control. Zuckerberg, for his part, said he made the decision because Facebook’s stock had appreciated so much he didn’t need a new class of shares to retain control. The suit against Facebook also contained embarrassing revelations that the CEO may not have wanted to discuss in court. So the company may have scrapped the plan to avoid blushes, rather than appease outside shareholders. Zuckerberg also is dealing with sev-eral political crises, most notably investigations into whether Facebook ads were used by Russia to sow dis-cord ahead of the US presidential election last year.

Bombardier Inc’s turnaround plan is coming under threat from stepped-up challenges to the com-pany’s rail business and its cutting-edge jetliner. The Canadian

manufacturer risks being jilted by Germany’s Siemens AG, which is now exploring a rail-equipment deal with Alstom SA of France after months of talks with Bombardier. Separately, the US government is set to decide this week whether tariffs should be imposed on Bom-bardier’s C Series aircraft after a complaint by Boeing Co.

The developments imperil Chief Execu-tive Officer Alain Bellemare’s two-year-old effort to reshape Bombardier, which has also relied on financial support from Quebec and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal gov-ernment. Losing out on a Siemens deal would weaken Bombardier’s rail unit, its biggest business, against a bulked-up industry leader from China. An adverse trade ruling in the US would hamper demand for its priciest jet-liner, the C Series. “It would be a loss for Bombardier if Alstom and Siemens come together because this would leave them in the cold,” said Karl Moore, a professor of management strategy at Montreal’s McGill University. “At the same time, you run the risk of the C Series being shut out of the US market until the issue of duties is settled, which will take some months.”

Bombardier fell 2.7 percent to C$2.16 at 9:54am in Toronto after three straight declines last week. The widely traded B shares are at the lowest level in four months.

Alstom said it’s in talks with Siemens about a possible combination of their rail businesses, adding that “no final decision has been made.” The confirmation came hours after the French government signalled it

supports deeper corporate ties with Germany, suggesting a deal between Levallois-Perret, France-based Alstom and Munich-based Sie-mens would have political backing. Reports on Thursday said that Siemens was negoti-ating with Alstom as well as Bombardier, giving the German company two options to pursue consolidation. While declining to comment specifically on its competitors, Bombardier said on Friday it was weighing “multiple options” for its rail business — repeating a phrase Bellemare has used in the past. Getting left at the altar “is a new risk” for Montreal-based Bombardier, said David Tyerman, an analyst at Cormark Securities in Toronto. “Bombardier is going to be the guy without a dance partner. If geopolitics come into play, you really don’t have any-body in your corner.”

The rail companies are looking to join forces to compete with industry leader CRRC Corp of China, which was formed from a 2015 merger of the country’s two main regional train makers. The company controls about half the global market for rail cars and loco-motives, Desjardins Capital Markets estimated in a report this year, compared with 12 percent each for Bombardier and Siemens and about 11 percent for Alstom.

Aided by its ability to finance entire projects, CRRC has won high-profile rail orders including transit contracts in US cit-ies such as Boston, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Bombardier missed out on a $3.2bn contract to provide subway cars in New York and has been plagued by delays on major projects such as streetcar deliveries to Toronto and subway cars for Montreal.

The train business bore the brunt of Bel-lemare’s plan, announced last October, which included 7,500 job cuts worldwide. The restructuring initiatives are starting to bear fruit. The rail unit’s earnings before interest, taxes and special items amounted to 8.2 per-cent of sales in the three months ending July 31, up from 6.3 percent from a year earlier,

according to company filings. While Bombardier’s rail business con-

tends with the uncertain outcome of deal talks, a threat to the jewel of its commercial aircraft business is also coming to a head. The US Commerce Department will issue a preliminary ruling Tuesday on whether to impose countervailing duties on the C Series, which Bombardier spent at least $6bn to develop.

In a trade complaint, Boeing accused Bombardier of selling the single-aisle jetliner to Delta Air Lines Inc at less than fair value, while benefiting from unfair government sub-sidies in Canada. Earlier this year, the Canadian government pledged C$372.5m ($300m) to Bombardier to finance two jet programs including the C Series. Quebec’s provincial government invested $1bn in the programme last year for a 49.5 percent stake.

“The general expectation among the majority of watchers is that the ruling is very likely to go against them,” said Chris Murray,

an AltaCorp Capital analyst in Toronto. “Either way, the whole thing could take a while.”

Liz Weston

AP

Americans’ debt loads, like our waistlines, tend to expand as we approach middle age and

then gradually diminish as we get older.

Some people, though, are yo-yo debtors, fighting an ongoing up-and-down battle with debt. They pay it off, or come close, only to find themselves battling bills once again. But there are ways to break that cycle. By age 21, Chris Browning of Long Beach, California, had accu-mulated $5,000 in credit card debt — mostly from eating out and

trying to impress his then-girlfriend, who is now his wife. “I guess it worked,” says Browning, an accountant.

After several failed attempts, Browning, 30, made and stuck to a budget. He cut back on expensive meals, looked for free entertain-ment and slowly paid down the balances until he was debt-free four years later in April 2012. That didn’t last. As the couple prepared for their wedding that November, debt crept back in. “By October 2012, we had over $14,000 in credit card debt. Then from there things just snow-balled,” Browning says. “Between finding a new place to live, school costs, medical bills and just poor decisions, our debt grew to just under $27,000 by November of 2014.”

The vast majority of American households — roughly eight out of 10 — carry at least some debt dur-ing their working years, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances.

The median amount owed peaks when the head of household is between the ages of 45 and 54 and diminishes afterward. The mix tends to change, with younger households more likely to have student loans and older households more likely to have mortgages and credit card balances. More than a third of households headed by people under 55 also have auto loans.

Owing money isn’t necessarily a crisis unless you consistently live beyond your means, putting you at risk of bankruptcy or a lower stand-ard of living. Signs you’re doing that include:

—Your debt payments, includ-ing mortgage or rent, eat up more than 40 percent of your gross income.

—You’re struggling to make minimum payments.

—Your net worth — what you own versus what you owe — is shrinking rather than growing over time.

—Your debt prevents you from

saving for important goals, includ-ing retirement and emergencies.

Not having savings also can contribute to the yo-yo phenome-non, where people pay off debt only to face a big unexpected expense or job loss that causes them to reach for credit cards again.

Careening back into debt can be deeply discouraging and stress-ful. That’s why debt experts, like weight-loss experts, recommend a slower, steadier approach to van-quishing debt. Among the most important principles:

—Don’t be in a rush to pay off low-rate mortgages and student loans. Focus first on toxic debt, such as credit cards, that erodes your financial security.

—Make saving a priority even as you’re repaying debt. That means having at least a $500 emergency fund and contributing enough to get the full company match for any workplace retirement accounts.

—Aim to make lasting changes in the way you spend instead of

trying quick fixes. Browning and his wife, Vina Gainer, 29, tackled their debt from both ends: by cutting their spending and increasing their $60,000 household income.

Browning found a job that paid $1,200 more a month and experi-mented with a few side gigs, such as selling stuff on eBay and deliv-ering food for DoorDash. Gainer, a college student who works in her mother’s day care centre, started doing her own hair and shopping at thrift stores rather than the mall. The couple also devoted time to planning — and discussing — how they spent money.

“We weren’t really talking about what we were spending. We just spent it,” Browning says.

Both say the lifestyle changes were hard at first, and Browning says it helped him to seek out other people who were paying off debt, in real life and online, for support.

Being in debt “was just too stressful,” Browning says. “I don’t ever want to go back to that place.”

Facebook fail hits at Silicon Valley cult of founder controlOliver Renick and Sarah FrierBloomberg

Bombardier bruised with threats to trains and jets

A Bombardier operation and maintenance depot.

Frederic Tomesco Bloomberg

The Canadian manufacturer risks being jilted by Siemens AG, which is now exploring a rail-equipment deal with Alstom SA after months of talks with Bombardier. Separately, the US government is set to decide this week whether tariffs should be imposed on Bombardier’s C Series aircraft after a complaint by Boeing Co.

Not having savings also can contribute to the yo-yo phenomenon, where people pay off debt only to face a big unexpected expense or job loss that causes them to reach for credit cards again.

Are you a yo-yo debtor? Ways to break that cycle

BUSINESS VIEWS 27TUESDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2017

28 TUESDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2017BUSINESS

BACK TO BUSINESS

Fidget spinners and squishies: Some Toys ‘R’ Us toymakers cut ties

sight

Reuters

This summer, toy supplier Product Launchers delivered 100,000 spe-

cially ordered DC Comics fidget spinners to Toys ‘R’ Us, unaware that the biggest US toy store chain was in finan-cial trouble.

Now Product Launchers, which supplies other novelty items like squishies from five toymakers to Toy ‘R’ Us, expects it will not be paid for the $500,000 fidget spinner order and other items follow-ing the chain’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on Sept.ember 19, Product Launchers Chief Executive Linda Parry Murphy told Reuters.

“These toymakers were very reliant on Toys ‘R’ Us. It’s their primary account, or the account that they were lean-ing on to make inroads in the toy industry, looking at the long term down the road,” Parry Murphy said. “But we’ve made a decision not to sell to Toys moving forward.”

Meanwhile Barbie maker Mattel Inc, toy and board game company Hasbro Inc and other large vendors like Lego could get full payment after Toys ‘R’ Us asked a bank-ruptcy judge to approve $325m of special financing to pay top suppliers owed before the Chapter 11 filing. The une-qual vendor treatment is not unusual in a Chapter 11 bank-ruptcy, but it shows the tough decisions vendors face when retailers file for bankruptcy, as dozens have in recent years, succumbing to compe-tition on price and convenience from Amazon.com Inc.

The beneficiaries of the financing package are still

unknown, but smaller vendors like Product Launchers do not expect to make the list. Its claim tops $1m but the amount is well below the $2.5m to $135m listed as Toys ‘R’ Us’ 50 largest claims.

Toy ‘R’ Us declined to comment on specifics about its relationship with Product Launchers or its other ven-dors. Toys ‘R’ Us spokeswoman Nicole Hayes said in an email: “So far, we have seen great support from our vendors and look forward to continuing working with them for many years to come.”She said the company will rely on $2bn in new financing to fund operations.

Hundreds of vendors have faced similar concerns in their dealings with bankrupt retail-ers such as Sports Authority and hhgregg, which ended up going out of business. Toys ‘R’ Us is an extraordinary case, retail consultants said, because of the large number of toy vendors it relies on to fill its big-box stores.

Typically in bankruptcy proceedings, even small ven-dors like Product Launchers can expect to receive payment for orders made after a bank-ruptcy filing, but not for past-due bills. As a result, Product Launchers is ending ties with the toy chain.

“We’ve taken down all connections to them,” said Parry Murphy. “I would rather focus on retailers that have strong financials and that we have a good comfort level about doing long-term busi-ness with.”

At this point, she thinks Toys ‘R’ Us is too far behind the curve to catch up with deep-pocketed competitors like Amazon and Wal-Mart.

Capital Comment

We are on the way to achieving good job prospects for around 80 percent of our colleagues with our bidders. Thomas Winkelmann

Air Berlin chief executive

Resolving Fraud

Employees work at the company office running Valu, a web-based virtual exchange in Tokyo, Japan.

Celebrity listing takes Japan by stormTokyo

Reuters

On Japan’s newest exchange, fame can pay off. That may not be so great for investors though.

Last month, Hikaru, a Japa-nese YouTube star so famous he can go by a single stage name, listed himself on Valu, a platform for people to raise money, often for personal projects or busi-nesses, by essentially selling shares in themselves.

Unlike many crowdsourcing sites, which are platforms for people or businesses to raise money online from large groups of individuals, the exchange also allows the trading of those who list their “Valus” on the exchange.

That means that prices can rise and fall. And rise and fall Hikaru did. Soon after listing, Hikaru, whose YouTube chan-nel boasts 2.6 million subscribers, soared on the

market as his fans dived in. But then, just a week after going public, Hikaru and two friends, who go by the stage names Ikkun and Raphael, cashed out, according to officials from the exchange. That made his Valu drop precipitously, prompting howls of outrage on the Internet.

Many people listing on the exchange often cite altruistic aims for doing so - like one per-son raising funds for a project to encourage young people to move to rural Japan. But Hikaru has said that he listed on the exchange just to get attention.

There is also nothing illegal about driving up Valus and cash-ing in, since they are not considered a financial product by the Financial Services Agency.

An official from the watch-dog said it had been watching the Valu exchange, but would only advise it to inform inves-tors that listings did not require financial disclosure.

Since the Hikaru debacle,

Valu has added restrictions on the frequency of trading to pre-vent similar occurrences.

VAZ Inc, a company that represents Japanese YouTubers, including Hikaru and his two friends, said the star and friends made a total profit of about $444,000 in bitcoins, the cur-rency of the exchange.

He bought back an unspec-ified number of Valus in an effort to make amends, he said on Twitter. His shares, which hit a peak of 0.090 bitcoin, or around $387, before he sold out, tanked to as low as 0.0075 bitcoin. They last stood at 0.014 bitcoin on Fri-day, or about $50 at the current bitcoin rate.

The incident was a rude awakening for Valu, which was launched this summer and has so far attracted about 60,000 members. Fund raisers sell Valus to the members, who are free to buy and sell their stakes.

Valu’s operator, a subsidiary of a company called Party Co, makes clear in its rules that

listings have no intrinsic value. There are also no requirements for reporting results, or any other information. There are no voting rights, or dividends.

That means the sole basis for rising shares is speculation.

“What Valus represent is a big question,” said Makoto Sakuma, a researcher at NLI Research Institute. “Despite their name, Valus have little economic fundamental value.”

Party Co says buying Valus should be seen as a donation or show of support rather than an investment.

“Our service can directly support people in any places across the globe,” said Kohei Ogawa, president of Valu Inc.

Kenta Toshima, listed him-self on the exchange to raise funds for equipment for a project to help rehabilitate elderly peo-ple with virtual reality.

He said he had raised about 200,000 yen from about 40 people within a few weeks after listing himself.

Bonuses widen pay gap between UK’s male and female executivesLondon

Reuters

Female managers in Britain earn almost 27 percent less than

their male colleagues and the gap is widening, fuelled by large differ-ences in bonus payments, r e s e a r c h e r s s a i d yesterday.

Women are also far more likely to hold junior management roles, according to a study by the Char-tered Management Institute (CMI) and XpertHR.

“Too many businesses are like ‘glass pyramids’ with women holding the majority of lower-paid junior roles and far fewer reaching the top,” said CMI’s chief executive Ann Francke (pictured).

The analysis found in 2017 female managers earned on average nearly 12,000 pounds ($16,000) less than men - a gap almost 3,000 pounds wider than in 2016.

The increase was partly due to bonuses and other benefits like car allow-ances and commissions being included in the calculation for the first time, after

the introduction of new government regulations on reporting pay.

But the pay gap had widened from 2016 even when only base salaries were taken into account, the report said.

“Those extra perks of senior management roles are creating a gender pay gap wider than previously understood,” Francke said

“The picture is worst at the top, with male CEOs cashing-in bonuses six times larger than female counterparts,” she added.

Male managers received on average almost 47 percent more bonus payments but the gulf widened to 83 percent for chief executives, with men pocketing nearly £90,000 ($120,000) a year in bonuses against women’s £15,000.

In April, Britain became one of the first countries to introduce regulations requiring large firms to report pay dis-crepancies between male and female employees.

But the report, which analysed the salaries of more than 118,000 mangers from more than 400 organisations, found only 72 of the 7,850 employers covered by the new law had done so.