Business this week
《经济学人》2018年11月10日 刊
Robyn Denholm was named as the new chairman of Tesla, as part of a deal with regulators under which Elon Musk is relinquishing the role at the electric-car manufacturer. Ms Denholm is the chief financial officer at Telstra, an Australian telecoms firm. She will be the first person at Tesla other than Mr Musk, who remains chief executive, to sit at the apex of the company since its very earliest days.
Citigroup also appointed a new chairman. John Dugan, who takes over from Mike O’Neill in the new year, is a former banking regulator.
Active consumers
As it prepares for Singles' Day, the world's biggest shopping event, on November 11th, Alibaba posted a solid rise in quarterly net profit, to 20bn yuan ($2.9bn). The Chinese e-commerce company now boasts 601m “active consumers”. Amazon reported a much lower customer base the last time it released such figures.
SoftBank reported a big jump in quarterly net profit, to ¥526.4bn ($4.6bn). That was mostly due to returns from technology investments in its Vision Fund. The Japanese conglomerate has had to face some awkward questions about the Saudi money that is backing the fund since the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Its share price has fallen by a fifth following the killing of the Saudi journalist, allegedly by Saudi government operatives.
American prosecutors brought criminal charges against two former bankers at Goldman Sachs and a Malaysian financier in connection with the alleged misappropriation of funds from Malaysia’s 1MDB development fund (one of the bankers has pleaded guilty). Goldman said it was co-operating with the Department of Justice’s continuing investigation and acknowledged that the proceedings could result in significant fines or sanctions against the bank.
Berkshire Hathaway revealed that it had repurchased $928m-worth of its shares in August, its first buy-back in six years. Warren Buffett’s investment company has not completed a takeover in nearly three years. Spotify, a music-streaming service, announced a $1bn buy-back of its own.
The share prices of Italian banks came under renewed pressure, ahead of a deadline for the Italian government to submit a revised budget that meets EU rules. Italy’s big banks did better than many of their European counterparts in the recent stress tests conducted by the European Banking Authority. But questions remain about how tough those tests really are.
On the other hand
A remark by the governor of the Bank of Japan, Haruhiko Kuroda, that it was no longer appropriate to implement “a large-scale policy to overcome deflation” was taken as the clearest indication yet that he is minded to move on from the central bank’s enormous stimulus programme and start tightening monetary policy. Mr Kuroda hedged his comments, however, and said he would keep interest rates extremely low for the foreseeable future.
American employers added 250,000 people to the payrolls in October, the 97th consecutive month of jobs growth. The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7%, the lowest it has been since the late 1960s. Pay grew at the fastest pace, year on year, since April 2009, though that was in part because it bounced back from a low base in October 2017, when wages were unusually depressed following a big hurricane.
Buoyed by higher oil prices, Rosneft reported a 150% rise in net profit for the third quarter compared with the same three months last year, to 142bn roubles ($2.2bn). Russia’s biggest oil company also benefited from being able to increase production, owing to an agreement between OPEC and Russia in June that eased restrictions on output.
Quality, not quantity
Apple’s share price struggled to recover from the drubbing it received after it downgraded its outlook for the all-important final three months of the year, which includes the Christmas shopping season. The company also said it would stop reporting the number of iPhones, iPads and Mac computers it sells, unsettling investors who have come to rely on those figures as a gauge of Apple’s health. It says unit sales are less relevant. In the latest quarter, for example, Apple sold 47m iPhones. Although that was similar to the same period last year, revenue from iPhone sales soared by 29% because it was shifting dearer devices.
Nov 8th 2018
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