Christmas hangover

Nursing a hang over from last night's Christmas celebration.
Is it worth it?

Oh boy not at all.
I'm recording it here so that I'll not forget, & never do it again!

Jack Ma, Alibaba's founder tops Asian's rich list

Mr Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of China's Alibaba Group, has become the richest person in Asia. The 50-year-old founder of China's biggest e-commerce company surpassed Hong Kong property tycoon Li Ka Shing, who used to hold the top spot, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He has a US$28.6 billion (S$37.6 billion) fortune, according to the Bloomberg ranking. Mr Li has a net worth of US$28.3 billion -

Mr Ma has added US$25 billion to his fortune this year riding a 54 per cent surge in the company's shares since its September initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.

 At that scale, Alibaba is on the verge of becoming one of the 10 most valuable companies in the world. Alibaba, whose online marketplaces - Taobao and Tmall - had 307 million active buyers in China as of September, saw revenue rise to 16.8 billion yuan (S$3.6 billion) between July and September, according to Bloomberg

He may now be China's richest man, but he has admitted in a United States television interview that being so wealthy is actually causing him "great pain". "This month I'm not very happy - I think too much pressure," he told the broadcaster. "Yeah, it is good, but not the richest man in China. It's a great pain because when you're (the) richest person in the world, everybody (is) surrounding you for money," he told CNBC. He added that people now looked at him differently when he walked down the street and added: "Spending money is much more difficult than making money.

His remarks echoed what he told state media in early October when he said being named China's richest man is "meaningless". "My happiest days were when I used to earn 90 yuan (S$19) a month," Mr Ma once told state media. He is looking at the possibility to establish a foundation to spend money "in a business way" and may even compete with United States billionaire Bill Gates in the field of philanthropy, according to CNBC.

Mr Ma was ranked as China's most generous person after he donated a 1.4 per cent stake in his firm to set up a charity focused on the environment, health care and education, according to a survey by wealth publisher Hurun in late October .

Well as long as he is being generous to charity & hopefully cleaning up the environment , I would say keep on making the money Mr Ma :))

Did you know Skincare brand Fancl will be closing its stores in Singapore and Taiwan from March 2014.

Why? Because the company has been losing money in both countries. New marketing plan would be to re-enter the Singapore market as a wholesaler after April 2014. It will also be expanding into the US market with some of its brands.

What actually went wrong? Sources said they have been struggling with the Singapore consumer. Simon Bell, executive director strategy, Southeast Asia & Pacific at Landor said that marketing alone will never guarantee the success of a brand – instead a single compelling idea that resonates with the consumer is required.

He said that the brand did not differentiate itself. “Whilst the Chinese consumer seeks brand attributes of esteem and knowledge in the skincare category, Singaporeans search for brands that are relevant yet differentiated from the competitor set, and that’s what Fancl overlooked.

However, the shift from retail to digital for its businesses may be just what Fancl needed. Re-entering the brand as a wholesaler will help the brand cut the costs associated with having physical retail stores, the constant issue of staff turnover and the need to provide good service while keeping costs low. The battle ahead is about personal preferences, about being there, all around the clock and about building lively communities online.

As part of its future strategy, the brand will target the middle aged to elderly customers and raise its brand loyalty by further expanding its Mutenka (additive free) cosmetics market. It also plans to build on its mail order sales channels and online. The new target market might be ‘traditionally’ known to be more loyal as compared to the younger consumer, but will this group be accustom with buying online? That's the big question.

Well good Luck to Fancl, will miss seeing their very nice retail shops around, but I’m sure someone very soon will fill up these physical retail spaces.

Is the next crisis round the corner?

Experts claim financial crises come round every seven years or so. There was the stock market crash of 1987, the emerging market meltdown in the mid-1990s, the bursting of dotcom bubble in 2001 and the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. If history is any guide, the next crisis should be round the corner soon.

Lets assume that the IMF, the World Bank and the financial markets are all wrong when they say the US is now set for a period of robust growth, that Europe is on the mend and that China can make the transition to a less centrally planned economy without a hard landing.

In those circumstances, three questions need to be asked. The first is where the crisis is likely to originate, and here the dollar is on the emerging markets. China's economic data is not always very reliable, but it is clear the curbs on credit are having an impact. The world's second biggest economy is slowing down and probably faster than we thought. Other emerging markets – India, Brazil, Turkey – if anything look even more vulnerable if markets respond negatively to policy moves in the US. The speed at which the Federal Reserve tapers away its monthly stimulus will depend on conditions in the US, not the rest of the world, and the potential for capital flight from countries with big current account deficits is real.

The second question is how policy would respond if a second shock occurred well before the global economy had recovered from the first. Traditionally, central banks and finance ministries use upswings to restock their arsenals. They raise interest rates so that they can be lowered when times get tough, and they reduce budget deficits so that they can support demand through tax cuts or public spending increases.

A renewed bout of turbulence would start with interest rates already at historically low levels, budget deficits high and central banks stuffed full of the bonds they have bought in their quantitative easing programmes. Conventional monetary policy is pretty much maxed out, and there seems little appetite for a co-ordinated fiscal expansion, so the choice would be unconventional monetary policy in the form either of more QE or helicopter drops of cash.

The final question, highlighted recently, is what sort of impact a second recession would have on already stretched social fabrics. Unemployment is rising, insufficient jobs are being created to cope with the demands of a rising world population, and the improvement in working poverty has stalled.

All the ingredients are there for social unrest, which is why maybe it’s best to call on businesses to use rising profits for productive investment rather than share buy-backs.

Note: Quantitative easing (QE) is an unconventional monetary policy used by central banks to stimulate the economy when standard monetary policy has become ineffective