BoJ officials said to support extending Yen-settlement system to NY trading hours - US financial press - The move said to be aimed at increasing the global use of JGBs and yen.
Swatch Switches Gears on Smartwatches as Apple Looms
Its Stock Falling, Swatch Adds 'Smart' Features to Watches
For years, Biel, Switzerland-based Swatch has dismissed Internet-enabled watches, such as Samsung Electronics Co. 005930.SE -0.49% 's Galaxy Gear and Pebble Technology's Steel, as novelties that won't disrupt business at the world's biggest watchmaker.
Chief Executive Nick Hayek has said smartwatches don't have the elegance of his company's high-end Omega and Breguet brands, and displays on the devices are too small to be useful.
Now, with its stock slumping and analysts saying Apple Inc. AAPL +0.22% 's expected launch of a smartwatch poses a serious threat, Swatch appears to be reconsidering.
The company said it is introducing fitness functions, a key feature of smartwatches, to its Touch line of digital watches. Swatch hasn't detailed the fitness functions it will launch, but said they would be the "usual features." Smartwatches often have pulse measurement, training calculators and speed monitors.
The new features will launch in 2015, a Swatch spokeswoman said.
This represents the first time the company has made watches with "smart" features since an ill-fated venture 10 years ago.
Swatch is seen as more vulnerable to the wave of smartwatches hitting the market than more luxury-focused competitors because it generates 30% of revenue from low- and midrange brands.
Smartwatches generally sell for between $150 and $300, roughly the same range as the company's priciest plastic watches and its least expensive quartz timepieces.
Competition will build later this year when Apple is expected to launch a smartwatch.
Smartwatches could eat as much as 10% of sales of Swatch's entry-level plastic brand and 5% of its midrange brands, which include Tissot and Mido, in 2015 and 2016, said Luca Solca, an analyst at Exane BNP Paribas.
"Nick Hayek is very concerned for sure," said Mario Ortelli, an analyst at Bernstein. "But he can't say that publicly."
Swatch didn't make Mr. Hayek available for comment.
Nervousness over Swatch's vulnerability has contributed to a selloff in the company's stock. Over the past 12 months, Swatch shares have fallen nearly 11%, more than rivals Compagnie Financière Richemont SA and LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, which have dropped 5% and 6%, respectively.
Competition from Apple will likely be particularly tough.
Apple could sell as many as 4 million units this year and up to 50 million smartwatches in its first full year, according to the Smartwatch Group, a consultancy.
"[Apple] is a technological behemoth with a clear history of destroying categories," said Gary Paulin, an analyst at brokerage Aviate Global, who recommends selling Swatch shares in part because of the smartwatch threat. He said the pending launch of Apple's smartwatch is the biggest challenge Swatch has faced since digital watches upended the market.
An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.
Investors are betting Swatch shares will continue to sag. Since August 2013, short interest in Swatch shares has risen to 6.5% from 1.2%, according to Markit, a data provider. Short interest is the percentage of a company's shares that have been borrowed and then sold in hopes they can be bought back more cheaply.
Of course, the success of smartwatches is far from assured. Internet-linked watches made by Sony Corp. and Samsung have had disappointing sales thus far.
Swatch itself offered an early smartwatch in partnership with Microsoft Corp. MSFT +0.04% in 2004 that delivered personalized news, sports, and weather forecasts, but sales were disappointing and the company still has unsold inventory in stock.
Earlier this year, Swatch opposed Apple's attempts to trademark the "iWatch" name in several countries, claiming it was too close to the company's own "iSwatch."
ThyssenKrupp considering Components unit sale - report
ThyssenKrupp, the German industrial group, is considering the sale of its Components unit, Rheinische Post reported. The German daily cited unnamed sources with knowledge of the company who said the ThyssenKrupp management is considering the sale of further units including the Components unit. A full or partial sale is possible, the report stated. ThyssenKrupp stated it does not comment on market speculation.
The Components unit has 27,000 employees and manufactures parts for the auto industry among others.
Source Rheinische Post
The White House might need a new poster child for its “tax fairness” campaign.
Famed billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who President Barack Obama has lauded and named a signature proposal after, is helping finance a deal that would allow Burger King Worldwide Inc.BKW +19.51% to reincorporate in Canada and potentially reduce its U.S. tax bill through a so-called inversion, the Journal reported late Monday.
One of the White House’s top economic priorities this fall is to deter companies from pursuing inversions, and Treasury Department officials are designing plans that would remove some of the incentives for these deals.
It even published a blog post titled “what are inversions and why should you care.”
Now that Mr. Buffett’s involvement in a possible inversion has been made public, will Mr. Obama and other Democrats take him to task? That might be awkward, given how the Obama administration has named one of their top tax proposals after the “Oracle of Omaha” himself.
The White House in 2011 proposed the “Buffett Rule,” which White House officials described as a new policy that would essentially prohibit wealthy Americans from claiming so many tax breaks and deductions that they were able claim sharp reductions in their effective tax rate. Mr. Buffett’s point, in helping pitch the rule, is that he shouldn’t be able to claim a lower tax rate than his secretary, who presumably isn’t a billionaire.
The Buffett Rule would essentially require millionaires to pay at least a 30% effective tax rate.
The White House has invoked the Buffett Rule often, even on the 2012 campaign trail, but it was never adopted by Congress. It lives on, however, in Obama administration budget proposals and on the White House’s website, which describes the the Buffett Rule as “a simple principle of tax fairness that asks everyone to pay their fair share.”
That offers a stark contrast with the language the White House has used to describe inversions in recent weeks.
Matteo Renzi, Italy’s media-savvy prime minister, sent out a Twitter message on Monday that he was back at his desk after his summer break. One unresolved item on his post-holiday to-do list is the stalled €12bn privatisation programme.
Plans for state sales and spending cuts were two elements that Mr Renzi took on wholesale from his predecessor Enrico Letta, whom the 39-year old former mayor of Florence ousted in a party coup in February.
Mr Letta, with the backing of Brussels, had considered early state sales a priority as a means of reducing Italy’s public debt mountain which has climbed above €2.1tn.
The main event of the programme described as Italy’s largest privatisation push since the late 1990s was the government selling 40 per cent of the national postal services operator Poste Italiane to raise at least €4bn.
But Mr Renzi has backpedalled on the listing of the postal service after a poor market debut by state-run shipbuilder Fincantieri in June. Fincantieri’s offer priced at the bottom of its range and the company had to slash its offering by a third after weak demand from international investors.
Plans to sell 49 per cent of air traffic controller Enav, and state-controlled export agency SACE have also slowed as investors have become warier of investing in Italy since data this month showed the eurozone’s third-largest economy fell back into recession in the second quarter.
In an interview with the Financial Times this month, Mr Renzi said that after the experience with Fincantieri he was taking his time with the privatisation process to make sure it “is done well and seriously”.
“We will do [privatisations] when they are in a condition to make us money. I am not in a position to be able to sell cheap, I want to sell our assets at their proper value,” Mr Renzi said.
Bankers say that Mr Renzi’s move to hold back from listing Poste Italiane until next year or even 2016 makes business sense. They argue that giving Francesco Caio, the recently appointed chief executive, more time to restructure the postal service may allow him to emulate the success of the listings of state-owned Deutsche Post and the UK’s Royal Mail.
Economists point out Italy’s third dip into recession since 2008 also means that Mr Renzi may be better off undertaking structural reforms first.
“If you do privatisations without doing reform first, the valuation at which you sell is going to be lower as investors have less confidence in the long-term growth of the economy,” says Alberto Gallo, head of macro credit research at RBS.
In the short-run, however, the delays in the privatisation process pose problems for the Treasury, which is wrestling to fulfil the government’s pledge to cut spending by as much as €34bn by 2016.
In lieu of a listing of Poste, Mr Renzi is considering a sale of 5 per cent each of Eni, the energy group, and Enel, the utilities company, people close to the government say. At today’s prices, those stakes sales would raise in excess of €5bn providing Treasury coffers with a boost. Still, analysts point out it would be only a temporary stopgap.
“Even if a genius makes everything work smoothly, how much is the state going to make from this? It is a drop in the ocean. It is not an antidote to Italy’s debt,” says Francesco Galietti, founder of Policy Sonar, a Rome-based consultancy.
Mr Galietti say the richer pickings for the Italian state may be the privatisation of the municipal infrastructure such as the local water companies but the Renzi government has not yet tackled that issue for fear it may prove unpopular with voters.
WPP 1H Sales Beat, Dividend Misses; Reiterates Long-Term Targets
2014-08-26 06:02:27.419 GMT
By Blanche Gatt and Sam Chambers
Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- WPP 1H rev. up 2.7% to GBP5.47b vs
est. GBP5.13b (6 ests); LFL rev. up 8.7%.
* In July, net sales rose 2.8% on LFL basis
* Reaffirms L/T target of delivering above industry avg. rev.
growth
* 1H pretax profit rises 1.5% to GBP532m
* Div/shr up 10% to 11.62p vs BDVD forecast 12.5p; expects to
achieve payout ratio of 45% this year
* Reported billings down 3% to GBP22.06b due to sterling
strength, +5.7% at constant FX
* Avg. net debt falls by GBP348m to GBP2.77b
* NOTE: co. said April 25 1Q reported rev. rose 1.5%, LFL rev.
rose 7%; expects stronger-than-peers rev., gross margin
growth in 2014
For Related News and Information:
First Word scrolling panel: FIRST<GO>
First Word newswire: NH BFW<GO>
To contact the reporter on this story:
Blanche Gatt in London at +44-20-7392-0351 or
bgatt@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
James Ludden at +44-20-7673-2645 or
jludden@bloomberg.net
2014-08-26 06:02:27.419 GMT
By Blanche Gatt and Sam Chambers
Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- WPP 1H rev. up 2.7% to GBP5.47b vs
est. GBP5.13b (6 ests); LFL rev. up 8.7%.
* In July, net sales rose 2.8% on LFL basis
* Reaffirms L/T target of delivering above industry avg. rev.
growth
* 1H pretax profit rises 1.5% to GBP532m
* Div/shr up 10% to 11.62p vs BDVD forecast 12.5p; expects to
achieve payout ratio of 45% this year
* Reported billings down 3% to GBP22.06b due to sterling
strength, +5.7% at constant FX
* Avg. net debt falls by GBP348m to GBP2.77b
* NOTE: co. said April 25 1Q reported rev. rose 1.5%, LFL rev.
rose 7%; expects stronger-than-peers rev., gross margin
growth in 2014
For Related News and Information:
First Word scrolling panel: FIRST<GO>
First Word newswire: NH BFW<GO>
To contact the reporter on this story:
Blanche Gatt in London at +44-20-7392-0351 or
bgatt@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
James Ludden at +44-20-7673-2645 or
jludden@bloomberg.net
Carlo Tassara looks to sell 12.8% stake in Eramet and 7.03% stake in Comilog
Carlo Tassara, the holding of entrepreneur Romain Zaleski, is looking to sell its 12.8% stake in listed French mining company Eramet, reported Italian language daily Milano Finanza. The report cited sources with knowledge of the matter who said that the stake was up for sale following consultations with creditor banks.
The report said that based on Eramet's present market cap, Carlo Tassara could receive EUR 285m for the stake. The item added that Carlo Tassara has given the stake a book value of EUR 234m.
The report said that Carlo Tassara is also looking to sell its 7.03% stake in Gabon-based manganese miner Comilog, another mining company. The report said that this stake has a book value of EUR 14.8m.
The report said that Goldman Sachs has had its mandate renewed in order to carry out the sale.
Source Milano Finanza daily edition
Vivendi chairman supports Telecom Italia proposal for GVT/Tim Brasil merger, must win other Vivendi shareholders' support
Vincent Bollore, chairman of the French media group Vivendi is in favour of a merger merger between GVT and Tim Brasil proposed by Telecom Italia but will have to win over other Vivendi shareholders for the proposal.
Italian-language daily Milano Finanza reported this information in an unsourced article.
The report noted that TI has proposed to Vivendi a merger between its Brazilian mobile unit Tim Brasil and Vivendi's Brazilian fixed line operator GVT. In exchange, Vivendi would become the largest shareholder in TI with a 15-20%. The report said TI's offer has been valued at around EUR 7.2bn.
Vivendi shareholders could be concerned over governance issues, especially in regard to the merged entity to be formed by GVT and Tim Brasil, the article noted. Vivendi is likely to want to hold at least 51% in the new entity, the item added.
The report said that another issue could be the number of directors Vivendi would have on the TI board and the possible veto powers reserved for the TI shares held by Vivendi. Bollore is Vivendi's largest single shareholder with a 5% stake, the item said.
TI is likely to make a formal proposal at its board meeting tomorrow, 27 August. The report added that the Vivendi board is to meet on 28 August.
Another unsourced article in Il Messaggero said that Telefonica was likely to relaunch its offer in the next few hours, both by sweetening the cash component of the offer and drawing up an industrial plan similar to the one outlined by TI.
An unsourced report in La Stampa claimed that Telefonica, which has already made a EUR 6.7bn offer for GVT is about to sweeten its offer in an attempt to fend off the TI bid. The article said that the Telefonica offer, which consists of EUR 4bn in cash plus an 8.3% stake in TI, could be increased to EUR 8bn. The offer would also include a more fleshed-out industrial plan, the report noted.
Source Milano Finanza daily edition, La Stampa, Il Messaggero
US MArket closed higher in light volume, with even small cap following the all market, M&A was still a catalyst (ITMN/ ROG), Energy & Financials outperformed the all mkt...volume were light @482mil shares (lowest volume of the year for higher close)...VIX @ 11.70 +2%...After Hours CISG +7.2%, SPCB +2.5%, PINC +2.1%, ADEP -18.5%, KANG -15.9%, XUE -13.2% following earnings/guidance...Despite the record high set in SP500 cash index, sentiment in Asia is noticeably more subdued. Ukraine standoff remains tense going into the Minsk meeting among Putin, Poroshenko...Conference Board Leading Index for China rose by another 1.3%, matching an 8-month high rate of growth. Resident economist cautioned that the "improvement
was driven primarily by an increase in new floor space starts, which is unsustainable in the longer-term", adding that bank loans offered their weakest contribution to the index since January 2012. Nikkei -0.54% Hang Seng -0.23% Shanghai -0.97%
Eur$ 1.3202 S&P -0.10% EuroStoxx -0.32% FTSE +0.62% (was closed Yest) DAX -0.30% SMI -0.06%
Macro
- European Bank Cleanup Driving Sales of $1.72 Trillion of Assets
Keep an eye on :
- AC FP : Accor 1H Ebit Beats Ests., Buys 13 U.K. Hotels for EU89m
- AF FP : Transavia CEO Says at Least 15% Cost Cuts Are Needed: Telegraaf
- AIR FP : China Aircraft Leasing to Buy 4 Airbus A320 Aircraft
- CABK SM : CaixaBank Sells CAN Seguros Generales to SegurCaixa: Expansion
- DTE GY : Dish Network Options Include Possible T-Mobile Bid: DealReporter
- ESS PL : Espirito Santo Saude 1H Net EU8.7m vs EU6m Y/y
- RF FP : Eurazeo Is Considering IPOs for Elis, Europcar, Chairman Says
- FNC IM : Finmeccanica Weighing Whether to Keep U.S. Presence, CEO Says
- IM NA : Imtech Sells ICT Unit, Says EU600m Rights Issue Underwritten
- LUX IM : Luxottica to Hold Sept. 1 Board Meeting on CEO Position, CFO Cavatorta May Replace Guerra as CEO, Sole Reports
- PTC PL : Portugal Telecom Held EU750m of Espirito Santo Debt at End-2013
- SALM NO : SalMar 2Q Op. Ebit Rises; Sees 2H Norway Salmon Harvest 73,500t
- STCBV FH : Stockmann CEO Hannu Penttilae Steps Down; Chairman Takes Over
- STMN SW : Straumann 1H Rev. CHF359.1m, Net Beats Estimates
- LANS NA : Van Lanschot 1H Net Rises 36%; Says Loan Run-Off Is on Track
>>> Up
*ARCELORMITTAL RAISED TO BUY VS SELL AT UBS
*KLOECKNER RAISED TO NEUTRAL VS SELL AT UBS
*PHOENIX RAISED TO EQUALWEIGHT VS UNDERWEIGHT AT BARCLAYS
*SALZGITTER RAISED TO BUY VS SELL AT UBS
*VOESTALPINE RAISED TO BUY VS SELL AT UBS
>>> Down
*GDF SUEZ CUT TO NEUTRAL VS BUY AT UBS
*PGS CUT TO SELL VS NEUTRAL AT UBS
>>> PT Changes
>>> Initiation
*TELKOM RATED OVERWEIGHT AT BARCLAYS, WAS SUSPENDED
>>> Call
>> Stock
*EFG HERMES REMOVED FROM GOLDMAN CEEMEA FOCUS LIST