WWD : WWD’s Seven Best Timepieces From Watches and Wonders 2024

WWD’s Seven Best Timepieces From Watches and Wonders 2024
From Hermès' new play toward women to Rolex's one-third of an ingot gold timepiece, these watches stood out in this edition.

Clockwise from top left: Rolex Deepsea, Reflection de Cartier, Piaget Ultimate Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon, IWC Schaffhausen Portugieser Eternal Calendar, Tag Heuer Monaco Split-second Chronograph, Patek Golden Ellipse, Hermès Cut.

From the best new shape and fresh takes on refreshed classics to the queen of complications and a jewel that tells time, WWD’s editors pinpoint their favorite new pieces from Watches and Wonders — and those that almost made the cut.
Best New Classic: Patek Philippe 5738 1R Golden Ellipse, $60,097

The Ellipse case, inspired by the golden ratio, is without doubt a timeless shape that became a byword for Patek Philippe in the 1970s and has continued to be successful. But what hit the bull’s-eye this year isn’t the ultra-thin self-winding 240 caliber or even the black sunburst dial that compliments the rose gold livery of the piece: it’s the 363 links mounted by hand of its bracelet. The fact that it can now be adjusted by the wearer without requiring a jeweler to cut it permanently to size had conversations going in Geneva.

The Victory bracelet for the latest Patek Philippe Golden Ellipse is made of 363 hand-mounted links.
COURTESY OF PATEK PHILIPPE

Runner-up: The Cartier Tank Américaine Mini, with its tiny 24mm dimension.

Best Complication Combination: IWC Schaffhausen Portugieser Eternal Calendar, approx. $164,300
Watchmakers are always pushing the boundaries of what is possible and that’s what IWC Schaffhausen delivered with this 44mm model, which is the first secular perpetual calendar that will be accurate until 3999, adjusting for the skipped leap years at the start of every century until the leap year of 2400. What’s more: Its moonphase will be accurate for 45 million years. Yes, you read that right. And that’s a record that more than doubles the previous milestone, also held by IWC.
Runner-up: Vacheron Constantin with its one-of-a-kind Les Cabinotiers Berkley Grand Complication, which has a jaw-dropping 63 complications — including the first traditional Chinese perpetual calendar.

Best Technical Feat: Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon, est. 600,000 euros
By the end of the fair, there wasn’t much left to say about the Piaget AUC Tourbillon, which wowed with its coin-like thickness and its 1.49mm tourbillon movement wedged between a wafer of sapphire and cobalt alloy. All this in a wristwatch that no one could resist trying on, if social media is anything to go by.
Runner-up: Patek Philippe World Time 5330G-001, the first world-time caliber to have a local date.

Best New Shape: Hermès Cut, From $6,725
A circular dial within a pebble-like round with sharply cut sides, the Hermès Cut made for an interesting shape that balanced a geometric feel with a rounded sportiness. One of the biggest novelties for the French house for this year, this model is geared toward a female consumer looking for an easy yet elegant timekeeper. With a variety of options that range from steel on an integrated bracelet to steel-and-gold on rubber offered in eight colors for now, all with the same quick-release mechanism that allows for easy swapping, the Hermès Cut is meant to reiterate the performance of the H08 watch introduced in 2021 and bring new impetus to Hermès’ successful watchmaking division.
Runner-up: The Cartier Tortue, a classic brought back to life by the “watchmaker of shapes.”


Best Chronograph: Tag Heuer Monaco Split-seconds Chronograph, approx. $150,000
On paper this chronograph has the pedigree and the lineage. In person, it’s a fine watch that honors the split-seconds “queen of complications” movement, an entirely new one developed by Tag Heuer’s director of high-end watchmaking and movements strategy Carole Kasapi with Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier. A case lightened thanks to grade-5 titanium and sapphire on both sides allows every detail, right down to the gradient stripe on the oscillating mass, to shine. This Monaco iteration edged out its nearest competitor for its unique form factor.
The sapphire front and back gives a better view on the inner workings of this Monaco.
COURTESY OF TAG HEUER

Runner-up: A. Lange & Söhne Datograph Perpetuel Tourbillon Honeygold “Lumen,” three complications packed in one glow-in-the-dark package, which marks the 25th anniversary of the Datograph line and 30th anniversary of the brand.

Best Jewel That Gives Time: Reflection de Cartier, From $38,900
There are bracelet watches and then there’s this new bangle by Cartier. Sculptural and sizable, this bold design hits the spot for today’s jewelry consumer too. There’s the plain gold versions but it comes in more-is-more gem-set variants that culminate with the opal, tiger eye, amethyst and spessartite garnet model. And the watch face reflected in the polished side of the bangle feels like a nod to another Cartier move of the fair, the Santos Dumont Rewind.
Runner-up: A tie between Piaget’s latest Swinging Sautoir and Van Cleef & Arpels’ Lady Arpels Nuit Enchantée prototype watch, with its raw purple sapphires mimicking a geode cavern and cluster of façonné enamel flowers, a patented technique the house has recently developed.

Best Chunk of Gold: Rolex Deepsea, $52,100
Imagine this one as a third of a gold ingot you can wear on your wrist, with deep-sea credentials to boot. Clocking in at 320 grams, this is not just any divers’ watch. Coming in an unusual combination of 18-karat gold — already a first for the genre — paired with ceramic element and RLX titanium, it marks the emergence of the Deepsea as a pillar for the watchmaking behemoth.

Runner-up: Tudor’s 18-karat yellow gold Black Bay reference 79018V39-mm, with a matte green dial and a T-fit clasp on its yellow gold bracelet.

WWD : Five Brands Staked Their Horological Claims in Geneva Too

Five Brands Staked Their Horological Claims in Geneva Too
Bulgari, Damiani, Philipp Plein, B Corp-certified ID Genève and newcomer SpaceOne were among the highlights of a week of group shows, private dinners and exclusive showcases.

The making of of the Bulgari Tadao Ando x Serpenti collection.
COURTESY OF BULGARI

If the main hub for watchmaking during Geneva’s watch-centric week remained Palexpo, home to Watches and Wonders, there were no shortage of events reflecting the vibrancy of the industry.

The Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design (HEAD) hosted the “Time to Watches” group exhibition, which featured around 50 brands, while the Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants (or Watchmaking Academy of Independent Creators) showcased 20 signatures under the Masters of Horology banner including Philippe Dufour, Kari Voutilainen and Louis Vuitton Watch Prize inaugural winner Raúl Pagès.

Meanwhile, others opted to showcase in their factories, like F.P. Journe, or set up in the Beau-Rivage hotel, which has turned over the years into a hotbed of independent projects. Jewelers were showing off their horological creations, and those that did not also tapped into the moment to showcase selections of gems that could mesh with the precious direction also felt in timepieces.


Bulgari
The maze-like rooms at the top floor of Geneva’s Hotel President Wilson were bursting with excitement for Bulgari’s new record-breaking, 1.70mm-thick Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC, the thinnest mechanical watch resistant to shocks and magnetic fields, as well as the thinnest COSC-certified chronometer.

Yet amid some new configurations for its signature Octo Finissimo Tourbillon and Octo Roma collections, another range stole the spotlight.

In a first for the Roman jeweler and watchmaker, the Serpenti Tubogas collection got an artistic makeover by famed Japanese architect Tadao Ando, who had previously collaborated with the house in 2020 and 2021 for the Octo Finissimo range.

Conceived as an homage to the passing of seasons, four new limited-edition Serpenti watches were reimagined with colored marquetry dials of green aventurine, tiger’s eye, and white and pink mother-of-pearl. The snake head-shaped case is crowned by a row of diamonds on each side.
The Bulgari Tadao Ando x Serpenti collection.
COURTESY OF BULGARI

“I aim to integrate the various forces at play, to restore the unity of architecture with nature,” Ando said in a statement provided by Bulgari.

Each of the four pieces will be released timed with their respective season. Summer’s green aventurine version comes with a mixed media yellow gold and steel Tubogas bracelet, while autumn, with a tiger’s eye dial, features a rose gold bracelet and pink rubellite stone on the crown. The white mother-of-pearl’s wintry edition has a steel case and bracelet, while spring, dropping next year, mounts the pink mother-of-pearl dial on a steel and rose gold bracelet.

For diehard Serpenti Tubogas fans, Bulgari is also releasing 20 special boxes that include the four timepieces as an ensemble.

Damiani
In the year of its centenary and on the heels of unveiling an exhibition in Milan titled “Damiani 100 x 100 Italiani,” which runs through April 28, high jeweler Damiani is increasingly looking to enhance its reputation in the high watchmaking sphere.

Playing by the rulebook of a fine jewelry brand, the Italian company decamped to Geneva, harnessing its “Mimosa” lineup for new bejeweled quartz movement timepieces, which come in a range of colorways and are embellished with diamonds.


A Damiani Mimosa timepiece.
COURTESY OF DAMIANI

The house described the line’s design ethos as “apparent chaos” for the seemingly haphazard placement of gemstones. A new 32mm timepiece featuring a soleillé dial in green, blue, red, gray or brown, among other colors, boasts 3.44 carats of diamonds arranged in two rows around the bezel to create a blossom-like pattern, while a sister version adds a diamond pavé dial to the equation for a total of 4.03 carats.

ID Genève
“A watch as secure as a Swiss passport,” said cofounder and chief executive officer Nicolas Freudiger of the Elements collection he teased in private appointments. “In 2024, we are wondering how to lower our digital footprint.”

Using a patented nanoengraving technology usually used for bank notes and government-issued IDs resulted in unique holographic dials. But rather than just ensuring traceability and authenticity without CO2 emissions — no cloud-powered data storage here — the designs inspired by the four elements and humanity are a reminder of our place within a living ecosystem that needs to be preserved at all costs.

And that’s what ID Genève is all about. The four-year-old company, which has been working toward zero impact in its product and operations, has been using solar steel (with a carbon footprint 165 times smaller than regular steel), straps made from wine residue or tree waste from London parks and seaweed packaging that can dissolve in water within hours.

With an average price of 4,500 Swiss francs, the brand has been growing steadily since it was crowdfunded in late 2020, selling 600 watches last year and targeting 1,000 pieces in 2024.
The fledgling watchmaker was awarded B Corp status in October 2023 and raised a $2 million seed round that famously included Leonardo DiCaprio among its investors.

Philipp Plein
Upon his second effort, Philipp Plein sounded both more determined and more focused than a year ago when he took over a suite at the Fairmont Hotel to unveil his venture in the high watchmaking universe.

“Last year this was a small experiment, which played very well for us,” the designer and entrepreneur said. “We are really competing with other big brand names, which have a lot of history and tradition. And of course, we are [bursting into] this industry….Selling such a luxury item, you need to talk a lot, you need to explain a lot, you need to educate a lot, yourself and your people,” he said, adding that the new category has brought in customers unfamiliar with the brand’s fashion proposition.

Unveiling the new collection at a recently opened pop-up shop facing Lake Geneva, Plein pulled out the brand’s first tourbillon, dubbed Crypto King Flying Tourbillon, and mounting a bespoke manual winding, flying coaxial tourbillon Landeron caliber exposed via the skeletonized dial.
The Philipp Plein Crypto King Flying Tourbillon
COURTESY OF PHILIPP PLEIN

The case bearing a distinctive hexagonal pattern comes in four color combinations, including fiery red and clear white, black and white, black and orange, as well as in black carbon version accented with 18-karat rose gold screws, side cage and crown.

The loud and complication-rich design is complemented by the Crypto King Hexagon tonneau-shaped watch featuring the hexagon pattern throughout, including at the center of the dial framing the brand’s double P logo, and a Swiss-made automatic movement visible from the open caseback.

SpaceOne
For SpaceOne cofounders Guillaume Laidet and Théo Auffret, presenting their second subscription timepiece at the Beau-Rivage hotel in Geneva was something of a moonshot — and that’s not a play on its complication featuring the sun, earth and moon orbiting each other.

Just under a year earlier, the French horological start-up had raised $1 million on Kickstarter for their first watch, under the moniker “Argon SpaceOne,” when a trademark infringement complaint saw their initial launch abruptly aborted, with backers refunded and astronomical bills.

“It was quite the comedown,” said 37-year-old Laidet, who is also CEO and co-owner of independent watch brand Nivada Grenchen.

Long story short, after a frightening passage solved by changing the name to SpaceOne, their initial futuristic design took flight once more as they raised the funds a second time. A new French watchmaking label was born.
The SpaceOne Tellurium’s complication is an automatic heliocentric tellurium, which features the sun, earth and moon orbiting each other.
COURTESY OF SPACEONE

Fast-forward a few months and for the second one, “Guillaume arrived saying he wanted ‘planets, planets,’ and I had a model tellurium in the workshop,” recalled Paris-based watchmaker Auffret, who won the F.P. Journe young talent competition at 2018’s SIHH.

While the SpaceOne Tellurium owes its sleek outline to the work of Olivier Gamiette, who designs vehicles at Peugeot, and houses Auffret’s automatic “heliocentric tellurium” movement that sees the trio of celestial bodies move to indicate the date, the watch is priced at a mere 2,990 euros.

Although the preorder runs until May 5, more than two-thirds of the initial 300-strong run for the Tellurium have sold, with 100-plus pieces going before the watch was even revealed.

WWD : FTC Sues to Block Tapestry’s $8.5B Takeover of Capri

FTC Sues to Block Tapestry’s $8.5B Takeover of Capri
Tapestry CEO Joanne Crevoiserat told WWD the company was ready to fight for the potentially industry-transforming acquisition.

Tapestry’s Inc.’s mega $8.5 billion deal to buy Capri Holdings came under the microscope of regulators at the Federal Trade Commission — and they didn’t like what they saw.

In a highly unusual move for the fashion industry, the FTC sued Monday in Manhattan federal court to block the acquisition, which was first agreed to in August and would bring together Tapestry’s Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman brands with Capri’s portfolio of Micahel Kors, Versace and Jimmy Choo.

The U.S. was the last jurisdiction that needed to sign off on the transaction.

“If allowed, the deal would eliminate direct head-to-head competition between Tapestry’s and Capri’s brands,” the FTC said in a statement. “It would also give Tapestry a dominant share of the ‘accessible luxury’ handbag market, a term coined by Tapestry to describe quality leather and craftsmanship handbags at an affordable price.”

But Tapestry’s chief executive officer Joanne Crevoiserat, speaking to WWD Monday evening from Shanghai, signaled that the company was ready to fight to save the deal.

“We’re confident in the merits of this and the benefits of this transaction, and we’re looking forward to presenting those arguments in court, and importantly working expeditiously to close the transaction this calendar year,” Crevoiserat said.

Investors have been watching closely to see if the FTC would challenge the deal after regulators made a second request for more information in November. Experts said it would be unusual for the government to step in with anti-monopoly regulations to prevent a deal in a space as specific and as discretionary as accessible luxury handbags.

But that’s exactly what happened.

“It’s not clear how they’re defining the market,” Crevoiserat said. “We look at the market the way the consumer does, and I would say that as a consumer, even if you were to walk into any department store or TJ Maxx or Google or search on Amazon or Saks.com or macys.com, at any price point, and we know consumer shopping data shows, consumers shop up and down the price spectrum. There are lots of choices.”

Instead, she said the deal would help shoppers by bringing more innovation to the market.

“Consumers are fully in charge here and if we don’t deliver innovation that they value, they have other choices,” Crevoiserat said. “There are big players in the market … and there are new entrants every day that come into the market. Some celebrity wears a bag on an evening, or a really cool Brooklyn designer creates a bag. There are no barriers to entry. So if we’re not staying on top of what consumers value and delivering innovation behind that, we’re not going to win competitively.”

The FTC has a very different take on the transaction and in its statement said, “The proposed merger threatens to deprive millions of American consumers of the benefits of Tapestry and Capri’s head-to-head competition, which includes competition on price, discounts and promotions, innovation, design, marketing and advertising.”

Henry Liu, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said Tapestry, which was built off of the Coach brand, had become “a serial acquirer” that “seeks to acquire Capri to further entrench its stronghold in the fashion industry.

“This deal threatens to deprive consumers of the competition for affordable handbags, while hourly workers stand to lose the benefits of higher wages and more favorable workplace conditions,” he said.

The FTC’s statement added: “This deal isn’t likely to be Tapestry’s last, as the acquisition of Capri will give Tapestry additional leverage to make even more acquisitions in the future, according to the complaint. As the FTC’s complaint states, documents produced by Tapestry indicate that it has no plans to stop acquisitions even after this proposed merger.”

The commission voted 5-0 to issue the complaint and to seek a preliminary injunction to stop the deal.

While Capri’s business has weakened significantly since the two sides reached the agreement, Tapestry shows no signs of backing off.

Crevoiserat said, “The FTC has fundamentally misunderstood the marketplace, the way that consumers shop in our category and the impact of this deal on labor and workers in employees in our industry…. the FTC is the only regulator challenging this deal … which I think speaks to the way other jurisdictions consider the market and consumer behavior.”

FT : Mediterranean ports warn of overflowing storage yards in latest threat to s

Mediterranean ports warn of overflowing storage yards in latest threat to supply chain
Operators say ports severely congested because of Red Sea disruptions

Container ports around the western Mediterranean are nearing full capacity, raising the risk of higher inventory costs and component shortages for Europe’s retailers and manufacturers in the latest challenge to the region’s supply chains.

Port executives said they were dealing with overflowing storage yards and waits for vessels to berth following Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, which has led to a surge in traffic at Algeciras and Barcelona in Spain and Tangier-Med in Morocco.

Denmark’s Maersk recently warned customers that “yard density” at the Port of Barcelona had increased due to high capacity as the port handled far higher than normal trans-shipment movements. Maersk added that terminals in Algeciras and Tangier were also suffering.

Alonso Luque, chief executive of TTI Algeciras, one of two container terminals in Algeciras, said his facility was “quite full” and had avoided severe congestion only by restricting the amount of business it took on.

“Capacity is very limited,” he said.


Most large container shipping lines operating on the Asia-Europe route redirected traffic via the Cape of Good Hope, instead of the Suez Canal, following attacks by Iranian-backed Houthis.

The re-routings have forced shipping lines to devise new arrangements for goods going between Asia and ports in Italy, Greece and Turkey.

After coming around South Africa, many vessels are dropping off containers at ports on the western side of the Mediterranean such as Algeciras and Tangier. From there, short-distance “feeder” services ferry goods to other southern European terminals.

The disruption has arisen as critical ports have struggled to cope with the resulting sharp increases in “trans-shipment” traffic. Daniel Richards, a director at London-based maritime consultancy MSI, said delays at the ports could force some companies to hold extra stock.

“[One element] would be if you have inventory costs rising because of this,” Richards said, adding that there was also a risk to the supply of components for manufacturers.

The issues arise as terminals for handling finished cars are also suffering severe congestion, largely because of a surge in the number of vehicles being exported from Asia to Europe and North America and a slowdown in vehicle sales.

While Algeciras and Tangier-Med have published no traffic statistics this year, Barcelona recorded a 17 per cent rise in containers handled in February compared with the same month last year.

Many terminal operators expect that problems will continue for as long as services are being rerouted.

Nabil Boumezzough, president of the management board of Tangier Alliance, operator of the TC3 container terminal in Morocco, said the terminal had this year been operating consistently with its yard nearly full to capacity.

“This is challenging your efficiency and challenging your productivity and challenging how you manage your port,” Boumezzough said.

APM Terminals, the terminal-operating arm of AP Møller-Maersk, said it had been experiencing “short-term pressure” on its facilities in Barcelona, Algeciras and Tangier, although it was now seeing “significant improvements”.

However, vessel-tracking services show that vessels are regularly waiting at anchor offshore at both Algeciras and Tangier before berthing. Such waits are often a sign ports are growing congested.

Luque said shipping lines had been forced by the shortage of capacity at Algeciras and Tangier, which sit on opposite sides of the Gibraltar Strait, to go to less convenient ports farther away.

He said lines were using facilities as far away as Malta and Italy’s Gioia Tauro.

FT : Slumping EV sales should not ring alarm bells in Europe — yet

Slumping EV sales should not ring alarm bells in Europe — yet
European carmakers should use this market slowdown to play catch-up with Chinese rivals

After a crash, the pain can be delayed but then hits with a vengeance. That is the danger European carmakers face.

Sales of battery electric vehicles (BEV) in Europe dropped 11.3 per cent year on year in March, the second fall in four months, according to figures this month. The timing of Easter played a part. But globally sales growth has also slowed. Tesla is cutting 10 per cent of its global workforce. Mercedes-Benz has pushed back its electrification target.

For Europe’s laggard carmakers, if not the planet, slowing EV growth isn’t all bad news. They took a lackadaisical approach to electrification compared with Chinese rivals. European carmakers’ shares have held up well in the year to date. Meanwhile, EV specialist Tesla is down 40 per cent.

Sales of higher-margin combustion engine vehicles help with cash flows while the legacy European companies invest in electric models. The question is how long the breathing space will last.


The industry is divided over what recent data tells us. One school of thought is that EV sales growth in Europe has, thus far, been from wealthy early adopters and corporate buyers. As soon as the market needed to rely on the mass market, sales would inevitably slacken. Countries such as Germany dropping subsidy schemes hasn’t helped. But as sticker prices decrease, more drivers should still convert.

The other side in this debate argues that EV forecasts were always overly optimistic, given persistent concerns over price, range and charger availability.

The truth is probably somewhere in between. Jefferies has trimmed its forecast for European battery electricity vehicle penetration this year by 1.6 percentage points to 21 per cent. But don’t write the market off, says the bank’s Philippe Houchois. 

From 2025, European carmakers must comply with new standards for average fleet CO₂ emissions. Some are offering discounts on BEVs to avoid fines next year. These should convert to deliveries in the second half of 2024. Volkswagen reported a 154 per cent year-on-year increase in its BEV order book in Europe in the first quarter. 

As long as governments maintain 2035 targets to ban new combustion engine vehicle sales, a tipping point should still come. 

The bigger worry remains whether European carmakers can compete with Chinese rivals when it does. Chinese carmakers’ product costs are €3,500-€5,000 per unit cheaper than European counterparts, says Fabian Brandt of Oliver Wyman. Without trade restrictions — which hurt European marques that still rely on China sales — it is difficult to see how that gap can close.

FT : TikTok fortune of billionaire Republican donor Jeff Yass threatened by Wash

TikTok fortune of billionaire Republican donor Jeff Yass threatened by Washington
Investor’s Susquehanna International Group owns estimated $40bn stake in parent company ByteDance as app faces potential ban

More than a decade ago, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming sketched out an idea for a new social media company on a napkin in a Beijing coffee shop.

Faith in Zhang led the local partner at Jeff Yass’s Susquehanna International Group to invest $80,000 in the parent company of TikTok and follow up with another $2mn months later.

SIG, a global quantitative trading firm, became Zhang’s first big backer, helping kick-start a social media revolution. SIG now owns roughly 15 per cent of ByteDance, a stake worth about $40bn that represents a significant chunk of Yass’s net worth, according to people familiar with the matter.

His estimated $30bn fortune is now hostage to growing geopolitical tension between the US and China, as Congress moves forward with a potential ban of the viral video platform in its largest and most lucrative market. A bill requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok or face having the app banned over national security concerns may pass in the Senate this week before it is signed by President Joe Biden.

As TikTok’s fate has become intertwined with politics, Yass has increased his political spending, laying out more than $46mn for Republican candidates and making him the largest donor of this election cycle, according to OpenSecrets, a non-profit organisation tracking campaign finance and lobbying.

But his political outlays were not enough to slow the TikTok bill, which sits at the centre of the battle between Washington and Beijing. “Investors are being forced to pick sides,” said Ming Liao of investment firm Prospect Avenue Capital. “Geopolitics is the biggest risk and there is no way to mitigate it.”

Since founding SIG in 1987, Yass has built a business on making many small bets with the potential for outsized payouts. The approach turned SIG into an options trading powerhouse, and it gradually grew into a market maker in more than 600 publicly traded companies including Alphabet, Microsoft and Goldman Sachs. Its publicly reported positions were worth more than $500bn at end of 2023, according to Fintel, an investment research platform.

Yass, an avid poker player who got his start with horseracing, pushed the firm towards venture investing. In 2005, SIG focused its efforts on China, then the fastest-growing large economy in the world with an exploding middle class.

Since then, SIG has put over $3.5bn into more than 350 Chinese start-ups, making Yass’s group among the leading foreign venture capital firms in the country, according to research group ITjuzi. SIG’s stakes include holdings in Chinese groups designing semiconductors and making chip design tools, as well as a cyber security start-up.

SIG has yet to come under scrutiny in Washington, where lawmakers have been investigating the investment activities of many American venture capitalists in China. Two of the groups, Silicon Valley venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and GGV Capital, decided in 2023 to split their operations in response to the push for tech investors to disengage from China.

Under pressure, Yass has gone on the offensive. He is a top backer of Club for Growth, an influential rightwing group, and the main donor behind Protect Freedom PAC, a Republican fundraising super-political action committee aligned with senator Rand Paul, who opposes the TikTok ban.

Trump, who once tried to ban TikTok, has since reversed his position on the app, saying in March that banning it would only serve to benefit Facebook, after meeting Yass and speaking at a Club for Growth event. The group also paid Kellyanne Conway, a former senior Trump political adviser, to do TikTok-related polling.

Trump has said he did not discuss TikTok with Yass. A Yass spokesperson said the billionaire never contributed to Trump and had no plans to do so.

Nearly half of the 15 Republicans who voted against a TikTok bill that passed the House in March counted SIG or the Club for Growth as top campaign donors, according to data from OpenSecrets.

One of the nay votes was from West Virginia’s Alexander Mooney, who has received $2.4mn in support from the Club for Growth and the Protect Freedom PAC for his senate bid.

A spokesperson for Mooney did not respond to requests for comment. “I’m proud to have stayed with President Trump on this one,” he told West Virginia radio station MetroNews in March.


SIG’s investments in China go beyond ByteDance. Unlike traditional venture capitalists, the investment arm is internally funded, meaning it invests only partners’ money, rather than raising capital from external sources such as pension and endowment funds.

SIG’s structure also means that the ByteDance gains accrue directly to Yass and his co-founders instead of outside limited partners. ProPublica, a non-profit investigative journalism outlet that has reviewed Yass’s tax returns, said the ByteDance stake accounted for a major part of Yass’s wealth and estimated he owned 75 per cent of SIG.

The structure has insulated the firm from the whiplash of US politics on China, as it does not have to answer to institutional investors. But new rules unveiled by the Biden administration last year would limit SIG’s ability to invest in Chinese artificial intelligence, semiconductors and quantum computing.

It is unclear if the executive order, which is still in the consultation stage, would force SIG to divest its Chinese holdings in these sectors. Data from ITjuzi shows that out of SIG China’s 389 deals, 49 were in AI-related start-ups and five in chip companies, though the group did slow the pace of China investment last year.

Some of the investments are in sensitive sectors. For example, Yass’s group is the largest outside investor, with a 14 per cent stake, in Beijing Xindun Times Technology, or Trusfort, which provides cyber security solutions to several state-owned groups and government offices including the Ministry of Public Security and the country’s powerful internet regulator, according to public records.

Trusfort’s website says it is “deeply carrying out the [Communist] party and government’s efforts to build a powerful cyber nation” and that it has “demonstrated great responsibility and achievement in advancing the party and national affairs”. The founder Guo Xiaopeng was recently named to Beijing’s top political consultative body.

A spokesperson for SIG and Yass said SIG China did not invest in companies engaged in government surveillance or for which AI was the primary business driver and said Trusfort offered consumer fraud protection for banks and brokerages.

For SIG, no Chinese start-up has been a bigger winner than TikTok owner ByteDance. After funding ByteDance’s seed round, Yass’s group put in “hundreds of millions” more in subsequent funding rounds, according to court records in the US.

If TikTok is banned, it will dent Yass’s fortune, said Li Chengdong, head of internet think-tank Haitun. “Now the most likely outcome is they will shut down the US, and all the American investors in ByteDance will bear the losses,” Li said.

“[Yass] did what he had to do, but there is nothing one financier can do in the face of America’s overarching aim of containing China.”

FT : IEA bullish on electric vehicle sales in 2024

IEA bullish on electric vehicle sales in 2024
Energy watchdog’s forecast runs counter to sentiment among many carmakers struggling to sell battery-run vehicles

Sales of electric vehicles will “grow strongly” this year and could see battery and hybrid models account for one in five cars sold worldwide, according to a bullish forecast from the International Energy Agency that runs counter to carmakers’ concerns over consumers’ appetite for EVs.

Despite “challenges in some markets,” the “share of EVs on the roads is expected to continue to climb rapidly” in the coming years, the IEA said in its annual outlook report.

Sales of battery electric and plug-in hybrid cars could rise more than 20 per cent to reach 17mn this year, up from just under 14mn in 2023, and grow to account for as much as two-thirds of global sales by 2035, it said.

“Rather than tapering off, the global EV revolution appears to be gearing up for a new phase of growth,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol. 

“Based on today’s policy settings alone, almost one in three cars on the roads in China by 2030 is set to be electric, and almost one in five in both the United States and EU. This shift will have major ramifications for both the auto industry and the energy sector,” he said.

The report stands in stark contrast to comments from carmakers, who warn that interest in battery cars among mainstream consumers is falling as they are put off by the vehicles’ higher prices as well as the lack of recharging points.

Both Tesla and BYD — the world’s first and second-largest EV manufacturers — reported a strong drop in sales in the first three months of this year compared with the previous quarter. 

On a year-on-year basis, deliveries fell almost 9 per cent for Tesla while rising 13 per cent for BYD, although the figure was nowhere near the 85 per cent annual growth the Chinese group reported in the first three months of 2023.


The car industry’s use of incentives to stimulate demand has also risen sharply in the past year in big markets, including the US, UK and Germany, as manufacturers try to bring down their prices. 

Yet the IEA said the market was still growing strongly, with global sales in the first quarter of 2024 a quarter higher than the equivalent period in 2023. 

“The number of electric cars sold globally in the first three months of this year is roughly equivalent to the number sold in all of 2020,” it said. 

Much of that growth came from China, where two-thirds of electric cars were already cheaper to purchase than their petrol equivalents, the IEA found.

In the US and Europe, EVs remain significantly more expensive to buy than engine rivals, though they have lower running costs that make them more economical in the long run. 

The IEA forecast that growing exports from Chinese brands would lead to “downward pressure on purchase prices” in other markets over time, helping to drive adoption. 

>>> US After Hours Summary: SAP +2.7% up on earnings; CALX -15%, SSD -8.7%, CDNS

After Hours Summary: SAP +2.7% up on earnings; CALX -15%, SSD -8.7%, CDNS -7.4%, NUE -6.5% among top post-earnings laggards

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: CR +3.6% (to also acquire CryoWorks), HXL +3%, SAP +2.7%, RBB +2.2% (also appoints new CFO), CADE +1.8%, ARE +1.7%, HSTM +1%, BRO +0.8%, AGNC +0.3%, GL +0.2%, ASR +0.2%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: ACET +7.6% (highlights preclinical data) CPRI +2.7% (FTC to block acqusition of CPRI; responds to FTC), LIND +2.5% (CFO to resign), EDIT +1.4% (to present preclinical data), TPR +0.3% (FTC to block acqusition of CPRI; responds to FTC), DCO +0.1% (Albion River comments on recent statement)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: CALX -15%, SSD -8.7%, CDNS -7.4%, NUE -6.5%, PKG -5.2%, CLF -2.7% (also authorizes $1.5 bln for repurchases), VERX -2.5% (also $250 mln convertible senior notes offering) MEDP -2.2%, WAFD -0.9%, AMP -0.3% (also increases dividend), CATY -0.1%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: ABEO -50.4% (provides regulatory update on Pz-cel), YOU -0.3% (CA state senate considering bill to ban service at airports, according to CBS news), BA -0.2% (looking at slower 787 production increase, according to Reuters), ETD -0.1% (increases dividend), ARW -0.1% (Board Chair to step down)