FT : China consumer prices rise but worries persist over core inflation

China consumer prices rise but worries persist over core inflation
Gains driven by higher cost of food after lagging industrial growth in recent months

China’s consumer price index moved back into positive territory in December, raising hopes that the country’s economic recovery will further bolster demand at a time when core inflation remains weak.

The country’s consumer price index beat expectations to edge 0.2 per cent higher year-on-year in December after falling 0.5 per cent a month earlier, with the gains largely driven by food prices.

Price growth in China has been anaemic over recent months despite the country’s rapid recovery from the coronavirus, which has been powered by industrial production as new cases have remained low. 

China’s gross domestic product is expected to have grown 2.1 per cent last year, compared with anticipated contractions in other economies.

Core inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, fell to 0.4 per cent year-on-year in December — lower than at any point since the coronavirus outbreak began and its weakest level since early 2010.

Persistently low levels of inflation have created a conundrum for policymakers as other areas of the economy continue to heat up. The People’s Bank of China cut benchmark lending rates last year, but the government has since moved to constrain the property sector.

“With economic activity set to remain strong and underlying inflation likely to rebound, we think the PBOC will tighten policy this year,” said Julian Pritchard-Evans, senior China economist at Capital Economics.

He added, however, that consumer prices might return to deflation in coming months on the back of sharp rises in pork prices last year.

The outbreak of African swine fever in the summer of 2018 led to the culling of millions of pigs, which raised the price of pork — one of the most important components in China’s consumer price index. In July, pork prices increased 86 per cent year-on-year.

China’s factory gate prices, which were in negative territory for most of last year, fell by 0.4 per cent year-on-year in December, beating economists’ expectations. In month-on-month terms, the producer price index gained 1.1 per cent, the fastest rate in more than four years.

Iris Pang, chief economist for Greater China at ING, suggested the increase was partly driven by an outbreak of coronavirus in Hebei province, which disrupted supply. China reported on Monday that new cases had surpassed 100 for the first time since July, with nearly all of the new domestic cases in Hebei.

But Ms Pang added that both CPI and PPI should gain in the coming months.

“After the Chinese New Year, we should see demand picking up,” she said. 

NY Post : Victoria’s Secret is bouncing back despite the pandemic

Victoria’s Secret is bouncing back despite the pandemic

Victoria’s Secret is poised to emerge from the pandemic stronger than it went in — thanks to a fresh new look that includes curvier models and slimmed down shelves.
Yes, the hot pink walls and padded pushup bras are still there. But the lingerie brand famous for only using skinny models to sell its version of a male “fantasy” has been quietly updating its decades-old image in other ways, including advertising that’s now peppered with plus-sized models like Devyn Garcia and Candice Huffine.
“In the summer, Victoria’s Secret used the pandemic as a reset,” said retail consultant Gabriella Santaniello, chief executive of A Line Partners. “It finally got its act together and started featuring plus size models.”
Even as it expands its consumer base, including by adding XXL pajamas and larger bra sizes, it’s becoming more selective about the items it sells in stores, which has more consumers buying at full price, observers said.
The changes, while subtle, appear to be paying off — despite the pandemic crushing foot traffic at malls where many Victoria’s Secret stores reside. The L Brands’-owned lingerie seller, which is one of the nation’s largest mall retailers with more than 900 stores, was forced to close 223 of its stores last year.
Still, it reported a 4 percent jump in total comparable sales in the third quarter boosted by a 42 percent increase in online purchases. On Thursday, Victoria’s Secret said comparable sales in the fourth quarter fell 9 percent as coronavirus cases spiked around the nation. But online sales still popped 24 percent.
It’s a far cry from where the company was at the start of the pandemic, when its stores were being shuttered and a deal it had hatched months earlier to save it from sagging sales by selling a controlling stake to private-equity firm Sycamore Partners was squashed.
Leading up to the pandemic, the lingerie company was plagued by image problems, the least of which was that the stores had been stubbornly sticking to the marketing strategy that had made them popular decades ago under retail guru Les Wexner.
By 2018, the company was under fire for controversial comments by its long-time marketing chief, Ed Razek, who said plus-sized women and transgender people weren’t included in the company’s annual parade of scantily clad women down the catwalk “because the show is a fantasy.”
And by early 2020, more than 100 models had slammed the company in the New York Times for a “culture of misogyny” at a time when Wexner, 82, was facing scrutiny over his past connections to pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Wexner, who said Epstein “misappropriated” more than $46 million of his personal fortune while serving as his money manager, retired in May. The company, which also owns Bath & Body Works, named its chief financial officer, Stuart Burgdoerfer, interim CEO.
Customers seem appreciative of the changes, which have included Garcia — whose Instagram account says she wears a size 14 dress — gracing the cover of the lingerie company’s holiday catalog wearing a black teddy and a smile instead of a come-hither look on her face whilst holding an enormous Christmas ball over head.

Devyn Garcia on the cover of the holiday catalog.
Victoria's Secret
“Victoria Secret using a real size woman for an ad?,” one customer recently wrote of the image on their Facebook page. “Ok, I am going back to be a Victoria’s Secret customer! Way to go!”
“LOVE that they now have XXL THANK YOU VS!,” another customer wrote.
“She is literally my shape!! I love it,” another customer wrote of Garcia. “Wide hips, tiny boobs. Love .”
Overall, the company’s social media posts of larger sized models have been attracting more comments, many of them positive, than its traditional models.
It’s not just more inclusiveness that’s helping drive sales. The brand, which had turned to discounting as its sales plummeted in recent years, has also pulled back on the promotions, which is helping boost the bottom line, experts said.
“This company which had been called out for being a dying brand is selling less, but charging more for its products and making more [money] because of it,” BMO analyst Simeon Siegel told The Post. “They are charging more for everything they sell, about 20 percent more.”
In addition to less discounting, Victoria’s Secret has also added more loungewear, pajamas, robes and leggings to its product assortment, according to Santaniello.
“Victoria’s Secret looked at the assortment mix and said, ‘We’ll capitalize on what’s going on with the pandemic,’” Santaniello added. “They didn’t get rid of lingerie, but the over-the-top teddies and strappy things are probably half of what they were before.”
“We’ve been working hard, as you recognize, to stabilize and begin the turnaround at Victoria’s Secret,” interim CEO Burgdoerfer told investors in November. And the process has been “paying dividends” thanks to “better merchandise, better assortments, better presentation, better marketing, better selling.”

FT : ‘M&A machine’ Cellnex reviews next move after tower dealmaking bonanza

‘M&A machine’ Cellnex reviews next move after tower dealmaking bonanza
Spanish group has amassed a vast mast empire but faces growing debt and competition

Five years ago a telecoms infrastructure business that was an unloved part of Spanish toll road group Abertis was cast aside and floated at a modest €3bn valuation.

From that unassuming beginning, the company — renamed Cellnex — has emerged as one of Europe’s hottest, powered by a near fourfold increase in its shares to reach a market capitalisation of €24bn making it larger than Spain’s dominant telecoms operator Telefónica.

Cellnex’s rise since 2015 has been predicated on unrelenting dealmaking. Fuelled by the availability of cheap debt, the Barcelona-based group has consolidated tens of thousands of telecom towers sold off by cash-strapped mobile operators including the UK’s Arqiva, Portugal’s NOS, Switzerland’s Sunrise and France’s Iliad.

Those towers are used by telecoms groups for the equipment needed to carry mobile phone signals, from which Cellnex collects rent for their use. It capped its acquisition spree in November with the €10bn purchase of almost 25,000 towers from CK Hutchison, the Hong Kong-based owner of the Three networks.

“They are very well oiled,” said one senior banker who has worked with Cellnex on a number of deals.

That acquisition — its seventh in 2020 — took its base of sites to almost 100,000, meaning the Catalan company now controls about a fifth of the continent’s wireless real estate.

Berenberg analysts described it as a “one-shot deal” that transformed Cellnex into Europe’s leading towers company, boosting its revenue and earnings by 50 per cent.



The question now is whether Cellnex can prove it merits the 23 times earnings multiple on which it trades and dispel suggestions that the empire it has assembled at hefty prices relies on constant dealmaking to support growth.

“They are an M&A machine and they can move very quickly. But they are also a big marketing machine that likes to talk about how good an M&A machine they are,” said one banker who has negotiated opposite the company.

Tobias Martinez, chief executive, admitted that even Cellnex has been surprised by its rapid growth.

“We were able, if you want, to anticipate the opportunity and capture the momentum in Europe. I cannot say that we did anticipate the size of the scale of this momentum, but we were there and ready to act,” he told the Financial Times.

One European telecoms chief executive said Cellnex’s “super aggressive” acquisition strategy has forced the likes of Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom and Orange to come up with plans to tap the growing value of towers that had been hidden on their balance sheets, in some instances carving out them out into separate companies they still control.

Cellnex’s transition from a division of a toll road group to Europe’s largest independent tower company is the result of a “domino effect” strategy, where it has patiently built a commanding position in target markets by outbidding rivals to gain a foothold before rapidly buying out adjacent players.

Alex Mestre, deputy chief executive at Cellnex, cited a hard-fought deal with Italian operator Wind to buy its 7,000 masts in 2015 as emblematic of its strategy. With Wind on board, it then struck a deal with France’s Iliad when it launched in Italy. The Iliad relationship blossomed and it has subsequently acquired the French company’s towers in France, Switzerland and Poland. Meanwhile, Wind merged with Three in Italy in 2016 which put Cellnex on to CK Hutchison’s radar.

The company’s largest backers include Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, Norway’s oil fund and Edizione, a Benetton family holding group which has supported Cellnex’s aggressive acquisition strategy.

They point to a management team, comprised largely of a tight group of former Abertis executives, that moves swiftly and decisively on acquisition targets. Supporters also note Cellnex’s ability to regularly tap equity markets alongside debt to fund its deals, something they say differentiates it from other roll-ups in European telecoms, such as Altice Europe, which is being taken private at a fraction of its previous valuation and drowning under huge debts.

Cellnex raised €4bn in equity in July, the largest such transaction in Europe last year, proving that the company could conjure up investor support even as the share prices of European telecoms groups came under severe pressure.

It will also partly fund the CK Hutchison tower takeover by issuing €1.4bn of new shares to the Asian company that will own about 5 per cent of its equity when the deal completes.



Cellnex’s pitch is that it can make more profitable use of an individual tower it has acquired by adding radios from a larger number of carriers, while building new sites funded by contracts that lock in future cash flow.

That contracted revenue — money derived from sale and leaseback agreements with telecoms companies — was worth €53bn at the end of September, rising to €80bn when new Hutchison contracts are factored in.

The M&A frenzy is evident in its financial results. In the first nine months of 2020, its revenue hit €1.1bn and its adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation was €838m. That compares with €436m of revenue for the whole of 2014, the year before its initial public offering, with adjusted ebitda of €178m.

But there is some scepticism among rival tower players over Cellnex’s ability to justify the price it has paid for its masts. “How many additional tenancies can they generate?” asked one. “You might get a cheap location but is it the best one?”


An investment-grade rating from Fitch has allowed Cellnex access to cheap debt financing despite its high leverage, with the European Central Bank having purchased the company’s bonds under its quantitative easing programme.

The rating agency said in early 2020 that it had “relaxed” its leverage threshold for downgrading the company, allowing it to take on more debt relative to its earnings without losing its investment-grade status. However, Fitch said in November that the Hutchison acquisition would put Cellnex outside even this looser leverage restriction.

Analysts at CreditSights, who peg the company’s net leverage at 6.6 times its earnings, said the rating agency’s thresholds were “certainly being tested”, while estimating that its recent run of acquisitions would take Cellnex’s net debt from €3.8bn to more than €13bn.

The group is also facing more competition for Europe’s remaining tower assets. Vantage Towers, Vodafone’s tower company, has a €1bn war chest for acquisitions, while US private equity firm Blackstone has thrown its weight behind Phoenix Tower International, which bought tower assets in Ireland in 2020.

Stéphane Richard, chief executive of Orange, recently raised the possibility that the French group could team up with rivals to forge a pan-European mobile towers champion, saying that “there is something smarter to do than just selling your towers to Cellnex”. 

With no desire to expand outside Europe and a finite number of deals to be done in the region, Cellnex is expected to start investing more in fibre cables that run into its towers and in data centres to provide “edge computing” services.

One of the bankers said Cellnex’s success ultimately makes it a target for a larger global mast company such as American Tower, which has a $100bn market cap.

The Boston-headquartered group bulked up in Africa last year when it acquired UK-based Eaton Towers and recently told UBS analysts at an industry conference that it “would like to be bigger in Europe”, despite being put off by the price of some assets that have been sold in the region.

“I have a very strong feeling Cellnex will make an interesting target for someone like American Tower,” the banker said.

FT : Barry Diller ‘sceptical’ on chances of MGM-Entain deal success

Barry Diller ‘sceptical’ on chances of MGM-Entain deal success
IAC chairman casts doubt on proposed takeover after Ladbrokes owner rejects £8bn offer

The billionaire chairman of MGM Resort’s largest shareholder IAC has expressed doubt that the US casino group’s attempt to take over UK gambling business Entain will succeed, despite his company promising increased investment in MGM as part of the deal.

“It would be great if MGM could do this with Entain but whether it happens or not, I am sceptical and if it doesn’t, I am sanguine. I am absolutely sure we will be in a leadership position whatever,” Barry Diller told the Financial Times.

IAC said on Friday that it would invest an additional $1bn in MGM to fund a cash alternative for Entain shareholders unwilling to accept shares as part of MGM’s all-stock proposal, which values the FTSE 100 owner of the Ladbrokes and Coral brands at about £8bn.

Entain’s board has rejected the proposed offer, arguing that it “significantly undervalues” the business. It also questioned “the strategic rationale” of a merger.

Wes McCoy, investment director at Standard Life Aberdeen, a top-five Entain shareholder, said he backed the board’s stance: “I definitely concur with Entain’s strong response to it . . . We want to see proper value for the fact that Entain is so strong digitally in all its jurisdictions.”

Mr Diller, who launched the Fox television network for Rupert Murdoch before building his own digital media empire, has a history of buying and expanding online businesses through IAC. The company owns more than 30 digital and media brands including Ask.com and The Daily Beast.

He said that in an all-stock transaction, public market values of the companies “have to align completely” resulting in a high level of uncertainty around the deal.

But he added: “Anyone who questions the strategic rationale for [merging] these companies is not thinking clearly.”

He pointed to the growth of MGM’s 50/50 joint venture, BetMGM, with Entain to offer sports betting in the rapidly expanding US market and the logic of combining MGM’s brand and casinos with Entain’s online expertise.

He also suggested that MGM could buy Entain’s share of the joint venture should another acquirer for Entain emerge, an option that someone close to the MGM board described as “a poison pill, in a way”, referring to a defence tactic to make targets appear less attractive to other potential buyers.

The loss of the joint venture would deny Entain its foothold in the US, which analysts estimate could become the world’s largest legal gambling market at upwards of $13bn, following the overturning of a federal ban on sports betting in 2018.

Entain’s joint venture with MGM, in which both parties have invested a total of $450m, has yet to turn a profit.

If MGM did move to take control of the joint venture it would follow the precedent of rival casino company Caesars Entertainment, which stipulated as part of its £2.9bn takeover of William Hill that it would cut its US partnership with the UK bookmaker if it accepted a competing offer.

IAC announced last August that it had invested about $1bn building a 12 per cent stake in MGM, stating in a letter to shareholders that “MGM presented a ‘once in a decade’ opportunity for IAC to own a meaningful piece of a pre-eminent brand in a large category with great potential to move online”, despite it being battered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Diller said that, whatever the outcome of the Entain deal, MGM still had many opportunities that its rivals did not given its brand and dominant position in the gambling hub of Las Vegas. “Frankly, if we didn’t [lead the gaming market] given the resources and advantages we would be utter failures,” he said.

FT : US banks to delist hundreds of HK-listed products under Trump rules

US banks to delist hundreds of HK-listed products under Trump rules
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley among groups reacting to executive order on China investment

JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are set to delist 500 structured products listed on Hong Kong’s stock exchange, as the fallout from President Donald Trump’s executive order barring investment in companies with alleged links to China’s military widens.

During his final days in office, Mr Trump has sought to crack down on Beijing before Democratic president-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated later this month.

In addition to banning the purchase of shares of dozens of Chinese companies believed to be tied to the People’s Liberation Army, the outgoing president has also moved to restrict transactions with Chinese payment applications including Alipay, WeChat Pay and Tencent’s QQ Wallet.

The move by JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs follows a decision by MSCI on Friday to drop Chinese state-owned telecoms companies China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom from their closely followed stock benchmarks in order to avoid potential legal penalties stemming from the executive order, which is set to go into effect on January 11.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing said the decision to delist 500 structured products was a “direct result” of the US sanctions, adding that it would continue to monitor developments.

“HKEX is working closely with the relevant issuers to ensure orderly delisting, and facilitate buyback arrangements being arranged by the issuers,” it said on Sunday. “We do not believe this will have a material adverse impact on Hong Kong’s structured products market, the largest in the world with over 12,000 listed products.”

In its efforts to avoid breaching the same regulations, the New York Stock Exchange became embroiled in controversy, moving at first to delist the three Chinese telecoms and then reversing course, before deciding to follow through last week at the urging of the Treasury department. 

Lawyers and financial executives have heaped criticism on the Trump administration for introducing ambiguously worded rules and guidance over how the restrictions will be enforced. Investors have also expressed concerns about the confusion sown in recent weeks.

“This kind of uncertainty is not appealing for any long-term investor, especially when one is trying to invest in Chinese state-owned telecom companies,” said Deepak Puri, chief investment officer of the Americas for Deutsche Bank Wealth Management, amid NYSE’s flip-flop last week.

(ZH) China Scrubs Critical Wuhan Lab Data; Deletes 300 Studies - Including Resea

China Scrubs Critical Wuhan Lab Data; Deletes 300 Studies - Including Research By 'Batwoman'

The Chinese government has come under fresh scrutiny over accusations that officials scrubbed crucial online data about the Wuhan Institute of Virology - the controversial laboratory suspected of being the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the Daily Mail, "hundreds of pages of information" spanning over 300 studies conducted by WIV have been wiped from a database, including some which discuss passing diseases from animals to humans - which were published online by the state-run National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and are no longer available.
Shi Zhengli, dubbed "Batwoman"
The deletion of key evidence has reignited fears that China is trying to whitewash the investigation into the origins of the virus.
It comes after President Xi Jinping last week blocked investigators from the World Health Organisation entering the country in a move that drew international condemnation. Meanwhile, state media outlets have published hundreds of stories claiming that the virus did not even originate in the city of Wuhan.
As part of the NSFC’s purge of online studies, it has deleted all reference to those carried out by Shi Zhengli, the Wuhan-based virologist who has earned the nickname Batwoman for her trips to gather samples in bat caves.
Studies key to any investigation into the source of the virus, including one into the risk of cross-species infection from bats with Sars-like coronaviruses, and another looking at human pathogens carried by bats, have also disappeared. -Daily Mail
Zhengli came under fire in 2015 over her controversial 'gain-of-function' research creating chimeric bat viruses designed to infect humans (but suggesting that an emergent coronavirus that's over 96% similar to a bat coronavirus could have escaped from Zhengli's lab is a conspiracy theory).
According to former UK Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith - a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, the revelations are yet another example of a Chinese coverup.
"China is clearly trying to hide the evidence," he said, adding "It is vital that there is a thorough investigation into what happened but China seems to be doing all it can to stop that happening. We don’t know what was going on in that laboratory. It may well be the case that they played around with bat coronaviruses and made some kind of mistake. Unless China opens itself up to scrutiny, the world will assume they have something to hide."
The Mail notes that this isn't the first time the WIV has been accused of suppressing critical evidence regarding the origins of the virus.
Days before the WHO was alerted to the outbreak of Sars-like pneumonia cases in Wuhan in December 2019, the Wuhan Institute of Virology began altering its database of viral pathogens.
The Wildlife-borne Viral Pathogen Database was unique because it included information on virus variants in other wild animals.
Among the changes, which experts believe were made to throw investigators off the scent, keywords such as ‘wildlife’ or ‘wild animals’ were deleted.
The title was changed from Wildlife-borne Viral Pathogen Database to Bat And Rodent-borne Viral Pathogen Database. The term ‘wild animal’ was replaced with ‘bat and rodent’ or ‘bat and rat’. -Daily Mail
Notably, the alteration occurred two days before a gene sequencing lab was reportedly ordered by the Health and Medical Commission of Hubei Province to destroy samples of the new disease and withhold information.
According to the report, the alterations - conducted on the evening of Dec. 30 - were substantial, and occurred the day before the CCP notified the World Health Organization about the outbreak of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan.
The primary database contact is none other than Zhengli - who was in Shanghai for a conference in late 2019 when she was summoned back to Wuhan to deal with the outbreak which had been detected in two pneumonia patients. While on the overnight train back to Wuhan, the database was altered.
"It looks like a rushed, inconsistent effort to disassociate the project from the outbreak by ­rebranding it," according to the UK intelligence analyst who discovered the alterations. "It’s a strange thing to do within hours of being informed of a novel-coronavirus outbreak."
"If the WIV had found the missing link between bat virus RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 [the coronavirus that causes COVID-19] from an animal vector, it would have been in Shi’s database," he added.
Purged records and destroyed samples don't exactly instill confidence.

9to5 : As WhatsApp deepens integration with Facebook, here are two alternatives


As first reported yesterday, WhatsApp will soon start sharing your data with Facebook whether you like it or not. In light of that, many people are searching for WhatsApp alternatives with deeper focuses on privacy and security. Here are two recommendations.

Background
First, when WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook for $19 billion, the messaging app assured users that the acquisition would not bring any changes to its focus on user privacy and “knowing as little about you as possible.” In 2016, WhatsApp began sharing data with Facebook by default, but users still had the ability to opt-out.
It was revealed yesterday, however, that WhatsApp is making changes to its privacy to remove the opt-out option completely, at least outside of Europe. This has left many people looking for alternatives to WhatsApp for cross-platform messaging.
But the switch from WhatsApp to alternatives is not as easy as you might think. For many people, WhatsApp is a primary tool for communicating with friends and family, and while those of us intertwined in the technology community might be willing to make the switch, not everyone will feel the same way.
WhatsApp is referred to by many as the true cross-platform messaging solution that the world needs. What’s important to remember is that messaging remains end-to-end encrypted, so Facebook (as it stands right now) can’t see the content of messages.
Of course, the ideal solution is for Apple to bring iMessage to Android and Windows, but it’s highly unlikely that such a development is even something Apple is considering. Just like one solution for easy, cross-platform, encrypted video communication would be to bring FaceTime to non-Apple devices.
Nonetheless, here are some alternatives to WhatsApp for cross-platform encrypted messaging.

Signal
Signal has seen a dramatic rise in popularity over the last year as people have turned to new platforms for encrypted communication. The app supports group text and audio messages, as well as audio and video calls. It’s compatible with IPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows, Linux, and Android.
In comparison to WhatsApp, Signal makes its focus on privacy abundantly clear. There are a variety of touches throughout the Signal application to underscore this focus, including things such as view-once media, Signal PIN, and more. Signal is also an independent nonprofit, which means that development is supported purely by donations from users.
Signal uses end-to-end encryption for messaging, based on the Signal Protocol, and also doesn’t log metadata about messages or users. The App Privacy label on the App Store indicates that Signal does not collect any data that is linked to users. A report from The Wall Street Journal shed more detail on this:
The app also doesn’t log much information (metadata) about the nature of the messages themselves. “Signal makes it a point to keep as little data as possible while still being able to provide service,” said Lujo Bauer, professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University.
By all indications, if you’re looking for a new messaging application that’s biggest focus is on privacy and encryption, Signal is an excellent option. Signal is available on the App Store as a free download.

Telegram
Telegram is one of the most popular alternatives to WhatsApp, providing a cross-platform solution for messaging with end-to-end encryption that is also completely free to use. In fact, Telegram actually claims to be more secure than WhatsApp because of its use of the MTProto protocol:
Telegram is more secure than mass market messengers like WhatsApp and Line. We are based on the MTProto protocol, built upon time-tested algorithms to make security compatible with high-speed delivery and reliability on weak connections. We are continuously working with the community to improve the security of our protocol and clients.
As for protecting data other than the encrypted messages themselves, Telegram says that uses a distributed infrastructure. “The relevant decryption keys are split into parts and are never kept in the same place as the data they protect,” the company explains.
The new App Privacy labels on the App Store show three pieces of data that “may be collected and linked to your identity,” including contact information, contacts, and identifiers.
Telegram is available on the App Store as a free download.

Wrap-up
Again, like I wrote at the beginning of this piece, switching from WhatsApp to something like Telegram or Signal isn’t quite as seamless as it might appear. Neither app has garnered the mainstream adoption of WhatsApp, but if you want to be the anti-Facebook force among your friends and family, Signal and Telegram are both great alternatives.
Do you have any additional recommendations? Do you plan on sticking with WhatsApp despite the increasing ties to Facebook? Let us know down in the comments!

FT : Top US banks set to buy back $10bn of shares in Q1

Top US banks set to buy back $10bn of shares in Q1
Wall St expected to near limits on repurchases as loan losses recede and capital markets soar

A strong end to 2020 has paved the way for America’s top banks to buy back more than $10bn of their shares in the first quarter, as the loan losses of the pandemic year recede and capital markets fire on all cylinders.

JPMorgan Chase is expected to lead the way with buybacks, spending around $3.2bn on its own shares by the end of March, based on analysts’ forecasts compiled by the FT. The remaining $7.4bn or so is spread across Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.

Analysts expect the buybacks to come in close to the maximum permitted under a Federal Reserve decree in late December, which surprised investors by allowing banks to resume buybacks and return billions to shareholders while also flattering banks’ earnings per share.

The banks voluntarily halted share repurchases last March, as the pandemic threatened a steep recession and catastrophic loan losses. The Fed’s June stress tests banned buybacks until the end of 2020 and capped dividends at a level linked to recent profits and payouts.

The first quarter’s repurchases will be capped so that the sum of dividends and buybacks cannot exceed average quarterly earnings over the previous year. “They may not all hit the maximum, but we expect them to get close to it,” said Jeff Harte, analyst at Piper Sandler, noting that banks’ capital levels had been getting “stronger and stronger” over 2020.

Mike Mayo, analyst at Wells Fargo, believes the largest US banks excluding Wells could buy back 15 per cent of their shares over the next two years. “The big question (for banks) is going to be how aggressive are you going to be on buybacks, over what timeframe?” he added.

The European Central Bank ruled last month that the strongest eurozone banks would be permitted to resume paying dividends from the start of this year, subject to tough conditions on profitability and capital ratios.

JPMorgan marked the Fed’s announcement on December 18 by saying its board had granted authorisation for a $30bn buyback programme, over an indefinite timeframe. Mr Harte said that would be a multiyear process.


Morgan Stanley’s board authorised a $10bn buy back programme in December. Analysts think the bank could do around $1.8bn in the first quarter, based on their expected profits for the final three months of the year.

The other banks have promised more details of their payout plans in their first-quarter earnings announcements, which begin on Thursday with Wells Fargo. That bank’s approach is most in doubt. Analysts say they could do around $150m, the lowest of the pack, but the bank has cautioned that it may not do any, as it grinds through a big restructuring programme.

The six banks are expected to post fourth quarter net income around 10 per cent below 2019’s level and revenue about 5 per cent lower year on year, based on consensus forecasts compiled by Bloomberg. The high points will be a continuation of the capital markets boom that powered earnings in the second and third quarter, and better performance on credit.


“I think we will get reserve releases,” said Charles Peabody, analyst at Portales Partners, referencing the accounting process where banks boost profits by releasing loan loss charges taken in earlier periods. He added that JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon had already said banks were over reserved if the credit cycle normalises.

The six banks booked more than $65bn of charges for future loan losses in the first nine months of the year. On December 9, Citi finance chief Mark Mason told a conference that, given the economy’s improvement, “you’re probably more likely to see releases when I think about reserves than we are to see builds”. Analysts expect fourth quarter provision charges to come in at around $6.5bn across the group.

Brian Kleinhanzl, analyst at KBW said that “the worst of the credit outcomes is off the table, but there is still uncertainty” about how the cycle will play out, while other analysts said banks would be conservative about releases since the pandemic’s trajectory could change quickly.

Trading and investment banking have been a bright spot for banks for much of the year, as the pandemic spurred a flurry of debt issuance an dealmaking, along with a surge in the volume of stocks and bonds changing hands.

“They’ve pretty well telegraphed that its going to be a strong capital markets quarter,” David Konrad, analyst at DA Davidson said. Wells Fargo’s Mr Mayo said capital markets would be “stronger for longer” as companies went on the offence with capital raises and deals, while trading revenues wouldn’t stay at 2020 levels, they would remain strong.

Business Of fashion : US Suspends French Tariffs Over Digital Services Tax

US Suspends French Tariffs Over Digital Services Tax
A 25 percent tariff on French cosmetics, handbags and other imports, valued at around $1.3 billion annually, have been put on hold indefinitely.

The United States on Thursday said it would hold off slapping tariffs on French cosmetics, handbags and other imports in retaliation for a digital services tax Washington says will harm US tech firms, while it investigates similar taxes elsewhere.

The US Trade Representative’s office (USTR) said the 25 percent tariffs on imports of the French goods, which are valued at around $1.3 billion annually and were due to go into effect on Wednesday, would be suspended indefinitely.

Washington had announced the tariffs in July after a US investigation showed a French digital services tax (DST) unfairly singled out US companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon.

France and other countries view digital service taxes as a way to raise revenue from the local operations of big tech companies which they say profit enormously from local markets while making only limited contributions to public coffers.

USTR said suspending the action against France would allow Washington to pursue a coordinated response in 10 investigations into similar taxes in India, Italy, Britain and other countries. It gave no timeframe for further action.

European leaders and industry groups welcomed the news, saying it would allow more time for talks on a global taxation solution to bear fruit.

“The US Trade Representative has decided to suspend the tariffs in light of the ongoing investigation of similar DSTs adopted or under consideration in ten other jurisdictions,” the agency said in a statement, adding it had not yet determined possible trade actions in the other cases.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the tariffs would not have been “legitimate” under WTO rules in any case and redoubled his call for a global solution.

“Trade disputes between the United States and Europe ... will only make losers, particularly during this time of crisis,” he said.

EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis emphasized Brussels’ willingness to work on a global solution for fair taxation of the sector.

“The EU stands ready to explore all options should the US unilaterally apply these trade measures,” he said.

The reprieve gives President-elect Joe Biden and his nominee as trade czar, Katherine Tai, time to work with France and other countries to find a multilateral solution, said Coalition of Services Industries.

CSI President Christine Bliss also urged France and other countries named in the USTR investigation to suspend imposition of DSTs and continue working toward a solution.

Nearly 140 countries involved in talks agreed in October to keep negotiating until mid-2021 after discussions stalled as Washington became reluctant to sign up to an international deal ahead of the US presidential election.

The USTR on Wednesday said it had found that digital services taxes adopted by India, Italy and Turkey also discriminated against US companies and were inconsistent with international tax principles, but held off on announcing any specific tariff actions.

The probes are among several active USTR probes that could lead to tariffs before President Donald Trump leaves office or early in the Biden administration.