Haaretz : Kushner 'Advised' Saudi Crown Prince After Khashoggi Killing

Kushner 'Advised' Saudi Crown Prince After Khashoggi Killing
Saudi Arabia reportedly saw Jared Kushner as an impressionable target early on in Trump's presidency

U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, reportedly advised Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on how to best survive the mounting scandal surrounding the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The New York Times reported Saturday that Kushner and the crown prince continued to chat informally after Khashoggi’s killing inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, despite formal White House procedures for contacts with foreign leaders. The New York Times reviewed emails and text messages between the crown prince and Kushner.

One Saudi told the paper that Kushner gave “advice about how to weather the storm, urging him to resolve his conflicts around the region and avoid further embarrassments.”

The report also details how delegation of Saudis identified Kushner as “a crucial focal point in the courtship of the new administration” early on in Trump’s presidency. The delegation reported to the crown prince that Kushner “brought to the job scant knowledge about the region, a transactional mind-set and an intense focus on reaching a deal with the Palestinians that met Israel’s demands.”

U.S. senators are considering multiple pieces of legislation to formally rebuke Saudi Arabia for the slaying of Khashoggi, with momentum building for a resolution to call the Saudi crown prince complicit in the killing.


Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker said Thursday that senators are looking at moving three measures — a resolution to condemn the crown prince for Khashoggi’s murder, a bill to suspend arms sales to the kingdom and a resolution to call on President Donald Trump’s administration to pull back U.S. help for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

“We have three different efforts underway, all of which have a lot of momentum,” Corker, R-Tenn., said after meeting with other senators to negotiate on Thursday. Corker said that most senators “in some form or fashion are going to want to speak to Saudi Arabia and where they are and send a message.”

It’s unclear how strong that message will be. The Senate is expected to vote next week on the Yemen resolution, but senators are wrestling with how to limit amendments to prevent a freewheeling floor debate that would allow votes on unrelated issues. Corker said the Foreign Relations panel may vote on the other two measures related to Saudi Arabia, but it’s unclear if there will be enough time — or willingness from leadership — to hold a Senate floor vote.


Republican House leaders haven’t indicated they will take up any of the measures, meaning any action by the Senate is likely to be symbolic, for now. Democrats taking over the House in January have introduced bills similar to the Senate legislation and would be more likely to rebuke Saudi Arabia. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said the chamber will have a briefing from intelligence officials next week on Khashoggi and “we’ll know more after that.”

Senators in both parties have been enraged over the killing and over Trump’s equivocating on who is to blame. Pressed on a response to Saudi Arabia, the president has said the United States “intends to remain a steadfast partner” of the country, touted Saudi arms deals worth billions of dollars to the U.S. and thanked the country for plunging oil prices.

Senators from both parties emerged from a CIA briefing earlier this week saying there was “zero chance” that the crown prince wasn’t involved in Khashoggi’s death. Their frustration with Trump’s response has fueled interest in the Yemen resolution, with 63 senators voting last week to move forward on it.


Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who sponsored the resolution with Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, said he is “confident that we have the bipartisan votes to pass” the bill when the Senate is expected to take it up next week. But senators will also have to figure out how to avert dozens of amendments that could be allowed under the special rules of a resolution dealing with U.S. involvement in a war. If any of the amendments passed, the resolution’s passage could be jeopardized. Negotiations on how to proceed are underway, according to several senators.

Corker also predicted the Yemen resolution will pass, but he wouldn’t say whether he would vote for it and suggested it wouldn’t be forceful enough as a rebuke.

“In my opinion, I’d like to do something that actually has teeth,” Corker said.

Corker said he is supporting the legislation by Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Todd Young, R-Ind., that would suspend weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and impose sanctions on people blocking humanitarian access in Yemen, among other actions. Human rights groups say the war is wreaking havoc on the country and subjecting civilians to indiscriminate bombing.

Corker said he has suggested some changes to the legislation to Menendez, who is the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations panel.

Lastly, senators are considering a resolution condemning the crown prince over Khashoggi’s death. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., introduced a resolution Wednesday that would call bin Salman “complicit” in the slaying. Corker said he is negotiating with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to move that resolution or one that is similar.

Khashoggi was killed two months ago. The journalist, who had lived in the U.S. and wrote for The Washington Post, had been critical of the Saudi regime. He was killed in what U.S. officials have described as an elaborate plot as he visited the consulate for marriage paperwork.

U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that the crown prince must have at least known of the plot, but Trump has been reluctant to pin the blame.

“It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event,” Trump said in a lengthy statement Nov. 20. “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!”

WSJ : Silicon Valley Helped Build Huawei. Washington Could Dismantle It.

Silicon Valley Helped Build Huawei. Washington Could Dismantle It.
The arrest of Meng Wanzhou has raised the stakes for Huawei and its overseas partners

American companies have been crucial in helping Huawei Technologies Co. become the world’s dominant telecommunications player.

Silicon Valley giants from Intel Corp. INTC -4.40% to Broadcom Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. QCOM -1.96% are top suppliers of Huawei, which buys their components to make equipment such as base stations and routers and Huawei mobile phones. By one estimate, Huawei will buy up to $10 billion of components from American companies this year—roughly the value of China’s automobile imports from the U.S.

Qualcomm and Intel are also working with Huawei on its development of next-generation 5G technologies, a field in which the Chinese company’s aim to be a global leader has alarmed some in Washington.

These interdependencies show how any U.S. actions against Huawei for alleged sanctions violations, which could go as far as a ban on it buying from American suppliers, could devastate Huawei’s operations, and curtail business for U.S. tech companies. Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1 at the behest of U.S. authorities investigating fraud related to sales to Iran.


The arrest raised the stakes for Huawei and its overseas partners and has cast a pall over trade negotiations between the world’s two largest economies. Shares of tech companies in China and the U.S. have already slumped this year as fears rise that trade tensions will disrupt business across the Pacific.

In the wake of Ms. Meng’s arrest, Huawei has sought to reassure its suppliers. In a memo dated Dec. 6 and viewed by The Wall Street Journal, Huawei said it knew of no wrongdoing by Ms. Meng and it is “unreasonable of the U.S. government to use these sorts of approaches to exert pressure on a business entity.” Huawei’s partnerships with global suppliers wouldn’t change, it said.

If the U.S. concludes Huawei evaded U.S. sanctions, further actions could follow. Huawei’s chief Chinese rival, ZTE Corp. , was originally slapped with a fine after it admitted to evading U.S. sanctions, but subsequent violations of its settlement agreement led the U.S. government to temporarily ban American companies from selling it products—sending ZTE to the brink of collapse. Authorities imposed a similar ban on Chinese chip maker Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. in October, citing national-security and economic concerns.

U.S. companies stand to lose too, with China being the second-biggest buyer of its $58.4 billion of semiconductor exports last year, according to the U.S. International Trade Administration. Huawei alone is on track to buy about $10 billion of components from U.S. companies this year, up from $8 billion in 2017, estimates Handel Jones, chief executive of technology consulting firm International Business Strategies Inc., which tracks China’s high-tech sector.

“It’s a pretty extensive list of companies that would be heavily impacted” if Huawei were to lose access to its American suppliers, Mr. Jones said. ”It would be a very serious situation.”

Huawei is by far the biggest-spending Chinese tech company when it comes to research and development. It has an in-house chip-design unit that is the seventh largest in the world. It is working on high-end chips for artificial intelligence, and its chips are increasingly displacing foreign suppliers in its smartphones: Only 7% of the semiconductors inside Huawei’s top-of-the-line P20 Pro are from American suppliers, according to ABI Research, compared with 60% in ZTE’s high-end Axon M device.

Yet Huawei still relies on imports from U.S. chip companies such as Broadcom, Xilinx Inc. and Analog Devices Inc. for components used in its telecom equipment, according to a breakdown of its suppliers by investment bank Jefferies. Huawei buys equipment from data-storage equipment maker Seagate Technology PLC for use in its enterprise business, and uses memory chips made by Micron Technology Inc. in its smartphones, the bank said.

A Xilinx spokeswoman said the company “is aware of the situation and is monitoring it closely.” The other suppliers either declined to comment or didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Intel and Qualcomm, which draw huge revenue from China, are seen by Huawei as more than suppliers. In Huawei’s annual report, Intel is described as a “strategic partner,” and the companies work together in a range of areas, including next-generation 5G technology.

On Dec. 5, Huawei announced it had completed a test of key 5G technology using Intel processors and a Huawei base station. In September, Huawei credited help from Intel as it made its first phone call on a type of 5G network.

Intel declined to comment.

Qualcomm has also been a collaborator in 5G. Earlier this year, the San Diego chip maker said it supplied prototype equipment used in a 5G test by Huawei. In 2015, Qualcomm, Huawei and China’s largest chip maker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. , launched a joint venture in Shanghai to work on next-generation chip technology.

Fears about Huawei’s dominance in 5G technology were behind the U.S.’s decision to scuttle the takeover of Qualcomm by Broadcom earlier this year. Both companies declined to comment.

FT : High utility dividends are bad for Britain’s infrastructure

High utility dividends are bad for Britain’s infrastructure
Companies such as BT are not investing as much of their earnings as they should

Why do private utilities pay such high dividends? And, more importantly, does it matter if they do?

Britain’s stock market is awash with such companies, ranging from the energy group, Centrica, which yields a princely 9 per cent, to the telecoms group BT, which returns a still pretty chunky 6. All the remaining listed water companies, from United Utilities to Severn Trent, are on above market yields.

In theory, companies only pay high dividends as a last resort: when they cannot find more attractive homes for their capital. In declining sectors, for instance, that might reflect declining opportunities for reinvestment. Some utilities, such as Centrica, arguably fall into this category, facing the long term eclipse of their core thermal energy businesses because of environmental concerns.

But super-dividends don’t just happen in sunset sectors. And they are particularly prevalent in highly regulated monopoly industries, especially those where prices are subject to periodic review.

There is a certain debased logic to this. For when a watchdog sets your allowable returns, there’s always the worry that any gains (particularly fat ones) might not be permanent. The best way to avoid the possibility of regulatory clawback is simply to yank the money out.

Then there are self-inflicted high yields, where investors lose confidence in the managers, especially those which seek to diversify steady utility businesses into sexier, faster-growing activities.

Take BT, which has invested heavily in businesses where it has no evident competitive advantage, such as the exploitation of costly TV rights for sporting events. Lack of confidence in the strategy has combined with concern about the company’s £14bn pension deficit to make investors keen on taking the cash out where possible. The result? A stock yielding 6 per cent.

High dividends have become controversial, especially in essential services such as water and energy. The public resents high payouts that result from lax regulation allowing financial engineering and regulatory arbitrage, rather than better services to them.

But are high dividends a symptom of something even more insidious? Do they actively damage the quality of the services the public receives?

They can, according to the economist Dieter Helm. In a recent paper, he argues that a tendency to over-distribute reduces the capacity of utilities to serve their customers. It is also counterproductive, ultimately eroding the equity returns available to make those payouts. That’s because companies with high yields tend to get caught in a dividend trap.

Increasingly beholden to income investors, managers are under pressure to maintain payouts, even at the expense of forgoing profitable investment opportunities. After all, to impose a cut would probably mean forgoing a well-paid job.

Take BT again. The company might have splurged on sports rights, but it has neglected to invest in its core network, for instance replacing copper wires with high-speed fibre to carry internet services to its customers. Rather it pursues the low-risk stratagem of relying on its incumbent position and customer inertia to milk every last penny from of its historic network, using Heath Robinson technology to supply broadband services of inferior speed and quality.

This isn’t great for BT’s shareholders in the long term. But, as Professor Helm points out, the real damage is to the wider economy. “Britain has gone from a leader in communications, following liberalisation back in the 1980s and 1990s, to a laggard,” he says.

So if high dividends are the problem, what is the answer? Fat payouts tend to flourish in sectors where cash flows are very stable — largely because of the absence of competition. Attempts to synthesise competitive discipline by regulation in monopoly sectors have been too easily gamed.

Competition should be sharpened. It remains a mystery why the UK government has not broken up BT, separating fully the Openreach network business, and thus opening its system to those who wish to invest in fibre services. This would be far more beneficial to the economy (and far cheaper) than the highly expensive HS2 high speed railway.

It would also reverse BT’s spiral of skimped investment and high dividends, encouraging the network to reinvest more of its earnings.

Whether meaningful competition can be introduced in monopolies such as water remains uncertain. Prof Helm believes it can if the state adopts a new approach, simply setting the outputs it wants (new sewers, flood defences, etc) and then opening those plans to competitive tender rather than relying on incumbent operators.

But whatever the conclusion, inertia is not an option. The current regime works poorly for the public. Privatised public service utilities must do things differently, or risk re-absorption into the public realm.

FT : Nissan seeks to block Ghosn family access to Brazil apartment

Nissan seeks to block Ghosn family access to Brazil apartment
Carmaker cites ‘high likelihood of evidence being removed or destroyed’

Nissan has sought to deny family members of Carlos Ghosn access to an apartment in the Copacabana neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro in a bid to protect what the carmaker claims is potential evidence of misconduct by the arrested former chairman.

In a statement on Sunday, Nissan said it was appealing against a local court decision that granted permission to Mr Ghosn’s representatives to enter the company-owned apartment to retrieve personal belongings. Nissan said it opposed the decision due to “a high likelihood of evidence being removed or destroyed”.

The Japanese carmaker believes a safe in the apartment contains evidence that funds from a Nissan subsidiary in the Netherlands, called Zi-A Capital, were used to purchase the residence, a person with knowledge of the dispute claimed.

When Zi-A was formed, Greg Kelly, another Nissan board member and Mr Ghosn’s close aide who was also arrested, explained to the company’s executive committee that it would be used for venture capital investment. Tokyo prosecutors are investigating whether Zi-A, which received an investment of more than €70m from Nissan, was used to purchase personal residences in Lebanon and Brazil in 2011 and 2012.

Members of Mr Ghosn’s family are seeking to retrieve family documents and personal possessions from the apartment but have said they are prepared to do so in the presence of a judge or court officer in order to ensure that the process is transparent. They are also nervous about representatives of Nissan entering the house without a court officer present, according to people familiar with the family’s thinking.

Separately, Nissan suspects the safe may hold details of dealings Mr Ghosn had with prominent political and business figures in Brazil, some of whom were later jailed on bribery and corruption charges.

Nissan has seized company-owned residences in Rio de Janeiro and Beirut that were used by Mr Ghosn after Tokyo prosecutors arrested the former chairman for allegedly understating his pay in financial documents, according to people with knowledge of the developments.

A separate internal investigation by Nissan alleged that Mr Ghosn used company funds for personal uses. 

People with knowledge of the investigations say Mr Ghosn, who remains chairman and chief executive of France’s Renault, is also suspected of using non-consolidated subsidiaries in the Netherlands to buy personal residences in Beirut, Rio de Janeiro and Paris. 

The escalating legal dispute with Mr Ghosn’s family members comes as Tokyo prosecutors are expected to indict Mr Ghosn and Nissan as soon as Monday over the alleged falsification of financial statements, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation. 

Among the individuals that Nissan believes Mr Ghosn had dealings with is Eike Batista, formerly Brazil’s richest man.

In July, the energy, logistics and real estate magnate was given a 30-year prison sentence for paying $16.6m to Sérgio Cabral, his former friend and then governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, for help with his business ventures.

Mr Ghosn is also believed to be friends with Cabral, according to the person with knowledge of the Brazilian legal dispute. Last year, Cabral was sentenced to 14 years in prison on corruption and money laundering charges. 

People familiar with the investigation say that none of the interrogation that Mr Ghosn has so far undergone touches on his alleged dealings with prominent figures in Brazil.

Nissan has not formally accused Mr Ghosn of any inappropriate connections with Batista or Cabral.

The Japanese carmaker has sought similar measures to block the access of Mr Ghosn’s family members to his residences in other cities although it has not been able to access his residence in Paris.

Mr Ghosn’s Japanese lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment. A spokesman representing Mr Ghosn’s family declined to comment.

Mr Ghosn has denied to Tokyo prosecutors that he intentionally understated his pay in financial documents, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK.

FT : Nissan seeks to block Ghosn family access to Brazil apartment

Nissan seeks to block Ghosn family access to Brazil apartment
Carmaker cites ‘high likelihood of evidence being removed or destroyed’

Nissan has sought to deny family members of Carlos Ghosn access to an apartment in the Copacabana neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro in a bid to protect what the carmaker claims is potential evidence of misconduct by the arrested former chairman.

In a statement on Sunday, Nissan said it was appealing against a local court decision that granted permission to Mr Ghosn’s representatives to enter the company-owned apartment to retrieve personal belongings. Nissan said it opposed the decision due to “a high likelihood of evidence being removed or destroyed”.

The Japanese carmaker believes a safe in the apartment contains evidence that funds from a Nissan subsidiary in the Netherlands, called Zi-A Capital, were used to purchase the residence, a person with knowledge of the dispute claimed.

When Zi-A was formed, Greg Kelly, another Nissan board member and Mr Ghosn’s close aide who was also arrested, explained to the company’s executive committee that it would be used for venture capital investment. Tokyo prosecutors are investigating whether Zi-A, which received an investment of more than €70m from Nissan, was used to purchase personal residences in Lebanon and Brazil in 2011 and 2012.

Members of Mr Ghosn’s family are seeking to retrieve family documents and personal possessions from the apartment but have said they are prepared to do so in the presence of a judge or court officer in order to ensure that the process is transparent. They are also nervous about representatives of Nissan entering the house without a court officer present, according to people familiar with the family’s thinking.

Separately, Nissan suspects the safe may hold details of dealings Mr Ghosn had with prominent political and business figures in Brazil, some of whom were later jailed on bribery and corruption charges.

Nissan has seized company-owned residences in Rio de Janeiro and Beirut that were used by Mr Ghosn after Tokyo prosecutors arrested the former chairman for allegedly understating his pay in financial documents, according to people with knowledge of the developments.

A separate internal investigation by Nissan alleged that Mr Ghosn used company funds for personal uses. 

People with knowledge of the investigations say Mr Ghosn, who remains chairman and chief executive of France’s Renault, is also suspected of using non-consolidated subsidiaries in the Netherlands to buy personal residences in Beirut, Rio de Janeiro and Paris. 

The escalating legal dispute with Mr Ghosn’s family members comes as Tokyo prosecutors are expected to indict Mr Ghosn and Nissan as soon as Monday over the alleged falsification of financial statements, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation. 

WSJ : Global Recession Alarms Aren’t Ringing, Despite Market Mayhem

Global Recession Alarms Aren’t Ringing, Despite Market Mayhem
Plenty could still go wrong for the global economy in 2019, but the economic data aren’t saying it has happened yet

Investors are growing anxious about the prospect of recession in developed countries, but many economic trends don’t fit with patterns that presaged previous downturns.

Stocks are declining and the gap between long- and short-dated U.S. Treasury securities is shrinking, both notable harbingers of past downturns. Oil prices also have fallen sharply, signaling weaker global demand and a supply glut.

Among the Group of Seven largest developed economies, Germany, Italy and Japan each experienced a decline in economic activity during the three months through September. China’s economy, one of the engines of global growth, also is slowing.

Feeding investors’ anxieties are a range of threats. While truces have been reached in trade spats between the U.S. and both China and the European Union, a longer term resolution has yet to be settled. Meanwhile the U.K.—still one of the world’s larger economies—faces an uncertain departure from the European Union in March.

Economists at UBS Securities examined 120 recessions in 40 different countries over the past 40 years for clues about how economies behave before recession sets in, for example, what happens to consumer spending, home prices, bank lending, imports, productivity and employment.

“We find that on several dimensions, the behaviour of the data over the last four quarters in the U.S., Eurozone and Japan is completely incongruous with any of the recessions that took place since 1980,” write Pierre Lafourcade and Arend Kapteyn of UBS.

Mr. Kapteyn, in an interview, said the model is consistent with a “sharp slowdown” in global growth, but not the end of the business cycle.

Productivity growth and consumer spending, for example, tend to slow before downturns set in. In the U.S., they’ve picked up. U.S. consumer spending, for example, was up 2.9% in October from a year earlier, adjusted for inflation. That’s better than the average of 2.4% over the past four years. Growth in worker productivity in the second and third quarters was among the best of the expansion.

In Japan, employment is marching steadily higher, while investment in the Eurozone is increasing, both inconsistent with previous downturns.

Where there are signs of a possible recession, they have specific reasons. In Italy, the government’s confrontation with the European Union over its budget has spooked investors and pushed up its own borrowing costs, in addition to those of businesses. Economists think there is a risk the economy could contract this quarter, making it two in a row.

Meanwhile, the Bank of England has warned that a disorderly departure from the U.K.—in which the country leaves without a trade deal and must instantly adjust to new tariffs—could push the economy into contraction next year.

In both cases, it’s clear what could cause a recession—suddenly higher borrowing costs and a loss of confidence in Italy, and sharply higher trade barriers in the U.K. Similar hits to growth seem unlikely in other parts of the world, short of an all-against-all trade war.

Economists at J.P. Morgan have drawn similar conclusions about the growth outlook. They built several alarm systems for impending recessions—one using only high frequency economic data and another including economic data and financial market behavior. The U.S. indicator using only economic data puts a 21% probability on a downturn in the next 12 months, up a bit in recent months but still below levels reached in 2016. The indicator that uses financial market behavior, such as stock price changes and changes in long-term Treasury bond yields, puts the probability at a much higher 36%.

Some economic indicators that presage downturns, such as the change in corporate profit margins, have improved this year rather than deteriorated, said Bruce Kasman, J.P. Morgan’s chief economist.

“We’re in a slowing, there’s no doubt about it, but it doesn’t feel like something fundamentally is breaking down in the underpinnings of the expansion,” Mr. Kasman said in an interview.

He sees a high risk of recession in three to four years, but low risk in the next 12 months. Markets might be responding to that longer-run risk, he said.

Friday’s U.S. jobs report was an example of the disconnect between economic data and markets. U.S. employers added 155,000 people to their payrolls in November. That was a slowdown from previous months, but hardly alarming. Through 11 months, U.S. payrolls have expanded 2.268 million in 2018, already better than job growth for all of 2017. Yet stock prices tumbled after the report.

The U.S. expansion has already had a long life. In July it will become the longest one on record. That doesn’t mean it will end. Economists are mostly agreed that periods of growth don’t end just because they’ve gone on for a long time. Australia has enjoyed growth that’s continued for a quarter of a century.

Expansions end when something goes wrong, such as inflation allowed to run too high, a bubble in home prices that comes crashing down, or a central bank that pushes interest rates up too much.

Plenty could still go wrong for the global economy in 2019, including trade confrontations between major economies that could turn into a new cold war. But the economic data aren’t saying it has happened yet.

WSJ : Carlos Ghosn Planned to Replace Nissan CEO Before His Arrest

Carlos Ghosn Planned to Replace Nissan CEO Before His Arrest
He had wanted to carry out his plan to oust Hiroto Saikawa at a board meeting in November

TOKYO— Nissan Motor Co.’s NSANY -0.55% Carlos Ghosn was planning to replace Nissan Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa before the plan was derailed by Mr. Ghosn’s arrest in Tokyo last month, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Word of the Ghosn plan adds a new twist to the drama inside Nissan this year. Mr. Saikawa has said the company was investigating possible misuse of corporate assets and other alleged wrongdoing by Mr. Ghosn for months this year and was supplying information to Tokyo prosecutors.

While that internal investigation was going on, Mr. Ghosn was growing increasingly dissatisfied with Mr. Saikawa’s handling of business problems at Nissan including a slowdown in U.S. sales and repeated quality issues in Japan, say people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Ghosn had expressed a desire for months to shake up the senior management ranks at Nissan and made known to some executives his plan to replace Mr. Saikawa, said people familiar with the plan.

One of the people said Mr. Ghosn told associates he wanted to put Mr. Saikawa’s ouster to a vote at a Nissan board meeting set for late November.

Instead the board voted unanimously on Nov. 22 to oust Mr. Ghosn as chairman after hearing the results of Nissan’s investigation into his alleged financial misdeeds.

Mr. Saikawa couldn’t be reached for comment. It isn’t known whether he was aware of Mr. Ghosn’s plans for a management shake-up or whether the internal Nissan drama was connected to the timing of the arrest.

Tokyo prosecutors arrested Mr. Ghosn, one of the global auto industry’s best-known executives, on Nov. 19 after boarding his jet when it arrived in Tokyo. Prosecutors said he was suspected of underreporting his compensation on Nissan’s financial reports for the five fiscal years through March 2015.

Mr. Ghosn hasn’t been charged with any crime. He denies wrongdoing, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK. The office of Mr. Ghosn’s lawyer, Motonari Otsuru, has declined to comment.

A Tokyo court has approved Mr. Ghosn’s detention through Monday. Prosecutors must decide by then whether to indict Mr. Ghosn over the suspicions they initially cited in arresting him or release him. They could restart the detention clock by citing different suspicions as a basis to detain Mr. Ghosn.

At the time of his arrest, Mr. Ghosn, as chairman of Nissan, was considered the ultimate decision maker at the company. Mr. Saikawa has said that Mr. Ghosn had too much power within Nissan and its alliance with French car maker Renault SA . Mr. Ghosn is chief executive and chairman of Renault, which owns a 43% stake in Nissan and has three board seats at the Japanese car maker.

Frictions between Renault and Nissan have risen in recent years. Some executives at Nissan, the larger and more profitable of the two, have expressed concern about Renault’s influence on Nissan’s business decisions.

Within Nissan, tensions before Mr. Ghosn’s arrest involved not only the future of the alliance but also Nissan’s own business struggles. Sales in the U.S. have declined year-over-year in six of the past eight months. Mr. Saikawa said Nissan needed to bolster U.S. profit margins, but initial efforts to get profits up by trimming spending on incentives caused sales to crater in April.

In Japan, the company has recalled more than a million cars since discovering issues with inspections at Nissan’s factories more than a year ago, and the problems keep coming. On Friday, Nissan said it found workers in Japan incorrectly tested parking brakes and steering on some vehicles.

When he stepped down as Nissan’s chief executive in 2017, Mr. Ghosn handpicked Mr. Saikawa as his successor, and he continued to support the Japanese executive in public. Behind closed doors, the two clashed over Nissan’s problems, people familiar with their disputes said.

Still, not everyone believed Mr. Saikawa’s job was in danger. One person familiar with the relationship between the men said their differences hadn’t reached a point where Mr. Ghosn would have contemplated removing Mr. Saikawa.

In Mr. Ghosn’s final years as Nissan chief executive, he pushed to reach an 8% share of global auto sales and an 8% operating margin. The company missed both those targets.

Mr. Ghosn believed that only the largest car makers would survive in a future of self-driving and electric cars, and he said the alliance of Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. should seek to sell 14 million cars by 2022, up from 10.6 million last year.

“With the explosion of technology that is coming, it is going to make it very difficult for smaller players to follow,” Mr. Ghosn told The Wall Street Journal in September 2017.

Two months later, Mr. Saikawa offered a different perspective at a news conference, saying Nissan’s efforts to expand volume were eating into profitability.

“Of course, everyone wants to see how big the company will be eventually, but the most important thing for a company is cash flow,” Mr. Saikawa said.

Mr. Ghosn was an executive at Renault when the French auto maker took a big stake in Nissan in 1999. Dispatched to Japan that year to fix Nissan, Mr. Ghosn executed a rapid turnaround. For years, Mr. Saikawa worked closely by his side helping Nissan reduce costs in its supply chain.

When Mr. Saikawa’s appointment as chief executive was announced last year, Mr. Ghosn said Mr. Saikawa was a man he could “totally trust.”

As the relationship soured, some people within Nissan believed that José Muñoz, the chief performance officer, might be in line for Mr. Saikawa’s job, according to people familiar with internal discussions at Nissan. Until the end of last year, Mr. Muñoz was head of Nissan’s North American operations and he led the push to expand the company’s U.S. market share. In March, Mr. Muñoz was put in charge of China operations and remained Nissan’s performance chief.

However, Mr. Saikawa blamed Mr. Muñoz for Nissan’s diminished U.S. profitability as well as the current sales decline, said one person familiar with their conversations. Mr. Muñoz couldn't be reached for comment.

WSJ : Stock Investors Seek Shelter Overseas

Stock Investors Seek Shelter Overseas
Despite their increased appeal, emerging markets are unlikely to offer the smooth sailing they did in 2017

Investors are returning to emerging markets, hoping to find bargains after one of the worst selloffs in years.

Flows into developing countries’ stocks and bonds surged in November to $33.9 billion, their highest level since January, data from the Institute of International Finance showed.

The MSCI Emerging Market Index, which measures stock performance, is up around 5% from its October lows. Beaten down currencies like the South African rand and Indian rupee have staged big rebounds, while the Turkish lira has jumped nearly 30%, after plunging as much as 45% earlier this year.

After several years of double-digit returns, emerging markets have been slammed in 2018 by a host of concerns, from a stubbornly strong dollar to a trade conflict between the U.S. and China. Investors have also been worried that the Federal Reserve will continue raising rates in 2019, potentially driving U.S. yields and the dollar higher and dimming the allure of emerging market assets.

Those concerns are unlikely to dissipate soon. Still, the year’s big declines have made some emerging-market assets comparatively attractive to investors who have been hurt by the gyrations in U.S. stocks and bonds. The S&P 500 lost 4.6% last week while the yield on the 10-year Treasury note retreated further below 3%.

Candice Bangsund, portfolio manager at Canadian asset manager Fiera Capital, sold U.S. stocks in October and added to positions in emerging market equities, betting that developing countries will grow faster than mature economies next year.

“The selloff has been overdone,” Ms. Bangsund said. “Emerging-market equities haven’t been this attractive versus the U.S. stock market since the depths of the financial crisis.”
While p/e ratios aren’t perfectly comparable around the world, it is clear that selloffs overseas have resulted in some lower valuations. Companies in Brazil’s Bovespa index traded last week at roughly 17.7 times their last 12 months of earnings, compared with the S&P 500’s price/earnings ratio of around 18.8. Companies on China’s Shenzhen Composite Index traded at 22.5 times their last 12 months earnings, compared with a 10-year trailing average of 39.1.

Fiera also holds the bonds of Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Colombia.

Recent developments have increased the appeal of emerging markets, investors said. Some are growing convinced that the Fed may signal a new wait-and-see approach to tightening monetary policy after a widely expected rate increase in December, a development that could slow the pace of increases next year and limit further gains in the dollar.

Friday’s employment numbers bolstered the case for a more moderate Fed: While unemployment remained at a multidecade low and wages grew, the economy created fewer jobs than expected in November.

Alejo Czerwonko, emerging markets strategist at UBS Wealth Management, said he is holding a broad range of developing countries’ dollar-denominated sovereign bonds, a trade that allows him to receive yields that are around 4 percentage points higher than those offered by U.S. Treasurys.

He also favors the stocks of Asian countries that have been hammered in recent selloffs, including China, South Korea, Indonesia and Vietnam.

“We think 2018 has created value and we are trying to take advantage,” he said.

Few believe that emerging markets will offer the kind of smooth sailing they did in 2017, when returns on stocks dwarfed those of the S&P. Among the most imminent threats is a U.S. trade conflict with China, which shows little sign of cooling even after leaders appeared to reach a truce at a summit of the Group of 20 developed nations earlier this month. The recent arrest of a top Chinese tech executive has some investors concerned that a detente could be more complicated to maintain than anticipated.

At the same time, too much instability in U.S. markets could spook investors into cutting allocations to developing countries, where money managers assume greater risk in the hopes of garnering bigger returns. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell almost 560 points on Friday, spurred by worries over how tariffs will impact the U.S. economy.

Nonetheless, some investors are confident that next year will be better for emerging markets.

The selloffs of 2018 are “sowing the seeds for a relief rally in the months ahead,” analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a note to clients last month.

The bank recommends purchasing Indonesia’s government bonds, which analysts said will benefit from the country’s fiscal discipline and monetary tightening.

>>> Salini Impregilo expected to make non-binding offer to Astaldi on 15 Decembe

Salini Impregilo expected to make non-binding offer to Astaldi on 15 December

Salini Impregilo [BIT:SAL] is expected to make a non-binding offer for Astaldi [BIT:AST], the insolvent Italian construction group, on 15 December, the Italian-language daily Il Corriere della Sera reported.
The unsourced report said that the offer would come just before Astaldi's present bankruptcy protection expires on 16 December.
The report added that Astaldi is expected to ask for a 60-day extension on its bankruptcy protection procedure
The item also claimed that Studio Laghi was acting as a financial advisor to Astaldi.
The article added that Astaldi has turnover of EUR 3bn.