Richard Elman: “Long, Hard Slog” Ahead

Richard Elman famously named his company after Noble House, James Clavell’s novel about a British trading house in colonial-era Hong Kong (Clavell himself was inspired by the story of Jardine Matheson). Elman likely imagined himself as Ian Dunross, the book’s main character, but it is his current successor who is probably going to feel most like Dunross did at the start of the […]

Readings For The Week (14/5)

This week’s readings include Matthew Klein on the case for Japanese equities, Andrew Clifford on his takeaways from a recent business trip to China, Tren Griffin on the Internet bubble of 1999-2001, why Canadian asset managers are investing heavily in India and a Q&A session with Eric Schmidt at the Stanford GSB. US stocks too expensive? Consider Japan: FT Alphaville’s […]

Readings For The Week (7/5)

This week’s readings include an FT special report on the work revolution, WSJ coverage of the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, quarterly letters from GMO’s Ben Inker and Jeremy Grantham as well as a Bloomberg interview with independent economist Andy Xie. The work revolution: An abundance of tech tools is liberating workers to organise their lives in ways unimaginable […]

PWC: The World In 2050

PWC recently released a report looking at how the global economic order might change by the year 2050. The study includes the firm’s latest long-term global growth projections to 2050 for 32 of the largest economies in the world. You can find the link to their interactive website here and download a copy of the full report here. Marc Faber, editor of […]

The Story Of First Pacific Company

Interesting (albeit somewhat promotional) recent article in the Philippine Star about the history and evolution of First Pacific as well as the decades-long friendship between Ed Tortorici and Manny Pangilinan. First Pacific was set up in 1981 in Hong Kong with an initial focus on investment banking and financial services. It was backed by the Salim family of […]

Book Review: “East to West to East”

Randolph Kwei’s memoir “East to West To East” tells of a fascinating life story that spans multiple careers, continents and historic world events. The author grew up in the 1940s in a Shanghai under Japanese occupation, completed his studies and early training in the US and then eventually returned to Asia to help play a part in the economic development […]

Readings For The Week (30/4)

Bumper edition of readings this week. Enjoy! Indonesia’s fearless finance minister is ready for her next fight: Bloomberg Markets special on how Sri Mulyani Indrawati wants to recharge Southeast Asia’s largest economy. A short guide to short selling: Scott Fearon, author of Dead Companies Walking, on the insights gained from identifying stocks that are likely to decline. Hugh […]

Singapore Maritime Week 2017

It’s almost the end of Singapore Maritime Week 2017. You can see the full calendar of events here. Below is a compilation of some media highlights / coverage from the week: Andreas Sohmen-Pao: The chairman of the BW Group discusses his outlook for the industry and how his company is positioning itself (CNBC). Roundtable: Business leaders from Singapore’s maritime […]

Standard Chartered: The Race To Save

Standard Chartered Bank have published their 2017 Emerging Affluent Report, an in-depth study into the savings habits of 8,000 emerging affluent consumers across eight markets (China, Hong Kong, India, Kenya, Korea, Pakistan, Singapore and Taiwan). They explore what defines the next generation of savers across some of the world’s most promising economies, as well as the problems they face. […]

Readings For The Week (23/4)

This week’s readings include the macro outlook from Platinum’s Andrew Clifford, annual shareholder letters from Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Wong Fong Fui (Boustead), latest thoughts on the Chinese economy from Michael Pettis and a wide-ranging interview with Arundhati Bhattacharya of the SBI. Macro overview: Platinum’s Andrew Clifford says the global economic and political landscape continues to […]