* China growth data, French rating threat weigh* Government bonds, dollar riseLONDON/NEW YORK, Oct 18 (Reuters) - World stocks dipped on
Tuesday and government bonds rose as slower-than-expected
Chinese growth and a credit warning on France added to a
cautious outlook for investors.The warning compounded investor jitters already unsettled
this week by comments from Germany’s finance minister, who said
he saw no imminent definitive solution on the euro zone debt
crisis.The MSCI world equity index was down 0.8
percent, although the world index is still up more than 11
percent after hitting a 15-month low earlier this month.U.S. stocks opened little changed, with investors eyeing
earnings from Apple later in the day. European stocks dipped 0.2 percent while emerging stocks
lost 2.3 percent.”Growth concerns in China along with renewed euro debt
concerns are bringing some hesitation into” the market, said
Andre Bakhos, director of market analytics at Lek Securities in
New York.China’s annual gross domestic product growth eased to 9.1
percent in July-September, slightly below forecasts of 9.2
percent, indicating the world’s second-largest economy expanded
at its slowest pace since the second quarter of 2009.Moody’s cautioned it may slap a negative outlook on
France’s Aaa credit rating in the next three months if costs
from helping to bail out banks and other euro zone members
stretch its budget too thin.Optimism over a key European Union summit on Oct. 23 waned
after German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Monday
that even though European governments would adopt a five-point
platform to address the crisis, a definitive solution would not
be reached at the summit.U.S. Treasuries edged higher, pushing benchmark yields to
their lowest in two weeks.Benchmark 10-year Treasury prices rose 5/32 in
price to yield 2.14 percent, from 2.18 percent late on Monday.
Yields fell as low as 2.08 percent, their lowest since Oct 7.The French/German 10-year government bond yield spread widened to a euro era record of 101 basis points.
French debt also underperformed its triple-A rated peer the
Netherlands.Brent crude oil prices were lower, while the dollar
gained 0.4 percent against a basket of major currencies. The
euro fell 0.3 percent to $1.3701.Shares of Apple were down 0.5 percent at $417.80. Earlier
in the day, International Business Machines Corp’s quarterly
results failed to impress investors used to a robust showing
from the technology bellwether. That added to worries over
lackluster corporate information technology spending. IBM shares fell 4.7 percent to $177.88.
* Citic Securities closes unchanged, underperforming market
rally * Shares dropped more than 10 pct earlier * Citic Securities earns third of profits from brokerage
business
(Adds closing performance, stabilizing agent) By Elzio Barreto HONG KONG, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Citic Securities Co Ltd,
China’s largest listed brokerage, made a weak debut in Hong Kong
on Thursday, underscoring poor appetite for new share sales in
the face of global market volatility. Its stock fell as much as 10.5 percent before closing
unchanged, while the broader Hong Kong index ended up nearly 6
percent. The disappointing start for Citic Securities,
which raised a less-than-expected $1.7 billion in its first
listing outside the mainland, could dash the hopes of other
Chinese firms planning to raise funds in Hong Kong, the world’s
biggest IPO market for the past two years. The offering is the first of nearly $35 billion in share
sales in Hong Kong and China still planned in the coming months
by financial companies, including Haitong Securities, New China
Life and China Guangfa Bank. “It’s a very difficult time for any IPO because market
sentiment is so weak right now,” said Patrick Yiu, a director at
CASH Asset Management. “Investors want to look for stocks now
with a track record with very low valuations. They don’t have
the appetite for new stocks.” Citic Securities closed at HK$13.30, unchanged
from its listing price. The benchmark Hong Kong stock exchange
index closed up 5.7 percent, while the financial sector
sub-index jumped 6.5 percent. Citic Securities Corporate Finance (HK) Ltd, or Citics CF
Hong Kong, was the so-called stabilising manager for the
offering. Stabilising managers are often hired to prevent a
decline below the offer price for stock listings. The company sold shares at the bottom of a revised price
range of HK$13.30-$15.20 a share last week. Equity fundraising worldwide slumped to its slowest since
early 2009 in the third quarter, Thomson Reuters data shows.
Year-to-date, IPOs worldwide are down 7 percent. English Premier League soccer champions Manchester United,
British gymnasium operator Fitness First and Spanish state
lottery firm Loterias are among the prominent deals to have been
postponed due to turbulent markets.
Citic Securities, often seen as a proxy for China’s stock
market, earns about a third of its profits from brokerage
activities and about 18 percent from trading. With more than 2,000 listed companies, China’s stock market
was the world’s second most active by turnover behind the United
States in 2010, according to Citic Securities’ prospectus. Citic Securities is among the few companies to successfully
launch a stock offering in Hong Kong during the past few months,
with a long list of deals pulled or postponed. Nearly half of the Citic Securities offer was mopped up by
high profile investors, including Singapore’s state investment
vehicle Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd , the Kuwait Investment
Authority and hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management .
BUMPY START Citic Securities , already listed on Shanghai’s
stock exchange, is part of China’s state-backed conglomerate
Citic Group which was formed in 1979 as China’s first financial
group. The bumpy start demonstrates the difficult fundraising
environment even for Chinese state-backed firms in Hong Kong. “Right now the market condition is not very good, but I’m
satisfied the IPO got completed,” the chairman of Citic
Securities, Wang Dongming, told reporters at a listing ceremony
at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The listing comes at a time when global stock markets have
plunged amid concerns about the European debt crisis. The
benchmark Hang Seng index tumbled to a 2-1/2 year low on
Tuesday, falling in eight of the past nine sessions, during
which the index lost about 15 percent. Citic Securities is the biggest Hong Kong listing since the
$2.5 billion IPO by luxury goods maker Prada in June. Investors remain wary of equity markets because of growing
concerns that Europe’s debt troubles could trigger a new banking
crisis and fears of renewed recession in the United States and a
slowdown, or even a hard landing, in China. Just last month, some $4.5 billion worth of deals were
pulled in Hong Kong including Sany Heavy Industry
and rival XCMG Construction Machinery Co Ltd . Apart from Citic Securities, only five companies, including
shoemaker Hongguo International Holding and tea
company Tenfu Holdings , sold stock in Hong Kong in the
past two weeks since offerings resumed after a two-month hiatus. The five offerings raised a total of $510 million. The
slowdown in share sales in the past months in Hong Kong,
Singapore and other main markets in the region contributed to a
49 percent slump in Asia Pacific equity capital markets in the
third quarter from a year earlier.
OVERSEAS EXPANSION Securities companies in China are forecast to post annual
profit growth of nearly 20 percent between 2011 and 2013, buoyed
by an increase in capital markets activity and new businesses
such as margin financing and private equity investments, BOC
International estimated. The company plans to use about 65 percent of the Hong Kong
share sale proceeds for overseas expansion in research, sales
and trading, with 30 percent set aside to develop foreign
exchange, commodity and prime broking services for hedge funds. Citic Securities’ Shanghai-listed shares trade at a discount
to its Chinese peers because of its lower return on equity of
8.5 percent for 2011, compared with the sector average of 12
percent, Macquarie Group said in a research note. Citic Securities was the sole global coordinator of the
offer, with a group of banks including BOC International, CCB
International, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Credit
Agricole’s CLSA unit helping to underwrite the deal.
The pension fund said it aims to “rejuvenate” the News Corp
board with new independent directors.Calpers owns approximately 1.45 million News Corp shares.Also on Friday, Hermes Equity Ownership Services, the
shareholder advisory service affiliated with Britain’s largest
pension fund, urged investors to vote against the reelection of
all Murdoch family members, Siskind and Knight.The annual general meeting of the media group, under fire
for a phone hacking scandal, is scheduled for on Oct. 21.
Potential buyers expect to receive information memoranda
with details on the assets and the process this week. The sale,
which Vattenfall hopes to wrap up this year, the sources added.Infrastructure funds managed by EQT and Macquarie
are preparing separate offers for the assets, sources close to
them said. EQT was looking for local partners and could team up
with Finnish municipalities, the sources added.A consortium of Goldman Sachs Infrastructure
Partners, 3i Infrastructure and Finland’s Ilmarinen
Mutual Pension Insurance Company is working on a joint offer for
the assets, several sources familiar with the matter said.”We are interested in investing in infrastructure and in
making new investments of that kind. We don’t comment on
specific firms or specific investment targets,” said Ilmarinen’s
deputy chief executive Timo Ritakallio.Spokespeople for Vattenfall, Goldman Sachs, 3i
Infrastructure and Macquarie all declined to comment. An EQT
spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Vattenfall is the second-largest electricity distributor in
Finland, serving 347,000 retail customers. The main asset on
sale is its regulated power grid, which is attractive to
infrastructure funds because of its predictable returns.
It’s no secret that Samsung’s flagship Galaxy smartphones are leading the Android-powered pack of handsets. What may be less obvious is just how quickly the company is closing in on Apple’s title of world’s biggest smartphone vendor in unit terms. Samsung announced on Friday it expects its third-quarter profit to top even the most bullish market forecasts, driven in large part by booming smartphone sales. “The Galaxy S II probably played a key role in boosting the company’s earnings and it will continue to do so pretty much unchallenged, until Apple unveils a better new version of iPhone,” said Kyung Woo-hyun, a fund manager at Daishin Asset Management.
Sprint had a rough start to the week and an even rougher end to it. The No.3 U.S. wireless carrier signaled on Friday that it could spend more money than it brings in over the next few years, even without accounting for the high costs of selling the Apple iPhone, sending its shares down 13 percent. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Sprint would likely lose money on its deal to sell the iPhone until 2014. Sprint outlined a plan on Friday to spend $7 billion on a network upgrade, which it said it would pay for with cash from its balance sheet and by raising capital. The company refused to address the cost of selling the iPhone.
If you were one of the keeners waiting for the clock to strike 12:01 a.m. PT so you could pre-order your Apple iPhone 4S, there was a good chance you may have had a bit of trouble. CNet reports that pre-orders of Apple’s latest smartphone were beset by a slew of problems. For starters, Apple, AT&T and Sprint were late opening their digital doors to customers looking to buy the new device. On top of that, both Apple and AT&T’s sites were having trouble processing orders from customers looking to upgrade, presenting them with error messages. Perhaps it’s no surprise: both Apple and carriers ran into similar issues last year with the release of the iPhone 4.
Doubtful that Groupon remains committed to an initial public offering after the recent accounting mini-scandal, a slew of cash-outs by early founders and investors and an overall economic environment that remains uncertain? Don’t be. At least that’s the message the online daily deals firm sent when it filed an updated version of its IPO paperwork with the SEC on Friday. As GigaOm reports, the latest filing details the company’s plans to tighten up its marketing budget and shows that its revenue bookings increased slightly in the second quarter.
Microsoft secured approval of its Skype acquisition from European authorities. The European Commission said that its investigation of the takeover showed that the firms’ activities mainly overlapped for video communications, where Microsoft is active through its Windows Live Messenger.”However, the Commission considers that there are no competition concerns in this growing market where numerous players, including Google, are present,” it said in a statement.
Netflix and AMC Networks have signed a new licensing agreement that gives the popular streaming video service exclusive rights in the United States and Canada to the hit show “The Walking Dead.”
