May 26 - Daily Brief of World Finance & GCC News
‘Never waste a crisis’: inside #SaudiArabia’s shopping spree, Millennials Prefer Robot Bankers to Humans, Only a Few Hedge Funds Made Money in March and April. Here’s How.
WORLD FINANCE NEWS BRIEF
Rich Chinese Snapping Up Luxury Homes From Singapore to Sydney
Rich Chinese investors are finding luxury real estate is a good hiding place from the economic fallout of the coronavirus.
Across China and in some of their familiar hunting grounds in Asia, wealthy buyers are snapping up top-end housing, in many cases to guard their wealth against anticipated inflation and a weakening yuan. The rush to add real estate has led to a jump in upmarket housing prices in China,
A gradual easing of virus restrictions is making it easier for wealthy Chinese to view properties and complete purchases in nearby Asian hot spots like Shanghai, Seoul and Sydney.
Chinese buyer inquiries for South Korean property increased 180% in the first quarter compared with the fourth quarter of 2019, while inquiries on New Zealand homes jumped 75%,
Singapore, where a partial lockdown remains in place, activity is picking up via online platforms. Three Chinese clients bought six apartments worth a combined S$20 million
Some buyers may want to divert their funds to other countries as the yuan may be devalued further to combat the weakening of their economy,” said Christine Sun, the head of research and consultancy at OrangeTee & Tie Pte in Singapore.
Hong Kong used to be a favoured destination due to its proximity to mainland China and fewer market restrictions. But the pro-democracy protests have prompted many rich Chinese to turn to Singapore as an alternative, un
“Malaysia appeals to them because there’s a substantial local Chinese population here, making it easier for them to integrate, and our luxury properties are still cheaper than the likes of Singapore.”
Millennials Prefer Robot Bankers to Humans - Nordic Data by gulfbusiness.com
The robots advising investors at the biggest Nordic banks just had their best quarter since being switched on.
Banks behind the bots say the development has also laid bare where human financial advisers add no value, and robots do.
At the biggest Nordic bank, Nordea, its robot adviser drew in roughly 40 per cent more users in the wildest weeks of the Covid-19 panic than last year on average.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, millennials were happier talking to a robot than to human bankers. Those millennials were then also more likely to go on opportunistic buying sprees than older clients, Eronen said.
Customers aged 60 and older tended to want to dump their holdings in the middle of the selloff. They preferred spending the extra money to have a human adviser hold their hand through the panic,
Danes are increasingly looking for alternatives to standard deposit accounts which, in some cases, impose negative interest rates.
Only a Few Hedge Funds Made Money in March and April. Here’s How
Atlantic Pacific Australian Equity Fund was up 23.6% for March and April, making it one of the rare hedge funds globally that made money in both periods. The
Globally, just 13% of hedge funds made money in both months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A number of those that did exhibit similar traits: an ability to trade across different geographies or asset classes and a hyper-vigilance toward monitoring positions.
Bryon said he watches 24/7 for any signs the virus may shut down economies that have just started to reopen, like China. That attentiveness allowed him to quickly tip out and in out of stocks such as gaming giant Aristocrat Leisure Ltd., whose shares plunged 36%
Funds that did well in both March and April had China to thank. Pinpoint Asset Management Ltd.’s nearly $1.1 billion Pinpoint Multi-Strategy Master Fund increased 0.3% in March and almost 1% in April by holding onto its investments in some of China’s leading companies.
Hong Kong-based firm, which began trading with external capital in January, cut India investments and shifted some of its portfolios to China.
GCC NEWS BRIEF
GCC Faces Unprecedented Challenges by menafn.com
In a speech on the occasion of the 39th anniversary of the GCC, which falls on May 25th, His Excellency Dr Nayef Falah Mubarak Al Hajraf warned that GCC, which is on the eve of the fifth decade of its existence, faces unprecedented challenges.
The Secretary-General stressed that the Gulf dispute, which is approaching its third year, constitutes a challenge to the march
His Excellency added that the other challenge facing the Council is what the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic imposed on all aspects of life
His Excellency pointed out that the world after Coronavirus and the great changes that it is experiencing requires the Council to extrapolate the new global scene and prepare as a system to deal with its data and challenges.
Dubai F&B Boss by arabianbusiness.com
Maadad said “nobody is going to make money” in Dubai’s F&B sector this year due to the impact of Covid-19 on the industry.
Gates Hospitality has a portfolio that currently includes restaurants such as Folly, Reform Social&Grill, Bistro des Arts, Asia de Cuba and Publique.
“This is about survival. Nothing else. You can’t make money if there’s no cash in the economy. There’s no liquidity. It’s simple,”
In his remarks, Maadad said that all the different stakeholders in the sector will have to come together to work their way through the crisis. “I don’t think it’s anyone party that should be responsible. It’s not the landlords, the operators or the government. We all need to shoulder our responsibilities,” he said.
“The government has intervened in certain parts of the world and told aggregators to cap [fees] at 10 per cent…”
‘Never waste a crisis’: inside #SaudiArabia’s shopping spree | Financial Times
That was the message delivered by Yasir al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, as more than 2,000 bankers and executives tuned in to a virtual conference in April. And they were not idle words.
Three days after the conference, US regulatory filings revealed the fund had made one of its biggest bets on a company battered by the global crisis. It has snapped up a 5.7 per cent stake worth around $500m in Live Nation, a US-based entertainment company. Three weeks earlier, it had pounced when the shipping industry was sinking to build what is now a 7.3 per cent holding in Carnival, making it the second-largest shareholder in the world’s biggest cruise line operator.