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India’s Adani crisis spills over into street protests as losses top $110bn

Activist of the youth wing of India's main opposition Congress party hold placards featuring Gautam Adani, Chairman of Adani Group, during a protest against what they say are investments by Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and State Bank of India (SBI) in Adani Group, in New Delhi, India, February 6, 2023. (REUTERS)
Activist of the youth wing of India's main opposition Congress party hold placards featuring Gautam Adani, Chairman of Adani Group, during a protest against what they say are investments by Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and State Bank of India (SBI) in Adani Group, in New Delhi, India, February 6, 2023. (REUTERS)
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Updated 07 February 2023
Reuters

India’s Adani crisis spills over into street protests as losses top $110bn

India’s Adani crisis spills over into street protests as losses top $110bn
  • The billionaire and Modi are from the same state and Adani has repeatedly denied allegations by Modi’s opponents that he had benefited from their close ties. Modi’s government too has denied allegations of favoring Adani
Updated 07 February 2023
Reuters

NEW DELHI: The crisis engulfing the Adani Group intensified on Monday as hundreds of members of India’s opposition parties took to the streets to press for a probe into allegations by a US short-seller against the conglomerate which triggered its market rout.
Shares in billionaire Gautam Adani’s companies have been in free-fall since a Jan. 24 critical report by Hindenberg Research, with group cumulative market losses now topping $110 billion, sparking fears of wider financial contagion.
Opposition parties, who last week called for a parliamentary panel to investigate the saga and disrupted proceedings, have questioned Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closeness with Adani.
Protesters on Monday also expressed anger about investments made by state-backed Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and State Bank of India (SBI) in the Adani Group.
Adani has rejected in detailed rebuttals the Hindenberg report’s allegations of stock manipulation, use of tax havens and criticism that it had unsustainable debt.
The billionaire and Modi are from the same state and Adani has repeatedly denied allegations by Modi’s opponents that he had benefited from their close ties. Modi’s government too has denied allegations of favoring Adani.
At New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, a Mughal-era observatory that doubles up as a protest site for all causes, protesters held up banners and shouted slogans against Adani. Some broke through barricades, forcing the police to detain them.
“Common man has invested his money in a businessman’s (Gautam Adani) company and the government is trying to save him. The government is supporting the businessman (Adani) and not the common man,” Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee General Secretary Shiv Panday was quoted as saying by ANI news agency.
Hundreds of members of the Congress party protested across the country, including outside several offices of state-owned insurer Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and State Bank of India (SBI), both of which have exposure to Adani group companies.
At Jantar Mantar some burnt a suitcase with an SBI logo on it. In Mumbai, a protester held a placard with Adani’s photo and the LIC logo, explaining with a bar chart “How much has LIC invested in Adani Group.”
LIC holds a 4.23 percent stake in the flagship Adani firm, while its other exposures include a 9.14 percent stake in Adani Ports and 5.96 percent in Adani Total Gas. SBI said last week its total exposure to Adani Group was 0.9 percent of its total loan book, or around 270 billion rupees ($3.30 billion).
LIC and SBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Separately, a move by Adani Group on Monday to calm investor nerves failed to stem the market rout. It said it would pre-pay loans of around $1.1 billion taken against pledged stocks in Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, Adani Transmission and Adani Green Energy, allowing it to get back the shares.
Shares of Adani Enterprises closed down 0.9 percent on Monday after sinking as much as 9.6 percent in early trade. Adani Transmission dropped lost 10 percent, while Adani Green, Adani Total Gas Ltd. , Adani Power, and Adani Wilmar fell 5 percent each.
Adani Ports rose 9.3 percent, the only stock to buck the trend.
WORSENING CRISIS
The crisis has snowballed into the biggest business and reputational challenge for 60-year-old Adani, whose fortunes had rapidly risen in recent years as he expanded his conglomerate’s business interests that stretch from ports to mining.
Both houses of India’s parliament were adjourned on Monday, the third consecutive day, amid sloganeering and demands to launch an inquiry.
In the brutal fallout of Hindenburg’s report, Adani group flagship company Adani Enterprises Ltd. was forced to abandon a $2.5 billion share sale last week, and Adani lost his crown as Asia’s richest person and slipped down the global rankings of the wealthy.
Adani had planned to issue a credit report by Friday to address concerns raised by Hindenburg about its liquidity, Reuters reported. The report is expected to be released this week, said a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
The stock market rout triggered a series of credit ratings warnings on Friday with Moody’s saying the group may struggle to raise capital, and S&P cutting its outlook on two group companies.
India’s banking and markets regulators, as well as the government, have initiated inquiries to calm spooked investors. The latter has written to various custodian banks asking for details on beneficial owners of offshore funds and foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), Reuters reported.

 

Topics: India Adani

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US-China divide may be defining issue of our time, CEO says

US-China divide may be defining issue of our time, CEO says
Updated 9 sec ago
Arab News

US-China divide may be defining issue of our time, CEO says

US-China divide may be defining issue of our time, CEO says
  • Chip Kaye of Warburg Pincus tells Miami conference that geopolitical frictions yet to stabilize, warns of ‘sticky’ inflation
  • Others say shift can offer opportunities for countries like Saudi Arabia 
Updated 9 sec ago
Arab News

MIAMI: Tensions between the US and China may be the “defining issue of our time” for business, a senior American CEO has said as the Future Investment Finance conference opened in Miami.

Chip Kaye, of private equity company Warburg Pincus, was discussing the dangers of increasingly fractured geopolitics with other business executives on a panel titled “Business in the new world order.” 

He said that everything from climate change to “very local issues… rely on some dimension of state capacity and some dimension of political discourse” to be solved.

“And that’s in short supply in an environment where two sides don’t understand each other at all. (The) US-China divide may be the defining issue of our time.”

Kaye said geopolitical frictions and cultural wars, not only between the US and China, were having far-reaching effects on economic stability.

“I think economic activity is all stronger than we think and the reality is, inflation is a little stickier than we think, and that we may live in a more elevated inflation environment for a longer stretch of time,” he said. “We’re at the very beginning of this adjustment, as opposed to the end.”

Speakers on the panel discussed the consequences of these adjustments on the global economy, and argued that despite the many obstacles it would not lead to the end of globalization.

“I don’t think globalization is dead,” said Jenny Johnson, CEO of investment company Franklin Templeton.

“It’s slowing down and there’s probably some themes that can inform some investments.”

Johnson pointed out how this shift could offer opportunities for investors, particularly for countries like Saudi Arabia that focus on “entrepreneurship, entrepreneurism, on education, where the government is supporting business.”

Speakers also said investors needed to focus more on micro-level problem-solving rather than trying to predict macro-level trends.

“I think macro should have humbled us all at this point,” said She Nyatta, founder of Bicycle Capital, a US-based growth equity investment firm.

“Trying to make big macro predictions over the last four years has been a complete fool’s errand.”

One way investors can support micro-level problem-solving was by investing in developing markets, which Nyatta said were fertile ground for innovation and problem-solving due to their lack of infrastructure and advanced technology.

“I think we need to look where problems are, and find ways to solve those problems at a micro level and those will turn into good businesses because a problem is being solved,” Nyatta said.

But “take risks. In an uncertain time don’t sit on your hands. Don’t wonder what’s going to happen. Take risks.”

Topics: FII Priority Conference FII Priority Miami US China

FII Priority: Global South wants a more balanced world order, says Prof. Mohan Munasinghe

Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, founder and chairman of the Munasinghe Institute of Development, at the FII Priority conference
Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, founder and chairman of the Munasinghe Institute of Development, at the FII Priority conference
Updated 30 March 2023
Zaira Lakhpatwala

FII Priority: Global South wants a more balanced world order, says Prof. Mohan Munasinghe

Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, founder and chairman of the Munasinghe Institute of Development, at the FII Priority conference
  • BRICS countries have overtaken the G7 countries in terms of their contribution to the global GDP
Updated 30 March 2023
Zaira Lakhpatwala

MIAMI: Countries in the Global South are increasingly asserting themselves and showing more independence, said Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, founder and chairman of the Munasinghe Institute of Development, at the FII Priority conference on Thursday.

“One of the important reasons is that there is a realization that 85 percent of the global population lies in these countries and only 15 percent in the so-called West,” he said.

BRICS countries — referring to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — in particular, have overtaken the G7 countries in terms of their contribution to the global gross domestic product.

As the BRICS countries expand with the potential addition of Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Indonesia and Bangladesh, the Global South is looking at a new world order, as opposed to the existing order, which has been more or less shaped by Western countries since the Second World War, said Munasinghe.

The new priorities for countries in the Global South are “sustainability, economic development, raising the poor out of poverty,” and they are “less interested in military interventions or economic sanctions — those kinds of confrontational approaches,” he added.

Munasinghe strongly recommended integrating climate change into the sustainable development strategy for these countries.

“There is a way to balance what I call the ‘sustainable development triangle’,” which calls for economic growth to improve poverty while protecting the environment, and the “social and cultural matrix,” he said.

These countries “are a little tired of 500 or more years of colonial interventions” and they still remember the aggressive interventions from the West, he pointed out.

As it gains more power, fueled by the emergence of BRICS countries, the Global South has more hope, signaling a shift away from the Western-led unipolar world order to a more balanced, multipolar world.

Now, with digital technologies and “other new methods,” there are more opportunities for these countries that will allow them to have a “level playing field” and have their “dignity and self-respect restored,” said Munasinghe.

Topics: FII Priority Conference FII Priority Miami Global South

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Give youth tools to overcome cost-of-living crisis, Saudi envoy to US tells FII Priority conference

Give youth tools to overcome cost-of-living crisis, Saudi envoy to US tells FII Priority conference
Updated 30 March 2023
DANIEL FOUNTAIN

Give youth tools to overcome cost-of-living crisis, Saudi envoy to US tells FII Priority conference

Give youth tools to overcome cost-of-living crisis, Saudi envoy to US tells FII Priority conference
  • Princess Reema bint Bandar said that ‘having financial literacy and financial engagement at a younger age will allow us all to be more efficient citizens’
  • She highlighted the success of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 national development project in engaging the Kingdom’s youth and the speed with which new opportunities have been created
Updated 30 March 2023
DANIEL FOUNTAIN

MIAMI: Equipping the youth of the world with financial literacy and opportunities is vital if they are to overcome the growing cost-of-living crisis, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US told the Future Investment Initiative’s Priority conference in Miami on Thursday.

Princess Reema bint Bandar was speaking during a panel discussion of what the UN has described as the “largest cost-of-living crisis of the 21st century,” and its disproportionate effects on young people around the globe, who are on the front lines of the crisis.

She said there certainly needs to be more personal accountability and understanding of what is needed at an individual level, but also at the national and international levels.

“We have all been overspending, overbuying and overconsuming and this ‘click button, immediate delivery’ has skewed our perception of what our personal costs are, personal needs and our engagement,” she said. “I think we have been thinking too macro; let’s go back to micro and have little bit more personal responsibility.

“I think (understanding) the concept of interconnectivity of our behavior and our actions, and having financial literacy and financial engagement at a younger age, will allow us all to be more efficient citizens, regardless of whether it’s in the Kingdom, the Middle East or the West.

“I think we’ve lost the concept of our personal impact on economies and other people’s lives,” she added.

The ambassador highlighted the success of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 national development project in engaging the Kingdom’s youth and the speed with which new opportunities have been created outside of the traditional governmental and public sector.

Five years ago in Saudi Arabia, she said, very few young people had any desire to step outside the “comfort zone” of the government sector; now, 58 percent of young people aspire to entrepreneurship pathways, confident that a system is in place in the Kingdom to support them.

“The reason you’re seeing success among young people, not just entering the government but also the private sector, is because today every single young person knows their role in this vision of evolving our country,” she said.

“It is creating opportunity for the individual to be part of the collective and recognize that every piece or step of work or ambition they have adds to the collective well-being of everybody else. That is what’s really driving us as a nation.

“We’ve been able to create education pathways; over $100 million has been spent not just on traditional education but expanding the pipelines of opportunity for young people in (sectors such as) hospitality, tourism and sport,” Princess Reema added.

She also refuted criticism from outside the Kingdom of investment and job creation in these sectors being “culture-washing” or “sport-washing” by pointing out it had created 3 million jobs so that young people can earn a decent living and wage, which could “help them uplift not just themselves but their households and their families and create opportunities for others.”

She said she feels the Saudi approach in this regard is what is “inspiring about being in the Kingdom today,” adding: “We have a moment to inspire young people to not just take, but to also give.”

On the growing engagement of young Saudi women in the process, she said: “You cannot create an opportunity for one gender and not the other, and that’s something we’ve been able to accomplish through Vision 2030.”

Topics: FII Priority Conference FII Priority Saudi Arabia Saudi Vision 2030 Princess Reema bint Bandar Miami

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Saudi Arabia, Miami offering development blueprint for rest of the world: FII Priority panel

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Saudi Arabia, Miami offering development blueprint for rest of the world: FII Priority panel

Saudi Arabia, Miami offering development blueprint for rest of the world: FII Priority panel
  • FII Chairman and Saudi Public Investment Fund Gov. Yasir Al-Rumayyan joined Miami Mayor Francis Suarez to discuss how humanity can get through the challenges of a post-COVID world
  • Al-Rumayyan said progress could be achieved anywhere in the world by running full diagnostic of economy and society
Updated 30 March 2023
DANIEL FOUNTAIN

MIAMI: Economic and social reforms being carried out on a national level in Saudi Arabia and on a city level in Miami offer a model for progress and development for the rest of the world, the FII Priority conference heard on Thursday.

FII Chairman and Saudi Public Investment Fund Gov. Yasir Al-Rumayyan joined Miami Mayor Francis Suarez to discuss how humanity can get through the challenges of a post-COVID world, marked by the war in Ukraine, potential economic crises across the world, catastrophic weather events and soaring costs of living.

Since his election as mayor, Suarez said he had transformed Miami’s economy through lower taxation, investment in public security and enticing the future technology industry to the city, telling the conference that parallels could be drawn with Saudi Arabia’s transformation through its Vision 2030 plan.

Al-Rumayyan agreed, adding that progress could be achieved anywhere in the world by running a full diagnostic of an economy and society, as happened in the Kingdom with the launch of its Vision 2030 plan, by setting benchmarks, targets and key performance indicators.

“(The plan) is very challenging, but achievable,” he said. “You need the political will, the right processes and the right people. That’s what has made it work so well, so far, and hopefully we will achieve all of our targets by 2030,” he added.

Al-Rumayyan highlighted progress already made ahead of schedule in certain metrics across the Kingdom, including having 37 percent female employment by 2020, 7 percent more than initially expected, as well as Saudi Arabia’s 8.7 percent gross domestic product growth in 2022, which was 1.2 percent more than predicted by the IMF, making the Kingdom’s economy the fastest growing in the G20.

This week, with nationwide unemployment falling below 9 percent in Saudi Arabia for the first time, Al-Rumayyan was also keen to stress that Vision 2030 does not set out simply to create jobs, but to create “good quality” jobs, which is key for engaging an ever-youthful workforce.

Calling PIF the “enabler of Vision 2030,” Al-Rumayyan added that a healthy investment portfolio such as the Kingdom’s was key to sustainable progress and development; he highlighted its assets are worth $650 billion today, but it plans to expand this to $1 trillion by 2025 and to between $2-$3 trillion by 2030.

As chairman of Saudi Aramco, Al-Rumayyan outlined the company’s green energy ambitions and its low-emission credentials, but warned that the approach of some countries toward fossil fuels threatened the likelihood of achieving real development as a result of chasing unrealistic clean energy goals.

“Oil, gas and fossil fuels is not such a bad thing,” he said. “I could talk for days about why we should really invest in exploration. We should have long-term views and not (follow) a certain ideal or ideology without thinking about the consequences of that,” he added.

Completely dropping fossil fuels is not a practical solution for global development and progress, Al-Rumayyan told the panel, adding that the shift from traditional to renewable sources of energy would be a slow process, especially considering that much of the net zero infrastructure still requires petrochemicals and fossil fuels to produce.

The PIF governor said: “Some of the governments around the world bullied the oil and gas companies (because of the climate mission) and instead of looking at the problem and trying to fix it, they just wanted to stop it, and what happened after that?

“It started with the oil crisis, because you have less exploration, less supply and demand is increasing, because we want to change to renewable. I understand that, but it takes time to have a transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

“Are we making things better, or worse? From two sides, first, (damage to) the environment and secondly the affordability of energy for the world’s people, and that’s the problem we are facing now,” he added.

Topics: FII Priority Conference FII Priority Miami US Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF) Yasir Al-Rumayyan

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Oil rises on US crude draw and Iraqi supply risks

Oil rises on US crude draw and Iraqi supply risks
Updated 30 March 2023
Reuters

Oil rises on US crude draw and Iraqi supply risks

Oil rises on US crude draw and Iraqi supply risks
  • US crude oil stockpiles fell unexpectedly in the week to March 24 to a two-year low
  • Crude inventories dropped by 7.5 million barrels, compared with expectations for a rise of 100,000 barrels in a Reuters poll of analysts
Updated 30 March 2023
Reuters

LONDON: Oil prices rose on Thursday as a surprise drop in US crude stockpiles and a halt to exports from Iraq’s Kurdistan region offset a smaller than expected cut to Russian supplies.
Brent crude futures rose 57 cents, or 0.73 percent, to $78.85 a barrel by 1327 GMT, while West Texas Intermediate crude rose 82 cents, or 1.12 percent, to $73.79.
US crude oil stockpiles fell unexpectedly in the week to March 24 to a two-year low, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.
Crude inventories dropped by 7.5 million barrels, compared with expectations for a rise of 100,000 barrels in a Reuters poll of analysts.
The continuing halt to exports from Iraq’s northern region provided further support.
Producers have shut in or reduced output at several oilfields in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq after the northern export pipeline was shut, with more outages on the horizon, company statements showed.
But the Kurdistan-Iraq premium in oil prices could vanish sooner than expected, Citi analysts said Thursday.
The “changes in Iraq’s domestic politics may lead to a durable political settlement very soon,” Citi said, estimating that pipeline flows could increase by 200,000 barrels per day (bpd).
These factors offset bearish sentiment after a lower than expected cut to Russian crude oil production in the first three weeks of March.
The 300,000 bpd production decline compared with targeted cuts of 500,000 bpd, or about 5 percent of Russian output, sources familiar with the data told Reuters.
Markets are now waiting for US spending and inflation data due on Friday and the resulting impact on the value of the US dollar.
Meanwhile, OPEC+ is likely to stick to its existing deal on reduced oil output at a meeting on Monday, five delegates from the producer group told Reuters.
“While we think oil prices may remain volatile in the near term, we still expect rising Chinese crude imports and lower Russian production to lift prices over the coming quarters,” UBS said on Thursday.
China’s refined fuel consumption this year is likely to grow 3 percent from 2019 pre-COVID levels, state energy giant PetroChina said on Thursday.
“If all goes as expected, and we manage to avoid a recession, oil prices will dance around $75-$85/bbl in the coming months,” FGE analysts said in a note.

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