Tag Archives: india
India win Champions Trophy final
India win Champions Trophy final (AFP) / 24 June 2013 India beat England by five runs to win the Champions Trophy final at Edgbaston on Sunday as the hosts’ wait for a major one-day international title continued. In a match reduced to 20 overs per side because of rain, World Cup holders India were held to 129 for seven after losing the toss. Eoin Morgan and Ravi Bopara, who’d earlier taken three wickets for 20 runs, then threatened to win the game with the bat for England after they collapsed to 46 for four. But India then took four wickets for three runs in eight balls with seamer Ishant Sharma starting the slide with two in two deliveries. England needed a six off the last ball but that proved beyond tailender James Tredwell as the hosts finished on 124 for eight in 20 overs. Ravindra Jadeja was named man-of-the-match after scoring a dashing 33 not out and taking two for 24 with his left-arm spin. Defeat meant England had still to win a major ODI title having lost three World Cup finals (1979, 1987 and 1992) and the 2004 Champions Trophy final against the West Indies at The Oval when they last staged this event in 2004. Brief scores India 129-7, 20 overs (R Bopara 3-20) England 124-8, 20 overs Result: India won by five runs Man-of-the-match: Ravindra Jadeja (IND) Continue reading
Emerging Markets Suffer The Advent Of The Taper
http://www.ft.com/cm…l#ixzz2WqnxHnE7 Last updated: June 20, 2013 6:36 pm Emerging markets suffer the advent of the taper By Robin Wigglesworth, Amy Kazmin and James Crabtree Back in late 2010, as the US was embarking on its second round of monetary easing and emerging economies were struggling to cope with the hot inflows that came hand in hand with it, Brazilian finance minister Guido Mantega coined the phrase “currency wars”. He was complaining about countries like the US possibly using quantitative easing to devalue their currencies and boost growth following the crippling financial crisis. Three years on, as the US Federal Reserve provides clarity over its plan to start slowing QE3, those currencies appear to be in full retreat. India’s rupee and the Turkish lira bore the brunt of the emerging market rout on Thursday, both hitting record lows, after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank would probably start reducing its $85bn-a-month asset purchases this year, and end it in 2014. The rupee’s precipitous slide prompted the Reserve Bank of India to intervene to stop the currency from breaching Rs60, the psychologically important threshold, according to currency traders. The RBI declined to comment. Despite Mr Mantega’s complaints of currency wars, many developing countries benefited from western central bank-supplied money seeping into their healthier and less indebted economies, as investment in companies, infrastructure and their capital markets aided growth. But analysts fret that some states could suffer as that flow of money starts to reverse. “It’s a shot across the bow,” said David Jacob, vice-chairman of Henderson Global Investors. “Emerging markets are vulnerable. A huge amount of money has flowed there.” The prospect of less easy monetary policy in the US comes at an awkward time for many developing countries. Economic growth is already slowing, and a combined current account surplus of almost 5 per cent before the financial crisis has now shrunk to just 1 per cent, according to the International Monetary Fund. Countries with current account deficits – such as India and Turkey – are seen as particularly vulnerable to outflows, and it was their currencies that were hurt the most on Thursday. These economies import more than they export, and need foreign capital to plug the gap. Of the 25 largest emerging market currencies, only the Indonesian rupiah managed to hold its ground against the US dollar. Indians’ hunger for gold has fuelled its record current account deficit of 6.7 per cent of economic output. Finance minister P. Chidambaram has made an impassioned appeal to Indians to stop buying gold. “If we can have minimal gold imports for six months or one year, it would dramatically change the current account deficit, and you would see the impact on every other index that measures the economy.” The crucial issue for emerging markets is whether market turbulence persists and exacerbates this economic slowdown by pushing up borrowing costs for their governments, companies and households. Brazil and Ukraine are vulnerable, while better performing economies like the Philippines and Mexico are also facing higher borrowing costs as international investors edge out of their markets. Many investors are confident that the impact could be limited, highlighting the structural, financial and economic progress made since the developing world was plagued by crises in the 1980s and 1990s. Budgets and debt levels remain far healthier than in the west. The Fed’s tapering of QE3 is also expected to be gradual and interest rates kept on hold until 2015. The IMF forecasts that emerging economies will grow 6 per cent a year between 2013 and 2018. If the Fed does begin to taper its asset purchases, that will be on the back of a stronger US economy, which should help global growth, analysts said. Emerging markets also rely less on foreign investors and overseas debts than in the past, with many having shifted to local bond markets in the wake of past crises. Bryan Pascoe, global head of debt capital markets at HSBC, said that emerging markets are “in much better shape to weather storms these days.” Continue reading
Institutional Trees… A New Species?
June 14, 2013 Sustainable Asset Management (Investorideas.com renewable energy newswire) It has long been understood that trees are a very important part of our planet and they remain one of the few natural resources that touch all our lives on a daily basis, whether a piece of wood in the home, the floor we walk on, a book we are reading, or even the feint rustle of leaves in the air as we stroll along; we all benefit from trees. We need them, and yet we all know they are under threat. Despite the efforts over the years of governments, politicians, business magnates and even celebrities, the growing commercial demand for timber, crop land for food and biomass, combined with other demands on forest resources & related products, mean that large natural forests remain under serious threat; some of the most treasured species are in danger of extinction. More recently trees and timber have become a mainstream part of our everyday investments. Hedge funds and pension funds have long been investing in forestry & timber plantations along with their associated supply chains; these have even outperformed stock markets for over a century. During the last decade pioneering companies like Asia Plantation Capital have made plantations and trees more accessible to both large and smaller investors who can now buy plantations and have them managed on their behalf to reap the future returns from this amazing natural resource . In fact many analysts, the United Nations and a growing number of those same business magnates now agree on one common solution that always succeeds; “Show a man how to make money from a problem and let the money solve it”. One shining example of this is the threatened agarwood tree. Harvested in the wild to near extinction due to traditional uses now exasperated by modern trends and high global demand for fine fragrance and medicines produced from this rarest of trees and the natural oil it produces, Oud. Despite the fact it was made illegal to harvest in the wild by international convention (CITES) more than ten years ago, commercial demand today has the species as a wild natural tree teetering on extinction. A combination of science, research, practical experimentation and a huge amount of investment has been salvation for the agarwood tree, now a shining example of an international environmentally successful and commercial project which has the ability to; safeguard and protect the species; supply global demand in a sustainable way whilst generating revenue; guarantees the future of a rare species whilst benefiting the economies of fragile forest communities often dangerously driven to illegal logging simply to feed and care for their families. Asia Plantation Capital (APC) has not only become the market leaders in sustainable agarwood, along with other plantation industries such as teak, but also major campaigners, lobbyists and educators to the global markets on its importance. Sponsoring and supporting related industry events such as IFEAT (the International Federation of Essential Oils and Aroma Trades) annual conventions, and reintroducing the agarwood species to Sri Lanka where it had all but been wiped out in the wild by illegal loggers, as well as taking the largest promotional stand at the recent UN World Teak Conference held in Bangkok showcasing their advanced plantation monitoring systems. One company that has spotted APC, and more importantly studied and researched its agarwood plantation model, is Singapore based Sustainable Asset Management. After almost six months of due diligence, inspection visits, meetings with end users and Institutional Investors, Sustainable Asset Management (SAM) has developed what they believe is one of the most carefully structured and balanced forestry investment products available today for HNWI and institutional investors looking at exposure to the asset class as part of a risk balanced portfolio; that’s right, trees are now a risk assessed asset class! Adam Sprague, Head of Risk Analyses at SAM, clarifies “we decided some time ago that we wanted to find a solid and structured investment wrapper for forestry and plantations which meets all the criteria of stringent institutional and high net worth sophisticated investors. We are working on teak projects, biomass, palm oil and various other proven forest sector and timber related assets; but whilst they are good none of them had the credentials of directly protecting an endangered species as with the agarwood story, and as part of the process creating a new sustainable industry which benefits the investors at the top of the chain all the way down to the local communities on the ground; a net new economy in fact. Whilst most investors will confirm it’s the bottom line that really matters, i.e. how much return you can get for your buck, being able to invest in a product that not only provides all the required financial benefits and security but becomes a real force for good is hard to find.” What SAM have done is listen to their institutional clients and create a product that mixes limited numbers of mature CITES approved agarwood trees, in themselves relatively hard to find and valuable from the outset, with new plantings thereby creating a 7 to 8 year investment horizon which has capital growth and income throughout. A unique financial product in a sector where returns are usually either annual and low, or long term and potentially high. This is a balanced structure of income and future returns creating a risk weighted portfolio product with an income of around 8% and variable final IRR of 12 to 24%. The product is available to funds and sophisticated HNWI investors only in minimum tranches of US$500,000 and presently SAM have access to around US$50million in inventory only which will be managed by APC with leverage from their proven from soil to oil programme. About Sustainable Asset Management: Sustainable Asset Management is a private Singapore based company funded by Africasia Private Equity. Africasia focus on providing seed capital and funding for companies within the agricultural domain. Sustainable Asset Management now advises on and deals with all the project evaluation and due diligence of businesses Africasia considers investing in, as well as offering the same service to private investors, institutions and alternative fund managers. www.sustainable.com.sg About Asia Plantation Capital Asia Plantation Capital is an owner and operator of a diverse range of commercial plantation and farming businesses across the Asia-Pacific region and globally, part of the Asia Plantation Capital Group of associated companies. Their focus is on multicultural and diverse plantation projects geared to the domestic and commercial demands of the countries in which they operate. Working closely with and supporting fragile local communities is an underlying core principle of the APC business, providing social and cultural support as well as investment to move these communities away from traditional deforestation and illegal logging activities as a main income source. Established officially in 2008, although operating privately since 2002, the group now has plantation and agricultural projects on four continents with operational projects at various stages in Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, India, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, The Gambia, North America and Europe. www.asiaplantationcapital.com For further information please contact: Mark Wills – Managing Director Sustainable Asset Management Park View Square, 600 North Bridge Road, #12-04, Parkview Square , Singapore 188788 Tel: +(65) 6299 4998 // Email: mark@sustainable.com.sg // www.sustainable.com.sg Stuart Andrews – Public Relations at Sustainable Options Ltd 1 Bromley Lane, Chislehurst, Kent , BR7 6LH , United Kingdom Tel: +(44) 7921 264557 // Email: info@sustainableoptions.eu SUSTAINABLE OPTIONS LTD 1 Bromley Lane, Chislehurst, Kent , BR7 6LH , United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)7921 264557 www.sustainableoptions.eu Disclaimer: The following news is paid for and /or published as information only for our readers.Investorideas.com is a third party publisher of news and research. Our sites do not make recommendations, but offer information portals to research news, articles, stock lists and recent research. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities . All Investment involves risk and possible loss of all investment. Disclaimer in full , Investorideas.com Disclosure Please read individual disclosures for featured stocks. Continue reading
