Wangel

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Keppel LNG bunkering

Keppel O&M has jointly won a bid with BG Group for providing LNG bunkering service to vessels in the Port of Singapore, starting from early 2017, an essential part of the MPA's (Maritime Port Authority of Singapore) LNG Bunkering Pilot Program (LBPP) which aims to develop Singapore as a key LNG bunkering hub in Asia. Keppel O&M and BG Group will establish a 50-50 JV to deliver an end-to-end bunkering solution with BG's LNG supply and Keppel's expertise in LNG vessel servicing, according to the announcement. Details of the JV and bunkering service will be announced later, but we think that it may bring Keppel new construction orders for LNG-fueled vessels and LNG bunkering tankers, and potentially fee-based service contracts for operating the tankers.

We view LNG bunkering an environmental-friendly, fast-growing solution of supplying fuel for ships for their own use, and DNV GL, an industry consultancy, estimates that modern LNG engines can reduce CO2 by up to 20% vs. those running on heavy fuel oil and marine gas oil, which are currently dominating the global bunkering market. Currently there are only ~70 vessels globally running on LNG fuel, many of which we think were built or modified by South Korean shipyards such as Daewoo and Hyundai and more recently, Chinese yards such as CSSC Group. We think that the MPA's incentives for interested companies (need to be incorporated in Singapore) to build LNG-fueled vessels, capped at $S2mn per vessel for up to two vessel per owner, would suggest incremental newbuild orders to be placed in Singapore's shipyards, in particular for Keppel, in our view.

GPIF

Japan's government pension fund could have its stake in companies capped at 5% in exchange for the ability to hold shares directly -- a limit proposed to appease the corporate sector concerned about political intervention in company affairs.

A Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare panel has been weighing structural and operational reforms at the Government Pension Investment Fund since December. Chief among them is a proposal to let the fund hold shares directly, thereby shaving operating costs and boosting efficiency. The GPIF calculates that lifting the direct-shareholding ban would save 1 billion yen ($8.44 million) a year in management and other fees paid to financial institutions.

Debate on the reforms was initially expected to conclude as soon as January, but now looks to drag into February. Several members of the panel have voiced concerns that letting the GPIF exercise voting rights on its shares could lead to undue state influence over companies.

Banks in Japan have their stakes in most companies capped at 5% by law to keep them from controlling operations. The ministry looks to adopt a similar limit to address such concerns. Revisions to the law governing the GPIF will be submitted to the Diet during the current session once the details are worked out.

The pension fund held around 32 trillion yen in Japanese stocks as of March 2015, putting it in control of 7.6% of the market here. Voting rights on those shares are currently entrusted to the asset managers the GPIF uses to buy its stocks. Those rights would revert to the pension fund itself if shares were directly held.

Investors with 3% or higher interest in a company are able to call a general shareholders meeting, while those holding 10% or more can propose the company be dissolved. Majority shareholders have effective veto power over all major decisions.

The welfare ministry plans to allow the GPIF to exercise its voting rights. Japan's stewardship code encourages institutional investors to exercise voting power on their shares rather than neglect ailing companies. Limiting the fund's voting rights would disappoint overseas investors excited about Japan's push for better corporate governance, said Theresa Whitmarsh, executive director of the Washington State Investment Board in the U.S.

The ministry panel also is weighing handing over voting rights to a proxy organization to prevent political intervention. That plan is modeled on the Bank of Japan, which sets guidelines that instruct its proxies how to use voting rights.

Some other countries including Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands and South Korea let their public pension funds hold shares directly. Norway's Government Pension Fund used its voting power to oppose the appointment of some directors at Japanese electronics giant Toshiba after the company's accounting scandal came to light.

To consider Feb 16

1. Top up J SRS
2. OEL
3. IBM
4. Disney (Sx)

Future
1. Sell Shenhua -> BLT
2. XMBR
3. Harley (Sx)

Japan Ppty

1. Pay down 9m at 1.15 or 88

2. SCB from 7m to 15m need 8m -> SGD 96k (additional 150k worth of stocks needed)
Candidate: ADS 50k, Pep 40k, BATS 40k Diageo 20k SPH Reit 30k

3. Leverage 10m, SGD 120k notional, 3x leverage requires 40k capital

4. Remaining 25m with Citi

Three small changes to diet

Three small changes to diet

1. Cut Sugar

When Succeeded

2. Cut Rice for Dinner

When Succeeded

3. Vegetarian every Monday

Death Note

Death Note 58
L dies, killed by Reaper

London ppty

LONDON—In August 2014, when the housing market here was on a tear, a two-bedroom condominium in one of the most expensive neighborhoods went up for sale at £3.25 million ($4.64 million), a 67% premium to its purchase price six months earlier.

The redbrick home on Cadogan Gardens in Knightsbridge is still unsold, and expectations have been revised. The price has been cut three times, the latest at the start of this year, to £2.5 million.

“It’s a great property,” said Sam Spring, a sales broker at the Chelsea office of estate agency Faron Sutaria, of the 1,250-square-foot home with dark walnut floors and high-end appliances. “It’s just a very price-sensitive market these days.”

In London’s priciest neighborhoods, the housing boom is over.

Wealthy investors, most prominently from Russia, China and the Mideast, swooped in on cities like London, New York and Vancouver to buy high-end homes in the years following the 2008 financial crisis. Real estate appeared to be a safe investment. Returns looked robust against ultralow interest rates.

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Now, demand is slowing not just in London, but in prime housing markets around the world.

Average prices of luxury homes in 10 global cities analyzed by real-estate broker Knight Frank LLP are expected to rise 1.7% this year, down from 3% growth in 2015.

Foreign investors that helped drive the boom have had to contend with weakened currencies, stock-market shocks and the collapse in oil prices. Meanwhile, a major overhaul of a U.K. transaction tax known as stamp duty increased the charge on high-price sales, and new taxes on second homes and rental properties will take effect this spring.

In New York, demand for high-end homes cooled last year, brokers said. In Miami, South American and European buyers could pull back this year due to a stronger dollar, and prices are expected to fall in Hong Kong, Singapore and Paris, Knight Frank said. Swiss lender UBS Group AG said in October that housing markets in Sydney, Vancouver, San Francisco and Amsterdam appear “significantly overvalued.”

Luxury housing in London became one of the world’s hottest assets. But “the frenzy is gone completely,” said Manish Chande, senior partner at U.K. real-estate firm Clearbell Capital LLC. About 18 months ago “everything was going like hot cakes. Today it’s the total opposite,” Mr. Chande said.

ENLARGE

Prices in prime central London, which includes high-end properties in posh districts like Mayfair and Chelsea, fell 1.4% during 2015, according to data-provider Lonres. Some neighborhoods fared worse. In Knightsbridge, prices dropped 5.6% in November compared with the year earlier, according to broker Knight Frank.

Those slides may understate what is going on: Data on high-end homes are hard to compare, because there are few of them and sellers may have the wherewithal to simply hold off rather than accept a lowered price. Transaction volumes at the top end of the London market were as much as 40% lower in December from a year earlier, according to U.K. buying agent Property Vision, and inventories of prime properties are mounting.

The standoff between buyers and sellers resulted in 2,712 homes over £1 million for sale in prime central London at the end of November, 81% more than in January 2014, according to buying adviser Huntly Hooper Ltd.

Even so, in a sign of the liquidity crunch, the gap between asking prices and sales prices is widening.

The difference between initial asking prices and average sales prices in prime central London was at a record 19% in the three months to November, Huntly Hooper data show. The disparity was 9% in the same period last year.

Cynicism is bad

In an analysis of more than 68,000 Americans and Europeans over nine years, researchers at the University of Cologne in Germany found that cynicism isn’t the path to financial success. If you are wary of trusting others, worry about being taken advantage of, and see others as self-interested and deceitful, you’re likely to have a lower income now (and in the future) than people with a rosier view of humanity.

There was just one exception: Cynicism is less financially detrimental in countries where it seems justified—where the murder rate is high, the giving rate is low, and more people see each other as selfish and predatory. In a few countries, cynics actually earned slightly more money.

“Cynical individuals are likely to lack the ability (or willingness) to rely on others,” the researchers explain. That may be helpful in the roughest areas of the world, but not so helpful in civilized society, where they miss out on valuable opportunities attained by asking for help, making compromises, and collaborating.

In other words, if you’re a cynic among people who would be happy to offer help and support, you’re basically shooting yourself in the foot—a good reason to put a little faith in humanity.

January 19, 2016 1:08 pm

Michelin-starred restaurants take à la carte off the menu

Natalie Whittle

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©AP

As landlords raise rents, pressure has grown on restaurateurs to improve their margins

A stiff, white à la carte menu used to signify a classic restaurant, one with a broad range of dishes to satisfy all tastes.

But just over a century since Auguste Escoffier introduced London to the pleasures of à la carte dining, at Pall Mall’s Carlton Hotel, some of Britain’s leading restaurants are limiting the freedom of their guests to choose their dinner.

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ON THIS STORY

• UK’s gastropubs expand in Michelin guide
• From dusty cellar to high-spec wine room
• Analysis China’s wealthy no longer putting on Ritz
• Aquaponics the future of food?
• Takeaway start-up Deliveroo raises $100m

IN FOOD & DRINK

• Five of the best Manhattan cafés
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Stéphane Borie, a French chef at The Checkers, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Montgomery, Wales, has abandoned his à la carte menu in favour of set menus, which he claimed would be less wasteful.

“It is difficult to evaluate, but we’re hoping to halve our food waste; with à la carte we never wanted to run out of anything, so we’d cook a little a bit of everything. [This way] we’re choosing for people what they’re going to have, so we control the waste.”

Earlier this month another esteemed French chef,Claude Bosi of two-Michelin starred restaurant Hibiscus, also decided to jettison choice in his evening service, offering instead two different tasting menus, both at £135, one classic and the other a “surprise”.

Rebecca Burr, editor of the Michelin guide in the UK, said the decline of à la carte dining was “something we have witnessed over the last few years”.

She added that diners who splash out on an expensive meal often prefer the tasting menu, seeing their meals as a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“A lot of the chefs prefer to work in that way [only offering tasting menus], but we’d hope they’d change that menu on a regular basis. People do want a little bit of choice at the top level,” she said.

In Paris, the avant-garde restaurant Septime only offers a “carte blanche” menu in the evenings, leaving the five-course meal entirely in the hands of chef Bertrand Grébaut. Le Chateaubriand, another example of Paris’s “bistronomique” movement, similarly sticks to a “menu unique” at €70, for which diners queue hours ahead.

A “one price fits all” approach even includes the tip at New York’s highly regarded Eleven Madison Park — its $295 seasonal tasting menu, the only one on offer, includes 10-15 courses, drinks and “gratuities are neither expected nor accepted”.

As landlords continue to raise rents, the pressure has grown for restaurateurs to improve their margins. In the kitchen, this translates to reducing the amount of food discarded at the end of service.

Cheaper fixed menus at lunch service are also being used by top restaurants to fill tables through booking sites such as Bookatable, recently acquired by Michelin. Nobu, for example, offers a bento box with glass of prosecco for £38, while Fera at Claridge’s has three courses and glass of champagne for £39.

At Hedone in Chiswick, west London, Swedish head chef Mikael Jonsson has taken an even more extreme tack: “We have no menus, we have two spending levels. Essentially, people tell us how much they want to spend [£85 or £125] and give us restrictions that they don’t like this or that, and we design the menu.”

Although arguably more labour-intensive for the restaurant, Mr Jonsson insists it is a better system: “Why I’m doing this is I want to make sure everything I have in my fridges is fantastic quality. If you have a printed menu, inevitably as a chef you will have to serve stuff you’re unhappy with, or it will go in the bin.

“Restaurants will be forced to go away from à la carte if they want to maintain quality. A lot of people are happy to just sit down and eat.”