Alibaba Focused On Eliminating Counterfeit From Platform

Alibaba is spending heavy amount of money to remove fakes from its online marketplaces.

On several previous occasions, Jack Ma’s e-commerce empire Alibaba Group Holding was accused of counterfeiting goods on a couple of its online marketplaces. This was noted by the luxury brand owners who filed a complaint against the e-commerce giant to the US Trade Group. On numerous close instances, Alibaba saved itself from entering the blacklist of the US Trade Group from which the company’s two online platforms, Alibaba.com and Taobao Marketplace, just freed. The problem of fake goods has become a major problem for the company in the past four to five years.

The Chinese e-commerce organization was under fire from western brand owners over fakes on its online marketplaces, but the founder and chairman of Alibaba Group, Jack Ma, said recently that his company is working and will leave nothing to get rid of counterfeit goods on its platforms. A Chinese online news website first reported the speech of the founder and chairman of the firm on Monday and on Tuesday it was obtained by the Wall Street Journal.

Jack Ma and his company have been fighting fakery for more than a year now and according to him, it is a difficult task to eliminate counterfeiting online. At this point, it is essential for the company to focus on it. The image of Alibaba, China, and the Chinese e-commerce market would be affected among investors and luxury brand owners of the West.

Mr. Ma added, “For so many years, we have been using traditional methods and measures to fight fakes, but the harder we fight, the more pop up. Now is the time to let Internet companies to have a try… and solve the issue with big data technology.”

Alibaba Group is known for several amazing feats of which the largest Initial Public Offering (IPO) holder in the US market is one of them. The online retailer raised a massive $25 billion from investors in its IPO in 2014. It reportedly employed a massive 2,000 workforce who works full time to eliminate counterfeit from the platforms. In 2015, it invested nearly $154 million (1 billion Yuan) over two years to battle fake goods.

For a long time, the Chinese e-commerce industry has been alleged to have counterfeit goods on their platforms. Not only the companies but also China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce, also known as SAIC, is working to eliminate fakery from the industry. Western luxury brands that came forward and sued the e-retailer include Balenciaga, Gucci, and Yves Saint Laurent.

“Just rooting out counterfeits from Alibaba’s platforms is not being responsible to consumers. To be really responsible, (the industry) needs to fight them to the extent that they can’t survive on WeChat and JD. We need to fight them so they will have no distribution channels, no means to produce, and that they will be tracked down,” said Jack Ma.

Netflix Should Fear HBO Original Programming Plans, Says Analysts

HBO has announced to bring in 600 hours of original video programming this year to compete against Netflix in the market.

Netflix Inc. came into the streaming industry as an online video content service provider. The streaming giant is significantly growing in the TV market. In the beginning of this year, it made itself a global TV network. 

Netflix is available in more than 190 countries now with having almost 75 million subscribers. With the increase in number of the countries in its portfolio, the company decided to expand and diversify its content as well. Late last year, with the news of global expansion plan, it said that they would double the original programming slate in 2016.

Whatever Netflix has done in the past year or so, it has earned the right to be called as the uncrowned king of the TV industry; but this is not all. The streaming giant faces tough competition from its market rivals, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu. The recent news suggests that the company should fear its long time market rival.

Major pay TV cable networks such as HBO, Fox, and Starz etc. were already sidelined by the streaming services when they started providing services in 2007. TV networks tried chasing them for long but failed. HBO is bringing the biggest change of all that TV networks usually do not go for, i.e. investing billions of dollars on content.

According to sources, HBO is all set to offer nearly 600 hours of original content this year. The CEO of Time Warner, Jeff Bewkes, said in a conference that HBO will add 50% more original content this year, which would be approximately 600 hours of video programming. The CEO did not mention the amount of investment to bring in the new original content but it was previously known that $2 billion budget was allocated for the content last year. This suggests that the investment would be near to the previous year’s budgeting.

On the other hand, Netflix allocates a $6 billion budget for its content. However, the budget it spends on original programming is still unclear. It has almost 31 in-house shows planned for 2016.

Netflix and HBO are in a collision course where a network, which previously focused on driving viewership, is now expanding its standalone streaming app ‘HBO Now’, whereas Netflix is deeply exploring its opportunities to produce more original content.

As far as the business of HBO is concerned, a former host of The Daily Show has signed a deal with the TV network for making a short digital content for HBO GO and HBO Now. There will be an option to further expand the digital content in a series or a movie. HBO is well known for the biggest hit show in TV industry, Game of Thrones, and irrespective of how big Netflix or any other business has become, no one so far has managed to come up with such a show in all these year. 

Alibaba Sets Fees On Loan For Financial Institutions

Alibaba has announced to set fees on the loan deal agreed from a group of eight banks.

Last week, Alibaba Group Holding announced that it has asked for a loan up to $4 billion from eight Chinese banks, which would be used in funding its expansion plans. The expansion plans usually would be done through several deals and acquisitions from the loan. A couple of days ago, Reuters reported that the eight banks have raised money up to $3 billion, which is just a million shy of its requested $4 billion loan. The Chinese tech giant closed the deal and agreed the $3 billion loan for the next five to seven years.

Alibaba Group was already strong-armed while it was investing in startups in domestic and international markets. Currently, the company is making its presence in the Indian e-commerce market by holding significant stakes in Snapdeal and PayTM. It is also in talks with Flipkart, the biggest e-commerce platform, for investment purposes. Thus, it is further beefed up on the investments part with the new funding it received from the banks.

Alibaba has set the fees that it will be offering to the banks on $4 billion loan. It has decided to offer 60 basis points to its lenders who commit to the $200 million or above to the facility. The banks will begin marketing this facility from the agreed loan of $3 billion. The people with the knowledge requested to not be identified because the dealings of this matter were confidential. The people added that 50 basis points will be offered to lenders committing between $150 million to $190 million and 40 basis points to lenders committing between $100 million to $140 million.

The Chinese e-commerce giant has planned a roadshow in Hong Kong. It has agreed to pay an early bird fee i.e. offering five basis points to those banks who participate before April. The final deadline date for participating in the syndication is April 8. The spokesman of Alibaba, Bob Christie, refused to comment on this matter as of yet.

In a US regulatory filing held on March 9, Alibaba announced that it has signed a deal with eight banks agreeing a five-year $3 billion loan to fund its plans. The size of the loan can be boosted if there is a demand from other lenders. The filing reported that this loan to Alibaba has offered a fee of 110 basis points more than what London interbank offered initially.

The group of eight banks includes Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Mizuho Financial Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley as reported by the people familiar to the matter. 

Airbus Plans To Compete With Boeing's 777-9

The European air plane maker is not standing behind its American rival

In the business, the most common notion is –the bigger the better. In the line of it Boeing introduced its new and more powerful 777-9. The proposed jet will be the largest after qualifying to be 406-seaterwith popular twin-engine and a wider body. However, the European rival, Airbus, is not falling behind its American counterpart. Reportedly, the European plane maker is working on its 400-seat twin engine jetliner. The move is likely to create a dynamic competition between the two entities to create the world’s biggest and largest twin-engine commercial jet.

According to the Airbus sales representative who gave the statement to the Reuters, the Toulouse, France headquartered company is searching for an airliner support for new variant of A350. The company’s A350 had an extended seating capacity, wider body and better seat mile economics than the rival’s 777-9. American based Boeing has already been successful with its 777-9 who, since 2013, has taken into its credit more than 250 orders from airlines like Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways.

For the time being, the anticipated jet has been named the A350-8000. This new jet is likely to cater to the need of those airlines which are seeking the high-capacity and long range aircraft but are not on the watch for high-performance characteristics –which are generally embedded in 777-9 make it highly popular among Middle Eastern airlines. The current Airbus jet A350 has seating capacity of 360 passengers at most. Therefore, through the higher capacity twin jet, the European plane maker can efficiently compete in the market and attract the customers which are searching for high-capacity jets without jumping up on Airbus’s four-engine, double-decker A380—currently the world’s largest passenger airliner.

However, turning the concept of a larger airliner into reality is very difficult. It’s not as simple as attaching some additional seats or extending the fuselage. On the basis of the assumption that the Airbus finds significant airline support which could push its proposed plan of A350-8000 even then it ought to persuade the engine maker Rolls-Royce to come up with a new derivative of the engine slated for the A350-1000, currently the largest of the A350 variants. In the second half of 2016, the very first flight of the A350-1000 is scheduled.

Coming up with a new derivative isn’t convenient for even Rolls-Royce who may not have the bandwidth or budget to do so. Moreover, the proposed development is exorbitantly expensive—almost, according to an estimation by unnamed analyst, half-a-billion dollars expensive. Nevertheless, the exorbitant investment will reap good benefits in the future. Although, Airbus’s gigantic A380 orders have been a little on the softer side than what the company had initially expected however the

But that investment could be worth it in the long-term. While orders for Airbus’s massive A380 have been far softer than the company anticipated, the high-capacity, twin-engine jets market has been valued to have worth of around $1.9 trillion over the next two decades.

In July, at the Farnborough International Air Show outside of London, the France based Airbus is scheduled to give in more details and update about the future of its highly anticipated A350-8000s jet line. 

Hedge Funds Are Reducing Or Adding To Their Stakes In Apple

The tech giant's stock has been trading up due to variation in its stock held by different investment companies.

According to the latest 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the New York based investment firm, Neville Rodie & Shaw Inc., during the fourth quarter, has brought down its position in Californian based Apple Inc. by 4.3%. The firm now currently owned 324,234 shares after selling off 14,478 shares of the most valuable company. The tech giant makes about 4.1% of the firm’s portfolio which ultimately turn the stock in having the second largest position in Neville Rodie & Shaw Inc. As of the most recent SEC filing, the investment firm’s holding in the Silicon-Valley business is worth $34,129,000.

Apart from the New York based company, other hedge funds have also either reduced or added to their stakes in the company. In the fourth quarter, Manning & Napier Advisors increased its stake in the tech giant by a significant 51%. Resultantly, the company now owns a colossal 3,937,063 shares which now, after the company bought additional 1,330,218 shares, worth $414,414,000. Moreover, Boston Advisors added 171.5% more to its stake in Apple Inc. The company’s shares now have a worth of $129,850,000 and totaled 1,233,608 shares.  

Moreover, in the fourth quarter, the Atlanta based asset management firm, Cornerstone Investment Partners brought its stake in the $580 billion company up by 2,818%. The firm now owns iPhone maker’s stock worth $61,108,000, and accumulated shares of 580,539. In the similar fashion, Simplex Trading increased its stake by 782.8% and it now owns 343,422 shares worth $36,148,000. Lastly, during the fourth quarter, the investment managers, Verde Servico Internacionias took into its credit Apple’s stock worth$50,228,000.

During the trading which carried out on Friday, the Cupertino, Calif. firm’s stock increased by 1.49% and hit $103.01 mark. Apple’s stock had a trading volume of 46,055,100 shares. The market capitalization of the company which entitled it to be the most valuable company is $579.64 billion and a PE ratio of 10.96. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $96.86 and a 200-day moving average price of $108.55. Apple Inc. has a 1-year low of $92.00 and a 1-year high of $134.54.

Recently, the company has also declared a quarterly dividend, whose payment was carried out on Thursday, February 11, 2016. On February 8, 2016, the investors of record were given a $0.52 dividend. Through this, the payment highlights the company $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.02%.

The stock of the company has been under scrutiny of multiple analysts. Analysts at Piper Jaffray reduced the price target to $172 from previous $179. They also rated the stock as “Overweight.” $145 price target, however, has been set by Sterne Agee CRT analysts who further maintained the “Buy” rating for the stock. In the similar fashion, Credit Suisse and Barclays retained their “Buy” rating for tech giant’s stock while the former set the price target of $140. Lastly, Raymond James gave “Hold” rating to the stock and set the price target at $120.

Qualcomm And Its Chinese Shenanigans

The chip maker has been penalized millions of dollars by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

According to the announcement made by Qualcomm Inc. on Wednesday, the San Diego, Calif. based semiconductor company has finally cleared its dues with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The $81 billion company was penalized by SEC on account of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The company came under the non-compliance of the FCPA when it allegedly appointed Chinese government officials’ relatives and further bribed them with gifts, entertainment, and travel expenses. In a statement given by SEC, the chip maker is due to pay $7.5 million in order to settle the allegations placed on it.  

The regulatory authority, SEC, carried out an investigation against the Californian organization and deduced that the leading semiconductor company has hired influential government officials’ relatives in order to have undue influence on the selection of the “company’s mobile technology products amid increasing competition in the international telecommunications market,” as read out in the statement given by SEC. As cited in the official statement of SEC, the internal term for such hiring was “must place” or “special” hires in order to grown and retain its business in China. Moreover the financials of the chipmaker were not presented fairly and were misrepresented. In addition to it, Qualcomm provided fabricated data to the regulatory authorities.

The multinational semiconductor manufacturer has also been accused of forwarding $75,000 to U.S. university in form of the research grant so that the child of one of Chinese official can retain his position in the Ph.D. program while simultaneously get the extension in his student visa. In addition to it, the accusation of giving house loan worth $70,000 to the official’s son has also been put on the chipmaker.

Qualcomm, hence, “violated the anti-bribery, internal controls and books-and-records provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 without admitting or denying the findings,” stated as per SEC results. The chipmaker, however, neither decline nor accept the pile of accusations put on it. Its Executive Vice President, Don Rosenberg expressed that the company is pleased for having put the matter behind. Mr. Rosenberg strongly persisted that company will remain committed to ethical conduct and will firmly meet the compliance of laws and regulations.

It is however noteworthy that Qualcomm has previously come under the burden of litigations quite few terms in relation to its operations in China. For the company, this Asian region holds substantial importance for the company in light of which the chip maker has carried out gigantic technological developments in the region which collaterally opened humungous growth opportunities for the California based telecomm products manufacturer. Qualcomm envisions growing strong partnership in the region and having steady growth. Along such efforts, the company got carried out which resulted negatively for the chipmaker. Currently, the U.S. based chipmaker has 4.9% share in the China’s market which is projected to reach at 6% in the near future subject to the condition that the organization’s licensing business matures strongly.