Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1594
Taobao Tmall major reorganization
Taobao Tmall Group, the core of Ali’s six major business groups, embarked on a reorganization and became the first business group to be adjusted after Ali’s dramatic changes.
According to “LatePost” news, the biggest change of Taobao Tmall this time is to dismantle the industry center and divide it into three industry development departments according to richness, brand and high-frequency drive:
- Industry Development Department 1: Driven by richness, the main business includes Taobao clothing, Xiaojingang industry (trend toys, pets, sports outdoor, jewelry, etc.), Taote, domestic wholesale 1688 and other businesses, led by senior vice president Wang Hai (flower name: Qigong) is responsible;
- Industry Development Department 2: Brand-driven, the main business includes Tmall apparel, fast moving consumer goods, consumer electronics, mobile Tmall, Tmall International, etc., and is in charge of Vice President Liu Peng (nickname: Alvin);
- Industry Development Department 3: High-frequency drive, the main business includes Tmall Supermarket, Taocaicai, Taoxianda, Fresh Food, etc., and is in charge of Vice President Liu Yiman (nickname: Yiman).
The three major industry development departments will have their own clear goals. For example, one of the main goals of Department 1 is to discover more cost-effective products, and Department 2 is mainly responsible for solving the profit problem of new commercial groups. These two departments basically represent all the income of Taobao Tmall.
After the reorganization, the three industry development departments are not divided into Taobao and Tmall in name, but compared with the practice of the two brands being independent and the industry merging operations a year ago, this adjustment is equivalent to allowing the two brands to operate more independently.
Another important change in this reorganization is that the status of local retailing has been improved. It is an independent sector for the first time, alongside brand-driven businesses (Tmall, Maoxiang self-operated, etc.), and richness-driven businesses (Taobao, Taote, etc.). This is a business that Ali has explored for nearly ten years and has repeatedly reinvented the wheel. The local businesses belonging to Taobao and Tmall include Tmall Supermarket, Taoxianda, and Taocaicai. In this reorganization of Ali, there are also a separate local life group.
In addition, based on the goal of independent operation and accounting of the business group, Taobao Tmall Group is also supplementing the heads of key functional positions, including chief financial officers, technical heads, marketing and public relations heads, etc.
The above detailed adjustments can be viewed here. (later LatePost)
The frequency of sand and dust weather has increased, and the intensity has remained the same as in previous years
On April 12, the Central Meteorological Observatory continued to issue blue sandstorm warnings. It is expected that there will be blowing sand or floating dust in 19 provinces across the country from 20:00 on the 12th to 20:00 on the 13th. This wave of large-scale dust weather since April 9 is the eighth sandstorm and the second sandstorm that China has encountered this year. It mainly affects Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, North China, Northeast China, Huanghuai and other places, and affects Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Anhui, Hunan, Hubei and other Yangtze River Basin areas.
According to the explanation of Gui Hailin, the chief forecaster of the Central Meteorological Observatory, from March to May every year is the season of high incidence of sand and dust weather in China. The main reason is that the weather in spring is getting warmer, the activities of cold and warm air are frequent and the confrontation is fierce, which is likely to cause windy weather. At the same time, the surface thaws after the temperature rises in spring, and the loose floating soil is more likely to be carried into the air by strong winds.
The number of sand and dust processes this year is more than in previous years, which is mainly related to the weather: Mongolian cyclones and the cold air behind them are more frequent and active, resulting in stronger and longer-lasting winds; in the early days, there was less precipitation in Mongolia and northern China, and the temperature has obviously warmed up , causing the permafrost to melt and the surface sand to loosen. However, the overall dust intensity remains the same as in the past ten years, and is still within the normal range.
Regarding whether it is the impact of “returning forests to farming”, Wu Bo, director of the Desertification Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, said in an interview with the media that there is no necessary connection between the two. He said that “returning forests to farming” is mostly concentrated on the mountain tops in the south to open up wasteland, and the biggest risk is not sandstorms but soil erosion.
China is one of the countries with the largest desertification area in the world, the most affected population, and the most severe wind and sand hazards. According to data from the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, China still has 2.5737 million square kilometers of desertified land and 1.6878 million square kilometers of sandy land. In particular, large areas of desert and Gobi have always been huge and permanent dust sources.
In April 1998, 12 prefectures and prefectures in Northwest China were hit by sandstorms, causing more than 460,000 mu of crops to be damaged, 110,000 livestock dead, 1.56 million people affected, and a direct economic loss of 800 million yuan. But most of the time, the economic losses caused by sand and dust weather are difficult to quantify simply. The main hazards are respiratory diseases, crop yield reduction, traffic safety and aircraft take-off and landing. (Qiu Hao)
“Economic Daily”: Support platform companies to show their talents
On April 12, “Economic Daily” published Jin Guanping’s signed article “Support Platform Enterprises to Show Their Skills”. The article emphasizes the positive role of platform companies and mentions:
- Previously, the special rectification of the platform economy was carried out with the purpose of promoting development through regulation, rather than interrupting and curbing development.
- With the basic completion of the special rectification, the awareness of platform compliance has been significantly improved, and the normalized supervision system has been gradually improved.
- In the past two years, the pace of development of some platform companies has slowed down, and innovation has stagnated.
- During economic recovery, confidence is more important than gold. This is especially true for platform companies.
And put forward a series of measures to restore confidence:
In the short term, we should implement the previously proposed batch of “green light” investment cases as soon as possible to strengthen confidence and clarify the direction; in the medium term, while normalizing supervision, we should adhere to an inclusive and prudent regulatory attitude in response to platform companies’ innovative attempts , so that they have the space and courage to explore; in the long run, we must unswervingly create a market-oriented, rule-of-law, and international business environment, with a stable and predictable policy environment and a warmer and more powerful “delegating control” service” reform, creating room for development for all business entities, including platform companies.
Tencent’s largest shareholder transferred nearly HK$35 billion worth of Tencent shares to the trading pool
Prosus announced on Tuesday that it will move 96 million shares of Tencent into the Hong Kong clearing system, which means that these shares will be sold next, accounting for about 1% of Tencent’s total share capital, worth about 35 billion Hong Kong dollars. Affected by this news, Tencent’s share price fell more than 5% today.
- Prosus announced in June last year that it would start reducing its holdings in Tencent to support its own stock repurchase. At that time, they held about 28.9% of Tencent’s shares, which fell to 27.99% on September 8. Then, according to the relevant regulations of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, about 2% of Tencent’s shares were transferred to the clearing system, and then sold one after another.
- According to the latest data as of December 13 last year, Prosus’ shareholding in Tencent fell to 26.99%. Even if the stock price is low, at least 43 billion Hong Kong dollars worth of Tencent shares were reduced in the second half of last year.
Regarding Prosus’s latest move, Alex Liu, Director of Equity Sales at Huaxing Capital China Hong Kong, said in a comment to us that based on Prosus’ disclosure of its own stock repurchase plan, it is necessary to reduce its holdings of Tencent shares by about HK$2 billion per week. The newly “listed” 1% shares will be reduced within 4-5 months.
- He also said that Tencent’s current daily repurchase amount is stable at 350 million Hong Kong dollars. Even if it repurchases every trading day, it is still not enough to fully hedge the impact of Prosus’ shareholding reduction on the stock price. In addition, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange stipulates that companies cannot repurchase more and buy more. That is to say, if Tencent’s stock price rises, Tencent may not be able to repurchase, and Prosus can reduce its holdings more. (Lin Guangying)
Ernst & Young abandons spin-off of audit and consulting businesses
This week, Ernst & Young, one of the Big Four accounting firms, announced that it would abandon the split of its audit and consulting department, mainly because the American partners who contributed 40% of the revenue did not agree to the split. If the plan is implemented smoothly, it will be the largest restructuring in the industry in the past 20 years.
According to media reports, one of the biggest obstacles to the spin-off is the distribution of internal benefits, that is, the leadership of Ernst & Young considers assigning most of the tax business to the consulting department, while the US audit department wants to get as much of this business as possible. Because audit fees are inherently low, if the consulting and taxation businesses are divested, profits will decrease, and audit quality may not be guaranteed, thereby weakening competitiveness.
But one of the original intentions of Ernst & Young’s high-level split was to respond to regulators’ concerns about possible conflicts of interest between audit and consulting businesses.
Auditing is considered to represent the public interest and monitor companies, such as ensuring that financial data reflect the company’s operating conditions as closely as possible. The task of consulting is to meet customer needs. If a company does both audit and consulting, it will inevitably affect the neutrality of the audit.
As perhaps the party with the most financial awareness outside of the top of the firm, it seems natural for accounting firms to venture into the consulting business. After the 1980s, the consulting business of several largest accounting firms developed rapidly.
However, under regulatory pressure, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers successively sold or divested their consulting businesses around 2000. After independence, the consulting business is no longer subject to strict constraints and has developed better. For example, Accenture, which was spun off from Andersen in 2001, has become one of the world’s largest consulting companies.
Since 2006, the Big Four have successively reorganized their consulting departments and started a series of acquisitions. In fiscal year 2022, Ernst & Young’s consulting business revenue increased by 25% year-on-year to US$13.9 billion, audit business income increased by 6% to US$14.4 billion, and tax, strategy and other business income was approximately US$17.2 billion. (Lin Guangying)
Silicon Valley VCs go to the Middle East to find money
According to sources quoted by the media, in recent weeks, Tiger Global, Andreessen Horowitz and other large American private equity or venture capital funds have successively traveled to the Middle East to seek new funds.
There has been cooperation between the two places before, but as Ajami, director of venture capital at Mubadala Fund in the United Arab Emirates, said, “We went to them in 2017, and now they come to us.” Mubadala Fund is a branch of the Abu Dhabi Sovereign Fund, about Managed $6 billion.
In the past few years, the Middle East fund that was most enthusiastic about overseas investment may be the Saudi sovereign fund PIF. In 2016, it injected US$45 billion into the Softbank Vision Fund, and also directly invested in many American technology companies, including US$3.5 billion in Uber, and more than US$1 billion in Lucid, an electric car start-up. There are rumors that PIF has also considered funding Musk for 72 billion dollars to help him take Tesla private.
However, since the end of 2018, due to differences in values, many large companies and Silicon Valley investors have refused to take money from the Middle East. Until recently, the financing environment has deteriorated. According to statistics from the data agency Preqin, venture capital firms received only US$20.6 billion in new funds in the fourth quarter of last year, a decrease of 65% year-on-year, the lowest in nearly nine years.
The Middle East has once again become “the most liquid place on earth” because of high oil prices. Recent visitors to the Middle East say it is crowded with American venture capital investors, including Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz, who is said to have visited Saudi Arabia twice in less than six months. Tiger Global Partner Scott Shleifer also gave a fundraising speech in Riyadh last October. (Lin Guangying)
OTHER NEWS
Joyson Electronics announced that its automotive 800V high-voltage platform products have received an order worth RMB 10 billion.
On April 12, Joyson Electronics announced that it had recently received new orders of about 13 billion yuan, involving power electronics products for 800V high-voltage platforms used in new energy vehicles. The announcement did not name specific customers. A person close to Joyson Electronics told Wanwan Finance, “It should not be a new domestic force, because the sales volume needs to support tens of billions of orders, and it is more likely to be an international customer.” Joyson Electronics told Wandian Finance that the cumulative order value of high-voltage platforms has exceeded 22 billion yuan since 2022. High-voltage fast charging technology can shorten the charging time, and theoretically allow car owners to experience “charging experience close to refueling”.
Blue Cursor completely stopped outsourcing.
According to a screenshot of an email, the Operations and Purchasing Department of the East China Headquarters of the public relations company BlueFocus stated on April 12 that it will completely stop four types of outsourcing expenses related to creative design, program writing, copywriting, and short-term employees from now on. According to the email, this decision is to curb the momentum of hollowing out core capabilities and lay the foundation for fully embracing AIGC. In response to media inquiries, the staff of the BlueFocus Securities Department stated that the content of the email was true, but they could not immediately respond to the application details of the AIGC tool.
The joint defense and joint control mechanism released a new version of the “Guidelines for Wearing Masks” to further reduce the scenarios where masks should be worn.
On April 12, the Epidemic Prevention and Control Group of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council issued the “Guidelines for the Public Wearing Masks to Prevent Novel Coronavirus Infection (April 2023 Edition)”. The new version of the “Guidelines for Wearing Masks” further reduces the scenes where masks should be worn, and puts forward classification suggestions for wearing masks, recommending masks, and not wearing masks. In scenarios where there is a risk of epidemic transmission, a high risk of infection, and strict prevention of epidemic import into key institutions, people who are not infected with the new coronavirus should wear masks.
Analysts say the iPhone 15 will still use traditional physical buttons.
Tianfeng International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that the two high-end iPhone 15 models (Pro and Pro Max) will abandon the solid-state button design and return to the original physical buttons because they cannot solve technical problems before mass production. Haitong International analyst Jeff Pu expressed a similar view. In October last year, Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that Apple would switch to a solid-state button solution, that is, when the user touches the position of the original volume and power buttons, it will generate tactile feedback without pressing the physical button. This is not good news for suppliers of new technology solutions. Hong Kong stock AAC Technology fell nearly 15% today.
The Guizhou government said that it is difficult to solve the debt problem by itself.
The Development Research Center of Guizhou Provincial Government stated on April 11 that the survey found that the debt problem has become an urgent problem for local governments to solve. Due to financial constraints, it is extremely difficult to advance the debt reduction work, and it cannot be effectively solved by relying on its own ability. The Development Research Center of the Guizhou Provincial Government stated that the next step would be to seek advice from the Development Research Center of the State Council to resolve the local government debt problem in Guizhou. Earlier this year, when the Guizhou Provincial Department of Finance introduced the 2023 work plan, it stated that it would build a mechanism to prevent and resolve debt risks.
Fangshan District, Beijing will pilot “one district, one policy”.
The Beijing Municipal Housing and Urban-Rural Development Commission stated on April 10 that the housing support policy for families with many children and families with work-life balance will be piloted in Fangshan District in accordance with the “one district, one policy” approach. At present, the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government have agreed to promote this pilot policy, and the next step needs to be the approval of the Business Management Department of the People’s Bank of China and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. Some analysts believe that the adjustment of Beijing’s housing support policy will release a positive market signal, and the real estate policy is expected to be loosened.
The retail sales of Anta’s main brand in the first quarter of 2023 will increase by about 5%.
Anta Group announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange this evening that its main brand Anta’s retail sales in the first quarter increased by about 5% year-on-year, and FILA excluding Anta and FILA’s other sub-brands (including Descente, Kolon, Arc’teryx, etc.) grew even faster , reaching 75% to 80%.
The special meeting of the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee focused on activating consumption and expanding domestic demand.
On April 11, Sichuan Provincial Party Secretary Wang Xiaohui presided over a special meeting of the Provincial Party Committee to study the work of activating consumption and expanding domestic demand. The meeting proposed to boost real estate consumption, adhere to the principle of “housing to live in, not speculation”, and introduce support measures according to city policies, focusing on supporting rigid and improving housing demand. In addition to real estate consumption, the meeting also discussed bulk commodity consumption, Sichuan characteristic consumption and cultural tourism consumption.
Buffett said he has handed over most of the work to Greg Abel.
Buffett said on April 12 that Greg Abel has been appointed as the company’s successor in 2021 and has taken over most of his work. Greg Abel is currently the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy and is also responsible for all non-insurance operations of Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett said that Greg Abel is a tough manager, and the company hopes that Buffett’s successor can serve as CEO for a long time and not retire before the age of 75.
OpenAI is offering a reward of up to $20,000 for finding ChatGPT security flaws.
OpenAI announced on April 11 the launch of a bug bounty program to encourage users to report security issues in the use of its artificial intelligence products. The company will pay cash prizes ranging from $200 to $20,000, depending on the importance of the problem. Matthew Knight, director of security at OpenAI, said the move is important for developing safe and advanced artificial intelligence. Such programs are not uncommon in the technology industry. Companies such as Netflix and Dell have launched similar projects. In terms of rewards alone, OpenAI is really nothing.
Lamborghini’s first $600,000 plug-in hybrid sports car sold out.
Lamborghini’s first plug-in hybrid supercar, the Revuelto, launched last month, is sold out and orders are now two years away. That’s a good start, as Lamborghini is beginning a transition to hybrids for its new models and plans to launch its first all-electric sports car in 2028 or 2029. Management said it was too early to forecast full-year sales, but orders are showing no sign of slowing down and could exceed last year’s record, if maintained.
As long as carbon emissions do not exceed the standard, hydrogen production from fossil fuels is considered “clean energy”.
The International Energy Agency is currently proposing a new standard. If the actual emission of carbon dioxide per 1 kg of hydrogen produced is less than 7 kg, it is considered an environmentally friendly “clean energy”. Although this standard does not have legal force, it still helps to dispel the concerns of enterprises and provide a clearer basis for decision-making. Because it was generally believed that although hydrogen does not produce carbon dioxide when it is burned, its production process may exceed the carbon emission standard, which hinders investment in related fields to a certain extent.
A license plate in Dubai fetches $15 million.
A “P7” license plate sold for 55 million dirhams (about $15 million) at a charity auction in Dubai on Saturday, with the proceeds going to fund a global food aid programme. The UAE has a tradition of auctioning license plates at high prices. The previous record was that a rich man in the UAE bought the license plate number 1 for 52.2 million dirhams in 2008. In 2016, the “D5” license plate number also sold for 33 million dirhams.
The world’s most expensive sneakers sold for $2.2 million.
On April 11, local time, Sotheby’s auction house sold a pair of Air Jordan 13 for US$2.2 million, setting a new record for sneaker auctions (the previous record was a pair of Nike Air Yeezy 1 worn by “Kan Yeezy”, which sold for US$1.8 million. Dollar). Michael Jordan himself wore these shoes in Game 2 of the 1998 NBA Finals, when Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to their second three-peat, establishing his status as the “God of Basketball”. Last year, a jersey worn by Jordan in the finals of the same year was auctioned for a sky-high price of 10.1 million US dollars. The film “AIR”, which tells the story of Jordan’s signing with Nike, is currently being released in North America, starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.
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