December 5, 2019
The New Year’s Message for Corporate IR Engaging the Buy-Side: Keep Talking
Corporate access has come a long way in the last decade, especially after sweeping changes brought about by regulations like MiFID II.
Smartkarma is a global investment research network, made up of independent Insight Providers who produce, curate, and publish unbiased intelligence for institutional investors. We reinvent research by providing differentiated, independent analysis on companies, markets, and industries across the world. This includes areas under-reported by mainstream market coverage, including Event-Driven, IPOs & placements, and small/mid cap equities. Smartkarma’s online platform allows the buy-side to set their own real-time alerts, customise their reading lists, directly contact Insight Providers, and remain MiFID II-compliant as unbundling regulations change the investment research industry. For more information, visit our website or request a demo.
November 20, 2019
Singles’ Day Isn’t the Only Reason Why Alibaba’s Hong Kong Listing Is Timely
This latest Single’s Day was no exception, drawing in a record US$38 billion worth of sales – although the day’s annual sales growth continued slowing as it has done for the past years and disappointed co-founder Jack Ma.On the back of (a still pretty successful) Singles’ Day, NYSE-listed Alibaba has moved closer to its long-awaited secondary listing in Hong Kong. The company is now set to start trading in Hong Kong on 26 November, to raise US$13.4 billion.
November 14, 2019
Brief M&A: TOTAL to Take a Stake in Adani Gas and More
November 8, 2019
TikTok Creator ByteDance Defies China Tech Slowdown as It Goes After Facebook’s Crown
A big part of Facebook’s current troubles has to do with the company’s dominant position in the social networking space. In fact, until ByteDance and its strange little app, TikTok, came along, it was hard to find a crack in Facebook’s armour.
November 7, 2019
What Companies Going Public Can Learn from WeWork’s IPO Disaster
Depending on how you look at it, WeWork’s botched IPO was a brutal failure… and a resounding success. No, it’s not some quantum paradox nor a case of Schrödinger’s Listing. There’s no question that WeWork should never have tried going public in its current state.
October 24, 2019
The Rise of Company-Sponsored Research Benefits Neither Investors Nor Companies
Of all the ills the market has blamed MiFID II for, the drop in research diversity and quality is up there in the rankings. But is company-sponsored research the answer? Specifically, a large part of the consensus has focused on the drop in quality and quantity of research on small- and mid-cap firms.
October 17, 2019
Why Alternative Data Is the Latest Power Tool on the Investor’s Belt
Alternative data is nothing new in the world of finance. Analysts and industry watchers have always relied on non-financial inputs that have an impact on financial developments. The weather, spending habits, fashion trends, popular hangouts, social unrest: Any one and all of those datasets can affect economic activity and gives analysts context on top of traditional financial information, like a company’s earnings or market data.
October 10, 2019
Investment Banks Want to Sell Research to Corporates but They Face a Changing Market
Investment banks provided a range of services to their buy-side clients, bundling a bunch of those services together (investment research included), and pocketing some tidy sums in commission fees. They certainly didn’t have to worry about selling sell-side research separately, much less look for new clients, like corporates – which is what they are doing now.
October 3, 2019
The Direct Listing Has Shaken Up Public Markets. What’s Next?
October 2, 2019
Brief TMT & Internet: Huaneng Renewables Targeted Amidst Clean Energy Privatisations and more
September 26, 2019
Digital Banking Licensees in Singapore Are Uniquely Placed for Regional Opportunity
September 19, 2019
UNIZO: At ¥4300+, RiskArb Odds Are NOT Ever In Your Favor and More
Unizo Holdings (3258 JP) has a bid from a White Knight. It got four of them – another of which was also at ¥4000/share, but Unizo chose Fortress.
September 16, 2019
Brief TMT & Internet: Cloudflare IPO Preview and More
CloudFlare (NET US) is expected to complete its IPO in the New York Stock Exchange in the next few weeks. Cloudflare provides websites protection from cyberattacks as well as services and software that speed up content delivery, and cloud-based networking.
September 12, 2019
What You Need to Know About Asset World, Potentially Thailand’s Biggest-Ever IPO
Most investors probably don’t get to learn much about IPOs in markets like Thailand, unless they have experience in the region or access to reliable sources of information. So when an IPO like Asset World Corporation (AWC) comes along, which is sure to attract interest from outside the country, it’s useful to have visibility on the ground.
August 29, 2019
More Demand for Regulation and Transparency in the Cards as MiFID II Heads towards 2020 and Beyond
More than a year into MiFID II’s lifespan, the market hasn’t really decided whether it welcomes or hates the directive. In some ways, it’s not hard to see why.Legislators envisioned MiFID II as a way to usher in more transparency in the investment industry, preventing practices like opaque trading and cryptic fee schemes.
August 22, 2019
WeWork’s Problematic IPO Has Analysts Seeing Red
WeWork, which moved one step closer to IPO last week, touts creativity and inspiration as part of the intangible value that supposedly makes the co-working company stand out from the crowd.It’s definitely providing some creativity and inspiration to analysts who are looking over the IPO. Some choice examples come from Insight Providers publishing on Smartkarma:“We cannot even fathom the contortions that would be necessary to articulate a path to profitability here,” writes Mio Kato in his quantamental analysis.
August 5, 2019
Shareholder Activism in M&A Is on the Rise. Here Are 5 Things Companies Must Keep in Mind
Echoing increasing shareholder activism worldwide, a rising trend in global markets this year has been activist campaigns with an M&A thesis. New campaigns in the first half of 2019 are fewer relative to the same period last year, according to a report by Lazard. But the financial advisory firm notes that close to half of those campaigns were M&A-driven, showing that activist investors guide such deals more and more.
July 18, 2019
Central Banks Around the World Go Dovish as Fed Signals Rate Cuts
As global recession concerns mount, Central Banks around the world are going the way of the dove. Their actions aim to bolster a faltering economy in their home turf and worldwide, much like they have done in the past. All eyes this month are on the US Federal Reserve, or Fed, which has all but confirmed it will cut rates at the end of this month.
July 11, 2019
What This Activist Investor Who Was Feared Throughout Japan Can Teach About Positive Change
Yoshiaki Murakami’s name used to strike fear in boardrooms throughout Japan – at least until a fall from grace in 2007. His reappearance and renaissance in recent years signifies a shift in how corporates are dealing with shareholder activists. A former government employee, Murakami decided to set up his own fund in 1999.
July 3, 2019
Self-reflection and Change from Within for the Investment Research Industry: the Real Impact of MiFID II
When the European Union enacted MiFID II, the aim was to increase transparency and accountability in an opaque, aging market. The theory was that larger investment banks would stop bundling research fees together with financial service charges. Investment research would be free of resulting conflicts, like Investment Bank A pushing positive research on company B because A is in business with B.
June 27, 2019
5 Takeaways from Slack’s Direct Listing
Slack is the latest tech hopeful foraying into the public markets through a direct listing. It comes hot on the heels of famous names like Uber and Lyft and not-so-famous like Crowdstrike and Chewy. Software companies command a huge part of the market’s interest, and Slack is no exception.
June 20, 2019
How Pension and Wealth Funds Redefine Shareholder Activism Worldwide
Shareholder activism can take many shapes. The concept is mostly associated with go-getter investors like Carl Icahn, storming into a company’s board demanding change or ousting ineffective CEOs.
