MINDANAO-BASED tech-startup Wela Online Corp. is eyeing to expand its market and diversify its products by 2021.
“‘Yung goal namin (Our goal) is to saturate the market first in the Philippines, then hopefully… two years from now, we can maybe expand to other Southeast Asian countries, and then that is the time we can diversify,” Wela Chief Technology Officer John Vincent Fiel said in an interview.
Established in 2016, Wela is a startup based in Cagayan de Oro. It is supported and funded by Ideaspace Foundation, Asian Institute of Management and Department of Science and Technology Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD). The company is an integrated school management system that streamlines data management, especially in terms of grading system and cashless payments, and connects parents to the school through its mobile application. It has partner schools mostly in Mindanao, and some in Luzon.
The company announced on Dec. 7 that it has teamed up with Japan-based technology firm Leave a Nest Co., Ltd. to improve both countries’ education system through better technology.
Leave a Nest is a group of researchers founded by a group of 15 graduate students from the field of Science and Engineering in 2001. Since 2017, it has been participating in enhancing the Philippines’ innovation community through its annual program Tech Planter, which looks for scientists, researchers, and businessmen in the field.
Leave a Nest will also bring the Wela team to Tokyo, Japan to look into schools there and come up with ways on how to improve how schools manage their operations.
“They offered an investment…but last year we were not open for an investment yet, so this year kami nag-continue sa (we pushed through with the) partnership. This time, to proceed with our partnership, next year march our team will be travelling to Tokyo, Japan,” he said.
“One of our objectives is to study the schools to see how we can help. We will also visit their partner companies, also, that are related to education technology. Basically, they help us, we help them also,” he explained.
With this partnership, Mr. Fiel said the company will be focusing on developing its products for schools while also considering to widen its reach to companies.
“Right now we are focused in schools, but we are looking at a possibility of integrating it to companies, so that could be another phase for us,” he said.
On extending its reach to other countries, he said Japan may be the first market it is entering to given the connection it was able to establish with Leave a Nest.
“We will see… From there we can probably assess kung anong (what) project or product we can provide to them,” he said. — Vincent Mariel P. Galang
DUBAI — Philippine participation in international trade fairs is usually the work of small businesses, touting banana chips and coconut oil for possible export. But participation in the world’s fair — a six-month international exhibition to showcase “the achievements of nations” — means a different kind of export: creativity.
“The pavilion also would feature the most comprehensive, unique representation of the Philippine creative industry. We’ve been pushing for creative industry more,” Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said at the media launch of the Dubai 2020 World Expo on Thursday.
The Philippines is spending an estimated P800 million on the construction, maintenance, promotion, events, and run of a pavilion showcasing Philippine creativity for the 192-nation expo in Dubai. The expo is expected to attract 25 million visitors.
“[The creative sector] is really an important competitive edge for Filipinos and the Philippines. This is one area where, without any effort from government, creative industry and services would account for one half of what the performance for goods export would be,” Mr. Lopez said.
The Trade chief noted that annual export for goods accounts for $65-70 billion.
“Without any help, the creative industry is making about $40 billion,” he said.
According to the Expo press materials, the Philippine pavilion will be presenting arts and design, architecture, animation, comics, gastronomy, music, photography, film, fashion, and advertising.
Curator Marian Pastor-Roces described sculptures, photographs, and designs that will be displayed in the pavilion, which would collectively tell the pre-colonial and modern story of Filipinos, as well as showcase the country’s natural beauty.
“We have put together the scientific data about the Philippines from archeology, linguistics, anthropology, a little bit of history… and present it to update the story of the Filipino,” she said.
Export promotion is not the main goal of the expo. Mr. Lopez said it is about “image-promotion,” which could also attract tourism and business investment.
The Philippines previously participated in World Expos in Shanghai in 2010 and Yeosu, South Korea in 2012. Mr. Lopez said that the country is returning to the World Expo next year as it is being held in the United Arab Emirates, where more than 700,000 Filipinos live and work.
“With 190-plus countries participating. It’s harder to explain if you’re not part of this. You really have to be part of this,” he said.
Ms. Pastor-Roces wants to use the pavilion as a means to show Philippine creativity to an international audience.
“We also want those people who are in the creative industries to know that they do belong in a global community of creative people,” she said.
The Department of Trade and Industry said that the Philippines aims to be a top creative economy in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in terms of size and value by 2030.
The policy recommendations in the department’s road map include declaring creativity as a national priority through an executive order, the creation of a creative economy agency, incentivizing the development of creative hubs, and promoting creative tourism.
The creative industry includes animation, film, advertising, game development, and graphic design, among many others.
Architect Royal L. Pineda, whose agency won the bid to design the pavilion, said that they used “practical luxury” in design. This means they focused on creative design while using cheaper materials and working with local UAE contractors and technologies.
Budji + Pineda Architecture + Design recently received an inquiry from the Solomon Islands to apply “practical luxury” design for their athletic stadium for the Pan-Pacific Games. After the agency presented the Philippine pavilion, South Africa asked the agency to present a design for their own pavilion.
Mr. Pineda hopes for more collaboration among Philippine creativity, culture, and nature with international technologies.
“We believe that anything that we need to do as people should really start with the mind. That’s why when we were asked to talk about sustainability, we talked about cultural sustainability,” he said.
SHANGHAI — A firm run by the daughter of Bruce Lee has sued a Chinese fast food restaurant chain for using the late kung fu star’s image in its logo without permission and is seeking over 210 million yuan ($30 million) in compensation, Chinese media outlet The Paper reported.
California-based Bruce Lee Enterprises, whose head is Shannon Lee, filed the case against the Real Kungfu chain in a Shanghai court on Dec. 25, requesting that the food firm stop using the image and pay an additional 88,000 yuan to cover legal expenses.
It also asked that the Guangzhou-based chain to issue clarifications for 90 days to say that it has nothing to do with Bruce Lee. Real Kungfu, which sells rice bowls with Chinese dishes, was founded in 1990 and has outlets in over 57 Chinese cities.
Its logo is of a man dressed in a yellow long-sleeved top whose looks and stance are similar to Bruce Lee and his famed “ready to strike” pose.
Real Kungfu on its Weibo account on Dec. 26 said it was “puzzled” by the lawsuit as it had used that logo for the last 15 years. It said that while there had been some issues in the past, its use of the logo was approved by national authorities.
The filing of the case comes as China has pledged to improve protection for intellectual property rights and apply stiffer penalties, one of the key topics in Beijing’s trade dispute with the United States. — Reuters
BITCOIN was slow to break through, but eventually became a top asset. — PIXABAY.COM
IF IN THE throes of this bull market’s earliest stages of recovery someone told you to forgo stocks, forget commodities, renounce fixed-income assets and buy an unknown digital token, the first of its kind, and watch it grow beyond your wildest dreams, you’d call them crazy, right?
Emerging out of the ashes of the financial crisis, Bitcoin was created as a bypass to the banks and government agencies mired in Wall Street’s greatest calamity in decades. At first, it was slow to break through, muddied by a slew of scandals: fraud, thefts and scams that turned away many and brought closer regulatory scrutiny. But once it burst into the mainstream, it proved to be the decade’s best-performing asset.
The largest digital token, trading around $7,200, has posted gains of more than 9,000,000% since July 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“Bitcoin really captured that wild technology enthusiasm that ‘this time is different,’” said Peter Atwater, the president of Financial Insyghts and an adjunct professor at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
The performance over the past 10 years, even with its huge run-up and subsequent mega-crash, leaves all others in the dust. It’s a massive windfall for those who HODL’ed through its ups and downs, even as it continues to provide fodder for get-rich-quick schemes. For some, the never-ending fantasy of continually hitting that payoff still helps to keep Bitcoin’s momentum going.
Nothing else comes even close to beating it. The S&P 500 merely tripled in that period. An index that tracks world markets has more than doubled. Gold is up 25%. Some of the best-performing stocks in the Russell 3000 — including Exact Sciences Corp. and Intelligent Systems Corp. — are each up about 3,000%. Those gains pale in comparison to the finance world’s latest — and one of its most controversial — marvels.
Partly, the monster return is a reflection of the calculus behind Bitcoin’s jumping-off point: the token wasn’t worth anything when someone named Satoshi Nakamoto launched it on Halloween 2008. Designed as a method of exchange that can be sent electronically between users around the world, it did not have a centralized control network. Bitcoin, instead, is run by a network of computers that keep track of all transactions on the blockchain ledger. For many, that technology was reason enough to buy into the idea.
On the other side of the equation are Bitcoin’s devoted enthusiasts who saw in its technology a promising way to change the global financial system.
“This is the first time that there’s a real separation — just like church and state — you have a separation of money and state,” said Alex Mashinsky, founder of Celsius Network, a crypto lending platform. “That’s the innovation, that’s the excitement.”
But Bitcoin was slow to take off, notching its first transaction two years after its creation, when someone used it to buy pizza. Since then, the first-born token’s price has catapulted, doubling many times over, and hundreds of imitators have cropped up — some with more success than others.
Many of those who got in early stayed faithful, watching as it made its way through a boom and bust cycle unrivaled by almost anything else over the last decade.
At the beginning of 2017, Bitcoin jumped above $1,000. By mid-summer, it had more than doubled. Insanity was unleashed. By yearend, it hovered above $14,000. But as swiftly as it ran up, it fell even faster. By the end of 2018, Bitcoin barely budged above $3,000. Yet shortly after its crash, it embarked on another huge rally, this time reaching as high as $13,800 in the summer of 2019.
“Certainly the numbers are what appeals to investors,” said David Tawil, president of ProChain Capital. “The next 10 years need to be a totally different stage of growth based on totally different factors than the first stage.”
As much as it’s made a fortune for speculators and some thieves, Bitcoin’s survival will rest on further adoption. It’s not being used as a widespread medium of exchange. A few large retailers are accepting payment in Bitcoin but it hasn’t been the large-scale embrace so many had predicted. Scams are still running rampant. Interest is waning and consolidation among large owners is at a higher level than it was during the height of the 2017 bubble, which means that their influence over prices could be increasing.
Projections for the next decade abound. In the 2020s, mass adoption is surely to take off, they say. Blockchain technology will revolutionize and solve every problem in the world. On the other hand, regulatory scrutiny is likely to intensify, with central bankers paying closer attention than ever before.
In the more immediate term, some speculators forecast 2020 might be less fraught with volatility given its upcoming halving, whereby the number of coins awarded to so-called miners who process transactions is cut by 50%. That’s set to happen in May 2020 (the internet is replete with countdown clocks). The coin’s previous cut, about four years ago, coincided with a run-up in its price, pushing many crypto evangelist to believe in a repeat.
To CoinList’s Andy Bromberg, the halving is already priced in. “Maybe it’s been overpriced in and everyone’s bought into this thesis and we see a dip post-halving,” said the firm’s co-founder and president in an interview. “That would not shock me.
But beyond this year, “Bitcoin is finding its own narrative as digital gold,” he said. “It feels like that narrative is picking up steam and it’s breaking away on its own. I would define success for most crypto assets as doing exactly that.” — Bloomberg
MOSCOW — Russia’s Federal Anti-monopoly Service (FAS) has opened an investigation into hotel reservation website Booking.com, the regulator said on Monday.
The FAS said that the company had asked hotels and hostels to offer the same prices on rival reservation websites as on Booking.com.
Booking.com did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
If found to be in breach of Russian anti-monopoly laws the company could face a fine of between 1% and 15% of its revenue generated in Russia.
The Russian investigation follows a case against the company in the European Union, where it last week committed to bring its practices in line with EU consumer law. — Reuters
THE Medical City (TMC) said it was on track to hit a record P6 billion in revenues for 2019 amid a shakeup in the company’s ownership and administration.
In a statement over the weekend, TMC said its main hospital has grown “four times faster than the previous administration” in 2019.
“The excellent results of our collective work in the past year show how empowered teamwork and focus can do wonders for our institution… The increased revenue is yet another sign that re-booting The Medical City has worked,” TMC Chief Executive Officer Eugenio Jose F. Ramos was quoted in the statement as saying.
TMC elected last year a new board of directors after it shifted its management to welcome investors led by Viva Healthcare Ltd.; Viva Holdings (Philippines) Pre. Ltd.; Felicitas Antoinette, Inc. and Fountel Corp.
Among the newly-appointed officials are Mr. Ramos, chairman Jose Xavier B. Gonzales and chairman emeritus Augusto P. Sarmiento.
“I was optimistic that we could, with better management, achieve the full potential of TMC. Seeing the results further gives us confidence that we are on the right track when it comes to not just financial performance but operational excellence across the network,” Mr. Gonzales said in the statement.
Aside from the main TMC branch in Pasig City, the company said its units in Clark, Iloilo, South Luzon and Pangasinan also showed robust growth last year, with revenues growing by an annual 8%.
“We are seeing revenues up more than 8% over the previous year for all our hospitals. Meanwhile, TMC Main’s increased focus on managing costs and driving productivity resulted in improved operating margins,” TMC Chief Financial Officer Michael Pineda said in the statement.
The Securities and Exchange Commission last year fined TMC’s majority shareholders at least P50.25 million for what it called a surreptitious takeover of the company. The camp of Mr. Gonzales has since appealed the case.
Aside from its five hospitals, TMC also operates a tertiary hospital in Guam and more than 50 clinics all over the Philippines. It employs 3,000 physicians and more than 7,000 support staff across its network. — Denise A. Valdez
FILIPINO restaurant Kuya J launched its first Kuya J Café on Dec. 16 at Park Square, Ayala Center in Makati City.
“Kuya J Café offers the best of both worlds,” Francis Reyes, chief financial officer of Kuya J Group, was quoted as saying in a press release. “Aside from specially brewed coffee and delicious pastries, we also serve the well-loved Kuya J signature dishes. It is a place where you can either sit back and take a sip of your go-to comfort drink or enjoy a sumptuous dinner with your family.”
Kuya J Café serves own coffee blends and brews. Aside from the House Blend it also has sago’t gulaman coffee and tablea coffee for a chocolatey kick.
Its menu includes items like guava cake, tablea cake, and salted egg cheesecake.
It also offers single servings of Kuya J’s best-sellers, like grilled scallops, beef caldereta, and Chorizo Dinamitas to name a few.
Kuya J started out as a streetside eatery in Cebu before expanding across the country. According to its website, it currently has 108 branches nationwide.
For more information, visit https://www.kuyaj.ph/, or follow Kuya J on its Facebook and Instagram accounts.
JAKARTA — Indonesia plans to impose fixed fees on some e-wallet transactions, five people familiar with the matter said, in a move that could choke a key revenue stream and raise costs for payment start-ups backed by the likes of Alibaba’s Ant Financial.
Providers of e-wallet services in Southeast Asia’s largest economy currently customize fees for vendors, charging a premium from big retailers and absorbing costs for smaller merchants in an effort to get them to use their platforms.
But Bank Indonesia has already held talks with the biggest digital-payment start-ups to make fees on QR code transactions uniform, the people said, building on its move in August to standardize electronic payments that use the matrix barcode.
Bank Indonesia did not respond to repeated messages and calls requesting comment.
Leading the pack of e-wallet firms in the country is home-grown ride-hailing start-up Gojek, backed by firms including Alphabet’s Google, and start-up OVO, in which Gojek rival Grab has a stake. Ant Financial’s e-wallet DANA trails them, along with state-owned payments platform LinkAja.
The central bank wants to fix some e-wallet transaction fees at 0.7%, the people added, a move that could deter smaller merchants that now pay next to nothing from staying on the e-wallet network or force the latter to increase incentives.
Fixed fees on payments at bigger vendors, like Starbucks, that are currently charged as much as 2%, would also dent revenue for the e-wallet firms, the people said.
The start-ups have already burned through millions of dollars in incentives to lure vendors in Indonesia, where a multibillion-dollar digital payments industry has flourished as over half its nearly 270 million population have no bank accounts.
The country’s internet economy was $40 billion this year and is expected to grow more than three fold by 2025, according to a report here by Google, Temasek and Bain & Co.
‘HURT ALL’
Bank Indonesia is yet to decide on fees on transactions made at bigger vendors, the people said, with one person close to the talks adding it could also be fixed at 0.7%.
A big retailer is typically charged between 0.5% to 2%, one of the people said. As a benchmark, Visa and Mastercard charge around 2% to 3%.
“This will hurt all of us,” said an executive at an Indonesian e-wallet firm, who was not authorized to speak to media and did not want to be named.
The fee earned on e-wallet transactions would have to be split three ways under the new system, sources said: between the e-wallet companies, middle-men payment processors, and the National Electronic Transaction Settlement — a consortium of major Indonesian lenders. Until now e-wallet firms either kept the whole fee or split with some payment processors, and no lenders were involved.
Representatives for DANA, GoJek and Ovo did not comment on the uniform rate proposal, but said Indonesia’s move to standardize the QR network was good for the industry. — Reuters
MICROSOFT Corp. said on Monday it has taken control of web domains which were used by a hacking group called “Thallium” to steal information.
Thallium is believed to be operating from North Korea, Microsoft said in a blog post, and the hackers targeted government employees, think tanks, university staff members and individuals working on nuclear proliferation issues, among others.
Most of the targets were based in the United States, as well as Japan and South Korea, the company said.
Thallium tricked victims through a technique known as “spear phishing,” using credible-looking emails that appear legitimate at first glance.
Microsoft said it now has control of 50 web domains used by the group to conduct its operations, following a case filed against the hacking group in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and a subsequent court order.
Thallium also used malware to compromise systems and steal data, and is the fourth nation-state group against which Microsoft has taken legal action, the company said. — Reuters
POLICY UNCERTAINTY surrounding the property sector led some market players to take profits on Ayala Land, Inc. (ALI) stocks last week.
ALI was the third most actively traded stock with a total of 24.119 million shares worth P1.113 billion having exchanged hands on the trading floor during the three-day trading week from Dec. 23 to 27, data from the Philippine Stock Exchange showed.
On a week-on-week basis, its share price was lower by 1.09% to P45.5 on Friday from its Dec. 20’s closing price of P46 apiece. Year to date, however, ALI is up 10.17%.
“I think this recent decline not just of ALI, but also for the property sector, is geared towards profit-taking since this sector had a stellar performance, beating all other indices including the PSEi (Philippine Stock Exchange index),” Philstocks Financial, Inc. Client Engagement Officer and Research Associate Piper Chaucer E. Tan said in an e-mail.
Mr. Tan added that the decline may also be attributed to uncertainty over the government policy for Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO) and the Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Rationalization Act (CITIRA), which “may slow down” the expansion of the information technology-business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) sector in terms of office space take-up.
However, he noted ALI’s resilience as shown in the stock’s double-digit, year-to-date growth, with some investors taking positions towards next year.
In a separate e-mail, Unicapital Securities, Inc. Technical Analyst Cristopher Adrian T. San Pedro said the “lingering political uncertainties” on the crackdown of POGOs may be affecting the investors’ sentiment to become “bearish” on property stocks including ALI as these developers are “heavily exposed” to Chinese tenants.
“[The] news on the Sagada development could also be an underlying factor on ALI…,” Mr. San Pedro added.
In a statement last Dec. 23, ALI denied newspaper reports it is developing a tourism project in Sagada, Mountain Province.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) stopped issuing new licenses to POGOs starting in August due to national security and economic concerns.
PAGCOR Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer Andrea D. Domingo said the suspension would also prevent the country from being the “catch basin” of fleeing operators after the ban on online gaming in Cambodia.
Moreover, the Finance department has ordered the Bureau of Internal Revenue to close down online gaming operators that have failed to pay taxes.
The House ways and means committee earlier approved a bill that seeks to impose a 5% tax on offshore gaming companies which will replace a 2% gross revenue tax on PAGCOR licensees. The bill also increases the tax on foreign POGO employees’ salaries and allowances to 25% from 15%.
Albay Rep. Jose Ma. Clemente S. Salceda, chairman of the House ways and means committee, told reporters before the holidays that the reform on taxing POGO operations was one of the committee’s priorities.
Meanwhile, CITIRA, which aims to gradually reduce corporate income tax to 20% by 2029 from the current 30% and remove fiscal incentives deemed redundant, is still pending at the Senate.
Despite these uncertainties, Philstocks’ Mr. Tan said ALI’s growth trajectory is still “sustainable” in 2020 and even the next 10 years as it continues to expand in regions outside Metro Manila, noting the strong demand for ALI properties across market segments as shown by its “strong double-digit” earnings growth.
For the nine month period, ALI reported an 11.75% rise in attributable profit to P23.210 billion.
”We expect ALI to hit P40 billion in net income for 2020 to be driven by steady revenues from malls, offices, hotels, and real estate projects,” said Unicapital Securities’ Mr. San Pedro.
Moving forward, Mr. San Pedro expects ALI’s stock support and resistance levels in the short term to range between P44 and P50, respectively.
“I expect the stock to become a potential trend reversal candidate and retest P50 and P54 resistance levels this first quarter of 2020, if it stays above P45,” Mr. San Pedro added.
For Philstocks’ Mr. Tan: “The primary and secondary support is seen at P42 and P40. Consequently, the primary and secondary resistance is at P48.50 and P50, respectively.”
“Based on the historical performance of the sector indices, all sectors posted gains at the start of the year. We think that ALI will also start 2020 strong in its first trading week given this support and resistance ranges,” he added. — Marissa Mae M. Ramos
I AM VERY grateful to have this regular column to cover my wine experiences (with occasional spirits, beers, and other alcoholic beverages too), my wine thoughts, and my travels, and 2019 was as exciting of a year as I ever had.
In the last year, I had a chance to return to Bordeaux after close to a decade of absence. I also continued my wine education on my 4th trip to the Piedmont region of Italy since 2013 — attending my 3rd Nebbiolo Prima in the picturesque town of Alba. The wine business in the Philippines is also on the upswing, with official import volume of wines (as our country really does not have the weather and four seasons to grow Vitis Vinifera grapes to make decent wines) close to doubling since 2010. This will be my first year-end review since 2014.
THE GRAND CRU BORDEAUX TOUR
A huge shout out to Yann Schyler and Charles Delamalle of Schroder & Schyler for arranging my incredible and dreamy itinerary last February. Among the renowned Grand Cru chateaux I fortunately visited early last year, were Chateau Margaux (Grand Cru Classe 1st growth), Chateau Leoville Las Cases (Grand Cru 2nd growth), Chateau Cos Estournel (Grand Cru 2nd growth), Chateau Cheval Blanc (Premier Grand Cru Classe A St.-Emilion), Chateau Angelus (Premier Grand Cru Classe A St.-Emilion), Chateau Kirwan (Grand Cru 3rd growth), Chateau Lagrange (Grand Cru 3rd growth), Chateau Palmer (Grand Cru 4th growth) and Chateau Fleur Cardinale (Grand Cru Classe St.-Emilion). This Bordeaux experience included tastings of wines from current vintage releases to as old as the 1945 vintage of Chateau Leoville Las Cases. The biggest takeaway from the visit is that Bordeaux wines, in particular the Grand Cru Classe wines, are thriving on amazing recent vintages with 2014, 2015, and 2016 all ranging in quality from superior to exceptional.
I learned so much on the trip talking to oenologist, winemakers, and even owners on the peculiarity of each vintage and the signature style of the individual chateaux. No books nor YouTube videos can substitute for the experiential aspect of being with the people of a chateau and drinking their wines in the comfort of their cellar. I will, however, continue to try to communicate these experiences as vividly as I can to my readers.
NEBBIOLO QUALITY SHINES ANEW
For a self-confessed Nebbioloholic (a phrase I coined for a Nebbiolo grape varietal wine fanatic…), the Nebbiolo Prima, which is an annual event previewing 100% Nebbiolo grape-made DOCG wines from Barolo, Barbaresco, and Roero regions, has always been a hedonistic endeavor. From Jan. 23 to 27 in 2019, I was back in Alba, Piedmont to join around 50 wine journalists from 25 countries, representing Europe, North America, South America, and Asia. I happened to be the lone participant from Southeast Asia. Being previewed were the DOCG wines of the Roero 2106 vintage, the Roero Riserva 2015 vintage, the Barbaresco 2016 vintage, the Barbaresco Riserva 2014 vintage, the Barolo 2015 vintage, and the Barolo Riserva 2013 vintage. Two noteworthy vintages were the 2015 Barolos and the 2016 Barbarescos. The 2015 vintage of Barolo is absolutely my favorite, not only among the previous Barolo vintages I previewed, but also from a few I tasted after their commercial release.
Even though 2015 started quite rough, as the Langhe in Piedmont experienced its hottest July since 1880, some positive fortuitous circumstances on weather did save the vines and helped push up the quality of the 2015. It was the windy conditions of July and August that gave the vines much needed relief from the heat. The higher sloped Barolo region benefited more from the winds in aiding the proper ripening of Nebbiolo. The wet winter at the start of the year with plenty of reservoir water also came in handy in combating the dry and hot summer. Nebbiolo was harvested during the last week of September, with yields from vineyards falling by as much as double digit percentages from normal yields. However, the concentrated quality from the low yield made the difference at the end, and it was reflected in my blind tasting of the 2015 Barolos.
The 2016 Barbarescos were equally impressive. That year, 2016, had some genuine vine growing concerns because of low temperatures or the “late cold” that caused some delay in the start of the vegetative cycle of the vines. But the low temperature and the subsequent rains provided the soil with the right amount of water for the physiological development of the Nebbiolo. There was also the high temperatures in August and September that helped immensely in developing the phenolic components of Nebbiolo. These 2016 Barbarescos are therefore well balanced, with good acid structure, lovely nose, and of great structure, but have slightly lower alcohol content. My full review of the specific Barolo 2015 and Barbaresco 2016 brands is available in my column online.
SOMETHING NEW TO DISCOVER
Last year I got a better introduction to wines from Thailand care of GranMonte and its winemaker and owner family member Visootha Lohitnavy. I was able to interview Visootha about the wine and vineyard scene in Thailand during a Thai-themed wine dinner at the Dusit Thani Hotel Makati.
I also got a chance to reacquaint myself with Greek wines, particularly the varietals Xinomavro and Assyrtiko because of the presence of Greek wineries Domaine Sigalas and Kir-Yianni during the 19th Grand Wine Experience.
And most recently, at a wine event in Singapore, I came across relatively unknown Italian varietals that could really get interesting in the near future — these are red varietals Nero d’Avola and Susmaniello, and white varietals Passerina and Fiano Minutolo
The only bummer in the past year was the constant threat of higher tax on wines. It never actually materialized, but it is, sadly, expected to happen in early 2020. I have been told of the final upward tax adjustment on wines in the Senate version, which will most likely be the one ratified into law.
For now, let us enjoy our wine in peace. Happy New Year to all!
Erratum: as pointed out by reader Arnold Oliva, in my last column on Prosecco I clumsily wrote that Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions are from northwest Italy, when these wine regions are in fact from NORTHEAST of Italy. Thank you Arnold for the correction.
The author is a member of the UK-based Circle of Wine Writers (CWW). For comments, inquiries, wine event coverage, wine consultancy and other wine related concerns, please e-mail him at protegeinc@yahoo.com.
JPMORGAN Chase & Co. wants 100% ownership of its China futures joint venture. — REUTERS
JPMORGAN CHASE & Co. is seeking 100% ownership of its futures joint venture in China, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, making it the first global bank to take advantage of the opening of the nation’s futures market, where transactions topped $30 trillion in 2018.
The US bank plans to raise its current 49% stake in JPMorgan Futures Co., said the person, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. The onshore venture has applied for a major shareholding change involving more than a 5% stake, according to a Dec. 25 filing to the China Securities Regulatory Commission, which didn’t give additional details.
JPMorgan declined to comment on the shareholding change plan.
Starting with its futures and insurance markets, China will enact the most sweeping changes in decades from early next year to allow the likes of JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. and BlackRock, Inc. to expand their footprint in China and compete for a slice of its growing wealth. Global firms may plow 7 trillion yuan ($1 trillion) to 8 trillion yuan of assets onshore in the next few years, Huang Qifan, vice-president at China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said last month.
Overseas companies currently have a tiny presence in China’s futures market which is dominated by nearly 150 local players. JPMorgan set up its joint venture in 2007 while UBS Group AG controls a futures subsidiary through its onshore securities outfit.
JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has said that his firm is committed to bringing its “full force” to China. The New York-based firm last year became the first US bank to receive Chinese approval to take majority ownership of a securities joint venture. — Bloomberg
