In this briefing:
- Asia’s External Balances Signal Safety for Investors
- Sharp MoM Decline In January Semi WFE Sales Casts A Spanner In Second Half Recovery Works.
- Smartkarma’s Week That Was in JP/KR: Aruhi, Rakuten-Lyft, Ecopro BM, & English Annual Reports
- Another US LNG Project Goes Ahead: Positive for the Contractors; Negative for Others Looking to FID
- Bank of Kyoto – Nintendo Sale A Portent of Changes To Come?
1. Asia’s External Balances Signal Safety for Investors
Asian currencies are, in general, well supported by economic fundamentals in the form of external surpluses and interest rate differentials. Indeed, most Asian currencies display an appreciating bias, contrary to perceptions in 2018 when all of them lost ground to the US dollar. Over the last year the underlying external strength has been reflected in Asian currency appreciation against the US dollar.
2. Sharp MoM Decline In January Semi WFE Sales Casts A Spanner In Second Half Recovery Works.
According to SEMI, North American (NA) WFE sales for January 2019 fell to $1.9 billion, down ~10% sequentially and ~20% YoY. This was an abrupt reversal of the recovery trend implied by the December 2018 sales of $2.1 billion and is the biggest monthly sales YoY decline since June 2013.
Just as declining monthly WFE sales preceded the current semiconductor downturn by some six months, the continuation of December’s MoM WFE decline reversal trend was a prerequisite for a second half recovery in the broader semiconductor sector. With that trend well and truly broken, we now anticipate a more delayed, gradual and prolonged recovery, one which is now unlikely to materialise until late third, early fourth quarter 2019.
3. Smartkarma’s Week That Was in JP/KR: Aruhi, Rakuten-Lyft, Ecopro BM, & English Annual Reports
KOSPI is up 9.4% and Nikkei is up 7.8% YTD. It has been an active first two months of 2019. Many stocks have retraced to the previous resistance levels in November/December 2018. In the past week, the following reports that are relevant for Japan and Korea have received a lot of interest among Smartkarma readers:
- Will Rakuten Get A Near-Term Lyft?
- Value-Enhancing 5G Spectrum Allocations on the Way for KDDI, DoCoMo, Softbank and Rakuten
- Aruhi Placement – Bigger than the IPO but Good Track Record and Price Performance Should Help
- Nintendo Offering & Buyback: The Import & The Dynamics
- Celltrion Healthcare: Well, We Were Warned
- DHICO (Doosan Heavy) Rights Offer: Conditions & Timetable
- A Trading Strategy for EcoproBM Post IPO
- Korean Stubs Spotlight: Close the Pair Trade Between BGF Co. & BGF Retail
4. Another US LNG Project Goes Ahead: Positive for the Contractors; Negative for Others Looking to FID
US private LNG company Venture Global is starting construction on its 10 million ton per annum (mtpa) US LNG export facility in Louisiana after gaining approval from the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). This is positive for the LNG contractor market and we discuss the companies involved in the project.
This follows final investment decision taken on Golden Pass (Exxon and Qatar Proceed with US$10bn Golden Pass LNG Terminal: Positive for Chiyoda and MDR US) and supports our thesis of a large wave of new projects that will be sanctioned in the coming months (A Huge Wave of New LNG Projects Coming in the Next 18 Months: Positive for The E&C Companies). This was viewed as a relatively speculative project and with aggressively low cost and timing estimates.
![](https://static-prod.smartkarma.com/images/media/000/079/969/original/cp-pipeline_illustration_1E-1.jpg?1551058066)
5. Bank of Kyoto – Nintendo Sale A Portent of Changes To Come?
On Friday 22 February after the close, Nintendo Co Ltd (7974 JP) announced a buyback (E, J), a share cancellation (E, J), and a public equity offering of secondary shares (J-only). This kind of event is not abnormal in a year when profits are weaker and share prices are down. Cross-holders often sell shares into the end of the year in order to realise profits and let unrealised gains from the balance sheet filter into the income statement.
This time it is five sellers from four banks which all hail from the area: Bank Of Kyoto (8369 JP), Nomura Trust (which holds shares in a trust account for the MUFJ Bank pension fund as a beneficiary), Mitsubishi Ufj Financial (8306 JP)‘s MUFJ Bank, Resona Holdings (8308 JP), and Shiga Bank (8366 JP). The MUFJ Bank holdings likely originate from Sanwa Bank which was Osaka-based before merging with BOT-Mitsubishi almost 15 years ago, and Resona is also from Osaka – next door to Kyoto where Nintendo was founded – and Shiga Bank is the prefecture next door.
This would look like a normal sell-down… except for one thing.
There was a note in the announcement to the effect that “in the context of how companies deal with their policy cross-holdings becoming the subject of greater focus, we confirmed that several shareholders desired to sell shares, and as a company subject to such cross-holdings, we are conducting the above-mentioned Offering.”
The “greater focus” comes from the both the change in the Japan Corporate Governance Code which was introduced last spring and went live June 1st (discussed in Japan’s Corporate Governance Code Amendments – A Much Bigger Stick for Activists and Stewards) which raised the bar for disclosure of reasons, and results, of such policy crossholdings in a revised version of Principle 1.4, and an example of how a board should make decisions and execute an unwind of corporate crossholdings. This example was given by Japan Exchange Group (8697 JP) itself regarding the TSE’s stake of 4.95% in Singapore Exchange (SGX SP) and was discussed in Japan Crossholdings: Japan Exchange’s Sale of SGX Shares Sets A Precedent – Watch Closely.
In the TSE crossholding of SGX situation, the sale was not the most important part. The explanation of how the Board came to its decision and what they decided to do about it was important.
On the other hand, Japan’s Corporate Governance Code (the Code), which was introduced in 2015, requires listed companies to examine and explain the economic rationale and future outlook of holding shares of other listed companies for reasons other than pure investment purposes. Following a review of the requirements under the Code, JPX reached the conclusion that the existing cooperative relationship with SGX would continue even without holding the shares of SGX. [my bold]
The Japan Exchange Group had now provided the example for why even companies with cooperative business relationships should not own cross-holdings. And it is, if active stewards of capital choose to make it so, more subtle. Shareholders have even an even better pressure point. IF a company’s cooperative relationship with another company would not survive the unwinding of cross-holdings to improve capital efficiency for both sides, is that company truly independent? Is that company beholden to the company whose shares it holds? Is the cross-holding board doing its job?
And the Japan Exchange Group had said it would unwind its holdings of SGX over three years, so as not to overly impact the market for SGX shares. This provided an example of HOW to unwind, in addition to the WHY to unwind announced above.
The BIG QUESTION (And Nothing Else Matters)
The big question here is whether the reasoning for selling is really because of the new focus on policy cross-holdings, or it is just Bank of Kyoto and other banks trying to top up profit before the end of the fiscal year, using heretofore unrealised gains.
The Nintendo-specific situation is discussed in Nintendo Offering & Buyback: The Import & The Dynamics.
An analysis of the Bank of Kyoto-specific situation is discussed below.
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