Bloomberg BusinessWeek, May 30, 2016

choi

(1) Jiyeun Lee, Layoffs Come to Korea's Shipyards.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/ar ... orate-revamp-starts

Quote:

(a) "the shipbuilding industry—the source of about 8 percent of the country's exports last year—is bracing for especially deep layoffs. Many of the layoffs will come in industrial hubs along the southeast coast, where shipyards and ports dominate the landscape. These heavy industries helped propel South Korea's growth in previous decades but have been battered more recently by a slowdown in global growth, overcapacity, and rising competition from China.

"About 205,000 workers  were employed in Korea's shipbuilding industry as of the end of 2014, according to the Korea Offshore & Shipbuilding Association. Lee Mi Seon, an analyst with Hana Financial Investment, wrote in a report that an estimated 10 percent to 15 percent of those  workers will lose their jobs.

(b) "The worst may be yet to come. The  value of new orders at Korea's ship- builders fell 94 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, and it's forecast to fall 85 percent for all of 2016, says the Export-Import Bank of Korea. The slide suggests companies will no longer be able to hold on to employees once current projects end.

Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: Slower growth, fewer orders, and rivalry with China have an impact
(b) The Bloomberg report (which the URL leads to) is heavily edited (to make it about two thirds shorter) by BusinessWeek. The quotation is from print of the latter.
(c) The Bloomberg (online) report does say something that is significant but does not appear in the BusinessWeek:

"Similar problems face China, whose companies compete with Korea in the global market. China has continued lending to keep its corporate sector growing but the expansion of credit has reached record levels.

(d) There is no need to read the rest of the text of either Bloomberg or BusinessWeek, which does not say anything important.

choi

(2) Kae Inoue and Ma Jie, Le Cost Killer.

the 1 1/2 paragraph: "When Carlos Ghosn was brought in to rescue loss-ridden Renault in 1996, it took him only a year to turn the French carmaker around. The 20 billion French francs of expense cuts he imposed earned him the nick-name Le Cost Killer. Three years later, Ghosn was sent to revive Renault partner Nissan Motor, which had  been unprofitable in seven of the previous eight years and was the most indebted carmaker in the world. By fiscal 2003 it had become the globe's most profitable major automaker. His revival of Nissan remains one of the industry's extraordinary success stories.

"Now he's being called in to play superhero again, as part of Nissan's agreement in May to pay $2.2 billion for a controlling stake in Mitsubishi Motors, which saw its shares plunge 40 percent after a scandal [forging exhaust data] broke in April.

Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: Carlos Ghosn, the auto industry's superhero, is trying to save Mitsubishi Motors
(b) There is no need to read the rest. I do not know whether Mr Ghosen will succeed this time, and would rather wait and see.

choi

(3) Disney's New Cultural Revolution.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/fe ... nghai-to-show-tunes
(For Disney "managing an epic, yearlong casting call for the 1,000 performers for marquee musicals such as The Lion King and all manner of other acts that make the Magic Kingdom such a powerful draw has proved more challenging [in China]. Performance arts training on the mainland tends toward classical Chinese forms in major urban areas, and is pretty much nonexistent everywhere else. In the US, there's a surplus of people who can act, sing, dance, or do all three. In China, the relatively few performers who've studied Western musical forms are more likely to have studied operatic bel canto pieces than belt-it-out Broadway tunes")

Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: At its Shanghai park, it's pushing a novel art form: Musical theater
(b) bel canto (n; Italian, literally, beautiful singing)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bel%20canto


(4) Jennifer Kaplan, The Hot Business of Cold Coffee.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/ar ... eryone-is-piling-in

Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: Companies are betting big on canned and bottled java
(b) Again BusinessWeek heavily edited the report epitomised by the URL. I do not drink coffee, o I am not interest in the report anyway, whose title tells you the trend nonetheless.