Latest news with #domesticmarket
Bloomberg
12 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Namibia to Raise $122 Million to Refinance Eurobond Due October
Namibia plans to raise $122 million in the domestic market to refinance a portion of its $750 million eurobond due October and will use a sinking fund to retire the balance, its Finance Ministry said. With domestic liquidity at a record high and a projected $628 million in the sinking fund, the ministry stands by its decision to refinance the remaining portion by raising money in the local market or through other funding options, such as syndicated loans, it said in emailed responses to questions on Monday. 'We aim to raise $122 million' before the $750 million eurobond becomes due Oct. 29, it said.
Reuters
5 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Private refiners tap India's drivers as export markets tighten
NEW DELHI, June 6 (Reuters) - India's two major private-sector refiners, which have long prioritised exports, are turning to local sales, grabbing share in the country's fast-growing $150 billion fuel retail market as weaker global demand squeezes profit margins offshore. Reliance Industries ( opens new tab and Nayara Energy are stepping up sales at home as fuel demand growth slows in developed markets and China, the world's second biggest oil consumer, with the transition to electric vehicles. The lower demand offshore combined with supply competition from new refiners, such as Dangote in Nigeria, and rising exports from China's underutilised processors have compressed global refining margins and have made the Indian market, where suppliers save on freight and taxes, more attractive. As a result, "private refiners are increasingly looking to supply to the domestic market, which is still growing at a healthy pace," said Prashant Vasisht, senior vice president at credit rating firm ICRA. The International Energy Agency expects India will become the largest source, opens new tab of global oil demand growth out to 2030, in contrast with China, where fuel demand may have already peaked. FGE analyst Dylan Sim said Indian gasoline consumption and diesel demand are on track to grow around 4% and 2% per year, respectively, over the next decade or so. "Couple that with the market volatility and uncertainties seen in recent years, it makes sense for these private companies to try and diversify their businesses," Sim said. Offering discounts and growing their networks of big, modern stations featuring expansive retail offerings, private sector operators expanded their share of diesel sales to 11.5% and gasoline sales to 9.2% in the fiscal year that ended in March 2025, up from 5.2% and 6.7% respectively two years earlier, government data showed. Reliance, controlled by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, and Nayara have a key advantage that allows them to undercut the dominant state-owned refiners at the pump. They can run cheaper crudes through their plants than their bigger rivals, which have simpler, aging refineries. The two are the country's biggest buyers of discounted Russian crude, available since 2022. While the private refiners do not publish their refining margins, analysts at Jefferies expect Reliance's margin to hold around $2 a barrel stronger than the benchmark Singapore refining margin due to its blending of cheaper Russian and Canadian crudes. Reliance sells fuels through Jio-BP, its retailing tie-up with UK major BP (BP.L), opens new tab which has 1,916 outlets in India. Its domestic sales volumes of diesel rose by 35% and gasoline by 24% in the quarter ended in March from a year ago, Reliance told analysts in May, without specifying volumes. Jio-BP plans to invest about 10 billion rupees ($117 million) annually to expand its local footprint in coming years as it sees a "long pathway" and growth in diesel demand in India through at least 2040, Vinod Tahiliani, chief financial officer at Reliance BP Mobility, told Reuters. Jio-BP offers discounts of 1 rupee ($0.01) per litre of diesel and petrol off the price charged by state-owned retailers at its service stations. Nayara, whose biggest shareholder is Russia's Rosneft, in April reintroduced discounts of 2-3 rupees per litre on gasoline and 1 rupee per litre on diesel. Selling through more than 6,500 fuel stations, it aims to add 400 this year, according to its website. Nayara did not reply to a request for comment. State players Indian Oil Corp ( opens new tab, Hindustan Petroleum Corp ( opens new tab and Bharat Petroleum Corp ( opens new tab, which operate more than 90% of India's roughly 97,000 filling stations, have not cut pump prices as they seek to recoup losses on sales of cooking gas at government-fixed below-market rates, company sources say. The three did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment. India, meanwhile, is expanding its highway network and auctioning large roadside plots for building fuel stations featuring a host of amenities for motorists. Sukhmal Jain, who recently retired as head of marketing at BPCL, said state refiners are rapidly building their networks, including bidding for highway-side plots, and looking to offer services such as eateries, recreational areas and gym facilities in order to compete and boost sales. The state retailers are also opening stores under a common brand name Apna Ghar, which means "Own House", with amenities such as dormitories, barbers, self-cooking facilities, laundry, and doctors on call for truckers who are on the road for more than 20-25 days a month, Jain said. India's oil ministry said recently that Apna Ghar operates at 350 locations with 4,431 beds. S.P. Singh, who manages a fleet of about 800 trucks and 150 trailers for New Delhi-based Chaudhary Transport, said his drivers are drawn to the amenities and cheaper fuel at private operators. "They have convenience stores and cafes. Their staff is more responsive to customers and their toilets are clean," he said. ($1 = 85.7900 Indian rupees)
Forbes
17-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Why Small Cap Stocks Are Ready For A Rebound
Miles Lewis, manager of the Royce Small Cap Total Return Fund, makes the case that at a time of turbulence in the economy, his quirky collection of small companies is equipped to beat the big names. Miles Lewis by Alexander Karnyukhin for Forbes Tariffs. Inflation. Economic chaos. Bring it on, says Miles Lewis, manager of a portfolio of quirky stocks that, he says, are better equipped than the average stock to weather a tumultuous time in the U.S. economy. Recession? That should send shoppers for sporting goods out of high-class vendors to the down-market chain he favors. Rising interest rates? A steeper yield curve would benefit the venerable savings bank in which Lewis has a stake. Economic uncertainty? That will make it hard for municipalities to sell bonds, so they will be patronizing a bond insurer he likes. Lewis runs $1.5 billion, most of it in the Royce Small-Cap Total Return Fund. A story goes with each of the fund's 60 stocks, but there's also a big-picture bullish case. Small companies are more domestically oriented than the multinationals in the S&P 500. 'They're more insulated from retaliatory tariffs and deglobalization,' Lewis says. Another tailwind might come from the fact that stocks like the ones Lewis holds are overdue for a rebound. In the 16 years since the financial crisis, Wall Street's winners have been big growth companies. The money management firm created 53 years ago by Charles Royce is in the opposite corner of the market. The companies in Small-Cap Total Return average a market value a thousandfold smaller than that of Apple. They are cheap, too, trading at a collective 13 times trailing earnings, to 21 for the S&P (both calculations omit companies losing money). It would be better for Lewis if his stocks weren't quite so cheap. Like most of what's in the Royce line-up, his fund can, net of its 1.2% annual fee, boast of benchmark-beating returns since inception (for this fund, in 1993). But that's not good enough. When investors compare the results not to an index of small value stocks but to the S&P 500 they feel they are missing out. In every year of the past decade, Morningstar reports, Royce mutual funds have seen more assets depart than arrive. It's normal, Lewis says, for big stocks to enjoy a decade or so of outperformance, followed by a decade of reversal. But the current tilt to big growth is at a statistical extreme. Calculate this ratio: the collective value of the market's five most valuable companies (Microsoft, Apple, et cetera) to the collective value of the 2,000 companies in the Russell 2000. A decade ago that ratio hovered just above 1 to 1. Now it's just shy of 5 to 1. Perhaps this will be the year when the little stocks break the spell. A disruption in international trade can't be good for Apple, given its entanglement with China in both manufacturing and sales. It shouldn't bother UFP Industries, a Michigan firm and Lewis pick that makes pallets for domestic factories. Anti-American sentiment won't hurt International General Insurance Holdings. This obscure Jordanian company underwrites weird risks in weird places (recent claim: loss from cancellation of a rock concert in Venice after the lead singer inhaled smoke from a fire at a gig in Paris). International General is the fund's largest holding. There is a plausible story and, so far, some wishful thinking, behind Academy Sports & Outdoors. This retail chain is a poor man's Dick's Sporting Goods. Lewis figures that a weak economy and tariff-driven price increases at both companies will force shoppers to trade down. His position is underwater but he's hanging on. The case for this contrarian bet is all the stronger now that Academy's price-to-earnings multiple is half that of Dick's. Value investors prefer companies trading at low multiples of earnings or net worth. Alas, cheap stocks have flaws. Lewis holds Advance Auto Parts, which looks pathetic alongside AutoZone. They both may have to raise prices to cope with tariffs but they both will probably benefit as impecunious drivers keep clunkers on the road. AutoZone coins money. Advance is in the red. The flawed retailer is priced, in relation to revenue, at a tenth of AutoZone. Lewis describes it as 'a bad house on a great block.' Somebody will fix it up. The flaw at Hingham Institution for Savings, founded in 1834, is its outmoded business model of borrowing short (with deposits) and lending long (commercial mortgages). When the yield curve inverted two years ago, earnings tanked, the stock crashed and Lewis got in. He was willing to overlook the earnings blip. The family running this bank has boosted its book value per share 27-fold in 32 years. Assured Guaranty is in the business of backstopping disappointingly rated issues of municipal bonds that would otherwise have trouble finding buyers. Its flaw is a subpar return on equity, and Wall Street punishes the company with a share price 23% below book value. The insurer has turned that problem into a benefit by using its ample cash flow to repurchase stock at below book. 'It's a share cannibal,' Lewis says. Assured has, in the past decade, cut shares outstanding by 63% and increased book value per share by 152%. The bond insurance play takes Lewis full circle. After graduating from William & Mary College he went to work at MBIA, the biggest bond insurer at the time. His job, which took him back to his native New Orleans, was working out problems at municipal entities distressed by Hurricane Katrina. Soon enough MBIA was itself in distress. Its stock collapsed 97%. Lewis, now 46, escaped to get a business degree at Cornell and took a job researching small-company stocks for American Century, starting in Kansas City, Missouri. A winning record at that fund vendor landed him a job five years ago in Manhattan at Royce Investment Partners, now majority-owned by Franklin Templeton. (Founder Charles Royce, 85, stopped managing money but remains a kibitzer.) Besides the dry spell in small value stocks, Lewis and his colleagues have this to contend with: Index funds are now the rage. He concedes that passive investing is hard to beat in large-cap investing. How easy is it to outsmart the market on Apple, when 53 analysts cover it? But he is not willing to give any ground to indexers with a stock like Hingham, which has zero analyst coverage. Speaking for the remnants of active management in small cap, he says: 'We're the last man standing.'
South China Morning Post
16-05-2025
- Automotive
- South China Morning Post
China's bid to survive trade war, PL-15 missiles' first combat test: SCMP daily highlights
Catch up on some of SCMP's biggest China stories of the day. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing Beijing is doubling down on efforts to create a stronger domestic market, as it focuses on reducing China's vulnerability to external tariff shocks even amid a tentative ceasefire in the country's trade war with the United States. Two new car-carrying ships made in China, including one that can hold a record number of vehicles, embarked on their maiden voyages on Thursday, underscoring the scale of the country's vehicle export ambitions. US company Gravitics recently won a lucrative contract to provide a 'game-changer' for the US Space Force 'orbital carrier' vehicle, raising new concerns for the PLA. Photo: Gravitics China's military has warned that a plan by the US Space Force to deploy 'orbital carriers' will accelerate an arms race in space.
South China Morning Post
16-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
To survive the trade war, China aims to create a stronger domestic economy
Beijing is doubling down on efforts to create a stronger domestic market, as it focuses on reducing China's vulnerability to external tariff shocks even amid a tentative ceasefire in the country's trade war with the United States. Premier Li Qiang said on Thursday that China would continue to anchor its development strategy in bolstering 'domestic circulation' – a concept that refers to strengthening the country's economic self-reliance by creating a robust, unified domestic market – according to the state-run news agency Xinhua. The country should harness the economy's 'internal stability and long-term growth potential' to 'offset rising global uncertainties and keep China's development on a steady course', Li stressed at a State Council meeting chaired by Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang. But the confrontation with Washington appears to have added urgency to China's efforts to boost domestic demand and reduce the economy's dependence on overseas trade, analysts said. 'I think the government has realised China can no longer rely on exports as the dominant growth driver, given the current deglobalisation trend,' said Zhang Zhiwei, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.
