For luxury, all that glitters is gold
The year has certainly got off to a good start for luxury companies, with firms like LVMH, home to Louis Vuitton, reporting stellar results for the first quarter. No wonder – according to CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets analyst Aaron Fischer, resurgent emerging market consumers are fuelling a strong growth in the global luxury goods market. Growth in the sector was double its long-term average last year, Fischer says. He has updated his bullish 2011 report “Dipped in Gold” and is particularly optimistic on established brands, predicting global growth of 10% in 2012, slowing slightly from last year’s 14% rise:
However, we expect leading brands to continue to outperform, rising 15%, compared with the street’s estimate of 12%, which seems far too low.
We look for emerging market consumers, especially when travelling, to drive robust sector growth in the medium term, posting a 15% demand compound annual growth rate in the next 10 years.
That should take emerging markets’ share of global luxury demand to 73% by 2020, up from 50% at present, Fischer predicts, with China playing a leading role.
Already in European fashion capitals, and in favourite shopping destinations such as New York and Hong Kong, shoppers from emerging markets account for over 50% percent of luxury sales. And the home-grown brands that populate malls and department stores across China should gradually cede ground to big international players, Fischer says. What’s more these new consumers don’t seem too price sensitive — Fischer estimates that Chanel passed on 20% price increases to customers in 2011, without denting sales.
Luxury brands are also benefiting from the growing sophistication of consumers who aren’t content with knock-offs anymore. Between 2008 and 2011, the proportion of Chinese consumers interested in buying fakes fell by more than half to just 15%, a McKinsey survey found.
Fischer’s top stock picks include handbag maker Prada, which listed in Hong Kong last year. 33% of Prada and Gucci’s sales come from mainland China, according to the report. But he also likes some Chinese luxury brands, naming leading shoe retailer Belle, jeweller Chow Tai Fook and Greater China department store firm Lifestyle.
But how has the luxury sector proved so resilient during an economic downturn? Fischer tackles the Wall Street bonuses equal big watches and nice handbags myth by explaining that only around 5 percent of luxury sales come from the financial sector.
Home is where the heartache is…
On a recent trip home to Singapore, I was startled to learn just how much housing prices in the city-state have risen in my absence.
A cousin said he had recently paid over S$600,000 — about US$465,000 — for a yet-to-be-built 99-year-lease flat. Such numbers are hardly out of place in any major metropolis but this was for a state-subsidised three-bedroom apartment.
Soaring housing prices have fueled popular discontent — little wonder as median monthly household incomes have stagnated at around S$5,000.
For its part, the government — which houses 80 percent of people on the densely populated island — insists that public housing prices are shaped by ‘market forces’, pointing to a raft of financing schemes to help first-time buyers.
What’s less contentious is that Singapore is only part of a regional real estate boom that has driven property values by as much as 70 percent since the start of 2009 in cities such as Sydney, Hong Kong and Beijing.
Like Singapore, the government in China is acting to cool house prices that have skyrocketed in recent years out of the reach of a large swathe of its middle classes.
Chief among Beijing’s policy arsenal is social housing. The government is stepping up construction of public housing, targeting a rollout 36 million affordable homes from now until 2015. At the same time, clampdown on property speculation has also helped ease Chinese housing prices.
from MacroScope:
The thin line between love and hate
The opinion on Turkey’s unorthodox monetary policy mix is turning as rapidly as global growth forecasts are being revised down.
Earlier this month, its central bank was the object of much finger-wagging after it defied market fears over an overheating economy by cutting its policy rate. It defended the move, arguing that weaker global demand posed a greater risk than inflationary pressures.
Investors were not persuaded. When I told one analyst about the Turkish rate move, he practically sputtered down the phone: "You're not kidding?!"
The lira sold off, dropping to 2-1/2 year lows against the dollar.
But the central bank could yet be vindicated. With fears intensifying over weakening global demand, its decision to cut rates looks increasingly prescient. As my colleague Sujata Rao has pointed out, other emerging-market central banks have followed the Turks.
Witness Societe Generale’s head of emerging markets strategy Benoit Anne's mea cupla in a note issued just two weeks after Turkey's controversial rate decision:
"I guess I need to apologize to the Central Bank of Turkey which on many occasions had been the object of my sarcasm over the past few months: the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey is actually at the forefront of policy-making in the emerging-markets universe. And I bet some other central banks will follow suit with rate cuts in the pipeline."
from DealZone:
Wynn’s sure thing in China
Nobody ever got poor betting on Chinese demand for gambling, though the big players in Macau have seen a few busted flushes along the way. With more than a billion fatalists eager to hit the tables, and only one place to do it (Macau is China's only legal gambling venue), it's not hard to see the case that Wynn Macau and Las Vegas Sands are making for Hong Kong investors. It's the same story Hong Kong and Macau magnate Stanley Ho has made for decades.
Wynn Macau's $1.63 billion Hong Kong IPO, the sixth-largest in the world this year, was considered rich, despite the hype and that "sure thing" ring. After all, the colony is covered with half-finished projects and other remnants of the last time this too-good-to-be-true investment turned out to be what it was.
Wynn Macau shares ended 6 percent higher on Friday, valuing the casino giant at $6.9 billion. The solid debut bodes well for rival Las Vegas Sands, which plans to raise up to $2 billion in a Hong Kong offering for its Asia assets, most notably in Macau.
Macau gambling revenues hit a monthly high of $1.4 billion in August, a faster-than-expected recovery compared with Las Vegas, and revenues are believed to have been stronger still in September as China relaxed restrictions on its citizens crossing into Macau from Guangdong Province, reports Sui-Lee Wee.
Analysts say the IPO was perfectly priced and that the twin dangers of competition from other potential gambling hotspots in the region and the inscrutable winds of Beijing's political climate could turn the tables quickly on these investments. Place your bets.
