By John Foley
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Want a vivid picture of Chinese inequality? One day an auction in Hong Kong set a record price for an early Qing dynasty painted snuff bottle; the next day the government reclassified around 100 million people as living in poverty. The disconnect between China’s rich and the rest is becoming more visible. Signs of an economic slowdown could make the divergence unsustainable.

By John Foley
The author is a reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

By John Foley
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Western banks in Japan often complain that Nomura’s long-term dominance means they can’t get a look in. It turns out that works both ways. Tough markets have hit Nomura’s operations in the United States and Europe harder than most, driving the Japanese group to a $589 million loss in the third quarter. With far bigger rivals also set on shrinking, it is hard to see how Nomura’s global ambitions will survive.

By John Foley
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Temasek appears to have hit on an ingenious way of raising money cheaply. The Singaporean fund has sold S$650 million ($512 million) of bonds, exchangeable into Standard Chartered stock. If the emerging market lender’s shares rise more than 27 percent within three years, holders of the bond can convert at a profit. If not, bondholders get back exactly what they put in, with no interest. The wheeze may be a bit too clever.

HONG KONG – China’s annual GDP growth of 9.1 percent in the third quarter is still the envy of the developed world. But the lowest rate in two years shows that the era of double-digit increases is at an end. China can no longer rely on using economic growth to smooth over the damage from a financial system run amok.

Rio Tinto has taken a bold step into aluminum rehab. The mining giant plans to sell off roughly a third of its business in the metal, most of which was acquired in a disastrously expensive merger with Canada’s Alcan in July 2007. The timing of the purchase was undoubtedly terrible. Now is probably as good a time as ever to make some amends.

The price of aluminum halved within two years of Rio buying Alcan, and, unlike copper and iron ore, has not fully recovered. Aluminum is not in short supply. Also, producers without good long-term electricity contracts have to deal with a margin squeeze. Power prices are high and, economically, aluminum is more like condensed electricity than refined bauxite. Longer term, the metal’s profit potential is limited by the ability of China, the biggest consumer and producer of aluminum, to use its abundant cheap energy to pursue self-sufficiency.

By John Foley
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Richard Li’s third attempt to offload PCCW’s Hong Kong Telecom subsidiary is the most complex yet. After a failed sale to Macquarie, and a buyout that was blocked by local courts, the tycoon now proposes to spin off the unit into a trust structure, a Hong Kong first. Success would come at the cost of unnecessary complexity and potential dilution for PCCW’s minority shareholders.

By John Foley
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Shares without votes raise hackles. Consider the disquiet around Manchester United’s upcoming listing in Singapore, where new shareholders may be offered a package of vote-lite instruments that will entrench the Glazer family’s control. But while unorthodox, that’s not necessarily bad. Besides, investors are free to demand a discount, or boycott the IPO altogether.