SoftBank Group shares fell sharply today as part of a broad regional sell-off in Asia that included Alibaba, the ecommerce company founded by Jack Ma, and Evergrande Real Estate Group, the world’s most indebted developer.
SoftBank’s shares fell for a seventh consecutive day to touch their lowest level since June 2020 as mounting problems at its portfolio companies, including Didi Chuxing, Arm and Alibaba, revived concerns over the Japanese technology conglomerate’s business model.
Investors said that last week’s announcement by Chinese ride-hailing company Didi that it had begun the process of delisting its shares from the New York Stock Exchange had been especially chilling.
Meanwhile, shares in Evergrande, which has liabilities of more than $300bn, fell to an 11-year low after the company on Friday said there was “no guarantee” it had enough money “to continue to perform its financial obligations”. It also said it would “actively engage” with the authorities to formulate a restructuring plan and that its chair had been summoned to a meeting with regulators.
The slide in Asian markets followed a lower close on Friday for US indices linked to a weaker than expected jobs report that added to declines across global markets since the discovery of the Omicron variant at the end of last month.
Thanks for reading FirstFT Americas. Here’s the rest of today’s news — Gordon
Five more stories in the news
1. Aung San Suu Kyi sentenced to 4 years in prison The deposed leader of Myanmar was sentenced to two years in prison for inciting dissent against the military and two years for violating the country’s disaster management law. The 76-year-old politician faces more than 10 criminal charges and has been allowed only limited legal access since her arrest on February 1.
US convinces allies of Russian threat to Ukraine EU and Nato allies have swung behind the Biden administration’s assessment that Russia may be poised to invade Ukraine following the unprecedented sharing of intelligence by Washington on Russian troop movements.
-
US also sounded the alarm about China: Lloyd Austin, US defence secretary, warned that China’s air incursions by fighter jets, bombers and other warplanes near Taiwan appeared to be rehearsals for military operations against the country.
3. ESA chief: Elon Musk ‘making the rules’ in space Josef Aschbacher, director-general of the European Space Agency, has urged the continent’s leaders to stop facilitating the Tesla chief’s ambition to dominate the space economy, warning that the lack of co-ordination meant the billionaire was “making the rules” himself.
4. Donald Trump’s social media start-up raises $1bn Trump Media and Technology Group said over the weekend that it had raised $1bn in private investment in public equity (Pipe) financing, but did not name any investors. In October, the former US president announced the launch of Truth Social and said it would list through a Spac merger in New York.
5. Eric Zemmour holds first big campaign rally Violence erupted yesterday as the anti-immigration polemicist addressed a crowd of more than 10,000 at the first big campaign rally of his presidential campaign. The event followed the selection of Valérie Pécresse by France’s centre right Les Républicains party on Saturday to stand in next year’s presidential election.
Coronavirus digest
-
Early signals about the severity of the Omicron variant are “encouraging”, according to Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to Joe Biden. Will the race to decipher the strain take days, weeks or months?
-
Merck has defended the safety profile of its Covid-19 antiviral pill and claimed a rival treatment developed by Pfizer would create problems for some patients taking drugs for other medical conditions.
-
Arrivals to the UK will need to show proof of a negative pre-departure test, regardless of their vaccination status, from 4am tomorrow.
-
After suffering one of the world’s worst Covid-19 disasters, Brazil is staging a turnround with a steep drop in deaths and a mass inoculation campaign that has brought the death rate per 100,000 residents below the US, EU and UK.
-
Pilita Clark: Don’t despair if Omicron wrecks your holiday plans. Vacations are wonderful but a few days off can be just as useful as a week
The day ahead
Outlook for markets Futures contracts tracking Wall Street’s S&P 500 added 0.5 per cent, suggesting a higher opening for the share index while those tracking the technology-focused Nasdaq 100 were flat.
Washington Congress returns and has a long to-do list to work through before Christmas, including approving a deal on an annual defence spending bill and considering Joe Biden’s $1.75tn Build Back Better package.
UK international trade secretary visits the US Anne-Marie Trevelyan, will hold talks with US trade representative Katherine Tai and commerce secretary Gina Raimondo in the coming days. They will discuss metal tariffs after the FT reported last week that Washington was linking the lifting of the tariffs with a dispute over post-Brexit trading rules in Northern Ireland.
Vladimir Putin in India Narendra Modi will host the Russian president for a one-to-one meeting on the sidelines of an annual Indo-Russian summit where 10 bilateral agreements will be signed. (Hindustan Times, Economic Times)
BuzzFeed’s Nasdaq debut The media company’s shares are set to start trading in New York even as investors in its special purpose acquisition vehicle have pulled 94 per cent of their money.
Centenary of the Anglo-Irish treaty The agreement, signed 100 years ago today, ended the war of independence and set out terms for the division of the island of Ireland. Learn about how it was done and its consequences in FT Weekend.
Sign up to receive the Week Ahead email every Sunday in your inbox for a preview of what’s coming up in global business, politics and economics.
What else we’re reading
Facebook’s fractious relationship with academia A growing number of researchers who are seeking to understand the potentially harmful social effects of Facebook say their work is being stifled, feeding a narrative that Meta operates on a growth-at-all-costs mentality.
China is faltering, but the world is not feeling the effects Beijing is locking down to contain the pandemic, and cracking down on economically critical sectors and high corporate debt with an aggression unmatched by any other government. This goes a long way to explain why China is slowing so fast now, when the rest of the world is not, argues Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s chief global strategist Ruchir Sharma.
How migration became a weapon in a ‘hybrid war’ Hostile governments are increasingly using displaced people to exploit Europe’s divisions over migrants, as officials struggle to respond to coercive tools aimed at political destabilisation, including cyber attacks and disinformation.
Life at the top is getting harder As conditions in both markets and the real economy get tougher, leadership of big public companies is becoming harder, and rising numbers of corporate leaders are leaving their jobs, writes Rana Foroohar.
-
Related: How do you speak to people whose jobs you don’t understand? This is one of the biggest challenges facing new managers, writes Michael Skapinker.
Robert Dole, Republican senator, 1923-2021 If anybody embodied the politics of Washington in the second half of the 20th century — the good, the bad and the ugly — then surely it was Robert Dole, the former Republican senator from Kansas, who died over the weekend at the age of 98.
Culture
Do we need another Diana, Princess of Wales film? Maybe we do, actually. On the FT Weekend podcast, Lilah Raptopoulos speaks with Spencer director Pablo Larraín, who our film critic calls “one of the most consistently interesting directors in cinema today”.