Exxon Faces Historic Writedown After Energy Markets Implode

Kevin Crowley
Tue, December 1, 2020


(Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp. is about to incur the biggest writedown in its modern history as the giant U.S. oil and gas producer reels from this year’s collapse in energy prices.

Exxon -- traditionally far more reluctant to cut the book value of its business than other oil majors -- on Monday disclosed it will write down North and South American natural gas fields by $17 billion to $20 billion. That could make it the industry’s steepest impairment since BP Plc’s 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill that killed 11 workers and fouled the sea for months. Meanwhile, capital spending will be drastically reduced through 2025.

The announcement comes in the waning days of a grueling year for Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods, who’s resorted to laying off thousands of employees, curtailing retirement benefits and canceling ambitious growth projects. The former refinery manager, who stepped in to the top job in 2017, has been forced to recast his seven-year, $210 billion blueprint for rejuvenating Exxon’s aging portfolio of crude and gas holdings.


In addition to dropping vast swaths of gas assets from the development queue, Woods is capping capital spending at $25 billion a year through 2025, a $10 billion reduction from his pre-pandemic target.

This year has been particularly bruising for America’s most-iconic oil explorer. Exxon lost money for three consecutive quarters, an unprecedented streak, the shares dipped to an 18-year low and the company was ejected from the bosom of blue-chip stocks, the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Woods also plans to cut 15% of the company’s workforce by the end of next year.

From being the largest company in the S&P 500 Index as recently as 2012, Exxon now ranks just inside the top 50 as energy lost its luster and technology giants grew. Chevron Corp. now has a larger market valuation than Exxon.

No Pivot

Unlike its European peers, Exxon has so far chosen to stick with its $15 billion-a-year dividend and has increased borrowing in recent months to fund it and its other capital priorities. On an annualized basis, the dividend has been increased each year for almost four decades.

Optimism that vaccines will soon restore global economic growth buoyed crude prices in recent weeks but the impact of the contagion on Big Oil is likely to be longlasting. With European giants Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP accelerating the pivot to renewables and Exxon locking in drastic spending cuts, capital flows into big, traditional developments are expected to shrink in coming years.

Cowen & Co. analyst Jason Gabelman detected a subtle shift in Exxon’s word choices that may herald a dramatic change in financial priorities. Whereas company executives touted Exxon’s “reliable and growing dividend” during the third-quarter earnings conference call, Monday’s statement only mentioned reliability, the analyst said in a note to clients.

‘High-Grading’

“Continued emphasis on high-grading the asset base -- through exploration, divestment and prioritization of advantaged development opportunities -- will improve earnings power and cash generation, and rebuild balance sheet capacity,” Woods said in the statement.

Exxon has been warning shareholders since October that its gas assets were at risk of significant impairment. Previously, the energy titan’s largest writedown was for about $3.4 billion in 2016, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

Assets removed from Exxon’s development plans include so-called dry gas resources in Appalachia and the Rocky Mountains, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, as well as western Canada and Argentina, the company said. It will attempt to sell “less strategic” assets.

The writedown stems from former CEO Rex Tillerson’s decision a decade ago to buy XTO Energy for $35 billion rather than spend years building an in-house shale business. At the time, the outlook for North American gas prices was bright because demand was rising faster than supply.

Supply Glut

Instead, fracking was a victim of its own success, unleashing so much gas that it overwhelmed demand and the infrastructure needed to handle it, resulting in a prolonged stretch of depressed prices.

U.S. rival Chevron recorded an impairment of more than $5 billion on Appalachian gas a year ago, and recently agreed to sell those fields to EQT Corp. for about $735 million.

(Updates to recast lead paragraph)

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CRISIS OF OVERPRODUCTION

Posthaste: Imperial Oil's massive write-off suggests the era of stranded Canadian assets is already here

© Provided by Financial Post Is oil turning into a sunset industry?

Yadullah Hussain 

Good morning!

Imperial Oil just became the most high-profile Canadian oil producer to give up on some of its fossil fuel assets in Alberta.

“Imperial has re-assessed the long-term development plans of its unconventional portfolio in Alberta, Canada and no longer plans to develop a significant portion of this portfolio,” the company said in a statement after markets closed on Monday.

The company said would take an impairment charge of about $900 million to $1.2 billion in the latest quarter.

“These non-core assets are non-producing, undeveloped assets and the company does not expect any material future cash expenditures related to this impairment. Not included in this impairment are the high-value, liquids-rich portion of the company’s unconventional asset portfolio, which the company still plans to develop,” the company said.

The decision comes after France’s Total SE took an US$8 billion impairment earlier this year on the value of its assets, mostly in Canadian oilsands projects. Earlier this year, oil majors BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc had also written off the value of some of their global assets that were no longer feasible to produce.

The moves suggest Canadian fears of stranded oil and gas assets are already coming to pass.

The decision is also significant as, unlike many European oil majors, that had already divested from, scrapped or written down the value of, a number of their carbon-intensive assets, Imperial Oil and its parent company Exxon Mobil Corp. had been steadfast to date, believing their oil assets had a long runway rooms.

But the mighty are now yielding ground.

Yesterday, Exxon said it would write down the value of its natural gas properties by $17 billion to $20 billion, its biggest ever impairment, and slashed project spending next year to its lowest level in 15 years.

In another signal that the fossil fuel industry may be turning into a long-sunset industry, Bank of Montreal pledged to exit “non-Canadian investment and corporate banking energy business.”

Rystad Energy expects global oil and gas producers to invest around US$380 billion next year, almost flat year-on-year, but warns that about 20 per cent could be at risk of deferral or reduction, and most of the investments will be focused on safer tiers of low and medium-range (read less carbon-intensive) risk.

Exploration and production players are pulling multiple levers to weather the market downturn, such as deferring infill drilling programs, delaying final investment destinations and start-ups, reporting significant write-offs on stranded assets, and reshaping their portfolios to stabilize returns.

“As E&Ps are also speeding up a transition into low-carbon energy, it is possible that this time, too, upstream investments will not return to pre-crisis levels in the long-term, even if they do recover somewhat over the next few years,“ says Olga Savenkova, upstream analyst at Rystad Energy.

In a note earlier this year Angus Rodger, a director with Wood Mackenzie’s upstream research, noted that a few years ago the oil industry wouldn’t even countenance ideas of climate risk, peak demand, stranded assets and liquidation business models.

“Today, companies are building strategies around these ideas. Demand might still grow from here, and many companies are still chasing a share of that growth, Rodger wrote in a note to clients. “But make no mistake, the corporate landscape is changing, and the majors are changing with it.”

UPDATE
India farmers protests: Thousands swarm Delhi against deregulation rules
By Julia Hollingsworth, Swati Gupta and Esha Mitra CNN

Tens of thousands of farmers have swarmed India's capital where they intend to camp out for weeks to protest new agricultural laws that they say could destroy their livelihoods.

© Biplov Bhuyan/Hindustan Times/Shutterstock 

Farmers congregate during day five of the protest against the new farm reform laws at Singhu border on November 30, 2020 in New Delhi, India.

Farmers from the nearby states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh began arriving by tractors and on foot at the outskirts of New Delhi last week, where they blocked roads and set up makeshift camps, according to protest leaders. Some slept on the road or in their tractors, and several places of worship offered protesters food.

Police attempted to block demonstrators from entering the city. They fired tear gas and water cannons Thursday and Friday after protesters pelted police officers with stones and damaged public property, according to Manoj Yadav, a senior police official from Haryana.

The farmers are protesting laws passed in September, which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi says will give farmers more autonomy to set their own prices and sell directly to private businesses, such as supermarket chains.

But the move has infuriated India's farmers, who say that the new rules will leave them worse off by making it easier for corporates to exploit agricultural workers who make up more than half of India's 480 million-strong workforce, according to India's most recent Census in 2011.

According to Ashutosh Mishra, the media coordinator of protest organizer All India Kisan Sangharsh Committee, which represents around 200 farming unions, tens of thousands of demonstrators have gathered at each of New Delhi's three borders -- a line of protesters at one of the borders stretches for 30 kilometers (19 miles), he said.

Police have put up barriers and dug up roads to prevent protesters from coming into the city center to hold sit-ins. Mishra expects more farmers from around the country to join the protests in the coming days.

That's despite New Delhi being a hotspot for Covid-19 in a country that has already reported more than 9.4 million reported cases, the most in any country bar the United States.

"We are trying to be weary of Covid but we don't have an option -- it is a question of life and death," said Mukut Singh, the president of a farmers union in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, who is leading thousands in protest in his home state, and says he will join the protesters in Delhi later this week.

"We are the ones who have provided food, milk, vegetables when the whole country was in lockdown -- we were still toiling in the fields," he said. "It is the government who has put us at risk by introducing these laws during Covid."

What the protests are about

For decades, the Indian government has offered guaranteed prices to farmers for certain crops, providing long-term certainty that allows them to make investments for the next crop cycle

.

© Mayank Makhija/NurPhoto/Getty Images 

Security personnel deployed to stop farmers from entering the national capital during a protest against the Centre's new farm laws at Singhu border near Delhi, India on November 30, 2020.

Under the previous laws, farmers had to sell their goods at auction at their state's Agricultural Produce Market Committee, where they were guaranteed to get at least the government-agreed minimum price. There were restrictions on who could purchase at auction and prices were capped for essential commodities.

Modi's new laws dismantle the committee structure, allowing farmers to sell their goods to anyone for any price. Farmers have more freedom to do things such as sell direct to buyers and sell to other states.

Modi said increasing market competition would be a good thing as it fulfills farmers' demands for higher income and gives them new rights and opportunities.

© Biplov Bhuyan/Hindustan Times/Shutterstock

 Farmers prepare food during day five of protests over farm reform laws at Singhu border on November 30, 2020 in New Delhi, India.

"The farmers should get the advantage of a big and comprehensive market which opens our country to global markets," Modi said on Monday, as farmers protested in the capital. He hopes it will attract private investment into the agricultural industry, which has lagged as other parts of the country's economy have modernized.

But farmers argue that the rules could help big companies drive down prices. While farmers could sell crops at elevated prices if the demand is there, conversely, they could struggle to meet the minimum price in years when there is too much supply in the market.

Singh, the Uttar Pradesh farmer, said that removing the price guarantees will make life tougher for farmers.

"There is a lot of anger among farmers," he said. "We don't get even the minimum support price that is presently declared -- removing these protections and making it easier for corporates to enter will completely buy us out."


Why it's such a hot political issue

Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for about 58% of India's 1.3 billion population, meaning farmers are the biggest voter block in the country.

That's made farming a central political issue, with farmers arguing for years to get the minimum guaranteed prices increased.

In a bid to win over farmers, Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said in its 2014 general election manifesto that all crop prices should be fixed at a minimum of 50% higher than the production costs. In 2016, Modi promised to boost the country's agriculture sector with a target of doubling the income of farmers by 2022.

Modi and his government continue to insist that they are supporting farmers.

He hailed the new laws as a "watershed moment" which will ensure a complete transformation of the agriculture sector. But besides calling the move long overdue, Modi has not said why he opted to introduce these measures during the pandemic, which has caused India to suffer its first recession in decades.

"The Indian government under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi has always stood in full commitment to resolving the problems faced by farmers and will continue to stand by them," said Narendra Singh Tomar, the Minister of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare.

Tomar urged farmers to abandon their protests and instead discuss their issues with the government -- although so far, Modi has shown no sign of capitulating to protesters' demands.

© Manish Rajput/SOPA Images/Shutterstock 

Farmers gather near a police road block stopping them from marching to New Delhi during a demonstration on November 30, 2020.

Guns, Drugs and Viral Content: Welcome to Cartel TikTok

Oscar Lopez
Sun, November 29, 2020

Visitors light a candle at a shrine to Jesus Malverde, the Robin Hood-esque bandit venerated by many, particularly in the narcotics trade, in Culiacan, Mexico, July 16, 2015. 

(Brett Gundlock/The New York Times)

MEXICO CITY — Tiger cubs and semi-automatic weapons. Piles of cash and armored cars. Fields of poppies watered to the sound of ballads glorifying Mexican drug cartel culture.

This is the world of Cartel TikTok, a genre of videos depicting drug trafficking groups and their activities that is racking up hundreds of thousands of views on the popular social media platform.

But behind the narco bling and dancing gang members lies an ominous reality: With Mexico set to again shatter murder records this year, experts on organized crime say Cartel TikTok is just the latest propaganda campaign designed to mask the bloodbath and use the promise of infinite wealth to attract expendable young recruits.

“It’s narco-marketing,” said Alejandra León Olvera, an anthropologist at Spain’s University of Murcia who studies the presence of Mexican organized crime groups on social media. The cartels “use these kinds of platforms for publicity, but of course it’s hedonistic publicity.”

Circulating on Mexican social media for years, cartel content began flooding TikTok feeds in the United States this month after a clip of a high-speed boat chase went viral on the video-sharing platform.

American teens were served the boat chase video on their For You page, which recommends engaging videos to users. Millions liked and shared the clip. Their clicks boosted the video in the For You page algorithm, which meant more people viewed it.

And once they viewed the boat chase video, the algorithm began to offer them a trickle, then a flood of clips that appeared to come from drug trafficking groups in Mexico.

“As soon as I started liking that boat video, then there’s videos of exotic pets, videos of cars,” said Ricardo Angeles, 18, a California TikToker interested in cartel culture.

“It’s fascinating,” he said, “kind of like watching a movie.”

Others began noticing the surge of cartel videos as well and posting reactions to the deluge of guns and luxury cars filling their feeds.

“Did the cartels just roll out their TikTok marketing strategy?” asked one flummoxed user in a video viewed some 490,000 times. “Is the coronavirus affecting y’all’s sales?”

Asked about their policy regarding the videos, a TikTok spokesperson said that the company was “committed to working with law enforcement to combat organized criminal activity” and that it removed “content and accounts that promote illegal activity.” Examples of cartel videos that were sent to TikTok for comment were soon removed from the platform.

While cartel content might be new for most teen TikTokers, according to Ioan Grillo, author of “El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency,” online portrayals of narco culture go back more than a decade, when Mexico began ramping up its bloody war against the cartels.

At first, the videos were crude and violent — images of beheadings and torture that were posted on YouTube, designed to strike fear in rival gangs and show government forces the ruthlessness they were up against.

But as social platforms evolved and cartels became more digitally savvy, the content became more sophisticated.

In July, a video that circulated widely on social media showed members of the brutal Jalisco New Generation Cartel in fatigues, holding high-caliber weapons and cheering their leader next to dozens of armored cars branded with the cartel’s Spanish initials, CJNG.

The show of force appeared online at the same time President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was visiting the states that make up the cartel’s stronghold.

“That is kind of a kick, a punch in the stomach to the government’s security strategy,” Grillo said.

López Obrador, who campaigned on a promise of confronting crime with “hugs not bullets,” has so far been unable to make a significant dent in the country’s soaring violence, with a record 34,582 murders registered last year alone.

But while some videos are still made to strike terror, others are created to show young men in rural Mexico the potential benefits of joining the drug trade: endless cash, expensive cars, beautiful women, exotic pets.

“It’s all about the dream. It’s all about the hustle,” said Ed Calderon, a security consultant and former member of Mexican law enforcement. “That’s what they sell.”

According to Falko Ernst, senior Mexico analyst for the International Crisis Group, a global think tank, some of the TikTok videos may be produced by cartel members themselves, especially young hit men or “sicarios” keen to show off the spoils of war.

Still, he said, most are probably filmed by young, lower-level operators in the gangs, then shared widely on the web by their friends or those longing for the lifestyle.

But whether they are made and shared by cartels or simply produced by aspiring gangsters, the ultimate goal is the same: drawing in an army of young men willing to give their lives for a chance at glory.

The gangs, Ernst said, depend on this “sea of youngsters.”

And while videos of bejeweled guns and decked-out cars have been circulating on Instagram and Facebook for years, TikTok has brought a new dimension to the cartel genre.

“The message has to be quick, it has to be engaging, and it has to be viral,” said León, the anthropologist. “Violence becomes fun, or even put to music.”

One video, which attracted more than 500,000 likes before it was removed, shows a farmer slicing unripe seed pods in a field of poppies, presumably to harvest the resin for heroin production.

“Here in the mountains, there are only hard workers,” says a voice-over. “Just good people.”

In another video, from a now-disabled account called “The clown of the CJNG,” in reference to the Jalisco cartel, a figure dressed in black with a bulletproof vest and an AR-15 rifle does a dance move known as the Floss.

Such videos may be intended for a Mexican audience, but for users in the United States who help promote them, they tap into an increasingly popular fascination with the cartel world, one propagated by shows like “Narcos” on Netflix.

That was in part the allure for Angeles, the California teenager, whose parents emigrated from Mexico before he was born.

Even as he acknowledged the real-world violence behind the videos, Cartel TikTok has become a way of connecting with Mexican popular culture from a safe distance.

“There’s a difference between watching ‘Narcos’ and getting kidnapped by one,” Angeles said.

The videos also provide a stark reminder of what life may have looked like had his parents not sought better opportunities north of the border.

“I could’ve been in that lifestyle,” Angeles said. But “I would much rather be broke and nameless than rich and famous.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

BACKGROUNDER

Ethiopia war may turn into guerrilla insurgency

Tue, December 1, 2020

* Skirmishes still reported, though capital Mekelle captured

* Experts fear drawn-out guerrilla conflict looming

* PM Abiy's troops have been fighting TPLF for four weeks

* Eritrea and Sudan both affected by conflict over border

ADDIS ABABA/NAIROBI, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Ethiopia's nearly month-long war against rebellious northern forces may be transforming into a guerrilla conflict, experts said on Tuesday, even though federal troops declared victory after capturing the Tigrayan regional capital at the weekend.

Fighting since Nov. 4 is believed to have killed thousands of people, as well as forcing refugees into Sudan, dragging in Eritrea, and worsening hunger and suffering among Tigray's more than 5 million people.

Reports of clashes between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's soldiers and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) were still coming out of the region, though communications remain largely cut and outside access blocked.

Abiy accuses the TPLF of treason, specifically for attacking an army base, while the Tigrayans say their ex-military comrade and partner in government wants to dominate their ethnic group for personal power. Both sides scoff at the other's accusations.

Federal forces took Tigray's highland capital Mekelle in hours on Saturday. TPLF leaders fled to the hills, saying they were resisting and taking prisoners.

Asked about ongoing fighting, TPLF head Debretsion Gebremichael said in a text: "Yes. On three directions. Two around Mekelle. One 50km away."

There was no immediate response from the government.

Reuters has been unable to verify claims from both sides.

SKIRMISHES CONTINUING

Two regionally-run Tigrayan TV stations, including the TPLF's "Dimtsi Woyane" ("Voice of the Revolution"), were still on air, although it was unclear where they were broadcasting from. Government-affiliated media have not yet broadcast any images from Mekelle.

A United Nations aid worker in touch with people in Tigray said large areas remained outside federal control and fighting was still taking place on several fronts. There was still scant coordination with aid workers, the source added.

"There are skirmishes continuing in many parts of Tigray and we are seeing the hallmarks of the beginning of an insurgency," Horn of Africa expert Rashid Abdi told an online forum.

"The terrain, geography and history suggest this will be a long, drawn-out insurgency."

Both the federal army and the TPLF have long military experience - from toppling a Marxist dictator in 1991 to fighting neighbouring Eritrea from 1998-2000.

Though outnumbered and expelled from their capital, the Tigrayans can exploit their mountainous terrain and long borders with Sudan and Eritrea.

REFUGEES

The U.N. refugee agency appealed for access to 96,000 Eritrean refugees in Tigray, where food was thought to be running out.

"Our extreme worry is that we hear about attacks, the fighting near the camps, we hear about abductions and forced removals," spokesman Babar Baloch told a news briefing in Geneva.

In a speech to parliament on Monday, Abiy urged the more than 45,000 Ethiopians who fled into Sudan to return.

One aid worker in the area said numbers crossing to Sudan at the main transit point of Hamdayet were down to a trickle. Refugees were saying that Ethiopian militia and soldiers were trying to impede them, he said.

"The accounts of the people are that it's getting harder and harder to get to the border," he said, adding that three refugees had also said there were flyers going round with messages not to speak in Tigrayan

There was no immediate government response to those accusations, but federal officials vehemently deny discrimination against Tigrayans or harassment of civilians.

Though Tigrayans make up only about 6% of Ethiopia's 115 million people, they dominated national government for nearly three decades until Abiy took office in 2018.

Abiy, whose parents are from the larger Oromo and Amharic groups, has been removing Tigrayans from government and military posts, saying they made up more than 60% of senior ranks and that other ethnicities should also be represented.

Last year, Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending a two-decade border standoff with Eritrea. The TPLF has fired rockets towards Eritrea's capital Asmara during the conflict.

(Reporting by Addis Ababa newsroom, David Lewis in Nairobi, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Aidan Lewis in Cairo; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

UK

Labor Unions Work to Find Ways to Bargain With AI’s Black Box

Amy Thomson
Mon, November 30, 2020, 


(Bloomberg) -- Unions are trying to figure out how to protect their members from artificial intelligence programs they can’t see and may not even be sure are really there.

The U.K.’s Trades Union Congress, an umbrella group for British unions representing more than 5.5 million people, is forming an AI taskforce to lobby employers and regulators to increase transparency around where the technology is being deployed, and to offer workers recourse if they believe they’ve been discriminated against.

Employees who spoke to the TUC said they’re beginning to encounter AI in all areas of their working life, from submitting their resumes and interviewing for jobs to getting shifts, customer queries and vacations assigned and having their performance analyzed.

The TUC’s concern is that flaws in enterprise AI will result in unfair outcomes or discrimination for employees. And if that happens, managers may not question the programs’ output or be willing to negotiate.

“We realized that essentially there’s a revolution taking place in the world of work in terms of the use of AI to manage people,” said Mary Towers, an employment rights policy officer at the TUC who’s leading the effort. “What we’re really talking about is the use of AI to make decisions that really impact significantly on people’s job opportunities and the nature and fabric of their working lives.”

That worry is exacerbated by a lack of transparency, the TUC said in the report. A large proportion of employees don’t know whether their companies are even using the technology and most wouldn’t know what to do if they thought AI had treated them unfairly. The U.K. government’s Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation published a report on Friday that showed just 14% of more than 2,000 people surveyed thought they’d know if AI had made an automated decision about a job application. Only 17% said they’d know who to complain to if they thought that decision was unfair.

A lack of understanding and trust in the technology may also be preventing businesses from deploying AI tools.

About 42% of employers surveyed by Ipsos, in a study published in July for the European Commission, said they used at least one type of AI technology, including tools for automating tasks and detecting fraud, and 18% plan to add it in the next two years.

Still, the Ipsos study found significant barriers to its growth, including fear of liability for damages if something goes wrong and “lack of citizens’ trust in the technology.”

The TUC wants to work with unions to find ways to negotiate on technology used in workplaces and to increase transparency about where AI is operating and to give employees more knowledge and control over what personal data is being collected and used. The group plans to publish a guide for unions on dealing with the technology next year.

Wealthy Bolivians Sent Money Abroad When Socialists Retook Power

CAPITAL FLIGHT IS THEFT OF SOCIAL WEALTH

Matthew Bristow and Sydney Maki
Mon, November 30, 2020



(Bloomberg) -- Bolivia’s international reserves plunged in recent weeks as wealthier locals and corporations bought dollars and moved money out of the country after the socialist movement returned to power.

Reserves dropped to a 13-year low of $5.1 billion on Nov. 20, down $1.3 billion since the end of September, according to data from the central bank. The bank says the drop was a temporary phenomenon related to the elections in October, and that demand for dollars has since returned to normal.

Socialist leader Luis Arce defied polls and won a surprise landslide in the Oct. 18 vote, and has pledged to impose a wealth tax on the Andean nation’s richest citizens. He was sworn in as President on Nov. 8, a year after his ally Evo Morales was forced out of the presidency after weeks of protests and after losing the support of the military.


As of Nov. 25, the most recent date for which the bank has published data, reserves had recovered to $5.4 billion, equivalent to seven months of imports. A gradual increase of inflows from sources such as tourism and remittances will continue to strengthen Bolivia’s reserve buffer, it said.

To read the central bank’s full statement, click here.

Some of the capital exodus was likely triggered by the plans for a wealth tax said Napoleon Pacheco, an economist who teaches at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres in La Paz.

Arce’s victory, followed by the announcement of the wealth tax, “created uncertainty and fear among people who have a significant amount of savings, and obviously they decided to get their money out of the country,” Pacheco said in a phone interview.

Not only have wealthy people with foreign bank accounts sent money abroad, but smaller, middle-class savers are also withdrawing smaller sums in dollars from the financial system Pacheco said.

Confusion over who will pay the wealth tax, or under what conditions, and this has amplified fear and uncertainty, he said.

Election Jitters

The “particularly pronounced” drop in reserves in recent weeks is “likely due to jitters surrounding the elections”, said Fitch Ratings analyst Todd Martinez.

A similar drop occurred around the previous elections, in 2019, which triggered mass unrest and accusations of fraud.

When Bolivians send money abroad, their banks buy the dollars from the central bank, causing reserves to drop. But the economy’s recovery from the pandemic is also contributing to the fall in reserves, according to Martinez.

“A renewed decline in Bolivia’s foreign reserves was foreseeable in part, given that imports are recovering post-lockdown but exports are doing so more slowly, in large part due to still-depressed gas prices,” he said.

The government has pledged to defend the currency peg of about seven bolivianos per dollar, which Arce helped introduce when he was Morales’ finance minister.

At the moment, Wall Street doesn’t appear to share the nervousness over Arce’s victory. The extra yield investors demand to hold Bolivian sovereign debt over U.S Treasuries fell to 5.2 percentage points last week, down from 6 percentage points before the election, according to data compiled by JPMorgan.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Wheat Falls as Russia Eases Limits, Australia Sees Bumper Crop

Kim Chipman
Mon, November 30, 2020, 


(Bloomberg) -- Wheat prices fell after Australia forecast its second-highest crop ever and Russia proposed curtailing grain exports next year.

Wheat futures fell as much as 3.3% to $5.85 3/4 a bushel in Chicago trading, the lowest for the contract in almost eight weeks. Corn and soybeans also fell following rainfall in South America during the weekend.

Wheat had been on track for its fifth straight monthly gain on Friday, its longest streak in 13 years, before Monday’s retreat. The turnaround came after Australia raised its production estimate by 8% to 31.2 million tons. Russia, the world’s biggest wheat shipper, aims to ease its plan for curbing grain exports in 2021, with shippers saying there’s adequate supply to satisfy demand as some importing nations stockpile food.

“Essentially there is going to be no limit on Russia wheat exports on a practical basis,” Rich Nelson, chief strategist at Allendale Inc., said by phone.

Soybeans and corn futures pulled back as parts of Argentina and Brazil saw rain during last weekend with more expected this week. Still, key growing areas of both countries are expected to remain dry, Terry Reilly, commodity analyst at Futures International in Chicago, said in a note.

The La Nina climate phenomenon has curtailed rainfall in Brazil, the top grower of soybeans, sparking output concerns when China’s feed-grain demand is booming.

Prices:

Soybeans fell as much as 1.9% to $11.69 a bushelCorn declined as much as 1.7% to $4.26 1/4 a bushel

Key grain and soy news:

U.S. CROP EXPORTS: Combined 344k Tons of Corn to Unknown BuyersU.S. Inspected 890k Tons of Corn for Export, 2.036m of SoybeanU.S. Corn, Soybean, Wheat Inspections by Country: Nov. 26EU Wheat Exports Down About 24% So Far This Season; Data DelayedCROP TENDER: Turkey Is Seeking to Buy 400,000 Tons of WheatBrazil Soybean Planting 87% Completed as of Nov. 26: AgRuralCrop Prices Set for Best Month in Five Years on Supply Worries

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

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©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Canada plans digital tax in 2022 on global tech giants such as Facebook, Google

David Ljunggren
Mon, November 30, 2020

Canada plans digital tax in 2022 on global tech giants such as Facebook, Google

FILE PHOTO: A 3D-printed Facebook logo is seen placed on a keyboard in this illustration


OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada plans to impose a tax on corporations providing digital services from 2022 that will stay in place until major nations come up with a coordinated approach on taxation, the Finance Department said on Monday.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is working on a common approach to ensure digital behemoths, such as Alphabet Inc's Google and Facebook Inc, pay their share of taxes as the coronavirus hammers budgets.

Canada said it was concerned about a delay in reaching agreement. The threat of digital services taxes has prompted threats of trade retaliation from outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.

The new tax would come into effect on Jan. 1, 2022, and remain in place until a common approach is agreed upon. The measure would raise federal revenues by C$3.4 billion ($2.6 billion) over five years, starting in the 2021-22 fiscal year.

"Canadians want a tax system that is fair, where everyone pays their fair share," Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland told legislators in the fall economic update.

"Canada will act unilaterally, if necessary, to apply a tax on large multinational digital corporations, so they pay their fair share just like any other company operating in Canada."

More details are due in next year's budget.

Foreign-based vendors with no physical presence in Canada will also have to start collecting sales taxes on products such as mobile apps, online video gaming and streaming. The measure should raise C$1.2 billion over five years.

Ottawa also plans to oblige people renting out short-term accommodation to charge sales taxes, saying popular digital rental platforms do not currently have to impose the taxes. That
puts hotels at a disadvantage, it added.

The government is also clamping down on the award of stock options to prevent "high-income individuals employed at large, long-established, mature firms" from taking unfair advantage.

From now on, a C$200,000 annual limit will apply to stock option grants for those people. Ottawa did not provide a definition of high-income individuals or mature firms.

The rules will not apply to startups or emerging companies, which often cannot afford to pay competitive salaries and instead offer stock options. The new rules will generate about C$200 million in federal revenues, the Finance Department said.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Peter Cooney)

WAGE THEFT

UK

Is my pension ruined if a retail empire crumbles?

Kevin Peachey - Personal finance correspondent
Tue, December 1, 2020

Topshop interior

The collapse of Topshop owner Arcadia is likely to result in a cut in the value of thousands of shopworkers' pensions.

The retailer's demise has led to calls for Sir Philip Green and Lady Green, who run and own the company respectively, to fill the financial gap.

However, as with any business that goes bust, there is a system in place to protect the majority of pension payouts to ensure staff do not lose out entirely.

What happens to pensions when a business folds?

When you work for a company, you are offered membership of a pension scheme, into which the employer makes a contribution and you add to via your pay.

If that businesses collapses, then the contributions stop. A new owner may take on the pension scheme, or - in many cases - certain types of pension scheme go into a rescue scheme called the Pension Protection Fund (PPF).

It pays pensioners already receiving their company pension, and protects those who have yet to reach pension age.

The PPF is paid for, in part, by a levy on other pension funds.

Do all pensions go into the PPF?

No. Anyone with a defined contribution pension has built up a pension pot which belongs to them. This is often managed through a separate investment company and will not go to the PPF.

The individual can decide how it is invested and what to do with it when they reach retirement.

The PPF gets involved with so-called defined benefit pensions - when the employer effectively gives a pension promise about how much you will receive at retirement. This is often based on your final salary, or an average of your career salary.

The PPF usually takes on a failed company's pension scheme and makes payments (officially compensation) to its members.

Topshop owner Arcadia goes into administration

Arcadia's two defined benefit pension schemes are now expected to go into the PPF, after assessors have gone through the books of the schemes.

In a statement, the trustees of the schemes said: "Because Arcadia Group Limited is in administration, the schemes are now expected to enter a Pension Protection Fund (PPF) assessment period.

"The trustees will now liaise closely with the administrators while continuing to work with the Pensions Regulator and the Pension Protection Fund to ensure the best return possible is achieved from asset sales and to make sure the schemes' entry to PPF assessment is as seamless as possible."

How much will pension scheme members get?

That depends on your stage in life.

The PPF promises to pay your pension in full, if you are already receiving pension payments. However, there are some caveats.

The first is that the pension may not increase in value each year as much as expected. This increase is pegged to the rising cost of living as measured by inflation. The PPF uses the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) measure of inflation, which is generally lower than another measure - the Retail Prices Index (RPI) - used by many active pension schemes.

The annual increase only relates to pension accrued since 1997. Any pension built up before that is not increased in line with inflation which is a further blow to older members, and those who worked at the shops more than two decades ago, particularly those who are approaching retirement now.

Ripped up pension statement

For people yet to receive their pension because they are too young, or those who have retired early, the PPF only pays 90% of their pension promise when they hit pension age.

There is a cap on how much someone can receive each year. At present, at the age of 65, that limit is £37,315 a year.

Taken together, all this means, on average, a person with a pension administered by the PPF may receive about 75% to 80% of what they would have expected to have received.
What state are the Arcadia pension schemes in?

There are an estimated 10,000 people with defined benefit pensions from Arcadia - the majority in the Arcadia Group Pension Scheme and the rest in the Arcadia Group Senior Executives Pension Scheme.

In recent times, these defined benefit schemes were closed to new members of staff who work for Arcadia's brands such as Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Burton, so most of those affected are more long-serving workers or people who have left, or already retired.

At present, the pension scheme does not have the money to pay all future pension obligations. This deficit, according to pensions consultant John Ralfe, is £350m. This is large, but not unprecedented.

Some, but not all, of this shortfall can be made up by a £50m promise from Arcadia-owner Lady Green, and by administrators selling certain properties owned by the company, Mr Ralfe said.
Should the Green family pay up?

There have been calls for the Greens to make up the shortfall. If this were to happen, members would receive all of the pension they were promised.

Sir Philip Green and Lady Green have a widely-publicised fortune

Labour MP Stephen Timms, who chairs the Work and Pensions Committee, said: "Whatever happens to the group, the Green family must make good the deficit in the Arcadia pension fund."

This demand is based on what Mr Timms and others would regard as a moral obligation from the Greens who have huge wealth based on a £1.2bn dividend Sir Philip took from Arcadia and paid to his wife, tax-free in 2005.

There is also the backdrop of a scandal when BHS went bust with the loss of 11,000 jobs and a large pension deficit. Sir Philip reached a deal with the Pensions Regulator to inject £363m into that scheme, after having been accused of earlier selling the business for £1 to avoid pension obligations, something he vigorously denied.

This time, at this stage, there appears to be no legal case which could be pursued by the regulator to oblige the Greens to make any further payment into the pension scheme.

The Pension Protection Fund said: "Insolvency events are a concerning time for employees and scheme members and we want to assure the members of Arcadia's defined benefit pension schemes of our ongoing protection. The robust negotiations at the time of the CVA last year have ensured that both schemes are now in a better financial position."