Chinese Malls Hit With Low Traffic, Rising Vacancies, Plunging Rent, Massive Overcapacity Posted: 25 Oct 2015 07:05 PM PDT Judging from mall traffic, sinking rent, and rising vacancies, the effort by China to hand off growth from fixed investment to consumer consumption is not going well. Reuters asks Why are Chinese Malls Closing if Consumption is Rising?Rising vacancy rates and plummeting rents are increasingly common in Chinese malls and department stores, despite official data showing a sharp rebound in retail sales that helped the world's second-largest economy beat expectations in the third quarter.
The answer to that apparent contradiction lies in the rising competition from online shopping and government purchases possibly boosting retail statistics. Add poorly managed properties into the equation and the empty malls aren't much of a surprise.
More importantly, the struggles of Chinese brick-and-mortar retailers amplify a policy conundrum; these malls, built to reap gains from rising consumption, are instead adding to China's corporate debt problem, currently at 160 percent of GDP - twice as high as the United States.
Less foot traffic means cash flow of mall owners and developers are getting squeezed - a potential hazard for an economy growing at its slowest pace in decades.
Major listed mall operators are also feeling the pain. Dalian Wanda, a big property developer, said in January it would close or restructure 30 of its retail venues and in August said more adjustments were underway.
Malaysia-based Parkson (3368.HK), which operates more than 70 department stores in China, closed several of its stores in northern China last year following a 58 percent drop in China net profit in 2013.
"As growth in retail sales slows because of the country's lower GDP growth, and in cities where mall space is abundant, vacancy rates have risen substantially," said Moody's analyst Marie Lam in a research note.
In its latest efforts to reenergize the economy, China's central bank on Friday cut interest rates for the sixth time in less than a year.
Tim Condon, an economist at ING in Singapore warned that investors should not read China's official retail figures as exclusively reflective of rising household consumption, noting that the data also capture some government purchases.
Shopping Overcapacity
China is currently the site of more than half the world's shopping mall construction, according to CBRE, a real estate firm, even though it appears that many of these malls will not produce good returns for their investors.
A joint report by the China Chain Store Association and Deloitte showed that by the end of this year, the total number of China's new malls is projected to reach 4,000, a jump of over 40 percent from 2011.
"If you build it and they're not coming, that's a non-performing loan," said Condon of ING.
"That's the banks' problem." Vacant Malls, Vacant Units, Vacant CitiesOnline sales are up double digits, but I don't buy the story that online shopping is a huge contributing factor to this mess. Rather China has overbuilt. China has countless malls that no one shops in, transportation facilities that no one uses, and entire cities where no one lives. Such development adds to GDP. 7% GDP Growth? Huge writedowns are coming which should subtract from GDP. But it won't be reported that way. Instead, we will see it in a dramatic slowing of future GDP. Few believe China has7% growth, as the official numbers show. But even fewer understand how low growth really is. Subtract bankrupt SOEs, and malinvestments such as vacant cities and malls, and China is barely growing, if it's growing at all. Few see the situation correctly because stimulus efforts mask the true state of affairs. The previous sentence applies globally, not just to China. Mike "Mish" Shedlock | Gardner Business Index Shows Small to Medium Sized Businesses Struggling Most Posted: 25 Oct 2015 07:53 AM PDT I have an interesting update from Steve Kline Jr., Director of Market Intelligence at Gardner Business Media, Inc., a B2B media company that conducts surveys similar to the ISM. For a description of Gardner Business Media, please see Alternative ISM for Metalworking, Plastics, Composites Suggests Economic Contraction. Steve writes ... Hello Mish,
I wanted to give you an update on the comparison between the Gardner Business Index and the ISM. I included the initial portion of our data for October even though we only have about 60% of the responses we should get by the end of the month. So far in October the index has dropped with small companies getting worse and big companies doing better.
In the Excel file, I included an additional chart that compares the ISM to our index for companies with more than 250 employees and companies with 1-19 employees. Note that the ISM correlates quite well with our index for companies with more than 250 employees. Also, the trend/pattern of the ISM correlates with our index for small companies, but the index level of the ISM is significantly higher. So, clearly the ISM focuses on larger companies. This gives the ISM a skewed perspective on what is happening throughout the entire manufacturing community, especially when roughly 30% of the manufacturing facilities in our database of more than 100,000 manufacturing facilities have fewer than 20 employees.
Steve Gardner Business Index by Company SizeGardner Business Index by IndustryGardner Metalworking vs. ISMGardner Durable Goods vs. ISMMike "Mish" Shedlock |
More interesting than you realize. An interesting person is interesting to us because she combines two things: Truth and surprise. The truth: Not necessarily a law of physics, not necessarily a measurable truth in nature, but merely the truth of experience. "I believe this," or "I see that." And surprise. Note that surprise is always local. Surprising to me, the audience. That's one reason that it's said that interesting people are interested—they are empathetic enough to realize about what might be surprising to the person in the room, and they care enough to deliver on that insight. Everyone is capable of telling the truth. And everyone has been surprising at least once. Which means that being an interesting person is a choice. We can choose to show up, to care enough to contribute our humanity to the next interaction. It's a choice, but a difficult one, because being interesting feels risky. People are afraid to be interesting, not unable to be interesting. You're not born uninteresting. But it's entirely possible you've persuaded yourself to be so frightened of the consequences that you no longer have the passion, the generosity or the guts to be interesting any longer. Without a doubt, we need your interesting. [HT Austin] [You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.] Don't want to get this email anymore? Click the link below to unsubscribe. Email subscriptions powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 365 Boston Post Rd, Suite 123, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA.
Sweden's Migration Projection Doubles in Three Months (And It Won't Stop There); No Cash, Just Vouchers (Hah!) Posted: 24 Oct 2015 05:14 PM PDT Sweden is feeling migration strain. In the last three months, Sweden's Migrant Projection Doubled. This was easily foreseeable by bloggers like me, Dave Stockman, Acting Man, Zero Hedge etc. Yet, somehow government leaders failed to see this coming. Sweden will receive as many as 190,000 refugees this year, according to official estimates, more than double the projected number envisaged just three months ago, placing unprecedented strains on the country's immigration services as politicians struggle to agree a way forward.
"It's as if we have a land border with Turkey," said Anders Danielsson, head of the Migration Board, as he announced the figures on Thursday.
"The current refugee situation is unprecedented in modern times, and the housing situation is critical."
At the end of July, the Migration Board said the rate of new arrivals was falling and it expected a total of just 74,000 in 2015. The previous peak number of asylum seekers in Sweden was in 1992, when 84,000 fled the Balkan wars.
The numbers are "not sustainable for Sweden", said migration minister Morgan Johansson, adding that EU countries must share asylum seekers.
With a total population of under 10m, Sweden is receiving by far the highest number of refugees in Europe as a proportion of its population, equivalent to about 6m people flooding into the US, and third only to Germany and Hungary in absolute terms.
Officials said they expected the country to be short of 25,000 to 40,000 beds by the end of the year. This week the Migration Board opened a temporary camp of 350 heated tents to house refugees, as temperatures dropped towards freezing.
Asked how many might be illegally in the country, Mr Danielsson said: "We have no idea, we have no border."
"The reliability of our forecasts is low at present," said Merjem Maslo for the Migration Board. "When the Syrian conflict started we could pretty well determine how many asylum seekers who would find their way here, but our forecast can no longer be based on sound judgment." Migration MathInquiring minds may be interested in the math. The July expectation was 74,000. The new and surely underestimated expectation is now 190,000. That's 2.57 times the estimate of three months ago. And that's closer to tripling than doubling in actuality. Sweden Requests EU HelpThe situation is now so bad, Sweden to Request EU's Help Handling Asylum-Seekers. Sweden will request to join the EU's controversial refugee relocation scheme in a move that could see up to 54,000 asylum-seekers arriving in Sweden shared out among other EU member states.
The Scandinavian country is expected to receive up to 190,000 asylum applications this year as one of the most popular destinations for people fleeing countries such as Syria.
Stockholm is one of many governments across Europe scrambling to keep control of the refugee crisis and temper an anti-immigration backlash. In Berlin, the German government rushed through tougher asylum laws in an attempt to stem the huge inflows of refugees and reassure the public and its EU partners that Germany is in control of its borders.
Key elements of the legislation will now come into force on Saturday, eight days earlier than previously planned and just ahead of Sunday's European leaders' emergency summit on the western Balkans refugee transit route.
The new measures are aimed at accelerating the removal of failed asylum-seekers, including most applicants from the west Balkan states, which are seen by Berlin as countries to which migrants can safely be
Peter Altmaier, Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff, said Berlin wanted to deal "better and more quickly" with failed asylum-seekers.
German officials will also start replacing cash handouts for refugees in reception centres with vouchers for food and essential purchases. The move will make would-be refugees think twice before trying to seek asylum in Germany — particularly if they come from the western Balkans, according to the officials. No Cash, Just Vouchers (Hah!)The idea that vouchers for free food, free housing, and free services in lieu of free cash will "make would-be refugees think twice" is downright idiotic. When you give people (who have no food and no shelter), free money, what the hell will they primarily spend it on other than food and shelter? Vouchers for food and shelter, accompanied by free medical services is about 90% as good as free cash in my estimation. On the VergeVia Google translation, A Swedish newspaper reports We are On the Verge. Trelleborg emits cries for help and is one of several municipalities that are pushed hard by an increasingly powerful stream of refugees. On Revingehed, erected tents are temporary asylum accommodation. "We are at the limit of our capacity of reception in Sweden," said prime minister Stefan Löfven.
In the past month has over 2,000 unaccompanied children came to the city. Representatives of the municipality sent out the distress call that they can not handle the situation.
The Prime Minister praised the municipal contribution and explained that the government wants to help. Among other things, they decided to raise the flat rate for each individual who comes here and also for those children to be in school.
The economy is important, but we also have to look at whether there are rules that can be simplified to make it easier for people who work with this every day. Amazing StupidityThe prime minister moans about thousands of migrant children dumped on the streets by their parents, yet decided to raise payments and subsidies for migrant parents and kids. Wow! Word of Thanks I received the Swedish newspaper article from a reader who lives in Sweden. I received other emails from other Swedish readers. And I receive emails from all over the globe. I deeply appreciate these emails. There is no way I would have found such stories on my own. Given that I write article 3-4 times a day, there is no way I can use everything that readers send. I typically respond to emails, except to those who routinely send me multiple ideas every day, but I do appreciate all the incoming ideas. Thanks. Mike "Mish" Shedlock | Third Party Logistics: Will Amazon Disrupt UPS and Uber or Will Uber Disrupt Amazon, FedEx, and UPS? Posted: 24 Oct 2015 08:10 AM PDT Last week Uber rolled out on-demand delivery in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Is that the wave of the future? Or Is Amazon About to Disrupt Delivery Services by Taking UPS and FedEx Head On?Colin Sebastian at RW Baird published a note yesterday highlighting the opportunity for Amazon to begin to offer third-party logistics services in a similar way that it offers Web Services. The analyst believes that this could be a $5 billion opportunity for Amazon even if it only captures 1% marketshare in the various segments of the industry.
Transportation and logistics is the next massive market opportunity for Amazon but rather than developing it as another internal business unit, this may be spun out.
Amazon currently operates 167 distribution facilities around the world, totaling more than 100 million sq. ft., and continues to grow.
In North America, Amazon operates 92 facilities (including local sortation centers).
Amazon's third-party Marketplace is a good example which leverages the scale of Amazon's e-commerce traffic and supporting fulfillment infrastructure. Another Massive Market for AmazonColin Sebastian says Yet Another Massive Market on the HorizonAmazon is not finished disrupting industries.
Just as Amazon leverages infrastructure behind the core retail business to grow AWS and Marketplace, there is evidence the company may extend its increasingly complex and technology-centric logistics and delivery platform as a third-party offering. Market Caps- Uber - Not Public - Valued at $70 Billion after raising still more cash.
- FedEx - FDX - $45 Billion - PE: 42.02
- United Parcel Service - UPS - $95 billion - PE: 24.9
- Amazon - AMZN - $280 billion - PE (Negative earnings)
Any of those valuations seem ridiculous? For more on Uber, please see UberRUSH: Uber's On-Demand Delivery Service Rolls Out in New York, Chicago, and San FranciscoMike "Mish" Shedlock |
| |