Russia: three buys don’t make a boom
X5, the London-listed Russian food retailer, has put $1.65bn on the table to buy its rival Kopeika in the third big Russian consumer acquisition in a fortnight.
What is behind investors’ sudden appetite for Russian assets? And will it be piqued further, by hopes that preparations for 2018 World Cup will trigger a spending bonanza?
Qatar 2022: construction and conservatism
By winning the right to host the 2022 World Cup, Qatar has put itself on the map. Soccer-crazed Americans mourning the death of their bid have dismissed ‘Katar’ or ‘Quatar’, misspellings of the country’s name that have started to trend on Twitter.
But for the Qataris, and perhaps the broader Middle East, the victory was a vindication for those sceptics who refused to believe that the global festival of football could be held in the scorching heat of the Gulf summer via air-conditioned pitches and fan zones.
Football feast: the World Cup heads to Russia and Qatar
So the new world order has a messenger – and it’s the Swiss man who told female footballers to wear sexier outfits. Sepp Blatter, the head of Fifa, announced on Thursday that Russia and Qatar, superpowers in neither football nor organisation, will host the World Cups in 2018 and 2022. That’s four consecutive World Cups in emerging markets – following on from South Africa and Brazil. China could well host the 2026 competition, making it five in a row. If football diplomacy were poker, the developing world would have a full house.
This time Fifa overlords received bids from countries with infrastructure and heritage – Spain, the Netherlands and the England – and two of the world’s three biggest economies – Japan and the USA. But no, they wanted potential: the chance to sprinkle football’s gold-dust over the emerging middle classes. Russia and Qatar better start making some serious investments.
World Cup 2022: Qatar gets the cream
Qatar will host the World Cup in 2022 – becoming the first Middle Eastern country and the smallest country ever to do so. With its slogan “Expect Amazing”, and promise of carbon-cutting technology, it beat off competition from the USA, Australia, Japan and South Korea. Fifa announced the decision in Switzerland. For all the latest news, go to the FT’s live blog from Switzerland. Fifa have said they announce how the vote went, round-by-round, later on Thursday.
No Putin, no problem: Russia wins World Cup
Russia will host the World Cup in 2018 – the first time an eastern European country has held the competition. It beat rival bidders England, Spain/Portugual and the Netherlands/Belgium. Prime minister Vladimir Putin is now set fly to Zurich; his decision to stay away from the final hours of lobbying has been vindicated. For all the latest news, go to the FT’s live blog from Switzerland. Fifa have said they announce how the vote went, round-by-round, later on Thursday.
Russia is seen as Europe’s biggest emerging football market. Thirteen Russian cities will host matches, and Russia has pledged visa-free travel for all foreign ticket-holders. The country plans to invest $3.82bn in upgrading and building stadiums.
World Cup hosts: Fifa’s choice and emerging markets
Only one country has turned down the chance of hosting the World Cup: Colombia, which said it was too busy with peace talks for the “extravagances” of hosting the 1986 tournament. But don’t expect to see such restraint again. Today emerging countries are desperate to prove that, whatever their internal problems, they can organise the world’s most-watched sporting event.
That leaves Fifa with a choice familiar to corporate executives: should it choose a safe, western host, or the high risks and rewards offered by an emerging market?
Foreign investors are keener than South Africans on South Africa
For a people sometimes prone to pessimism about their country, the months leading up to this year’s football World Cup in South Africa saw a rare, sustained feel-good atmosphere.
The fuzzy feeling extended to many foreign investors: the rand has risen inexorably this year as traders, tired with near-zero interest rates in the rich world, chase higher returns in South Africa’s bond market. But the public mood of optimism proved more fragile, dissipating within a matter of weeks after the World Cup, according to a new report.
Ads in Brazil: foreigners move in
Anticipation over a World Cup or an Olympics would draw attention to the advertising sector in most countries – and Brazil is preparing to host both. Combine that with its reputation for creativity, the growth of its consumer classes, and the internationalisation of its brands, and it looks even more appealing.
Last week’s news that Publicis was preparing to take a stake in local agency Talent that valued it at R$350m ($199m) is the most recent evidence of foreign companies’ scramble to get into Brazil, often at high prices. In the past year, there have been other moves.
Overdue: Brazil chooses venue for World Cup opener
By Andrew Downie in São Paulo
First, the good news: after years of indecision, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) has finally confirmed that the city of São Paulo will host the opening game of the 2014 World Cup. In a brand new stadium owned by Corinthians.
Now the bad news. The stadium isn’t built yet – and is unlikely to be ready by Fifa’s 2012 deadline.
S Africa recalls World Cup sales surge
By Simon Mundy in Johannesburg
The feel-good atmosphere of the World Cup seems far away for South Africans. Their country is sliding into an indefinite public service strike, and the media complain of a government crackdown on free speech. But retail figures published today provide a reminder of those heady four weeks of football, when locals and visitors splurged on food, drink and – apparently – household appliances.
Retail sales rose by 7.4 per cent in June compared to the same month last year, roughly in line with market expectations of a 7.6 per cent increase.
In China, Paul the prophetic octopus scores big … in all its incarnations
Innovation is Beijing’s favourite word these days, as China tries to shake off the moniker of Sweatshop of the World. But there is nothing quite so innovative as a Chinese sweatshop owner who catches a scent of profit, and runs it relentlessly to ground.
In the space of a fortnight, Chinese merchants have capitalised on the fame of Paul the soccer octopus, who predicted the victor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, to create a whole new market for octopus paraphernalia: octopus-shaped tissue boxes, octopus plush toys, even Sichuan octopus.
If you’re going to promote investment opportunities, there’s no better time to do it than when the country in question is riding a wave of World Cup fever. So it is for South Africa.
Japan has not been a football-loving country for long, but there are few Japanese who are not now familiar with South Africa, not least because of the Asian team’s feisty victory over Denmark during the tournament. That win also led to a Twitter record of 3,283 tweets per second, as fans took to their mobile phones as the final whistle blew.
A strong currency, a poor harvest and a protracted transport strike: South African wine farmers have had their problems of late.
But the World Cup has given the wine industry a welcome boost, says Su Birch, chief executive of Wines of South Africa, a marketing body. In football-mad Germany, sales increased 50 per cent by volume in the first half of this year, compared to the same period of 2009.
South Africa nurses World Cup hangover
Just a week ago, Mary Muthui was selling dozens of football scarves, beanie hats and vuvuzelas every day from her stall at the Rosebank Mall crafts market in northern Johannesburg. But on Tuesday – just two days after the end of South Africa’s World Cup – the 28-year-old was struggling to sell anything at all and her prices had been steeply reduced.
The standard vuvuzela – a plastic flute painted in South African colours – could be bought for only R60, less than half than it would have cost when the cup competition was in full fling.
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