Because I am participating in the Deutsche Bank ADR presentations intermittently today, there will be no free blog. As already reported yesterday, California reader DvN aced the contest we ran by correctly stating that the author was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and also getting the tie-breaker, the subject of his letter: it was the Piano Concerti 11 to 13. Actually, Mozart’s middle name was Gottlieb but he changed it to sound more international.
More follows on the run mostly from Hong Kong-China, with the odd mining or other note from Canada, Malaysia, Poland, Britain, Israel, Ethiopia, Argentina, Australia, Ireland, Cuba, Finland, India, and Luxembourg.
*L’Occitane International of Luxembourg, franchise of l’Occitane en Provence shops and distribution networks for its plant-based skin concoctions, is now listed here as LCCTY as well as in Hong Kong as 0973.
*UK Chancellor George Osborne’s Budget Speech yesterday was a downside surprise for Mechanical Gaming Devices. He announced an increase in MGD (one-armed bandit) tax from a current 20% to 25%. On the face of it, it appears bad but I think the impact on Paddy Power plc will be marginal given its online internet gambling and spread betting operations. Other UK bookies are more into slot machines and often have multiple shops in a single lower-class neighborhood because they are only allowed to have 4 MGDss per store.
*JD.com – the Chinese e-commerce rival to Alibaba – will be virtually takeover-proof once it completes its US listing. Both avoided Hong Kong to be able to retain a 2-class shareholder structure which HK bans. We have a horse in this race, Tencent and JD.com, indirectly. TCTZF president Martin Lau told the results conference call yesterday how it is building its e-com position (edited from transcript at www.Seekingalpha.com):
