Best holiday wishes for all along with some news from North Korea, Ireland, Canada, California, Colombia, Singapore, Brazil, China, and Japan.
*Thanks to Asia hand reader BM who subscribes to Chad O’Connell’s NKNews.com, we learn that Paddy Power plc has dropped its support of Dennis Rodman’s basketball diplomacy with North Korea. PDYPF’s spokesman told the site that “with the benefit of hindsight, we probably got this one wrong.” He added: “there has been worldwide scrutiny of the North Korean regime, probably more in the past month than in the past couple of years. There has been almost total condemnation of North Korea worldwide, and we’re really responding to that.” PADDY is going honest.
*The Brazilian telco watchdog crackdown on market dominance by Telefonica of Spain following TEF taking control of Telecom Italia, may offer another chance to Portugal Telecom. PT sold its Brazil sub Vivo to TEF and then bought into Oi to still have a presence in the largest country in the world where they speak Portuguese.
Also benefiting from the Brazilian taste for competition in phone networks is Nokia, parent of NSN which was selected by Oi for build LTE base stations.
*More global is the new tactic at Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) according to a Toronto Globe and Mail interview with new CEO Brian Porter. BNS will offer wider lists of products to foreign customers, similar to its offerings in Canada. This means capital market, and pension and wealth management services, building on Scotiabank’s retail and commercial banking presence. “It’s a continuation of our strategy here in Canada,” Mr. Porter told the newspaper.
Now BNS gets 47% of its profits from outside Canada, mostly from Latin America and Thailand. But upping its offerings could bring the level to over half of profits in a year or two. While not known for US positions, BNS does have an energy business south of the border, Scotia Waterous. And it can build on its Canada mining experience in markets like Colombia or Peru.
