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- Arvind's Newsletter
1.China’s Ant Group swaps stake in India’s Paytm for debt
Jack Ma-founded Ant Group will swap nearly half its equity stake in Indian payments company Paytm for convertible debt,as geopolitical tension lingers between India and China. The 10.3 per cent stake, worth about $628mn, will be transferred from Ant’s Netherlands company Antfin to a Netherlands group owned by Paytm’s founder and chief executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma. His holding in Paytm will rise to 19.4 per cent, while Ant’s will decline to 13.5 per cent. No money will change hands. Sharma’s offshore entity will issue Ant optionally convertible debentures, a type of long-term debt that can be converted to equity shares at a later stage. That allowed “Antfin to retain economic value of the 10.3 per cent stake”, said Paytm in a stock market filing on Monday.
“There is a perception among stakeholders that having a Chinese shareholding is a risk factor,” said a person familiar with the transaction to Financial Times, citing geopolitical tension between China and India. By reducing Ant’s ownership, the deal “goes a long way” in mitigating that risk, they added.
In other news,The Price Waterhouse resigned as the auditor of Paytm Payments Services Ltd and were replaced by S R Batliboi & Associates.
2.The Indian government wants to turn your mobile phone into a TV. While watching video content on phones is not revolutionary, doing so without internet is. The Economic Times reports that the government, in partnership with IIT-Kanpur, is exploring the feasibility of direct-to-mobile technology, wherein phones can receive TV channels without the internet, for a nominal monthly charge.
It is still early days but the telecom operators, are likely to strongly oppose the proposal as it will eat into their data revenue, most of which comes from video consumption, and hurt their 5G business case.
Read more at:
3.Start of a New Era in Indian Chess: Seventeen year old Gukesh D will become India’s top-ranked chess player when FIDE publishes its rating soon and will take over from Viswanathan Anand, the man who sat on that throne since 1986.
The Indian Express tells an interesting post on the bond between Gukesh and his mentor Anand which is great read.
4.How to Read: Lots of Inputs and a Strong Filter. Morgan Housel who features often in this newsletter explains his approach to reading a lot of books by applying a strong filter.
“My reading strategy is to start as many books as I can but finish few of them.
Years ago I heard Charlie Munger say “Most books I don’t read past the first chapter. I’m not burdened by bad books,” and it stuck with me.
Reading is a chore if you insist on finishing every book you begin, because the majority of books are either a) adequately summarised in the introduction, b) not for you, or c) not for anyone.
Every smart person I know is a voracious reader who also says “every smart person I know is a voracious reader.” There are so few exceptions to this rule it’s astounding. College tuition at $25,000 a year comes out to roughly $100 per lecture. Good books – sometimes written by the same professor – can be purchased for fifteen bucks and can offer multiple times as much life-changing insight.
The conflict between these two – most books don’t need to be read to the end, but some books can change your life – means you need two things to get a lot out of reading: Lots of inputs and a strong filter.” Read on. I have been following this advice over last 4 years and have read on average of 60 books a year, of which at least half are fiction, which I had stopped reading in between for many years.
5.The CEO height: the long and the short of it
The FT’s Lex column, which is one of its popular columns, has an interest piece as above.
“The merry-go-round in jobs at the UK’s largest companies is whirling again. NatWest, BT and AG Barr are all getting new bosses. Heavyweight assessment of incoming chief executives will focus on experience, character and, of course, gender.
Gossip around company water coolers may include discussion of how tall or short the new boss is. Academic research suggests humans prefer lofty, imposing leaders.
UK Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has appeared to mock the stature of prime minister Rishi Sunak. Jacqueline Gold, who sadly died earlier this year, complained that in meetings people mistook taller colleagues for the CEO of Ann Summers. She actually ran the lingerie business.
There is a dearth of recent research on size bias in executive appointments. This may be because a much-quoted investigation almost 20 years ago ensured companies clammed up.
In 2005, writer Malcolm Gladwell polled half of the US Fortune 500 companies with questions about their predominantly male CEOs. He found the typical boss was three inches taller than the average US man. Almost three-fifths of the CEOs exceeded six feet compared with around 15 per cent of the broader male population.
The population of CEOs has changed since. Women, on average shorter than men, have achieved modest levels of representation, for example. But anyone who regularly meets CEOs notices how many stoop slightly to shake hands.
Paul Thwaite, who is tall, has replaced Rose at NatWest on an interim basis. Her predecessor, the politically-savvy Ross McEwan, was another tall man.
Research points to an earnings premium for taller people. In 2015, US investigators found that salaries were 9-15 per cent larger in the 75th height percentile than the 25th. In 2020, Forbes reported Chinese findings that each extra cm of height produces a 1.3 per cent increase in income.
There are at least three unprovable theories. First, that height is instinctively regarded as proof of good health and confers evolutionary advantage. Second, wealthy families breed taller kids and give them career leg-ups. Third, tall people receive deference that boosts self-confidence.
None of this reflects badly on tall people themselves. They endure regular encounters with toe-exposing hotel duvets and wags who think “getting enough oxygen up there?” is funny. But if hirers prefer candidates in proportion to their height, one wonders what other biases afflict them.