Can big companies survive localisation?

Economic and european policy

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Analyst:

Jim Reid, Luke Templeman

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The trend towards 'localisation' leaves few easy options for large companies. Their huge advantage from global supply chains and businesses, built up during the last few decades of globalisation, may unwind unless they adapt to local- or multi-local business models. The urgency to adapt has been turbocharged by covid-19. [more]

The Future of Payments: Series 4 - Part III. Bye-bye cash, hello digital payments

April 25, 2023

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Cassidy Ainsworth-Grace, Marion Laboure, Nejati Nooshin

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We dig into how the world of payments is moving away from cash towards digital payments. This structural shift from cash to digital payments is expected to continue in 2023 with further evolution of digital IDs and digital wallets. Amid a macro slowdown, we expect financial solutions offered by non-financial firms, such as embedded financing, to play a major role in the further adoption of digital payments. [more]

The Future of Payments: Series 4 - Part I. Digital assets: The end of magical thinking?

February 27, 2023

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Cassidy Ainsworth-Grace, Marion Laboure

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In the first part of series 4 of our Future of Payments series, Marion Laboure and Cassidy Ainsworth-Grace take a look at how the end of a rare macroeconomic environment, featuring near-zero interest rates, stimulus packages, and excess liquidity, could clean the market of bad actors, much like the dot-com bubble did two decades ago. [more]

The Future of Work – Learning from Sport Part II. Better together

November 17, 2022

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Cassidy Ainsworth-Grace, Marion Laboure

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The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar is about to start, so it is a good time to reflect on the relationship between the sporting world’s Greatest of All Time and remote work. The increasing popularity of remote work has disrupted traditional models of business and employment. There are shifting views of what work will look like in the future, so it is a topic that cannot be ignored. But, to make the most out of flexible remote work now, workers can learn from top athletes. [more]

Trading asset turnover

September 14, 2022

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Galina Pozdnyakova, Luke Templeman

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The two big drivers of corporate returns over the last decade have been upended in 2022. Specifically, corporates can no longer rely on higher debt or fatter profit margins as they have done post-financial crisis. Instead, to increase returns on equity, they might need to focus on generating more sales from existing assets - in other words, boost their asset turnover. [more]

M&A, Resilience amidst a slowdown

June 20, 2022

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Galina Pozdnyakova, Luke Templeman, Olga Cotaga

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With a tumultuous first half of 2022 almost over, we are making a contrarian call for the second half. Specifically, we believe that although M&A will slow compared with last year, it will be more resilient than the drop so far in 2022 would suggest. To support this, we have identified several post-covid themes that are motivating corporates and private capital to make acquisitions. [more]

Declining cost of FX hedges creates opportunities to raise hedge ratios

April 29, 2022

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Bryant Xu, Mallika Sachdeva

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Deutsche Bank Research has launched a new series of Asia Corporate Strategy Notes for our corporate clients, focusing on risk management recommendations in currency and rates markets.

The first report in this series argues that corporations should take advantage of declining Asia FX hedging costs to raise USD and EUR hedge ratios. [more]

The Future of Work – Learning from Sport Part I. How to Be a GOAT While Working Remote

September 7, 2021

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Analyst:

Marion Laboure

Who would have guessed that Tom Brady would lead a team to Superbowl glory at the age of 43? Who would have thought that Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi would still compete for the Ballon d’Or award at the ages of 36 and 34, respectively? And who would have guessed that Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic would continue to dominate tennis well into their thirties, despite a generation of new players? There are close parallels between great athletes like these and professional success. We have a lot to learn from remarkable women and men who achieve great heights in sports—especially as we move toward a post-pandemic work-from-home future. [more]

The Future of Payments: Series 2 - Part III. Bitcoins: Can the Tinkerbell Effect Become a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?

March 17, 2021

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Marion Laboure

Bitcoin’s market cap of $1 trillion makes it too important to ignore. Big players who buy and sell bitcoins have considerable market-moving power. As long as asset managers and companies continue to enter the market, Bitcoin prices could continue to rise. But bitcoin transactions and tradability are still limited. And the real debate is whether rising valuations alone can be reason enough for bitcoin to evolve into an asset class, or whether its illiquidity is an obstacle. Bitcoin’s value will continue to rise and fall depending on what people believe it is worth. This is sometimes called the Tinkerbell Effect — a recognised economic term stating that the more people believe in something, the likelier it is to happen. [more]

How Assets-as-a-Service can save a balance sheet blow out

March 2, 2021

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Henry Allen, Luke Templeman

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Being ‘asset-light’ has been Wall Street dogma for years. And no wonder. Over the last decade, US stocks with low levels of Property, Plant, and Equipment (PPE) have seen double the stock market returns of high PPE stocks. In Europe, the returns have been triple. [more]

The Future of Payments: Series 2 - Part II. When digital currencies become mainstream

February 3, 2021

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Analyst:

Marion Laboure

A year ago, we stated that:
− Cryptocurrencies would become more mainstream. Both Facebook and PayPal will be adding cryptocurrency capability to their wallets early 2021.
− Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) will be widely discussed. The Bahamas launched the first nationwide CBDC last October, and both Sweden and China launched pilots in early 2020.

What do we see this year? Click here and find out [more]

The Future of Payments Series 2 - Part I. Post Covid-19: What Executives Are Thinking and Doing

January 13, 2021

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Jim Reid, Marion Laboure

Covid-19 disruption to business has reshuffled priorities for CFOs and treasurers. They must address how to: maintain access to liquidity /credit; implement back-up procedures; create visibility to total cash in global locations; determine cash requirements in the short and medium term; and assess current exposures. [more]

Blockchain and Corporates: Transparency is the New Marketing

October 12, 2020

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Analyst:

Jim Reid, Marion Laboure