Alibaba’s IPO : The journey of 102 years begins

At long last, Alibaba reveals details of its massive public flotation

“DEAR investors,” begins the letter from Jack Ma, a remarkable Chinese entrepreneur who has risen from an obscure life as a teacher to become one of the world’s richest businessmen. “If you invest with us, you will be embarking on a journey with Alibaba.” The missive from Mr Ma (pictured), the founder and chairman of China’s largest internet firm, is part of an amendment to the firm’s prospectus filed on September 5th with America’s Securities and Exchange Commission. This long-awaited update reveals the most anticipated bit of financial news in a long while: how much Alibaba’s shares will cost during its forthcoming initial public offering (IPO) in New York.
The answer surprised many. Alibaba is pricing its offering at between $60 and $66 a share. That could lead to a valuation of the firm above $160 billion, surpassing the one achieved by Facebook at its flotation two years ago. The firm also looks to raise above $20 billion with this placement, which would make it one of the biggest IPOs in history.


That makes this a colossal deal, but market observers were surprised by the humility evident in the offering—not the hubris. Such is the excitement among investors worldwide for Alibaba’s shares that some expected its shares to be even pricier. Pundits had predicted a valuation of $200 billion or more for the firm. Some wild-eyed enthusiasts have even claimed that this is a hyper-growth firm that could one day be worth a trillion dollars.
So what explains the decision to price the IPO thus? One reason the firm’s management has taken a conservative tack is the desire to avoid the sort of mess that followed Facebook’s flotation, which saw the American firm’s shares plunge in value in the wake of the IPO. Of course, the social network’s shares have bounced back nicely since then, but this early performance is widely seen as a fiasco. Particularly given the suspicions many American investors have about Chinese stocks (understandable given the recent history of dodgy offerings by obscure firms dubbed “fraud caps”), Alibaba’s owners do not want to give investors any reason to be skittish about their company.
Another reason for their caution is the failed earlier flotation on the Hong Kong exchange of Alibaba.com, the firm’s business-to-business division. This was the company’s first business line, but it has stagnated while the fortunes of Taobao and Tmall, respectively its gargantuan consumer-to-consumer portal and business-to-consumer site, have skyrocketed. The firm priced the earlier flotation rather greedily, and found that there was nowhere to go but down. In the end, it decided to take the entire division private at an inflated price in order to quell shareholder unrest.
So how much is Alibaba really worth? There are good reasons to hop onto the magic carpet. The firm utterly dominates Chinese e-commerce on both personal computers and mobile devices. This is hugely profitable because China is both the world’s biggest e-commerce market and also its biggest market for smartphones. Thanks to its first-mover advantage and enormous scale, the firm is also well positioned to benefit from the rise of the country’s middle classes.
But that does not mean Alibaba is a good share at any price. The firm’s cosy, near-monopoly position atop China’s e-commerce markets is now being challenged vigorously by a number of rivals. JD, a local rival which has just completed its own successful IPO in America, is coming after Alibaba aggressively with an “asset-heavy” e-commerce business model akin to Amazon’s—a stark contrast with Alibaba’s emphasis on maintaing “asset-light” platforms like Taobao that leave warehousing, inventory management and so on to others. Baidu and Tencent, well-funded local internet rivals, are now also targetting e-commerce with inventive offerings.
So the journey looks to be a wild ride—but if Mr Ma gets his way, at least it will not be a short one. In his investor letter, he makes this promise: “Since our founding in 1999, we have helped millions of small businesses to achieve a brighter future, and we hope to do this for at least 102 years.”

Culled from The Economist

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The World's Youngest Billionaires 2014: 31 Under 40-Ryan Mac

Getting to the $1 billion mark isn’t a race, but some just get there faster.

Of the 1,645 members of the Forbes Billionaires list, 31 are under the age of 40.That elite group no longer includes the  Google guys, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, both of whom have crossed into their 40′s. One unexpected twist: this year’s group includes a new youngest billionaire.

Little-known Perenna Kei, a newcomer to the list, displaces former Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz as the very youngest billionaire. Hailing from Hong Kong, Kei oversees an 85% stake in Logan Property Holdings through various companies and a family trust. Her father, Ji Haipeng, serves as chairman and CEO of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange-listed company, which went public in December.
The 39 youngest people on the 2014 Billionaires list have a combined net worth of $115.7 billion. Facebook employees past, present and future–including Sean Parker, Mark Zuckerberg and WhatApp’s Jan Koum–account for 42% of that. Koum,  a newcomer following Facebook’s decision to purchase WhatsApp, is worth $6.8 billion. He sold his mobile messaging company to the Menlo Park, Calif.-based social networking company for $19 billion in stock and cash last month.
Thirteen of the world’s young and wealthy call the U.S. home, while the others hail from the rest of the globe. Find the full list below.
No. 1: Perenna Kei & family
Age: 24
Net Worth: $1.3 billion
The world’s youngest billionaire title goes to Perenna Kei, who owns an 85% stake in Logan Property Holdings through different companies and a family trust. Logan’s chairman and CEO, Ji Haipeng, is her father. Previously known by the name “Ji Peili,” Kei is a non-executive director at the company, and holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance from the University of London.
No. 2: Dustin Moskovitz
Age: 29
Net Worth: $6.8 billion
No longer the world’s youngest billionaire, Dustin Moskovitz will turn 30 this year. Mark Zuckerberg’s former roommate, Moskovitz helped kick start the social network from a Harvard dorm, dropping out of school after two years to work on the venture full-time as Facebook’s third employee. He left Facebook in 2008 to start Asana, a software company that aims to improve how people work with project collaboration tools. He got married in the past year to longtime girlfriend Cari Tuna.
No. 3: Mark Zuckerberg
Age: 29
Net Worth: $28.5 billion
Facebook turned 10 this year and no one was celebrating harder than CEO Mark Zuckerberg. After seeing his company past the growing pains of a disappointing May 2012 IPO, Zuckerberg has the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company flying high. Facebook’s shares are up more than 130% over the past year as of mid-February. That’s caused Zuck’s net worth to more than double over the same period, even after he gave away 18 million shares in late December. He sold more than 41 million shares and exercised 60 million options around that time as well.
No. 4: Anton Kathrein, Jr
Age: 29
Net Worth: $1.35 billion
Anton Kathrein, Jr. is the third generation to lead his family’s Kathrein-Werke AG–”the oldest and largest antenna manufacturer in the world,” according to the company’s website. A pioneer in automotive antennas, it also makes radio and TV broadcast antennas, satellite and terrestrial reception systems, equipment for high-speed multimedia transmission by cable TV operators and antenna systems and electronic components that allow cell phone signals to bounce across the world. The company–with 18 production sites worldwide, over 6,800 employees and $1.8 billion in revenue in 2012–was founded by Kathrein’s grandfather in 1919. Anton Sr. ran the company from 1972 until his unexpected death in 2012.

No. 5: Drew Houston
Age: 30
Net Worth: $1.2 billion
Dropbox cofounder and CEO Drew Houston is Silicon Valley’s newest boy-wonder billionaire. Barely out of his 20s, he joins the 10-figure fortune club this year after his San Francisco-based tech company raised a new round of funding in January at a valuation just under $10 billion.  Houston (pronounced like the New York City street, not the Texas city) cofounded Dropbox, a cloud-based file-sharing service, with Arash Ferdowsi in 2007. Houston started tinkering with computers at age 5 and has been involved in startups since high school.
No. 6: Albert von Thurn und Taxis
Age: 30
Net Worth: $3.8 billion
Although he first appeared on Forbes’ billionaire list as an 8-year-old, Albert von Thurn und Taxis, the 12th prince in his family line, officially inherited his fortune in 2001, on his 18th birthday. His assets include real estate, art and 36,000 hectares of woodland in Germany, one of the largest forest holdings in Europe. An eligible bachelor, he lives in the family castle in Bavaria, Schloss Emmeram, and drives race cars.
No. 7: Scott Duncan
Age: 31
Net Worth: $6.3 billion
Scott Duncan is one of Texas’ most eligible bachelors and one of four heirs to a massive energy-pipeline fortune built by their late father, Dan Duncan. He is $1.2 billion richer than a year ago thanks to a rise in the stock price of Enterprise Products Partners and a generous dividend plan. His father, formerly the richest man in Houston, died in 2010 at age 77. At the time of his death, there was a one-year lapse on estate taxes, allowing the siblings to inherite the fortune tax-free. Had Duncan died at another time, their fortune would have been subject to a federal tax of at least 45%.
No. 8: Eduardo Saverin
Age: 31
Net Worth: $4.1 billion
Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin, who was born in Brazil, has been living in Singapore since renouncing his United States citizenship in 2012. He rarely makes media appearances and now spends his time as an angel investor. “My life is not about creating another Facebook,” he said at a Wall Street Journal conference in Singapore last year.
No. 9: Yang Huiyan
Age: 32
Net Worth: $6.9 billion
China’s richest woman Yang Huiyan is vice chairman of real estate developer Country Garden. She was given her father’s stake in Country Garden before the company’s initial public offering in 2007, the same year that she topped Forbes’ list of China’s richest with a net worth of $16 billion.
No. 10: Fahd Hariri
Age: 33
Net Worth: $1.2 billion
Fahd Hariri is the youngest son of slain Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. He graduated from the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture de Paris in 2004. While he reportedly hasn’t set foot in Beirut since his father’s assassination in 2005, he develops residential buildings there and credits his father for his love of real estate development.
No. 11: Marie Besnier Beauvalot 
Age: 33
Net Worth: $2.7 billion
Marie, 33, along with siblings Emmanuel, 43, and Jean-Michel, 46, inherited French dairy giant Lactalis, producers of popular Président brie among hundreds of other cheese, milk and yogurt brands. Between them, they own 100% of the company their grandfather founded in the 1930s.
No. 12: Sean Parker
Age: 34
Net Worth: $2.4 billion
In June, Napster founder and former Facebook president Sean Parker wed singer Alexandra Lenas in a lavish ceremony in the forest in Big Sur, California with guests wearing outfits created by Hollywood costume designer Ngila Dickson. The $4.5 million wedding generated headlines for its Lord of the Rings-inspired outfits and Parker’s settlement with the California Coastal Commission for alleged environmental damage–Parker paid a $1 million fee on behalf of the Ventana Inn (owner of the venue) for lacking proper permits, and threw in an additional $1.5 million donation to the Coastal Commission. Parker insists not a single tree was harmed.
No. 13: Julia Oetker
Age: 35
Net Worth: $1.65 billion
The Oetker fortune–of which Julia Oetker is the youngest of eight billionaire beneficiaries–was built on baking and pudding powder. Now broadly diversified, Dr August Oetker KG–a holding company whose subsidiaries employ some 26,000 people and generate around $15 billion in annual revenue–traces its roots 1891, when August Oetker, a pharmacist, started selling non-perishable baking powder. Today, each of his heirs and their families own 12.5% percent of Bielefeld-based Dr. August Oetker KG.
No. 14: Robert Pera
Age: 35
Net Worth: $2.7 billion
Robert Pera returns to the list after a one-year hiatus thanks to stellar performance from his Ubiquiti Networks.  He started out as a hardware engineer with Apple in 2003, but after just two years he left the company to start his own, later saying, “Apple is a great company, but I realized I wanted to have more success faster.”
No. 15: Ayman Hariri
Age: 35
Net Worth: $1.2 billion
Ayman Hariri is the son of slain Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. He’s involved in running Saudi Oger, one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest construction companies and the source of the Hariri family fortune. Oger was part of a venture that won a $653 million contract in January 2013 to build a local branch of the Jean Nouvel-designed Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi.
No. 16: Naruatsu Baba
Age: 36
Net Worth: $2.2 billion
Naruatsu Baba joins the ranks of Forbes billionaires as his smartphone game maker Colopl storms the market. Baba, founded the company in 2008 as a developer; today he owns 59% of the growing company after selling of a 10% stake last summer.
No. 17: Yvonne Bauer & family
Age: 36
Net Worth: $3.5 billion
Yvonne Bauer is the fifth generation of her family to run Bauer Media Group, which publishes some 600 magazines in 37 countries worldwide (U.S. titles include First for Women, Woman’s World and In Touch). The group continues to expand through acquisitions and product launches focused on radio and print.
No. 18: Lawrence Ho
Age: 37
Net Worth: $3 billion
Lawrence Ho is son of Macau gambling-industry legend Stanley Ho. Their Melco Crown Entertainment, a venture with Australian James Packer, boasts casino projects in Macau and Manila.
No. 19: Yoshikazu Tanaka
Age: 37
Net Worth: $1.6 billion
Yoshikazu Tanaka, founder and CEO of social networking gaming company, Gree, is trying to get the firm back on track after declining sales for conventional mobile phones and stiff competition–he is up against Apple’s App Store and Google Play. The company’s share price has slumped 22% over the past year.
No. 20: Alejandro Santo Domingo Davila & family
Age: 37
Net Worth: $11.1 billion
Colombian beer king Julio Mario Santo Domingo Pumarejo died in October 2011, leaving his inheritance spread among Colombia’s richest family. Julio Mario had owned Bavaria brewery but traded it in 2005 for 15% of SABMiller, the second-largest brewer on the planet. Julio Mario had three sons, including Alejandro, the new face of the family and a managing director at New York investment firm Quadrant Capital Advisors.
No. 21: Jack Dorsey
Age: 37
Net Worth: $2.2 billion
Jack Dorsey has founded two billion-dollar Silicon Valley companies and shows no signs of slowing. His first, Twitter, went public in Nov. 2013. Dorsey, who owns nearly 5% of the company’s outstanding shares, serves as chairman of the San Francisco-based microblogging service. He owns an even larger stake–nearly 29%–in payments company Square, which had estimated revenues of $220 million in 2012 and is valued at about $3.25 billion as of a funding round announced in Sept. 2012.
No. 22: Jan Koum
Age: 38
Net Worth: $6.8 billion
Jan Koum caused quite the stir when Facebook announced that it was buying his mobile messaging startup WhatsApp for $19 billion in February.Koum created WhatsApp in 2009 as the first smartphone application to let people send text messages between different phones and countries for free, using only their cell phone numbers. It is now the biggest mobile messaging service in the world with 430 million active users, bigger than Skype and Snapchat combined. Born and raised in a village on the outskirts of Kiev, Koum immigrated to Mountain View, Calif. when he was 16 and soon discovered a passion for computer hacking and networking.
No. 23: Nicholas Woodman
Age: 38
Net Worth: $1.3 billion
Another year, another milestone for GoPro creator and CEO Nicholas Woodman. After debuting on the billionaires list last year, he plans to take his company public this year after filing IPO papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission in February. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company is keeping it under wraps, however, after filing their documents confidentially–an exception for companies with less than $1 billion in revenue under the JOBS act.
No. 24: Chase Coleman, III
Age: 38
Net Worth: $1.6 billion
Coleman is running one of the most dynamic new alternative money management businesses, Tiger Global Management, which oversees some $13 billion. His $6.3 billion Tiger Global hedge fund has cooled off a bit after trouncing the U.S. stock market in 2011 and 2012. But Tiger Global still returned some 14% net of fees in 2013.
No. 25: Yusaku Maezawa
Age: 38
Net Worth: $1.25 billion
Yusaku Maezawa founded online fashion mall Zozotown, a wildly popular website with some 1,600 brands, which are mostly Japanese, and 4 million members. The website is structured like actual mall where stores are set up; sells on consignment.
No. 26: Rahel Blocher
Age: 38
Net Worth: $2.9 billion
Rahel Blocher, along with sister Magdalena, is the largest shareholder of Ems-Chemie, the gigantic Swiss polymer and chemical manufacturer that her family has run for decades. When father Christoph Blocher departed the company in 2004 after 35 years to serve in the Swiss government, he sold his stock evenly to his four children. Rahel, the youngest sibling, isn’t actively involved in company operations, unlike Magdalena, who is CEO.
No. 27: John Arnold
Age: 39
Net Worth: $2.9 billion
John Arnold shocked the hedge fund world in May 2012 when he announced that he was calling it quits at age 38. He got his start at Enron in 1995 and is said to have made $750 million for the company in 2001 alone, the year that the company collapsed. After Enron he started his own fund, Centaurus Advisors, and became a billionaire posting triple-digit returns several years.
No. 28: Jon Oringer
Age: 39
Net Worth: $1.35 billion
Jon Oringer became New York’s first tech billionaire in 2013 thanks to the soaring value of Shutterstock, the stock photo service he founded 10 years earlier and took public in 2012.  A serial entrepreneur, Oringer had come up with one of the world’s first pop-up blockers as a computer science graduate student at Columbia. The site now has over 30 million photos, 40,000 contributors and 2012 revenues of $170 million.
No. 29: Liu Qiangdong
Age: 39
Net Worth: $2.7 billion
Liu Qiangdong is founder and CEO of JD.com of Beijing, formerly called 360Jindong. The company boasts about 500,000 orders a day.
No. 30: Ryan Kavanaugh
Age: 39
Net Worth: $1 billion
Ryan Kavanaugh’s Relativity Media is backed by fellow billionaire Ron Burkle. Relativity now also has a TV division, sports management and a music department.
No. 31: Miriam Blocher
Age: 39
Net Worth: $1.1 billion
Miriam Blocher is a major shareholder of Ems-Chemie, the gigantic Swiss polymer and chemical manufacturer that her family has run for decades. When father Christoph Blocher departed the company in 2004 after 35 years to serve in the Swiss government, he sold his stock evenly to his four children. Miriam and brother Markus have sold shares to sisters Magdalena and Rahel over the years to run their own companies. Miriam purchased Läckerli-Huus, a Swiss confectionary and baked goods company, in 2007 and still manages the company.

Culled from Forbes

What New IRS Rules Mean for Your Retirement Account-Joanne Cleaver

A few folks thought they could use their individual retirement accounts for short-term loans to themselves. The Internal Revenue Service was not amused. Starting in 2015, new rules apply for withdrawing money from an IRA with the aim of rolling it into another IRA investment, taking possession of the funds yourself in the process.

The short version of the new rule is that you can only roll over an account this way once every 365 days, investment advisors say. But the longer version is: Don't even try to skirt this rule.

"The rollover rules have been tightened -- a lot," says Ed Slott, a certified public accountant and chief executive officer of Ed Slott & Co., which runs professional training courses on IRAs. "Everybody with an IRA needs to know about this because at some point, everybody with an IRA wants to change investments."


"Any time you're tempted to move money, talk with a financial professional, because tax rules are different for IRAs and 401(k)s," says Doug Orton, vice president of MFS, a Boston-based asset management firm. "Don't get fooled into thinking that a rollover is a no-fault transaction. Sometimes people make horrific mistakes by assuming there's no penalty. "
Start thinking now about how this will affect the management of your retirement accounts, recommends David W. Smith, an advisor with Strategic Wealth Management in Bend, Oregon. If you were considering taking distributions from any IRA account this year, know the IRS has stated that existing rules apply through Dec. 31. After that, the new rules -- which are still being fine-tuned -- will apply.
The important distinction is that there are still no limits on rolling over IRAs and Roth IRAs from one institution to another. That's called a "trustee to trustee transfer," and you can do that as often as you want, Slott and other IRA experts say.


You can also shift money among different types of retirement accounts -- say, from a 401(k) to a Roth IRA -- without complications. Of course, before making any moves, have a one-on-one discussion with a financial advisor to make sure you are well within the guidelines. You should also talk through the potential tax implications of shifting funds among accounts.
However, the new rules do apply to rollovers in which "you say, 'I want to move the money, but give me the check,'" Slott says. "You can only do that once every 365 days."
It's important to note the rule specifies "every 365 days," not once a calendar year, he says. That means you can't take cluster withdrawals, or closely timed withdrawals and deposits, giving yourself access to those retirement funds for two penalty-free 60-day periods in a row.
Although it has been relatively rare for IRA account holders to play roulette with their financial futures, the option was too much for a few people to resist. Most often, advisors say, those who used the 60-day rollover period inappropriately did so to fund business cash flow, college tuition bills and other big-ticket cash shortages.


It was never a commonplace gamble, but the ploy was sufficiently flagrant to elicit a strongly worded IRS slapdown and stringent rules advisors expect will apply to all without exception or mercy. Translation: Take your money for a stroll and return it a day late, and you will face huge losses for the privilege.
Slott says the smartest way to sidestep rollover woes is simply to not take the money yourself. Always direct the money from one institution to another in a "trustee to trustee" transfer.

If you take a risk for, say, trying to use rolling IRA funds for a do-it-yourself bridge loan as you buy one house before selling the other, you could pay a very high price. If the money is not redeposited in another IRA within 60 days and you are younger than 59½, you will pay a 10 percent penalty, Slott says. And the funds will likely be subject to income taxes.

You might get away with it. But you might not. As Slott says, "Why invite disaster?" 

Culled from US News

PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL SATISFACTION AS A VERITABLE PART OF PENSION SCHEME-Odunze Reginald

In the 4ps of Marketing, we talk about the product, price, promotion and the place element, which is the distribution element of marketing; the 4ps have been expanded to 8 Ps and Even 12Ps. But we shall be more interested in the 8 Ps of Marketing which talks about product, price, promotion, place, process, people , permission marketing and Physical and Emotional satisfaction.

Kotler (1980: 9) aptly captured this scenario when he defined marketing in his earlier book as the “set of human activities directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange process. But in his later edition, he tends to overlook this basic element of satisfaction in his definition of marketing.

Leo Burnet said “ Don’t tell me how good you make it, tell me how good it makes when I use it” Le Boeuf (1987;23) stated that customers will exchange their hard earned money for only two reasons:

Good feelings
Solutions to problems.

Continuing Le Boeuf (op cited) stated that the success or failure of any business depends on how many it rewards with two things stated above and how well it does it” and as Francis Rodgers , a former Vice President of Marketing for IBM put it ”The secret is to understand the customers problems and provide solutions so as to help that customer be profitable and feel good about the transactions” Feeling good about a transaction brings out the best in the customer and makes him to be physical and emotionally satisfied.

Therefore the need for customers physical and emotional satisfaction in the pension scheme cannot be over emphasized. This is because when the customer is satisfied and is convinced not beyond reasonable doubt as in the legal profession or beyond points of further dispute as in the physical science but in being firmly convinced within himself that he has made a wise decision will you be able to say that the customer is going to have emotional or physical satisfaction. Each and every one of us have at one time or the other made transactions , having been convinced by the marketer, or the sales person but goes home feeling dissatisfied at that transaction, the result is that the customer develops a deeper hatred about the organization, its product or service and even the sales person.

The reason behind this is that when a customer is fully convinced that he made a decision by himself, and is getting appropriate quality service , the better the customer feels satisfied and will be in better position, to even go as far marketing the product or service to other of his colleagues, creating awareness even when you are not there. Not only that the inexperience and vulnerability of fresh employees makes them susceptible to asking questions from their old colleagues about the state, degree and effectiveness of the pension fund administrators as the present themselves for enrollment to the pension scheme..

You can imagine what the answer will be if you as a pension fund administrator is not going the extra mile to satisfy your customers.

Personal and Emotional satisfaction will always create more customer base to the organizations involved and will definitely lead to a good will. Good will is an intangible assets in most balance sheets of organization and it has monetary value.

When an organization has consistently satisfied its customers, it leads loyalty, customer patronage; pension fund administrators may not understand it now as National Pension Commission has not lifted the window of transfer. As the loyalty and patronage will in turn provide increase in profits, return on investments and spur the organization to contribute positively to the development of the environment or locality in which they find themselves, thereby increasing the intangible assets.

The power of Branding and its effect on Pension Business-Odunze Reginald C

I have a friend who has that hatred for Americans that he developed a theory called the conspiracy theory, he linked the theory to American’s ambition of controlling the financial resources of the world, he was so enthusiastic about the theory that he even link the exportation of Ebola Disease to Nigeria as part of the conspiracy theory with the American aim of developing a drug and making money from it and bearing in mind that Nigeria is the most populous country in African. He went on to say that the other African countries impact will be minimal but the effect on Nigeria will create a maximum impact. Hence the exportation to Nigeria through Patrick Sawyer. But I am not interested at this point on the conspiracy theory that will be a study for the later time. But one thing that marvels me is that after his conspiracy theory, he ends up taking a bottle of Coca-Cola.  He has become obsessed with the Cola drink.  That is the result of branding, even though he dislike American, but he loved their Cola.

In a special report in 2003 by Business week captioned “The Best Global Brands”, Annual Ranking of the top 100 Brands. In a sub title “Brands in an age of Anti Americanism” the report stated and I quote” Park Young Hoon of Seoul was quick to clench his fist and yell slogans against George W Bush in a giant rally denouncing the US president’s tough policy on North Korea. The report went on to say “but that doesn’t mean the 33 year old Computer Engineer is willing to loosen his grip on his favorite American coffee or cola” 

“Calling for political independence from the US is one thing and liking American brands is another” he says off course I like IBM, Dell, Microsoft, Starbucks and Coke”

The report also stated that “Yemeni students were out burning American flags, chanting kill the Americans noted by Valenti CEO of the Motion Pictures Association of Americans, as soon as the theaters open at 7pm, bingo, they are all there”.

 The popular Islamic fighters also states that they are against western education, but bingo, they are carrying the latest assemblage of state of the art weapons and ammunitions which are the products of foreign countries  , they are also  uploading their videos, pictures of the exploits in You tube, and other social networks, the Islamic State militants  that killed the American In Iraq were busy castigating the Americans, yelling anti American slogans, but by evening they are communicating their exploits in Twitter, Face book and You tube. One thing is to hate a country, a society and another thing is to like its product or service.

This is the importance of branding and building a brand loyalty , as customers will always run to your brand unknowingly after making attacks on the company or the country in which the products originates.

People have at one time or the other condemned the activities of the Japanese and the Germans during the Second World War, but they cannot do without the German Machines, Mercedes and the Japanese automobiles like Honda and Toyota. Even when they cast aspersions on these countries, they cannot do without their brand of automobiles.

Branding is very important in business and its impact in pension industry cannot be over emphasized. Building a successful brand in the pension industry requires the positive actions of the operators of the scheme as bad news emanating from one organization will adversely affect the activities of the others. As a name is so interwoven that any bad image adversely affects other localities and families that associates with bad name, as the African adage states that it is one finger dipped in oil that affects the other fingers.

What then is Brand?   Branding is a name, term, symbol or sign used to identify a product or service.

Adirika et al (1997:127) noted that branding is a major issue in product strategy  , on the one hand developing  a branded product requires a great deal of long term investment spending especially for advertising, promotion and even packaging”

Adirika et al (op cited) stated that brand is a name, term, symbol, or design or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitions.

The American Marketing Association AMA defines a brand as a name term, sign, symbol or design or a combination of them intended to identify the goods or services one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate those of other sellers.

McCarthy et al 1985, in Anyanwu (1993:39) defined branding as the use of a name, term, symbol, design, or a combination of these to identify a product. And according to Toyin Benson, “a brand can be described as the total sum of various consumer perceptions and beliefs formed over time as a result of various contacts with the product under reference, it can be seen as a combination of meaning ( in terms of proposition,) a reference point ( in terms of category) , an identifier  of a brand ,( in terms of name or logo) within  a global positioning framework  ( in terms of global benchmarking”)

Laura Lake (2011:1) “therefore it makes to understand that branding is not about getting your target market to choose you over the competition but it is about getting your prospects to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problems.

Lake identifies that a good brand will achieve 5 objectives

Deliver the message clearly

Confirms your credibility

Connects your target prospect emotionally

Motivates your buyer

Concrete user loyalty.

Name is one of the major element of a good brand and in fact impacts more on the brand than other element (Benson)

Even in real life, names are so much valued that individual and family are always protected by those owning their names from any form of tarnish, stain or blemish and when a names goes wrong either by bad character , people find it difficult to answer such names again, I have never come across one answering Judas or Jezebel based on the characters they exhibited in the Bible.

A good name therefore becomes a selling point both to the individual and to the organization. Nowadays women attached their maiden names before attaching their marital name and some have worked so hard that they even find it difficult to attach their marital names especially in the movie industry. That is power of a name and even the Holy aptly captured that a good name is better than silver and gold.

Creating lasting impressions by a brand is hinged on the strength, quality and appeal of the brand to the customers. The combination of the brand elements coupled with the expectations on delivery symbolize a promise by the brand which the consumer expect to fulfill a need (Benson)

It is the fulfillment of the need according to Benson that helps to build a brand equity and leverage effectively on this over a long term. Continuing Benson went on to highlight that the “pricing distribution and availability of the brand helps to reinforce the consumers patronage of the brand.

The pension industry is roughly ten years in Nigeria and with the recent speculations of the lifting of the transfer window, Pension Fund Administrators need to work hard to create an enduring brand, this is because when brand do not meet up with the expectations  of the consumers and customers, they move elsewhere  and look for alternatives probably never to come back as noted by Benson. Continuing he stated that when brand meet with up with expectations, i.e. consumers expectation, then a lasting impression is made and  a chemistry is established with the customer as was observed with the global brand reports of Business week.

The various customers of the PFAs are looking up for such brands in the pension industry, this is the time for the PFAs to create such brand and take us away from the old practice of failure in the pension industry. Failure is no longer an option coupled with the stringent principles of the National Pension Commission , PenCom and other regulatory organs and act, like the Banks and other Financial Institutions Act 1991, as amended, or the Money Laundry prohibition Act , 2004,  the Advance Fee fraud Act and other fraud related offences Act 2006  and the pension Reform Act 2oo4 which has been repealed , and the Pension Reform Act 2014 are all geared  towards the success and creation of an enduring brand in the pension industry . 

Odunze Reginald

Managing Partner, Chareg Consulting, Managing online Editor, Pensionsbenefit.com, Reginaldodunze.com and theverynewsinfo.com