Alibaba's shopping holiday that's bigger than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined just brought in $25 billion — this is what it looked like

• Tara Francis Chan
 

• 15h
• 118,991

Nicole Kidman with with Jack Ma, the chairman of Alibaba Group, ahead of the company's Singles' Day global shopping festival on November 11.REUTERS/Aly Song

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Since its early days as a student event in the 1990s, November 11 was called "Singles' Day" in some parts of China, marking a day to celebrate people without partners.

Now, the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has dubbed it "Double 11" — a term it has trademarked and transformed into the world's largest shopping event. During this year's Double 11, Alibaba sold $25.3 billion worth of merchandise.

Created in 2009 as an "anti-Valentine's Day," the "11-11 Global Shopping Festival" is now bigger than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

Encompassing a live-broadcast gala, virtual games, and an interactive fashion show, the 24-hour event has become a global extravaganza during which the company sells everything from American sneakers to South Korean washing machines to Argentinian shrimp.

Here's how this year's event unfolded.

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Alibaba hosted a countdown gala in Shanghai that was broadcast live across China. David Hill, who has worked on Super Bowls and Oscars, produced the event.

Alibaba

Source: Variety

The four-hour gala was held at the Mercedes-Benz Arena. Nearby, a giant screen tracked sales in real time — at one point there were 325,000 orders a second.

Alibaba

Source: Markets Insider

Alibaba says a large number of preorders helped it notch $1 billion in sales in the first two minutes of the event.

A screen shows the value of goods that people are buying.REUTERS/Aly Song

In this photo from 2016, staff members track orders in front of the countdown screen. This year, more than 140,000 brands and merchants took part, and nearly half were international.

alibabagroup.com

Source: Forbes

Nicole Kidman and Maria Sharapova attended the festivities. In previous years, Scarlett Johansson and Katy Perry turned up on stage.

Twitter

Pharrell Williams and Jessie J performed at this year's gala.

REUTERS/Aly Song

Gala watchers were also able to win more than $40 million in various prizes, including trips to Antarctica.

Twitter

Source: South China Morning Post

Alibaba's campus in China was also lit up with brightly colored lights to celebrate the day.

This photo shows the counter screen at Alibaba's headquarters in 2013. The shopping festival began in 2009, when only 27 merchants participated.

VCG/VCG via Getty Images

Source: The Guardian

Each year, beds and quilts are laid out at the Alibaba campus for the 24-hour sales event. This photo is of the company's Xixi campus in 2016.

REUTERS/Stringer

An aerial photograph of the quilts shows how many employees Alibaba prepares for.

REUTERS/Stringer

A mascot for Tmall, a shopping website owned by Alibaba, was seen around Beijing in the week leading up to Singles' Day. The sign says "Double 11 big sale."

AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

Bullet trains in the Guangdong province are also used to deliver bags of goods.

REUTERS/Stringer

Staff members at warehouses, logistics centers, and courier companies are very busy on Singles' Day. This year, the first parcel arrived at 12 minutes and 18 seconds past midnight.

REUTERS/Stringer

Source: South China Morning Post

Get the latest Alibaba stock price here.

More: Features Alibaba Jack Ma Single's Day 

Venezuela to meet creditors in bid to dodge default

• Reuters

• 15h
• 83
 

People line up to pay for their fruits and vegetables at a street market in Caracas Thomson Reuters

By Brian Ellsworth

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela opens talks with creditors on Monday to renegotiate a crippling debt that has left once-prosperous citizens sifting through garbage to find food, as the OPEC nation seeks to avert a default that would plunge its economy into deeper uncertainty.

President Nicolas Maduro's government has summoned investors who hold some $60 billion in junk bonds to Caracas in a desperate bid to shore up public finances that have been squeezed by the unraveling of the socialist economy.

Investors broadly said they planned to skip the meeting because of concerns about U.S. sanctions on senior Venezuelan officials, worries about security in violence-torn Caracas, and generalized confusion about what Maduro hopes to achieve.

Markets were optimistic on Friday that Venezuela would continue to service its debt despite the odds, noting that Maduro's government had made close to $2 billion in payments in the past two weeks, albeit delayed.

"The country that has paid the greatest amount of debt per capita is called Venezuela," Maduro said during his weekly Sunday broadcast, insisting the country was the victim of an "economic war."

But many say Maduro's promise to restructure and refinance debt rings hollow at a time when U.S. sanctions make both options all but impossible, and that his government may be paving the way for a default despite promises to the contrary.

The 2 p.m. (1600 GMT) meeting will be held in the ornate "White Palace" building across the street from the president's office in downtown Caracas.

The economic crisis has already taken a brutal toll on Venezuelans, who increasingly suffer from malnutrition and preventable diseases because they cannot find food and medicine or cannot afford them because of triple-digit inflation.

The sight of poor Venezuelans eating from garbage bags has become a powerful symbol of decay. It contrasts sharply with the era of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, when high oil prices helped fuel state spending and even the most humble citizens could travel abroad or buy the latest cellphone.

'NOTHING TO SAY TO THEM'

Sanctions by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, in response to accusations that Maduro's government has undermined democracy and violated human rights, block U.S. banks from acquiring newly issued Venezuelan debt.

The sanctions do not prohibit investors from attending. But they are blocked from dealings with dozens of officials including Vice President Tareck El Aissami and Economy Minister Simon Zerpa, both of whom are part of the debt commission.

Maduro said this month he wanted to speak with creditors about restructuring, but also vowed to continue making payments - leaving investors baffled.

"If they're going to continue paying, I don't have anything to say to them," said one bondholder who asked not to be identified. "It's when they say they're going to stop paying that I'd have reason to talk to them."

It is not clear how default would affect the struggling population, in part because the impact would depend on the government's strategy and the response of creditors.

Halting debt service would free up an additional $1.6 billion in hard currency by the end of the year. Those resources could be used to improve supplies of staple goods as Maduro heads into a presidential election expected for 2018.

That strategy could backfire if it is met with aggressive lawsuits.

A default by state oil company PDVSA, which issued about half of the country's outstanding bonds, could ensnare the company's foreign assets such as refineries in legal battles - potentially crimping export revenue.

Bondholders would have fewer options if Venezuela rather than PDVSA defaults.

But the consequences of a default by the country could still be significant, said Mark Weidemaier, a professor of law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an expert on international debt disputes and resolution.

Creditors could seek to block shipments of goods from leaving the United States for Venezuela or seize payments for those goods, Weidemaier said in a telephone interview.

"The real impact that a creditor can have in a sovereign default is to make it complicated for a government to engage in foreign commerce," he said. "Companies may have to use complicated transaction structures to prevent seizures, which is going to make them wary of doing business with Venezuela."

(Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Uber said it finally reached a deal with SoftBank

• James Cook
 
•   

• 12h
• 1,675

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Uber announced on Sunday that Japanese tech investor SoftBank had agreed upon a deal to invest in the company.

Uber hasn't disclosed exactly how much SoftBank will invest, but Reuters reports that Uber will receive $1 billion (£765 million) in funding and SoftBank will purchase $9 billion (£6.8 billion) of existing shares.

The deal between the two companies was reached after months of conflict on Uber's board. Investment firm Benchmark Capital was an early Uber investor but sued Uber founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick. The investment deal with SoftBank will likely cause Benchmark to drop its suit, Reuters reported.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said earlier this month that is was possible SoftBank could pull out of its deal with Uber and instead back its largest rival, Lyft. "Depending on the price and conditions, it is wholly possible we could shift our investment to the other main company Lyft. It is wholly possible," he reportedly said.

Here's the statement Uber sent on Sunday:

"We've entered into an agreement with a consortium led by SoftBank and Dragoneer on a potential investment. We believe this agreement is a strong vote of confidence in Uber's long-term potential. Upon closing, it will help fuel our investments in technology and our continued expansion at home and abroad, while strengthening our corporate governance."

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Wall Street bankers got some very good news about their bonuses

• Olivia Oran, Reuters

• 4h
• 228

Bankers could see their bonuses jump by 10%. Jason Miller/Getty

• Wall Street could see bonuses increase by 10%, according to a report by compensation firm Johnson Associates Inc.
• The expected increase is the first significant jump since 2013. 
• Fixed income traders aren't expected to be so fortunate, as their bonuses could fall by 10%. 

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(Reuters) - Wall Street bonuses may climb as much as 10 percent this year, in the first meaningful jump for the industry since 2013, according to a closely watched report.

Bankers who advise companies on issuing stock or bonds could see an even bigger pay jump, as much as 20 percent, compensation firm Johnson Associates Inc said on Sunday.

A reduced emphasis on financial regulation under U.S. President Donald Trump has boosted shares of banks to peak levels on hopes higher interest rates, lower taxes and faster economic growth under the Trump administration would lift profits.

The KBW Nasdaq Bank Index, which measures the largest U.S. banks, has risen 34 percent since the election, compared with the benchmark S&P 500 index's 24 percent gain over the same period.

But looser banking regulations haven't translated yet into better trading results amid low market volatility and tepid client activity. Wall Street firms’ bond trading revenue has fallen for about seven years amid new rules on trading and capital.

Banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley, that once relied heavily on trading, are now leaning more heavily on businesses like private equity and wealth management.

As a result, fixed income traders are likely to see their bonuses fall as much as 10 percent, the report said.

"The profit engine of fixed income continues to sputter," Johnson Associates managing director Alan Johnson said in an interview. "There are a lot of people who don't think that business is coming back."

(Reporting by Olivia Oran in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Trump vaunts trade progress, red carpets on 'fruitful' Asia trip

• Reuters

• 16h
• 59

Trump takes part in the ASEAN summit in Manila, PhilippinesThomson Reuters

MANILA (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he had made significant progress on trade issues during a fruitful trip across Asia that saw governments roll out red carpets "like nobody has ever seen".

"We've made some very big steps with respect to trade, far bigger than anything you know," Trump told reporters in Manila on the sidelines of a summit with leaders of Southeast Asian and East Asian nations.

He did not give details of his achievements on trade matters during a tour that took him to Japan, South Korea, China and Vietnam before his last leg in the Philippines capital.

He said a statement would be issued from the White House on Wednesday about North Korea, and on trade, key issues of a trip he described as fruitful.

"It was red carpet like nobody, I think, has probably ever seen," he said.

In Vietnam at the weekend, Trump and leaders of Pacific Rim nations agreed to address "unfair trade practices" and "market- distorting subsidies", a statement that bore the imprint of Trump's efforts to reshape the global trade landscape.

His "America First" vision has upset a traditional consensus favoring multinational trade pacts that China now champions. On the sidelines of the Vietnam meeting, 11 countries kept alive a Trans Pacific trade deal whose future was thrown into doubt when Trump withdrew from it in the name of protecting American jobs.

Chinese President Xi Jinping told the summit in Vietnam that Asia-Pacific nations must "uphold multilateralism", countering Trump's message that the United States would stay out of trade deals that surrender its sovereignty.

Trump, by contrast, blasted the World Trade Organization and multilateral trade deals during his tour. Some analysts expect tougher U.S. action may be imminent to fight trade imbalances with China exacerbated by its state-led economic model.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)