The company’s fourth-quarter gross margin will be pressured by “increased promotional activity” in apparel at its namesake store, as well as the Anthropologie banner, during the holiday period. “The weaker-than-anticipated margins came as a surprise with the consensus view being that URBN was the ‘best house on a bad block’ this holiday,” Citigroup analyst Paul Lejuez wrote in a note.

Urban Outfitters’ update follows similarly disappointing holiday updates from retailers including Kohl’s Corp., J.C. Penney Co. and L Brands Inc.

One analyst who called it correctly on Urban Outfitters, however, is Wedbush’s Jen Redding, who cautioned clients earlier this week about an “incrementally promotional atmosphere around key holiday selling weeks.” Judging by the share-price decline of as much as 7.2% Friday, Citi’s Lejuez appears right about the “consensus” view.

Jefferies analyst Janine Stichter wrote that the margin pressure, driven by elevated inventory levels, fashion misses in apparel, and higher deliver expense, was “not entirely unexpected.” She reduced her estimates to below the consensus average recently and noted that the company was at risk of a negative pre-announcement amid a deceleration in the retro brand trend. Still, Stichter maintained her buy rating. “While we expect headwinds to linger near term, we continue to believe in the long-term story, and note that valuation remains inexpensive.”

Meanwhile, if Redding’s crystal ball on promotions is that good, investors should watch beaten-down Gap. Her analysis of Wedbush’s proprietary discounts tracker indicated that promotions over the key November and December selling weeks tracked favorably versus last year at the core Gap brand, and Old Navy was “roughly mixed.” Taken together, she believes the data point to above-plan merchandise margin. Redding believes “better-than-expected holiday performance” will drive near-term share-price upside.

There is still more ahead in the holiday pre-announcement season. More than 200 consumer-oriented companies are expected to attend the ICR Conference in Orlando, Florida, early next week. Presentations start Monday, and a handful of other retailers are expected to pre-announce results ahead of their appearances. These include American Eagle Outfitters, Abercrombie & Fitch and Lululemon.

Local law firm Hannuri said it had filed complaints with the Southern District Prosecutor’s Office against six officials from the three companies on behalf of the three investors.Lime Asset is accused of having failed to notify its investors of changes in its method of investing funds, in connection with a recent debacle linked to New York-based investment adviser International Investment Group.

Lime’s funds were sold via different financial institutions, including Shinhan Investment and Woori Bank.

“They failed to let investors to know about important changes in the contracts for trade finance funds, named Pluto TF-1, and kept selling the funds and related financial products,” the investors said in their complaint.

“Lime Asset appears to have pulled in money to repay its funds by continuing to sell its already troubled trade finance funds,” the complaint stated.

The investors say Shinhan and Woori collaborated with the fund operator to sell the funds.

The company invested some 240 billion won ($206.7 million) in one of the International Investment Group’s funds, called a structured trade finance fund, which targeted trade finance portfolios in Southeast Asia and Africa.

In November, the US Securities and Exchange Commission revoked the group’s registration over accusations that it concealed losses and sold fraudulent loan assets to clients.

The estimated financial damage amounts to 1 trillion won.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com )

Lightnet can offer cross-border remittance services with efficiency, speed, low cost and safety through a modern money-transfer system that relies on the reliable blockchain technology, said Chatchaval Jiaravanon, the company’s chairman and co-founder.

He said that, in the beginning, Lightnet would focus on more than 11 million migrant workers in Southeast Asia who must rely on remittance systems that are expensive, outdated and inefficient, or underground banking that is unreliable.

“They have to wait for days for their transactions to be completed,” he said.

This is a big market for Lightnet, a Bangkok-based new player in the field, as Asia’s cross-border remittance market is worth over US$1 trillion.

Of this, the market size for Southeast Asia alone is $150 billion, according to Chatchaval, who is a member of the family behind the Charoen Pokphand Group.

On its website (www.lightnet.io), Lightnet describes itself as “a remittance provider company” and “the next generation financial network”.

“Lightnet was founded to become a new remittance centre that offers efficient, safe, cheap and speedy services to the four billion people across Asia,” the company’s chairman said.

He added that Lightnet uses the Stellar blockchain technology, which is fast, scalable and sustainable.

“This innovation of decentralised protocol will change the future of online financial world,” Chatchaval said.

Stellar is an open-source, decentralised protocol for digital currency to fiat money transfers which allows cross-border transactions between any pair of currencies.

A press conference was held on Thursday (January 9) to announce the launch of Lightnet and the agreement-signing with its major investors.

Among the key investors are UOB Venture Management, Japan’s Seven Bank, Uni-President Asset Holdings of Taiwan, Hanwha Investment and Securities of South Korea, Singapore’s Du Capital, Signum Capital and Hopeshine Ventures, and HashKey Capital of Hong Kong.

Chatchaval said $31.2 million (Bt950 million) had been raised during the company’s Series A round of funding. With that cash, Lightnet has become Asia’s first blockchain company to receive financial backing from six large conglomerates to attain its goal of providing access to millions of Asians searching for improved financial mobility.

The fresh funding will go towards strengthening Lightnet’s investment in the underlying blockchain technology and building a next-generation financial mobility network, Lightnet said in a press release.

Tridbodi Arunanondchai, Lightnet’s vice chairman and another co-founder, said the company aims to make financial transactions of over $50 billion (Bt1.51 trillion) within three years thanks to its strong network of partners.

“It’s vital that we build an ecosystem to provide Lightnet access to our partners’ vast user-bases and facilitate deeper penetration into local markets. We project that within three years, Lightnet will facilitate over $50 billion worth of transactions a year through our industry-leading partner network,” he said.

A tech entrepreneur and former investment banker, Tridbodi said Lightnet’s major investors include powerful players like Seven Bank from Seven & I Holdings, a retail group that owns 69,200 7-Eleven franchises all over the world.

UOB Venture and Hanwha Investment are influential firms in Singapore and South Korea, respectively, he said.

Lightnet is offering three innovative solutions – BridgeNet, LiquidNet and SmartNet, chief executive Suvicha Sudchai said. The main platform has been completed and the first transaction is slated for the first quarter of this year, he added.

“In addition to the potential 500,000 cash agents across our ecosystem, Lightnet will integrate with several renowned payment and remittance partners such as MoneyGram, Seven Bank, Yeahka and Ksher across Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia to ensure successful activation of our ecosystem,” Suvicha said.

The Central Administrative Court last April dismissed the consortium’s complaint about being disqualified from the bidding, saying the bid selection committee was correct in its application of the rules.

The committee rejected the CP bid because certain technical, business plan and price tender documents had not been submitted by the deadline of 3pm last March 21.

In fact, the documents arrived nine minutes late, and the consortium filed a complaint to the court deeming the committee’s decision unlawful.

When that complaint was dismissed, the matter moved to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the consortium’s tardiness in providing documents was not a key factor giving it an advantage over its rival bidders.

The consortium is comprised of CP Group’s Thana Holding Co, Italian-Thai Development, Ch Karnchang, B Grimm Joint Ventures Holding Co and Orient Success International Co.

The joint venture has an initial registered capital of Bt20,000, which will be raised to Bt600 million.

It will be engaged in digital lending in line with SCB’s goal of driving long-term growth through digital lending.

Abakus develops technology in various fields, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, for financial businesses.

Marc Demane Debih, the government’s star witness, testified Wednesday in a Manhattan insider-trading trial that he got data on three proposed corporate acquisitions in the mining industry from Zeynep Yenel, who was then his girlfriend.

“We are aware of the statements made during the testimony,” Goldman Sachs spokeswoman Nicole Sharp said in a statement Thursday. “We are taking them seriously and conducting our own review.”

Demane Debih testified in the trial of Telemaque Lavidas, who is charged with passing secret information from his father, a former director at a Boston-based drug company, to Georgios Nikas, a Greek businessman who owns restaurants in New York. Demane Debih, a former Swiss trader, pleaded guilty to 38 criminal counts in October. He’s cooperating with prosecutors in hopes of reducing his time behind bars.

Demane Debih told jurors that in 2010 or 2011 he got information from Yenel on London Mining Plc, Breakwater Resources Ltd. and Copper Mountain Mining Corp. He testified that he traded on the Copper Mountain information and passed a Breakwater tip to his friend Nikas. He said he doesn’t remember whether he traded on London Mining.

Yenel wasn’t aware that he was able to determine the identity of her clients, Demane Debih said.

“How did you figure that out?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Tracer asked.

“From asking her different questions, and I was looking at the market, and figured out which company she was working for,” Demane Debih responded.

Yenel is one of two Goldman Sachs investment bankers whose names came up in Demane Debih’s testimony. The former Swiss trader also told jurors that former Goldman Sachs Vice President Bryan Cohen was a source of inside information, tipping him on as many as six or seven corporate deals.

Cohen pleaded guilty to conspiracy on Tuesday and faces as long as five years in prison. He was terminated late last year, according to the firm.

The case is U.S. v. Lavidas, 19-cr-716, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

Bank president Apirom Sukprasert said Bt15 billion was earmarked for small-scale farmers and the rest for community enterprises and agricultural cooperatives.

Eight-year loans for community enterprises and agricultural cooperatives carry an annual interest rate of 0.01 per cent.

Apirom expects the loan fund to be fully depleted within two years.

The six-figure sum is not being offered at a haute cuisine location with culinary accolades, but at fast-food chain Taco Bell. Amid an increasingly tough U.S. labor market, the company is betting a higher salary will help it attract workers and keep them on the team.

The Yum Brands Inc.-owned chain will test the higher salary in select restaurants in the Midwest and Northeast, and will also try a new role for employees who want leadership experience but don’t want to be in the management position.

It’s another example of how stubbornly low unemployment is changing the face of fast food, which for decades has been seen as the quintessential low-wage job. Restaurants including Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants and Shake Shack have recently called out labor inflation that’s hurting margins.

In November, the unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, matching the lowest since 1969, while average hourly earnings climbed and exceeded projections.

Taco Bell on Thursday also announced plans to make all of its customer packaging recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2025. Amid the growth of plant-based meat imitations, the chain added it wants to continue providing vegetarian menu items for customers such as the black bean crunchwrap.