Weekly News Wrap: Alibaba's shares up 6% after anti-monopoly fine; Small Indian businesses hold event vs. Amazon summit

And Swiss watch brand Piaget to open more stores in China.

From CNBC:

Alibaba shares rose 6% in premarket trading in the US after the company was fined $2.8b (RMB18.23b) by Chinese regulators as a result of an anti-monopoly investigation. Its Hong Kong-listed shares closed 6.5% higher on Monday.

“Despite the record fine amount, we think this should lift a major overhang on BABA and shift the market’s focus back to fundamentals,” Morgan Stanley wrote in a note a day after the fine was issued.

Chinese regulators opened an anti-monopoly probe into Alibaba in December. The main focus was around a practice that forces merchants to list their products on one of two e-commerce platforms, rather than choosing both.

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From Reuters:

Thousands of Indian small businesses will organise an event this week in protest at the business practices of foreign e-tailers like Amazon, taking a dig at the US group's summit with their own event.

Starting 15 April, Amazon is organising a virtual summit in India named "Smbhav", which phonetically means "possible" in Hindi, to showcase opportunities offered by the firm to get small businesses to expand and sell online.

Trader groups representing 600,000 sellers said in a statement they will at the same time launch a summit titled "Asmbhav", or "impossible", including an award ceremony to pin the blame on those who they think have hurt their businesses.

Indian traders, who are a crucial part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's support base, have long alleged that Amazon and Walmart's Flipkart benefit a few big sellers and that the companies engage in predatory pricing that harms their businesses. The companies say they comply with all laws.

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From Reuters:

Swiss watch brand Piaget, owned by luxury goods group Richemont, will continue to open stores in China, its chief executive told Reuters.

"We’ll open more stores this year. We’ll reopen a flagship store in Beverly Hills and also have projects in the Middle East and China," Chabi Nouri said in an interview during the Watches & Wonders virtual industry event taking place this week.

Known for its ultra-thin watches, Piaget has 130 stores exclusively dedicated to the brand and also 300 external points of sales at retail partners. Richemont, which also owns Cartier, said in January that strong Chinese demand helped sales rise 5% in Q4 2020.

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