Billionaire brothers see no turnaround for the global economy

More depressing news this week came out of Hong Kong, where sourcing giant Li & Fung, in the midst of a company transformation that is seeing it moving away from brands and increasingly become a pure supply chain player, reported a dip in annual profits as headwinds in Asia, Europe and the US continued – the latter accounts for 60% of its business. Its problems are partly company-specific: it relies too much on its traditional sourcing operations, which have little prospect of growth and appear out of touch in the e-commerce era. But there is also a wider malaise at work here.