The Wall Street Journal - USA (2020-12-07)

B2| Monday, December 7, 2020 **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

INDEX TO BUSINESSES

These indexes cite notable references to most parent companies and businesspeople

in today’s edition. Articles on regional page inserts aren’t cited in these indexes.

A

Airbnb..........................B1

Alphabet..............B1,B10

Amazon.com.A1, B10,R7

American Airlines Group

B6

American Funds..........R6

Ampol..........................A1

Ant Group...................B1

Apple.........B1,B4,B10,R7

B

Berkshire Hathaway...R7

Big Lots.......................B6

BlackRock....................R6

BP................................A8

C

California State

Teachers' Retirement

System......................B1

Century Aluminum.....A1

Chick-fil-A...................B6

Claxton Poultry Farms

B6

Coca-Cola.....................B6

Colgate-Palmolive.......B6

Comcast.......................B4

ContextLogic...............B1

D-E

DoorDash.....................B1

EG Group.....................B3

Engine No. 1...............B1

Euromet......................A6

Exxon Mobil.....A8,B1,R7

F-G

FedEx...........................B2

Fidelity Investments

R6,R7

Freeport-McMoRan.....A1

General Mills...............B6

Genesco.......................B6

Goldman Sachs Group

B1, R7

Grayscale Investments

B9

I

IAC/InterActive...........B1

Iconiq Capital..............B4

Imperial Zinc...............A6

Intel...........................B10

Intermountain

Healthcare................B3

J-L

JPMorgan Chase ........B1

KFC..............................B6

Kroger..........................B6

Lyft ...........................B10

M-O

Marathon Petroleum..A8

Mars Inc......................B6

Microsoft.....................R7

Moderna......................R8

Morgan Stanley..........B1

MSCI............................R7

Netflix.........................R7

Nike.............................B4

Nvidia........................B10

Oracle..........................R7

P

Peloton Interactive.....B4

PepsiCo........................B6

Perdue Farms..............B6

Pfizer...........................R8

Pilgrim's Pride............B6

Pocketwatch................B5

Popeyes Louisiana

Kitchen......................B6

Procter & Gamble.......B6

R

Roblox....................B1,B5

Royal Dutch Shell.......A1

S

Samsung Electronics..B4

Sanderson Farms........B6

Sanford Health...........B3

T

Target..........................B5

TDR Capital.................B3

Tesla............................R6

T. Rowe Price.......R6, R7

Tyson Foods................B6

U

Unilever.......................B6

United Parcel Service.B2

V

Vanguard Group..........R6

Viva Energy Group.....A8

W

Walmart...........B4,B5,B6

Walt Disney................B4

Z

Zappos.com.................A1

Zoom Video

Communications.......B4

INDEX TO PEOPLE

BUSINESS & FINANCE

last week imposed temporary

restrictions on package pick-

ups for some big retailers

during one of the busiest

shipping weeks of the year.

The limits suggest the deliv-

ery giant is metering volume

through its network to pre-

serve performance as it and

rival FedEx Corp. contend

with unprecedented demand

from homebound shoppers. E-

commerce spending rose 53%

in November from the same

month a year earlier, accord-

ing to data from Mastercard

Inc.

The e-commerce boom is

also boosting employment at

warehousing and storage op-

erators, which include fulfill-

ment centers that handle on-

line orders. The sector added

36,800 jobs in November, its

fourth straight monthly in-

crease.

Demand for workers to

drive forklifts, pick and pack

orders, and handle shipping

and receiving is at “historic

highs,” said Greg Dyer, presi-

dent of commercial staffing

for Randstad US, a subsidiary

of Dutch recruiting firm Rand-

stad Holding NV. “We’re up

60% from the same time last

year.”

Trucking companies also

saw strong payroll gains in

November, adding 12,700 jobs.

Fleet payrolls are up by

43,800 positions since April,

when the industry shed

92,000 jobs as lockdowns

aimed at limiting the spread

of coronavirus shut down

much of the U.S. economy.

Trucking payrolls remain

about 55,400 jobs below their

level a year ago, according to

BLS figures.

Digital lending has become Ant’s biggest growth engine and helped underpin its high valuation.

QILAI SHEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Around 100 banks, ranging

from national lenders to small

rural banks, signed up for the

opportunity to expand their

balance sheets by partnering

with Ant. At the end of June,

Chinese banks and trust com-

panies had the equivalent of

around $230 billion in out-

standing loans to consumers

who borrowed through Alipay,

according to calculations by

The Wall Street Journal based

on Ant’s disclosures.

People familiar with Ant’s

microlending operations, in-

cluding the company’s banking

partners, competitors, inves-

tors and industry analysts, say

regulators are especially con-

cerned about the rural and city

commercial banks and trust

companies that have supplied a

significant amount of funds to

Alipay users.

Ant, they say, has exposed

the Achilles’ heel of China’s fi-

nancial system because the

weaker financial institutions

with poor risk-management ca-

pabilities have become more

dependent on the fintech giant

to source loans—and are left

holding the bag when defaults

happen.

The risks are disproportion-

ately higher for these lenders,

said Xiaoxi Zhang, China fi-

nance analyst at Gavekal Drag-

onomics. “Smaller banks are

weaker in risk control. If de-

faults of the loans originated

from online platforms go up,

these banks will face bigger

losses,” she said.

Digital lending has in recent

years become Ant’s biggest

Continued from page B1

B

Banker, Adam.............R6

Bartolini, Matt............R4

Brenner, Sarah............R3

Brown, David..............R6

D

Davies, Shaun.............R6

Deluard, Vincent.........R8

Diller, Barry.................B1

Dimson, Elroy............B10

Dyer, Greg...................B2

F

Farrell, Emily...............R6

G

Gahan, Brendan..........B5

Gassen, Bill.................B3

Goff, Gregory..............B9

J

James, Chris...............B1

Ji Shaofeng.................B2

K

Karsner, Alexander.....B9

Kephart, Jason............R6

Kostin, David..............R7

Krabbenhoft, Kelby.....B3

L

Lazonick, William.......R7

M

Ma, Jack......................B1

Marshall, Ric...............R7

Marsh, Paul...............B10

Mishra, Neena............R4

P

Penner, Charlie............B9

Q

Quaadman, Tom..........R7

R

Rosenbluth, Todd........R4

S

Schroll, Wes................B4

Shea, Bob....................R2

Spivak, Stuart.............R3

Staunton, Mike.........B10

Strazza, Steven..........R2

Stulz, Rene.................R7

Thorn, Bruce...............B6

Vigeveno, Huibert......A8

W

Walker, Kent...............B1

Westover, Scott..........B1

Z

Zimmer, John............B10

Logistics hiring skyrock-

eted in November as transport

and distribution companies

staffed up on expectations for

an unprecedented holiday-sea-

son rush.

Delivery, warehousing and

trucking operators added a

combined 131,400 jobs last

month, according to season-

ally adjusted preliminary

employment figures released

Friday by the U.S. Bureau of

Labor Statistics, as businesses

restocked inventories and

ramped up e-commerce

capabilities to meet surging

online demand.

Those fields gained nearly

three times as many jobs last

month as in October and ac-

counted for more than half of

the increase in payrolls re-

ported across all employment

sectors for November.

Overall, the U.S. economy

gained 245,000 jobs last

month as hiring slowed

sharply from October’s in-

crease of 610,000 jobs amid a

surge of coronavirus cases,

leading to fresh restrictions

on businesses in many parts

of the country. The unemploy-

ment rate fell to 6.7% from

6.9% in October.

Messenger and courier

companies led November job

gains in logistics with 81,900

new positions, as parcel carri-

ers that deliver packages to

homes and businesses added

capacity to meet a pandemic-

driven flood of online orders.

It was the largest monthly in-

crease for package delivery

companies since September

1997, pushing their overall

payrolls to more than one mil-

lion for the first time.

United Parcel ServiceInc.

BYJENNIFERSMITH

E-Commerce Demand Fuels Hiring

Delivery, warehousing and trucking added 131,400 jobs last month.

CHRISTOPHER DILTS/BLOOMBERG NEWS

growth engine and helped un-

derpin the company’s recent

stratospheric valuation. The

funding arrangements with

banks are now the target of

Chinese regulators, which want

Ant to shoulder more of the re-

sponsibilities and risks of mak-

ing loans to individuals and

businesses.

Consumers who borrowed

from Ant’s platform had a com-

bined outstanding credit bal-

ance of 1.73 trillion yuan, the

equivalent of $263 billion, at

the end of June. Just 2% of that

total was funded by Ant, about

10% was funded by asset-

backed securities, and the rest

came from banks and trust

companies.

Regulators now want Ant to

eat more of its own cooking by

supplying $30 for every $100 in

loans it originates in partner-

ship with banks.

Ant has two consumer-lend-

ing platforms. Huabei, which

means “just spend,” functions

as a virtual credit card and lets

individuals borrow money to

make purchases online and in

stores.

Jiebei, which means “just

borrow,” offers unsecured loans

for up to 12 months that are re-

paid in installments. Individu-

als must provide a general idea

of what they plan to spend the

money on, such as travel. Na-

tional rules on consumer lend-

ing prohibit borrowers from

channeling funds from these

types of loans into businesses

or financial investments.

Launched in 2014 and 2015,

respectively, Huabei and Jiebei

have become synonymous with

deft, unconventional consumer

lending in China. Applicants

are often approved for loans

and receive the funds quickly

after a few taps on their smart-

phones.

“A typical Huabei customer

is young and internet savvy but

has unmet consumption de-

mand due to the lack of a

credit card or insufficient

credit limits,” Ant said in its

IPO filing. Individuals born af-

ter 1990 make up half of the

customers for nonbank con-

sumer financing companies, ac-

cording to a China Banking As-

sociation report.

The large amount of out-

standing loans Ant recently

disclosed likely gave regulators

more impetus to contain risks

that had been building up on

the company’s platform, said Ji

Shaofeng, a microlending in-

dustry commentator and a for-

mer banking regulator in east-

ern China’s Jiangsu province.

Chinese authorities have also

previously expressed concerns

about a broader buildup in

household debt and its associ-

ated risks.

Ant has collected troves of

consumer data through its pay-

ments business, which pro-

cesses the equivalent of $17

trillion in transactions a year

and uses proprietary algo-

rithms to assess the creditwor-

thiness of its individual and

business customers.

An Ant spokesperson said,

“Our risk-management technol-

ogy supports partner banks to

improve the quality of their

loan assets and better manage

risks, and this is one of the

core values we bring to them.”

The company takes what it

calls “technology service fees”

from a percentage of the loans’

interest income. Banking execu-

tives and microlending players

say the company on average

takes a 30% to 40% cut of each

loan’s interest income.

Ant Group

Exposes

Bank Holes

Many smaller

lenders found Ant

Group’s proposal

hard to resist.

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