One of the richest people in the country passes the baton

Good morning, and welcome to Wednesday’s Business Overview, where we here at the editorial office as always have been up early and trot the business news through for you.

It will largely be about heirs and benefactors. Both about one of the country’s particularly well-known heirs, the Jysk heir Jacob Brunsborg, and about a more unknown heir to the public, the oil billionaire Torben Østergaard-Nielsen’s eldest daughter, Nina Østergaard Borris. Anders Holch Povlsen’s Bestseller was founded by his father, Troels Holch Povlsen.

Change of Throne sends daughter at the head of billion-dollar corporation

We start on Funen, where the oil billionaire Torben Østergaard-Nielsen – who is ranked number six on Ekonomisk Ugebrev’s 2021 list of the 100 richest Danes-has made one of his biggest decisions of his career in consultation with his family.

The businessman, who is reportedly good for more than 20 billion after having built up A/S United Shipping & Trading Company (USTC) from scratch, stops as top manager in the group. The Stock Exchange writes.

Instead, the post is left to Torben Østergaard-Nielsen’s eldest daughter, Nina Østergaard Borris.

“I am proud and humbled by the trust my family has placed in me, and I look forward to taking on the task. Of course, the decision has required my father to feel confident that I could take on the task on behalf of the family, so when he announced his decision that the time was right, it was a great relief for me,” says 38-year-old Nina Østergaard Borris to Børsen.

Bestseller is behind huge CO₂ emissions – no tax

The North Jutland cement factory Aalborg Portland is widely known as Denmark’s biggest climate culprit. However, another Danish company is behind just as much CO₂ emissions. And it poses a bit of a climate dilemma, we write here at Berlingske.

It’s about the fashion giant Bestseller with Anders Holch Povlsen in the lead. Because while large emitters such as Aalborg Portland has been much talked about in connection with the government’s proposal for a new CO₂ tax, other Danish companies get away much cheaper.

Politicians in Parliament can only impose taxes on production within the country’s borders. So even though Bestseller and the supply chain, according to their own figures, emit about the same amount as Aalborg Portland, the company is not affected by a Danish CO₂ tax, as the emissions take place almost exclusively in Asia.

According to Frederik Roland Sandby, head of the Climate Movement’s Secretariat, the example shows that Denmark as a whole may not be as Green a country as Denmark would like to be.

“When we talk about Denmark as a Green Pioneer country with a target of 70 percent reduction by 2030, it is actually 70 percent of half, because so much of our emissions occur abroad,” says Frederik Roland Sandby.

Jysk heir wants to enter “heart investments”

And then we jump on to the third heir in this Business overview, since Anders Holch Povlsen inherited the Bestseller from his father, Troels Holch Povlsen.

Finance has talking to the Jysk heir Jacob Brunsborg, who since Lars Larsen’s death three years ago has been chairman of the Board of the Jysk family’s billion-dollar Group, Lars Larsen Group.

After major challenges with the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, investments must now be accelerated, Jacob Brunsborg tells the media. He has no less than 20 billion kroner ready, which, among other things, should go to investments in start-up companies and entrepreneurs with good ideas.

“You can’t go into startup companies without having your heart with you. A gut feeling is very much needed when making a decision on whether to go along financially. If you only look at this kind of thing with pure capitalism, it often does not hold,” Jacob Brunsborg told Finans.

Three things investors should watch out for

Simon Kristiansen, senior investment strategist, has these points on the block on the last Danish Stock Exchange day of the week:

1. Tonight, the minutes of the Fed’s latest interest rate meeting will be released. Here it will be interesting for investors to get a further insight into how the considerations have been discussed in the central bank committee. President Powell has lately been quite haughty in his statements in the media and in various speeches made by the governor of the central bank.

Powell has most recently assured that the Fed will do what the central bank considers necessary to bring down inflation – even if it means that the tighter monetary policy will negatively affect the general demand in the economy. This potential consequence Powell has to partly ignore, wanting to avoid a pay-price spiral for all intents and purposes.

2. Although there is a Christmas holiday in Denmark on Thursday and Friday this week, the same is not the case in the rest of the world. During Thursday, we will get estimates for GDP growth in the first quarter of the United States. The expectation is that the US economy will have shrunk in the first three months of the year, which contrasts with the strong reopening year it had in the economy in 2021.

3. On Friday, data will be released for the Fed’s preferred inflation target, the PCE index. Here, the Fed will probably have the most focus on core inflation in the PCE target, because this can give an idea of how much further tightening of monetary policy is necessary. Like the most common inflation target – the Consumer Price Index (CPI) – there were early signs last month that price increases may have peaked.

The question now is whether this trend will continue further. If that is the case at the release on Friday afternoon, it could potentially trigger a positive reaction in the US stock market on the day.

It happens in the markets

Equities – indices and developments as a percentage

United States-closing prices Tuesday:

• Dow Jones: +0.15 percent
• S & P 500: -0.81 percent
• Nasdaq: -2.35 percent

Asia Index Wednesday at PM. 06.30:

• Japan Nikkei: +0.05 percent
• Hong Kong Hang Seng: +0.64 percent
• China CSI: +0.58 percent

Thanks for reading along!