Things to look out for in 2023

A couple of weeks ago I did a post highlighting some of the trends the team at Trinity Bridge Asia Ltd. noted during 2022. I thought I’d follow up with some observations on trends that I will be keeping an eye out for in 2023. The first thing to say is to beware of my skills as a fortune teller. In the 2022 post I noted that China was moribund and that I didn’t expect that to change soon. Within 24 hours the Chinese government had scrapped the zero-COVID strategy and on Sunday we witnessed some 400k people crossing the HK/Shenzhen border. Things change pretty quickly in Asia.

What does this opening up mean? I still expect a pretty difficult couple of quarters as we see the inevitable wave of infections but as herd immunity takes hold we are likely to see a rapid bounce back in economic activity and, for us, investing activity.

Another big macro-trend we will see in 2023 is India surpassing China in population. This is expected in April. The population India and China will both be 1.4b and change. Together, fully 35% of the global total of 8b. In terms of our sector, growth capital investing, we see a very lively domestic early stage and venture sector. We hope to see more interest from Indian investors in the later stage end of the market AND more foreign investors interested in successful Indian businesses wishing to grow outside India.

We did a piece of research work in early 2022 on the ESG investing in Asia. To be frank, I groaned (internally anyway) when we asked to do this project. I thought we’d see more PR than actually investing. I was wrong. Our key finding was that the asset owners (SWFs, pension and insurance companies) are putting pressure on the professional investors (including VCs and PE companies) to take ethnical investing seriously. I haven’t seen that trickle down yet into seeing a plethora of specific Asia ESG funds but that might well change. We are definitely seeing existing funds in technology investing take ESG more seriously as a factor in their decision making. This will only increase in 2023.

One specific space I see being important in 2023 is the advent of the circular economy and more specifically for our work the use of technology to facilitate that sector. I hope to see some really interesting companies in this space.

The re-gigging of supply chains is well documented elsewhere. One specific space where we are seeing this manifest itself is in reg-tech. Many of the KYC/KYB tech and data providers have seen a fall in due diligence work for China but with offsetting growth in SE Asia. This is not a super original insight but the winners from delinking are Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. I hope to see more opportunity for Trinity Bridge there.

In the next couple of weeks, I will do a third post in this series. I will be writing about trends in the American and global technology investing and how this might impact Asia. Stay tuned. 

David Newton


David came to Asia in 1991 with Reuters to be a catalyst for change in the finance function
leading financial systems projects in the region and later moving on to the regional management team of their Media division. Leaving Reuters in 2002
he has subsequently served as Asia Pacific CFO for the Financial Times
LexisNexis and Haymarket up to June 2020
also concurrently running business divisions and corporate strategy. David specialises in leading change in the finance function by re-designing processes and utilising new technologies. He has also built a wide network of business partners in the region
which has facilitated the outsourcing of non-core business activities thereby making substantial reductions in enterprise costs and enabling cost-effective business development. He is a Mathematics graduate from Oxford University
a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales and a member of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia.

Thoughts on 2022

As we come to the end of the year, here are some of my thoughts on the year that was 2022 and a few comments on how things might pan out in the near term.

Poe Aye


Poe has 10 years’ experience in digital marketing and media and is the founder of Kickoff Marketing, which delivers B2B lead generation and community building for clients. Using a variety of digital channels, Poe runs operations to plan, create and schedule content to the client’s target audience, and follows up by defining, measuring and improving the KPIs outcomes associated with the project goals.

With an MBA, as well as a BA in English and a Diploma in Accounting, Poe has the knowledge and skills to achieve high-performance for her international clients, and is positive, outstanding and energetic.

LinkedIn

The pain of forecasting and how to make it easier

It’s a common misconception that, for corporates, forecasting is a relatively straightforward task that is handled by the finance department. As our Q4 survey of CFOs in Hong Kong and Singapore shows

The 2020 Business Crisis – Feel the LUV

We surveyed broad spectrum of Hong Kong CFOs about their expectations on the shape of the recovery post COVID-19 and optimism is in short supply; indeed only 9% see a V-shaped rebound or a quick return business at 2019 levels.

Petrina Yau

Petrina is an experienced marketing professional with an international exposure, having worked in various markets throughout Asia Pacific.
Petrina has 12 years’ experience in event management and marketing strategy. She is specialised in running lifestyle, beauty, and luxury projects, such as Chaumet, Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Shiseido and other high-end brands. She was previously employed at the DFS, an LVMH company.
She is a graduate in Management (Marketing) from UMIST in the UK and holds a Masters in Human Resource Development from University of Manchester.

Petrina is fluent in both English and Chinese.

Oscar Veronese

Oscar develops, influences and executes business growth.
A senior Consultant in TMT and Data Analytics, Oscar’s experience spans General and Sales Management across a wide range of TMT/Entertainment companies globally, predominantly with an Asia Pacific focus.
Spanning over 20 years in Asia Pacific, now operating out the UK, his career includes senior regional roles in large Media companies such as Viacom, and Time Inc, as well as smaller entrepreneurial, regional start-ups, at the nexus of Media Technology. These include i-POP Networks/Internetq, mobile marketing specialist whose operations embraced traditional mobile marketing, music content rights and aggregation services, and an App advertising platform branded Minimob.

Oscar’s consultancy projects have included Marcoms Audit and Advisory Review to HK based Regional Cable TV & Satellite Association, CASBAA (now AVIA), and Marketing / GTM Business Advisory in the TMT Sector to TrustSphere, a pioneer in Organisational Network Analytics. His current engagements include companies working in the Touchless, Ad Tech, Cyber Security and Recruitment technology fields.
Oscar was educated in the UK at KCS Wimbledon and CDT London.

Business Crisis Survey

Responses to the survey are confidential and will not be disclosed. Only aggregated data will be published.

Shin Yng Lee

Shin is an experienced senior finance professional with an international exposure, having worked in various markets throughout Asia.
In her career, she has led numerous Finance transformation projects which include ERP implementation, streamlining of finance processes to drive improved efficiency and costs’ optimisation and setting up of shared service teams/COE teams.
She business partners with the stakeholders in the organization to drive growth in both financial topline and bottomline, both organically or inorganically.
Shin was previously Asia Pacific CFO for Viacom and is currently the SVP Finance for AEG Asia
She is an Accountancy graduate from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and is a chartered accountant, Singapore.
Shin is fluent in both English and Chinese.