Here's why the skills you have are going to help you get one of tomorrow's jobs

Legrand shows how LinkedIn is making breakthroughs connecting present-day skillsets with emerging job requirements.

Olivier Legrand, MD, Asia Pacific, LinkedIn, says that many of us may already be partway towards meeting the requirements for the jobs which are most demand in the industry today, only we don't realise it.

In his keynote Job titles are out, skill sets are in during at the Singapore Computer Society's Tech³ Forum, Legrand said that LinkedIn is not just the platform to matchmake job seekers and employers, but also the company that will put members in touch with the right company, the right jobs and the right skills to acquire in order to stay relevant for the future.

Legrand spoke about LinkedIn's drive to offer more value to the approximately 3.3 billion workers and up to 50 million employers globally. against its 500 million members and 7 million active employers today. Some 30,000 schools are currently on the platform as well.

Legrand explained that there is an opportunity to help all stakeholders through analysing the skillsets that each member has and linking those skillsets with the skillsets actually required for new types of jobs. This is a completely different approach to the traditional focus of match-making members and employers by existing job titles. The company has been asking peers to endorse LinkedIn members for various skillsets for some time, and has amassed some 10 billion of these endorsements so far.

"The 10 billion skills endorsements actually shared by our members...allow us to have a unique view to have a skills taxonomy and what kinds of skills are needed to do the jobs," he said.

As an illustration, Legrand pointed to the crying need for data scientists and how few members currently have related job titles today. An analysis of data scientist-related jobs by skillset on LinkedIn reveals a list of skills that existing members may already possess, or possess to a significant degree, he said. Such insights allow employers to reach out to more people by disregarding their existing job titles, for LinkedIn to suggest new skills for the educational industry to offer, and for members to acquire, he said.

LinkedIn will be there every step of the way to empower members to take control of opportunities, he added. "We are investing in algorithms and machine learning to point you in the right direction," he confirmed.

In the case of data scientists, candidates need to have data knowledge, analytical skills and programming capability. There are 84,000 people on LinkedIn with the right job titles, but 576,000 who have at least five of the skillsets that data scientists are known to require. Casting the net further, Legrand said that 10 million individuals on LinkedIn have one or more of the 10 required skills.

"We're able to massively grow the talent pool about eight times through that exercise," he said. "We identified adjacencies in skills that would allow us to potentially invest in reskilling people who already have (what) it takes to be data scientists."

Legrand also shared the skills which are most in demand in Singapore, and noted that they are generally digital-related.

The skillsets most in demand in Singapore are mostly digital.

Legrand emphasised the importance of lifelong learning in a world where work requirements are continually evolving. "It's a reality," he said. "Your career path is not always a straight line. Stay open-minded, flexible and adaptable. The jobs of tomorrow will be different from those of today."

Legrand profiled Wui Liang Heng, Country Head, Singapore @ BankBazaar International, a fintech company focusing on mobile payments, as a prime example of a person who had undergone a mid-career switch because he believes in the new digital era. Heng made the effort to reach out on LinkedIn to people who were or had been in startups, which eventually led him to where he is today.

Legrand encouraged members in their pursuit of lifelong learning to emulate Heng, researching people on LinkedIn  and contacting them. The platform allows members to see what others are reading, liking and sharing in terms of professional content so that they can reach out in a meaningful way.

Legrand also spoke about best practices for creating a LinkedIn profile, using CEO of PerX Technologies Anna Gong's profile as an example. Some tips include:

- Add a summary with keywords, not buzzwords

- Add a photograph - the profile is is 21x more likely to be viewed by others

- Include your current position - the profile is 18x more likely to be viewed as a result

- List relevant skills – those with five or more skills are 17x more likely to be viewed by others

LinkedIn Asia Pacific has 13 offices in nine markets.

Held annually, the Tech³ Forum features luminary speakers and examines hot topics revolving around technology, talents and trends.

M&A deal leaks boost deal values by an average US$21 million

• Asia Pacific region records highest rate of leaked deals in 2016 at 9.7%
• Small percentage (8.6%) of worldwide deals leaked in 2016, the same as in 2015 and above a six-year low of 6% in 2014
• Difference between median target takeover premium for leaked deals versus non-leaked deals was US$21 million in 2016
• Worldwide consumer sector deal leaks jump by 7.8 percentage points to 15.5% in 2016 - the highest of any sector for eight years

Leaking information on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) before any public announcement of the transaction added an extra US$21 million to the average value of deals announced in 2016 that leaked, according to new research* from Intralinks, a business of Synchronoss Technologies, and Cass Business School, City University of London.

In addition to evidence of higher valuations for M&A deals that leak, the 2017 Intralinks Annual M&A Leaks Report found that 8.6% of worldwide M&A deals were leaked in 2016. This figure is unchanged from the previous year (2015) and above a six-year low of 6% in 2014. In 2014, worldwide deal leaks had been on a declining trend for the previous six years, but this trend reversed in 2015 and 2016 – despite the efforts of financial regulators globally in recent years to bring in new regulations to curb deal leaks, and increase enforcement actions and fines for market abuse and insider trading.

The Asia Pacific (APAC) region had the highest rate of deal leaks in 2016, at 9.7%. Of the 10 countries with the most M&A activity, the top three countries for deal leaks in 2016 were from APAC – India (16.7% of deals leaked), South Korea (16.1%) and Japan (12%). South Korea and Japan recorded an increased rate of deal leaks in 2016 compared to 2015. Countries and territories which reduced their rate of deal leaks in 2016 included India and Hong Kong.

Percentage of M&A deal leaks by country or territory

Target listing location	2016 (Rank)	2015 (Rank)	2009-2016 (Rank)
India	16.7% (1)	20.0% (1)	15.8% (1)
South Korea	16.1% (2)	5.3% (6)	10.2% (4)
Japan	12.0% (3)	3.1% (7)	5.1% (9)
Hong Kong	10.0% (4)	12.9% (2)	14.6% (2)
US	9.8% (5)	12.6% (3)	7.6% (6)
Germany	9.1% (6)	0.0% (10)	9.3% (5)
Australia	7.5% (7)	3.0% (8)	4.0% (10)
UK	7.0% (8)	6.7% (5)	12.5% (3)
France	4.3% (9)	0.0% (9)	5.4% (8)
Canada	4.3% (10)	12.5% (4)	5.9% (7)

From 2009 to 2013, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) had the highest average rate of leaked deals at 10.4%, while APAC had the second-highest average rate of leaked deals at 7.6%. Since 2014, this trend has reversed: in each of the last three years, the rate of deal leaks in APAC has been higher than in EMEA.

Worldwide, the top three sectors for deals leaks in 2016 were consumer, retail and real estate. The real estate sector, which has the highest long-term average rate of deal leaks, dropped to 3rd place in 2016 and was replaced by the consumer sector, which increased its rate of deal leaks by 7.8 percentage points to 15.5%. This is the highest worldwide rate of deal leaks of any sector in the past eight years. Worldwide, the bottom three sectors for deal leaks in 2016 were healthcare, energy & power, and industrials.

As the report shows, there appears to be one clear perceived benefit of leaking deals: higher target takeover premiums resulting in higher valuations, as a result of increased competition among acquirers for targets in leaked deals. This has been true in each of the eight years analysed for this report. From 2009 to 2016, the median takeover premium for leaked deals was 47% versus 27% for non-leaked deals, a difference of 20 percentage points.

To quantify this, in 2016 the difference in the median target takeover premium for leaked deals compared to non-leaked deals was US$21 million, i.e., an average of an extra US$21 million accrued to the shareholders of the targets in deals that leaked. Leaked deals are also associated with a higher rate of rival bids for the target than non-leaked deals: from 2009 to 2016, 6.5% of leaked deals attracted one or more rival bids for the target compared to 5.8% of non-leaked deals.

There is also evidence that leaked deals have higher completion success rates: In the last three years (2014 to 2016), the worldwide completion success rate for leaked deals has been almost five percentage points higher than for non-leaked deals.

These results could point to one other perceived benefit of leaking a deal – it potentially leads to a better match between acquirer and target. Leaking a deal may flush out the “optimal” acquirer, i.e. the one who has the greatest synergies with the target (and who can therefore pay the highest price, hence the higher target takeover premiums for leaked deals).

Hong Kong, which recorded the second highest average percentage of deal leaks from 2009 to 2016, dropped to fourth place in 2016 with its lowest level of deal leaks (10%) since 2012. In its annual report for 2015 to 2016, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) detailed 107 criminal charges against 15 individuals and five corporations. Total investigations rose by 12% and the number of investigations for insider trading grew by 20% from the previous year**.

In 2016, targets in leaked deals achieved a median takeover premium of 38% versus 26% for non-leaked deals, a difference of 12 percentage points. This is a 60% reduction compared to 2015, when targets in leaked deals achieved a 30-percentage point higher takeover premium.

Also, in 2016 the rate of rival bids for leaked deals and non-leaked deals was almost the same (in fact, non-leaked deals had a marginally higher rate of rival bids for the target than leaked deals).

Philip Whitchelo, VP of Strategy and Product Marketing at Intralinks, a business of Synchronoss Technologies, said: “The rate of deal leaks in markets where leaking was rampant a decade ago, such as the UK, has reduced considerably: a reflection of new regulations against market abuse and much stricter regulatory enforcement. (Places) such as India and Hong Kong, which have comparatively high levels of deal leaks, are also making more efforts to tackle market abuse and insider trading. Overall, against the perceived benefits, those leaking deals must also weigh the risks, and those benefits appear to have reduced in 2016.”
Professor Scott Moeller, Director of the M&A Research Centre at Cass Business School said: “There will always be reasons why a target company may see a benefit to leaking a deal, and it is therefore unlikely that the level of deal leakage will ever be at - or near - zero. However, it is encouraging to see that the percentage of deals that leak is remaining largely flat, and at levels below where it was a decade ago.”

Interested?

Download the 2017 Intralinks Annual M&A Leaks Report

*Methodology

M&A transaction data for announced deals during the period 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2016, share price and index price information were sourced from Thomson Reuters. The criteria for inclusion in the sample were that the target must be an entity listed on a public stock exchange, that the transaction must involve the acquisition of majority control of the target and that the target's equity must have a sufficient trading history for its returns to be calculated. The final total sample of deals for the period 2009 to 2016 was 5,997. 

A transaction was identified as involving a leak of the deal prior to its public announcement using the event study methodology, which compares the cumulative daily returns of the target in the period from -40 to -1 days prior to the public announcement of the deal with its expected returns. The target's expected returns are calculated using a linear regression model of the target's returns during a “normal” trading period against the market return. 

A transaction was identified as involving a leak of the deal if the cumulative daily returns of the target in the period -40 to -1 days prior to the public announcement of the deal was statistically significantly different compared to its expected returns, at the 95% confidence interval for a normal distribution - meaning that there is only a 5% probability that the target's observed returns compared to its expected returns would occur in a random distribution of data, i.e. would be due to chance. 

Unless otherwise indicated, all references to the region or country location of the target refers to the target's primary listing location. The total number of leaked deals for the entire period was 462 out of the total number of deals of 5,997.

**Securities and Futures Commission, Hong Kong (PDF)

Early-stage M&As slowing down in SEA, Korea

Early-stage mergers & acquisitions (M&A) announcements are expected to be flat in Q416 compared to the same period last year due to reduced levels of early-stage M&A activity in Southeast Asia and South Korea, according to the latest Intralinks Deal Flow Predictor (DFP) report* released by Intralinks Holdings. Intralinks is a global provider of software and services, including virtual data rooms (VDRs), for managing M&A transactions.

Specifically, Southeast Asia which includes Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, is demonstrating a 47.8% decrease, while North Asia which includes mainland China, Hong Kong and South Korea, is showing an 8.3% decline in early-stage M&A activity. While the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is reflecting flat growth, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) is in positive territory at 15.7%.

The Intralinks Deal Flow Predictor shows the following growth in early-stage M&A activity in APAC compared to the same period last year:

· Southeast Asia (which includes Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore), is down 47.8%;

· North Asia (which includes mainland China, Hong Kong and South Korea) is down 8.3% due to declining levels of early-stage M&A activity in South Korea;

· India is up 64.7%;

· Japan is up 5.9%, and

· Australia is up 6.9%, its first quarter of growth after four consecutive quarters of flat or declining activity.

Looking at early-stage M&A activity by sector across APAC, the materials (which includes metals and mining) and industrials sectors are the only ones showing positive growth in early-stage M&A activity. The telecommunications, media & technology sector has a 46.2% compared to the same period last year.

According to a “post-Brexit” survey of over 1,000 global deal-makers conducted by Intralinks between July 4 and 8 2016, over 61% of APAC dealmakers feel Britain’s decision to leave the European Union (EU) will have a positive or no economic impact on the APAC region. In the four weeks since the UK’s EU Referendum on June 23 2016, early-stage M&A activity in APAC, as measured by the Intralinks Deal Flow Predictor, has increased by 1.4% compared to the same period last year, showing little or no immediate impact on the APAC region’s M&A activity.

“Southeast Asia is seeing its first decline in early-stage M&A activity after nine quarters of mostly double-digit growth,” said Philip Whitchelo, VP of strategy & product marketing at Intralinks. “The impact of China’s gradual economic slowdown may be starting to impact the previously resilient ASEAN region, as South Korea and China are also showing declines.”

Interested?

Download the Intralinks Deal Flow Predictor report

*The Intralinks Deal Flow Predictor forecasts the volume of future M&A deal announcements by tracking early-stage M&A activity - M&A transactions across the world that are in the preparation stage or have reached the due diligence stage. These early-stage deals are, on average, six months away from their public announcement. The Intralinks Deal Flow Predictor has been independently verified as an accurate predictor of future changes in the global number of announced M&A transactions.

Word Lens helps travellers in translating signs on the fly

Quest Visual, which makes an augmented reality app that shows how powerful the technology can be, has made its flagship Word Lens app and all language packs (English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Russian among them) "free to download for a limited time while we transition to Google" as a thank-you to all of its supporters after its acquisition by Google. 

Source: Word Lens page on Play Store.

Links to download Glass, Android and iOS versions of the Word Lens app are on its website. Billed as being able to 'see the world in your language', Word Lens picks out words in one language in a picture while the camera is switched on, and translates it on the fly into another language. 

The implications for travel are profound, and Google's investment could bring support for more languages, more accurate translation, as well as Word Lens augmented reality technology across all of Google's products.

The art and science of talent acquisition

New approaches to attracting talent are getting some companies the best candidates possible.

The human resources department must consider hiring from a business standpoint, says Mei-lynn Chan, Head, Organizational Development, Group Human Capital, Maybank. "Transform HR activities into real numbers. You have to quantify them in a business sense," she said during talent management solutions provider PageUp People's launch of Talented Southeast Asia, a publication focused on talent management in Southeast Asia. 

Traditionally, a hiring budget could prevent HR from hiring certain people. The new outlook means that HR would be able to hire a person with the right skillset "as long as the business can carry that cost until the hire begins to pay back on the investment," she said. "It is thinking from business standpoint than from a HR standpoint."

Ramon Segismundo, SVP and Head, Human Resources & Corporate Services, Meralco, the largest electrical distributor in the Philippines, said that talent acquisition is a two-way process with HR as a marketer. "It is important to project the CEO or President as a poster boy," he noted. 

What makes the candidate 'cross the line' should be a unique differentiator, he added. Meralco has found a powerful differentiator in corporate social responsibility (CSR), for example. "The first thing we tell candidates is that we're not offering you a job, we're offering you a higher sense of purpose," he said. "When employees are going home because of a typhoon, Meralco people are going to work (on disaster preparedness)."