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- Sears, Roebuck & Company (aka Sears) was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in 1886 as a mail order catalog company.
- Sears began opening retail locations in 1925.
- Sears made history in 1974 when it completed the 110-story Sears Tower in Chicago, then the world's tallest building.
- Sears was the largest retailer in the United States until October 1989 (which then had been surpassed by Walmart).
- Sears terminated its famous general merchandise catalog in 1993 because of sinking sales and profits.
- Sears was purchased by Kmart in 2005, which renamed itself Sears Holdings upon completion of the merger (a deal managed by billionaire hedge fund manager Eddie Lampert, who is a 50% shareholder today.)
- In 2009 the Sears Tower was renamed the Willis Tower after the London-based insurer (Willis Group Holdings, Ltd.) received a taxpayer subsidy.
(January 09, 2013) Sears is now Lampert's Company to Kill (By Joe Cahill)
Don't take Eddie Lampert's move into the CEO chair at Sears Holdings Corp. as a hopeful sign for the foundering retailer. If the hedge-fund mogul knew how to fix Sears, he'd have done it by now. Mr. Lampert has always called the shots at the company he created in 2005 by merging Kmart Holding Corp. with Sears & Roebuck, but his official appointment as CEO after Louis D'Ambrosio's abrupt resignation on Monday does mean we can stop pretending.
We can stop pretending that Mr. Lampert is the second coming of Warren Buffett. We can stop pretending that he knows more about retailing than career retail executives. And we can stop pretending that Sears and Kmart will be around in their current form over the long term. What's really happening at Sears is what retail analyst Howard Davidowitz calls a “slow-motion liquidation.” And you don't need a retail expert to run a liquidation. A dealmaker like Mr. Lampert will do just fine.
(May 20, 2015) Why Sears Holdings Corp. Investors Should Hate Eddie Lampert (By Rich Duprey)
A decade after merging the ailing Kmart and Sears & Roebuck chains into a retail holding company, billionaire hedge fund operator Eddie Lampert has presided over the transformation of two once-great industry names into shells of their former self, stripping virtually everything of value from the company.
Back when Sears Holdings was still generating profits, Eddie Lampert was using the company's available cash to buy back its high-priced stock to juice per-share earnings. Between 2005 and 2010 (the last year the retailer reported a profit), Sears recorded net income of almost $3.8 billion, but spent over $5.8 billion on share repurchases [stock buybacks]. It was a careless decision at a time when many other businesses were curtailing their buyback programs to adjust to the recession and constrained consumer spending.
Sears Holdings lost around two-thirds of its value since 2011 ... Sears no longer had any money to spare. Cash on the balance sheet went from $4.4 billion in 2005 to just $250 million at the end of last year ... Like a neutron bomb that leaves just buildings standing in the wake of its blast, Eddie Lampert has blown through Sears Holdings and left an empty hull of a business.
(May 25, 2015) The Corporate Archipelago (by Paul Krugman)
Some of us may spend our workdays like yeoman farmers or self-employed artisans, but most of us are living in the world of Dilbert. And there are reasons for this situation: in many areas bureaucracy works better than laissez-faire. That’s not a political judgment, it’s the implicit conclusion of the profit-maximizing private sector. And people who try to carry their Ayn Rand fantasies into the real world soon get a rude awakening. [He then links to the article below]
(December 10, 2013) Ayn Rand-loving CEO Destroys his Empire: The invisible hand waves bye-bye to Eddie Lampert, whose business plan has run Sears into the ground.
Once upon a time, hedge fund manager Eddie Lampert was living a Wall Street fairy tale. His fairy godmother was Ayn Rand, the dashing diva of free-market ideology whose quirky economic notions would transform him into a glamorous business hero. For a while, it seemed to work like a charm. Fast-forward to 2013: The fairy tale has become a nightmare.
While Lampert was caught up in Ayn Randian delusions of crass materialism and cut-throat capitalism, he failed to realize that a business is an experience as much communal as it is individual. Employees are not just competitive beings — they benefit from cooperating with each other and perform better when they are respected, rather than beaten down and driven by fear.
* Adam Smith (known as the father of American capitalism) references the invisible hand of God as the power driving the American economic form of capitalism. Market Watch: Ayn Rand vs. Adam Smith (Adam Smith, author of "The Wealth of Nations" and "The Theory of Moral Sentiments". Ayn Rand, author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead".
Maybe the billionaire CEO of Sears will go after his workers' pensions next. It's predicted Sears will go bankrupt by 2020 after 134 years in business. The company is expected to announce quarterly earnings on May 28, 2015 — estimated at $0 — and is already on the "watch list" (and may go bankrupt sooner, rather than later).
And as Sears goes — and the nation goes — so goes Burger King too (but in a different way).
Bain Capital, in partnership with TPG and Goldman Sachs, acquired Burger King in 2002. Then in 2005 Vornado Realty Trust bought 7.5 million shares of Sears Canada. That same year Vornado Realty Trust said it would support and vote in favor of the Sears/Kmart merger, ending months of uncertainty over whether it would mount a challenge to the transaction.
Later that same year, an investment group consisting of affiliates of Bain Capital Partners LLC, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., and Vornado Realty Trust announced the completion of the Toys "R" Us acquisition for $6.6 billion.
In late 2010, 3G Capital of Brazil acquired a majority stake in Burger King in a deal valued at $3.26 billion. Four years later 3G Capital, along with Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, eventually merged the company with the Canadian-based doughnut chain Tim Hortons under the auspices of a new Canadian-based parent company, Restaurant Brands International. By doing this, Burger King will avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. taxes in one of the most notable of several corporate tax "inversion" deals of the year.
Last year merger and acquisitions (in deals worth at least $1 billion or more) almost doubled from the year before — with many American companies selling out to foreign companies. American multi-national corporations have also spent close to $1 trillion in stock buybacks last year. The reason maybe two-fold:
1) since multi-national companies are not bringing back profits made overseas to avoid taxes (thereby depriving investors of earnings, such as dividends), stock buy-backs increases the value of the remainder of the outstanding company stock (thereby pacifying the stockholders).
2) because more and more executives on the company's board of directors prefer to pay themselves with stock-options (which are also taxed less as capital gains rather than as regular wages) — that's another reason for stock buybacks (to inflate the value of their stock options).
Corporations have been meeting the "demand" side of supply, and so have no real pressing need to expand or reinvest in their company — or hire people. And with an over-saturated labor market, they also feel no pressure to raise wages.
Also, over $2 trillion in overseas earnings sits idle in offshore banks, waiting for domestic tax laws to change so these companies can repatriate those foreign earnings.
In the mean time, corporate raiders will continue to take American companies down the path of destruction for short-term gains at the expense of the nation and everyone else. As "multi-national" corporations, they feel no patriotic duty to any one country or to their citizens. They will suck the life-blood from the veins of our nation until nothing is left but decay and ruin all throughout the land.
And our leaders in Washington D.C. have enabled their corporate masters to do this for the past 30 years.
* Do you have a caption for this photo?
Related Post at Rolling Stone (August 29, 2012) Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital


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Announced in August, a partnership between the Washington Post and Diversion Books is coming to fruition with the launching of two WashPo e-book titles today.
Diversion Books Releases The First Two Branded eBooks from Partnership Series with The Washington Post
On August 24, 2012, Diversion Books announced a partnership with The Washington Post to publish a series of branded eBooks featuring content from The Washington Post archives. Today, in collaboration with The Washington Post, the first two eBooks in that series, The Original Watergate Stories and The Bryce Harper Story, are now on sale.
The Original Watergate Stories ($4.99 U.S., 168pp), previously self-published by The Washington Post exclusively on Amazon in August and newly taken over by Diversion Books with retail distribution extending to Apple, B&N, and Kobo, recounts the timeline of the scandal the newspaper broke forty years ago this year. The Bryce Harper Story ($4.99 U.S., 196pp) chronicles the acclaimed Washington National outfielder’s rise to the major leagues through unprecedented access from The Washington Post.
The next two forthcoming books in the series, Obama: The Evolution of a President ($4.99, 78pp) and The Hunt for Bin Laden ($2.99, 46pp), are scheduled for release next Tuesday, 10/9/12.

domain: news


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Narration: Many doctors wouldn’t hesitate to diagnose Xavier with ADHD and put him on the usual stimulant medication. But that could be a misdiagnosis says Richard Silberstein. This brainwave researcher at Swinburn University of Technology says many kids like Xavier don’t actually have ADHDthey’ve just been lumped under that grab all label..
Keeping fit isn’t all about owning the latest GPS device. CalorieSmart is a handheld calorie counter that resembles a pocket calculator. Type in what you’re eating, and the device looks up nutritional data and logs your day’s calories. Brands didn’t spend millions of dollars to be told 33% of comments to an ad were negative, positive or neutral. Brands bought them to sell products, and with any luck, leverage a 100 million plus person focus group to see how humans respond to the brand’s message. As Ad Age Editor Nat Ives wrote in his review of Super Bowl ads, “In a divisive time for the country on issues such as immigration, much of the ad roster from Super Bowl LI felt too muted for the moment.” But some brands did go big and bold, with strong creative obviously meant to break emotional ground.
Solutions are simulated in software in future, such as virtual prototyping. This can be operated in the process of PCB design, and will be applied to more and more areas, such as IC, package, PCB and system wide simulation of thermal management, PCB manufacturing and assembly practice, 3D mechanical interface, etc. In the whole flow, it can make sure the design continue and no need backup and correction.
Varieties. Music. Down, Old ane New. The president accuses his opponents of arguing about the past, not the present. But he is recycling the same tired arguments that have been used to sell trade deals for more than 20 years. He touts the increase in jobs that might come from more exports, without even acknowledging the loss of jobs that results from expanded imports.
The Steelers and Eagles were for one season forced to play as a hybrid team dubbed the “Steagles.” That’s because in 1943, the constant stream of young men heading abroad for World War II left everyone short on manpower on the homefront. Team owners realized that their rosters didn’t have enough players to take the field anymore, so some teams withdrew completely, and it seemed like the entire season would have to be cancelled. NFL Commissioner Elmer Layden, however, wasn’t having any of that.
Skipper Neil Fox said: “What a feeling to come here, beat some of the best inclusive clubs in the world and leave as winners is just amazing. We felt we had the potential and I’m so proud that we delivered to it. We played our best ever rugby this week, but there’s more to come from this team.”.


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A POPULAR fortnight of events celebrating British food has been put on hiatus this year, after organisers struggled to drum up support.
The Emsworth British Food Fortnight has been running since 2014, and has grown each year.
But the festival will be taking a year out this time around, with organisers citing a lack of volunteers to help run the events that would take place.
Events in years gone by include a bread-making masterclass, wine tasting and apple pressing.
One of the lead organisers of the event, wine raconteur Alistair Gibson, says the hiatus will be a big loss to the town.
He said: ‘I think it will be missed very much this year, but I’m of the belief that you should do something properly or not at all.
‘There just didn’t seem to be enough bodies on the ground to make it work.’
Mr Gibson says the Emsworth British Food Fortnight will return next year, and hopes for it to be bigger and better than ever before.
‘Sometimes it’s good to have a rest because you can come back with new and fresh ideas,’ he said.
‘What’s key about the food fortnight is that it has to offer something that appeals to everyone – I’m sure it will be back because people will almost certainly want it to.
‘This is an event that helps to put Emsworth on the map, but you have to be sensible about what you can achieve.’


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appear to be close to starting negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA) that could be one of
the largest with a single country — second only to the three-nations in the North American Free
Trade Agreement. Two-way trade between the United States and South Korea amounts to more than $70
billion, making South Korea the United States’ seventh largest trading partner. The United States
currently imports $1.7 billion in textiles and apparel and exports $1.5 billion worth fo goods.
While the Bush administration has negotiated 13 free trade agreements and has at least
another half a dozen in various stages of negotiation, most of them involve small countries. An FTA
with South Korea would be a major development for US international trade.
In a recent meeting with reporters, US Trade Representative Rob Portman cited South Korea as
an example of how trade can be a significant factor in helping a country become a booming economy.
Portman said: “After the Korean War, the North Korean economy was stronger than South Korea. In the
interim, North Korea has closed down to trade, taken a self-sufficiency point of view as South
Korea has done just the opposite, They’ve opened up to trade. The beneficiaries have been the
citizens of the Republic of Korea. It’s an amazing story to go from a truly poor developing country
to a country which is now one of the stronger economies in the world.”
A South Korean FTA could be in for some rough sledding. South Korean farmers do not like the
idea, and the latest US FTA — the Central American Free Trade Agreement —barely squeaked through
January 31, 2006


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Slice, the New York-based delivery platform focused on pizzerias, has added former Focus Brands president and COO Kat Cole to its board of directors. Focus is the parent company of Auntie Anne’s, Cinnabon, Jamba, McAlister’s Deli, Moe’s Southwest Grill and Schlotzsky’s, among others, and this move is the latest sign that delivery-focused upstarts are gaining legitimacy among traditional restaurant operators.
In announcing the addition, Slice said Cole “has an impressive background as a strategic leader with deep experience with omnichannel consumer brands, global expansion, restaurant operations and franchising.”
Cole spent the last decade in progressively larger executive roles at the company, first as the president of Cinnabon, then as group president of Focus Brands overseeing licensing, manufacturing, and CPG, and finally as chief operating officer and president of Focus Brands for the last four years.
As COO, she was responsible for all seven of its global brands: Auntie Anne’s, Carvel, Cinnabon, Moe’s, McAlister’s, Schlotzsky’s, and Jamba, as well as the licensing and international divisions responsible for building the brands in more than 55 countries.
Cole is credited for driving the turnaround of the Cinnabon business, building that franchise and its multi-channel business into a $1B brand, and for leading strong teams, innovation and organizational change to support the growth of the company, franchisees and brands.
“We are so pleased to have Kat join the Slice board. Her significant experience growing companies will undoubtedly help Slice achieve our long-term business objectives,” said Ilir Sela, founder and CEO of Slice. “She’s a powerful operator and change agent with industry-specific experience and a deep understanding of how technology is reshaping restaurants and retail. She will bring valued expertise to Slice—especially as we double-down on our growth and Slice Accelerate.”
Slice recently announced its 2021 goal of $1B in gross merchandise value (GMV) at the recent Goldman Sachs Private Innovative Company Conference, signaling the company’s rapid growth. In June 2020, Slice announced that it had surpassed $1B in cumulative sales since its founding in 2010.


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The Indian media and amusement sector grew 20% to arrive at INR2.1 trillion ($26 billion) in 2022, 10% over pre-pandemic 2019, in accordance to the yearly EY report released throughout the ongoing Frames convention in Mumbai, arranged by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Market.
The report collates details from television, electronic media, film, animation and VFX, out of household media, dwell gatherings, songs, radio, on-line gaming and print. Total, the M&E sector is projected to expand 12% to attain $28.6 billion in 2023, the report suggests.
While television remained the solitary most significant element of the M&E sector in 2022 with a valuation of $8.6 billion, it shrank 1.5% from 2021 degrees, inspite of marketing revenues growing 2% to access stages just driving 2019. The motive for the shrinkage is that subscription profits continued to tumble for the third calendar year in a row, reducing 4% owing to a reduction of five million pay out-Television properties and stagnant typical revenues for every user. Linear Television viewership declined 7% around 2021. Tv is projected to mature a little to $8.8 billion this year.
Electronic media was the second premier part of the sector, valued at $6.9 billion in 2022 and growing to $8.2 billion in 2023. On the digital infrastructure front, the report notes that web penetration improved by 4% to 866 million subscriptions in December 2022. With more than 800 million broadband subscriptions, India has the next biggest broadband subscriber foundation in the entire world, just after China. Smartphone people achieved 538 million in 2022, but growth slowed from mid-2021 because the common price of shopping for a smartphone improved, ensuing in just 35 million internet new smartphone additions during 2022. Some 32 million Indian homes had a wired broadband link.
On the streaming entrance, the report observes that movie viewers enhanced 6% (30 million) in 2022 to arrive at 527 million. In 2020, 30% of streaming originals were being in languages other than Hindi and this amplified to 50% in 2022. Some 3,000 hours of original articles was produced for streaming platforms, which is 19% better than 2021. Total on the internet online video content financial investment in India stood at $1 billion in 2022. There were 75 films that released on streaming platforms immediately, without a theatrical launch, which is reduce than the 100+ this kind of film releases in 2021.
Movie membership revenues grew 27% in 2022 to $832 million, paid out online video subscriptions attained 99 million in 2022, across 45 million households in India, with a full viewership of some 135 to 180 million end users, the report discovered.
In the meantime, buoyed by the good results of south Indian films like “RRR,” “K.G.F: Chapter 2,” “Kantara,” “Ponniyin Selvan: 1” and “Vikram” and Bollywood hits “Brahmastra: Portion One – Shiva,” “The Kashmir Documents,” “Drishyam 2” and “Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2,” filmed entertainment recovered to 90% of its pre-pandemic concentrations to file revenues of $2.1 billion. Of this, community theatrical revenues were $1.2 billion, abroad theatrical $196 million, broadcast legal rights $122 million, digital legal rights $440 million and in-cinema marketing $61.1 million.
In 2022, south Indian films, from the language teams Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, jointly accounted for 53% of box place of work, the Hindi-language Bollywood 35% and other Indian languages 5%. The share of Hollywood dropped from a superior of 15% in pre-pandemic 2019 to 13% in 2022. The report initiatives the filmed leisure phase to expand to $2.7 billion by 2025.
The animation phase grew 25% to get to $465 million in 2022, whilst VFX grew 30% to $611.7 million and India’s lively put up-production sector surged 35% to $232.4 million, the report notes.
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New Delhi: Telecom major Reliance Jio on Friday reported a 19.9 percent growth in net profit at Rs 612 crore for April-June 2018 over the previous quarter, and said its strong first quarter performance is "despite competitive intensity".
The company had registered a net profit of Rs 510 crore in the January-March 2018, Reliance Jio said in a statement.
The Reliance Industries' telecom arm had posted a loss of Rs 21.27 crore in the quarter ended June 2017.
Reliance Jio's revenue from operations came in at Rs 8,109 crore in the June quarter, up nearly 14 percent from the fourth quarter of FY'18. Its subscriber base was at 215.3 million at the end of June.
"Jio continues on its path to drive digital revolution in India. We doubled our customer base and most user metrics in the last 12 months. 215 million customers within 22 months of start is a record that no technology company has been able to achieve anywhere in the world," Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said.
He added that the "continued strength in financial results of Jio despite competitive intensity reinforces the customer uptake of its services and its strong operating leverage".
Jio's average revenue per user (ARPU), a key metrics for telecom companies, was at Rs 134.5 per month.
The company said it had added 28.7 million users (net basis) in the reported quarter, the highest in any quarter since the launch of its commercial services.
On gross basis, the company had added 30.5 million subscribers with a churn of 1.8 million, it said.
The average data consumption per user per month on Jio's network was 10.6 GB, while average voice consumption was at 744 minutes per user a month.
Reliance Jio said its strong financial performance reflects "robust business fundamentals" and is "despite competitive pressures".
The earnings were bolstered by growth in subscriber additions as well as much higher data usage, it added.
The strong Q1 score card of Reliance Jio comes in sharp contrast to the performance of its rivals, with whom the deep-pocketed Reliance Group company has pitched a sustained and relentless price war.
Yesterday, Bharti Airtel reported the first-ever loss of Rs 940 crore from its mainstay India business for the June quarter. Vodafone India, on the other hand, reported a decline of 22.3 percent in June quarter revenue to 959 million euros, citing intense competition and cuts in termination rates.
Vodafone, yesterday, received the final approval from the government for its merger with Idea Cellular, which is scheduled to announce its results on July 30.


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Taipei, May 8 (CNA) Concerns among the public over Taiwan's inflation caused by price hikes for fuel and electricity are exaggerated, as the level of inflation is still within a controllable range, Singapore's DBS Bank said in a report released Tuesday.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose slightly from 1.2 percent in March to 1.4 percent last month, while fuel prices were hiked by an average of 10 percent, the bank said.
It predicted that Taiwan's CPI will climb by 0.3 percent in June and December month-on-month, respectively, while the inflation for May and June will fall to between 1 and 1.5 percent year-on-year.
For the second half of the year, the bank gave a forecast of 1.5 to 2 percent CPI growth year-on-year, and added that the CPI is not likely to exceed 2 percent unless typhoons have an impact on food prices.
However, the bank was more concerned over the risk of Taiwan's decreasing exports.
Overall, economic growth is slow and fragile in Taiwan, it said.
The annual export growth dropped to minus 6.5 percent in April from minus 3.3 percent in March.
In addition, the trade surplus has also shrunk from an average of US$1.9 billion between January and March to only US$700 million in April, according to the report.
In the short term, the bank said, the Taiwan's exports will also be affected by austerity drives in Europe and the slow economic recovery in China.
The bank predicted that Taiwan's Central Bank, which will hold a regular board meeting in June, will keep key interest rates unchanged.
(By Chao-fen Kao and Maia Huang)


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GM recalls 3.8 million pickup trucks and SUVs in the US and Canada due to brake failure
According to the US ABC news on September 11, under the pressure of the federal government, General Motors recalled nearly 3.8 million large pickup trucks and SUVs in the United States and Canada to solve the brake problem.
According to General Motors, there have been 113 accident reports and 13 injuries.
Car recalls range from 2014 to 2018 for the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra 1500, 2500 and 3500 pickup trucks.Also included are Cadillac Escalade from 2015 to 2017, and GMC Yukon and Chevrolet Suburban and Tahoe from 2015 to 2018.
General Motors said that as the car ages, the brake booster pump delivers less vacuum power than needed, and the brake distance and risk of collision increases.
The company recalled 3.46 million vehicles in the United States and recalled 310,000 vehicles in Canada in June.General Motors said that the global recalled car data has not yet been announced.
The dealer will notify the customer from September 6th and recalibrate the electronic brake control assembly for the customer for free.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (nhtsa) began investigating this issue in November last year. A total of 111 owners complained that the brake performance was poor.At that time, the agency said that there were a total of nine reports of car accidents and two people were injured.
General Motors says these problems are rare and mostly occur at low speeds, such as driving a car in a parking lot.General Motors spokesman Dan Flores said that even with this problem, the brakes will "continue to function and exceed the requirements of the corresponding federal motor vehicle safety standards."
The vacuum pump is lubricated with the engine oil of the flow filter.Flores said that in some trucks, sludge or other debris can clog the screen, reducing oil flow and causing the pump's vacuum output to drop.He said that these trucks have a dynamic brake assist system that will work when there is a problem with the main system, but the auxiliary system will be limited at low speeds.Reprogramming will activate the secondary system faster.
Flores said that General Motors did not replace these pumps because the pump failed very little and was already under extended warranty."This remedy will improve braking performance in the event of any brake vacuum drop."
The recall was conducted 10 months after the investigation of NHTSA and after more than two months of recall in Canada.When asked why it took so long to recall, Flores simply said that the company has been working with and providing data to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.He said that even without the investigation of NHTSA, GM will carry out a recall.
If the truck experiences a vacuum pump failure, the driver may feel the brake pedal vibrating or the pressure change required to depress the brake pedal.Flores said that if the problem occurs, the owner will see a message on the dashboard telling them to repair the brake assist system.
Flores said that despite the large number of recalls, the cost would not be high enough for GM to report the incident to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, as this would not have a significant impact on the company's earnings.
GM also recalled more than 177,000 Chevrolet Malibu sedan in the United States in 2018 due to possible fuel injector failures, which have a 1.5-liter turbocharged engine.A document issued by General Motors on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website on Wednesday said that software errors could damage the data of the computer that controls the engine, which could cause the computer to send a signal that disables the fuel injector, the engine may not start, or In rare cases, it may break down without warning.
General Motors began investigating last year because the control engine's computer replacement warranty claims were above normal.
Customers will be notified this month that the dealer will reprogram the computer that controls the engine to resolve the issue.
<September 12, 2019>
The Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) announced the monthly car registration in July 2019 on August 19.
A number of Mexican media reported on August 15 that the mass labor negotiations that began in 2018 ended on August 14 and the two sides signed a letter of intent.
Lotus's new electric supercar Evija debuted in North America, Monterey, California on August 16th and then at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.


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Debenhams is bringing a curated fashion and beauty offer to Australia with its first standalone stores there in a deal with Pepkor. It is opening smaller-format stores and offering plenty of exclusives.
Topshop and Topman are linking up with the hugely popular Netflix show Stranger Things for its second series with the fashion retailer entering a “360 relationship” that takes in fashion and entertainment in its stores.
Zalando is on a roll with the e-tail giant reporting a sales surge just a day after UK peer Asos did so. And it’s following Asos into beauty e-tail as it aims to tap into one of the key growth categories for e-sales.
A UK parliamentary report has criticised Amazon and eBay for not doing enough to prevent tax fraud on their online market places and recommended the government hold the online giants accountable for tax lost to evaders.
The iconic footwear brand will open its third store in France, setting up shop in the Quatre Temps building in La Défense, a business area outside Paris' city centre. Covering 90 square metres, it opens November 10.
Amazon Studios chief Roy Price has resigned, a company spokeswoman said on Tuesday, following reports that he harassed a producer and ignored an allegation by an actress of sexual assault by producer Harvey Weinstein.
Weekly sales fell again at John Lewis in the latest seven days with the period to October 14 seeing a drop of 4.6% to £86.4 million. That’s bad news for a store that’s used to sales rise after sales rise.
It is possible that Britain will leave the European Union without a transition agreement, and companies need to do more to prepare for an abrupt departure, Irish Central Bank Deputy Governor Ed Sibley said on Tuesday.
After all the speculation over just how good the Asos final results would be, on Tuesday we found out. They were good, really good. Revenues up 33% and pre-tax profit up 145% certainly lived up to expectations and more.


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Coty has reported better-than-expected Q1 earnings, while down from 2017, the figures beat Wall Street predications.
Chinese e-commerce platform NetEase Kaola has announced a new partnership agreement with nine French companies as part of its strategy to bring more French brands to Chinese consumers.
A US senator has put forward a cosmetics bill that could allow the US Food and Drug Administration to regulate cosmetics ingredients.
US retailer Ulta has celebrated its 10-year anniversary as a public company by ringing the Nasdaq opening bell.
Revlon has reported a 2017 Q3 net sales fall of 10.5 percent on a pro forma basis, while its reported net loss was $32.4 million, a fall from a $4.7 million net loss in a year on year basis.
Beauty subscriber service Birchbox has launched a London-based pop-up store that builds on its successful New York and Paris standalone pop up store concepts.
Shiseido has announced the acquisition of Giaran, a data technology company specializing in artificial intelligence platforms, a move which will develop the Japanese beauty giant’s personalized beauty offerings.
L’Oréal has unveiled a variety of initiatives in order to participate in Alibaba’s annual 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, adopting the ‘New Retail’ initiative for the Chinese market and working to merge both its online and offline shopping experiences.
Unilever Nigeria has announced the appointment of Mr Chika Nwobi as a Non-Executive Director of the company, effective January 2018.


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The bills are now coming due for big companies and millions of laid-off workers. Decisions made in the next few days will shape how coronavirus impacts the economy
Congress has passed a $2 trillion rescue plan but before those funds start to flow, American companies from the owner of a single liquor store in Boston to corporate giants like Macy’s Inc., must decide what to do about April’s bills: Which obligations do they pay and which can they put off? How many employees can they afford to keep on the payroll? Can they get a break on rent?
“Rent is due. Utilities are due. Credit card bills are due April 1,” said Hadley Douglas, who has laid off two workers from her liquor business, The Urban Grape. “The deadline is looming large and it is petrifying.” She said her landlord turned down a request to temporarily pay half the rent but said to keep in touch as it was focusing first on smaller, harder hit businesses.
Millions of Americans are suddenly out of work and many businesses have already closed under orders from state and local governments to close to prevent the spread of the virus. A record 3.28 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the week ended March 21.
The U.S. restaurant industry has lost $25 billion in sales since March 1, according to a survey of 5,000 owners by the National Restaurant Association. Nearly 50,000 stores of major U.S. retail chains have closed, according to the companies.
An estimated $20 billion in monthly retail real estate loans are due as early as this week, according to Marcus & Millichap, a commercial real-estate services and consulting firm. Many retailers and restaurants have said they are not going to pay their April rents, which in turn poses a threat to the $3 trillion commercial mortgage market.
Economic activity in the U.S. and other developed countries could be lowered by a quarter, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Friday.
Companies of all sizes are feeling the squeeze, especially retailers and restaurants that have closed their doors during the outbreak. Nike Inc. is asking to pay half its rents. TJ Maxx is delaying payments to its suppliers. Victoria’s Secret and Men’s Wearhouse have furloughed thousands of workers. Cheesecake Factory Inc. closed 27 of the company’s locations and furloughed 41,000 hourly workers, nearly 90% of its total staff.
Tyson Evans, a 23-year-old line cook for Cheesecake Factory in Indianapolis, Indiana, said he and fellow workers were stunned to learn about the furloughs. He said they believed the company would continue to employ them despite a drop in business. He is now filing for unemployment.
“We keep this company going,” said Mr. Evans, who is currently living with his parents and worried about paying bills including his phone, grocery and prescriptions. He has started an online petition to urge the chain to keep paying furloughed workers.
Denise Burger, a 64-year-old Cheesecake Factory server in Escondido, Calif., said she was counting on the 36 hours of work the company had scheduled for her before the furloughs came down. Ms. Burger said she’s been contacting her mortgage and credit card companies to try and postpone payments.
“This pandemic has put much stress and strain on me,” said Ms. Burger, who is single and has worked for the company for six years in a job she loved.
California-based Cheesecake Factory said it would continue to provide health insurance for employees until June 1, and provide them a daily meal from their restaurants that remain open for take-out orders.
Cheesecake Factory has notified landlords that it won’t pay April rent. “Due to these extraordinary events, I am asking for your patience and, frankly, your help,” wrote Chief Executive David Overton.
Owners of independent and small restaurant chains have also asked their landlords for rent relief, with mixed responses. Some say landlords are offering them deferments of several months, whereas others haven’t gotten much help yet.
“Landlords, if they are overly greedy, they could be losing us,” said Andy Howard, chief executive of Huey Magoo’s Restaurants, who is pleading for a break on rents for his Orlando, Fla., chicken tenders chain.
Residential and commercial landlords say they have been flooded with requests from individuals and businesses saying they will struggle to pay their rent for April and beyond.
“I feel like I’m running triage in a retail hospital out of my apartment,” said Ami Ziff, director of national retail for Time Equities Inc., which owns 122 retail centers, including shopping centers, malls and street-front retail locations in 25 states.
Mortgage firms are bracing for a wave of missed payments starting April 1 as borrowers lose their jobs. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac say they will offer deferrals on home mortgages and postpone foreclosures. Auto dealers say consumers are calling to put off their April lease or loan payments.
Guy Hillel, 47 years old, got laid off from his job as a food and beverage manager at a Times Square hotel earlier this month after the property closed due to the outbreak. He is eligible for $504 a week in unemployment benefits, a fraction of what he was earning.
Mr. Hillel, who has a wife and two children, says it isn’t enough to cover the family’s expenses. He has called credit-card companies to negotiate payment extensions, and tried unsuccessfully to delay his monthly car loan for his family’s Volkswagen Tiguan sport-utility vehicle.
“It’s extremely stressful,” Mr. Hillel said. “It’s crazy: I’m more exhausted now than I was before when I had a job.”
Mr. Hillel estimates his family will receive some stimulus money, but not the full amount awarded to couples.
The federal economic stimulus program passed last week will provide direct payments to Americans as well as loans to large and small companies. The bill includes $350 billion to help small businesses keep people on their payrolls.
For employees, it increases current unemployment benefits by $600 a week for four months. It also provides one-time checks of $1,200 to Americans with adjusted gross income up to $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for married couples; individuals and couples are eligible for an additional $500 per child.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the Trump administration aims to send out direct payments to individuals in three weeks and that banks should be able to originate same-day loans for small businesses in as little as a week.
Many business owners and individuals said they have little in the way of cash reserves or savings for bills that come due in the next few days. Some wonder whether the aid will be enough.
The Small Business Administration said the stimulus bill provides “small businesses with the resources they need to get them through this unprecedented time.”
America’s large, marquee retailers are also struggling.
Macy’s Chief Executive Jeff Gennette told suppliers last week that while he had hoped to reopen stores by April 1, that was highly unlikely. “While our digital business and call centers remain open, we have lost the majority of our sales,” Mr. Gennette wrote in a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Macy’s has suspended its dividend and drawn down its credit line to bolster its cash. It has reduced pay for executives. It’s also canceling some orders and has doubled the amount of time it gives itself to pay suppliers, to 120 days. Nevertheless, Mr. Gennette wrote in the letter, the retailer may need to begin furloughing some of its 130,000 employees.
Nike has offered to pay 50% rent on its 384 closed U.S. stores, landlords say, and when the stores reopen, a percentage of sales in lieu of any rent for 12 months. Nike executives said they will continue to pay workers while the stores are shut.
“We are currently honoring all existing contracts with our landlords. In collaboration with our real estate partners, we provided a proposal looking at near and long term approaches that we believe will help ensure both parties remain viable business partners through this unprecedented time,” a Nike spokeswoman said.
Tapestry Inc., the parent of Coach and Kate Spade, extended U.S. and European store closures through April 10, but is continuing to pay store workers. “What will be important as we come out the other end is to have a committed team of people,” said Chief Executive Jide Zeitlin.
Mr. Zeitlin said the company is in negotiations with landlords about rent forgiveness and is looking at other expenses to cut aside from labor.
T.J. Maxx and Ross Stores Inc. have canceled orders through mid-June and are delaying payments to suppliers, according to people familiar with the situation. A T.J. Maxx spokeswoman declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Ross Stores didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Financial pressures are particularly intense for small business owners; In a typical community, about half of small businesses had less than two weeks of cash liquidity, according to a 2019 report by the JPMorgan Chase Institute.
Pennsylvania deemed auto repair an essential business, which allowed Tom Bemiller, the chief executive of The Aureus Group, to keep open his three repair shops in the Philadelphia area. Revenue is down 35% this month, he said.
“Customer after customer is telling us I am not going to get my car fixed until this blows over,” said Mr. Bemiller.
Mr. Bemiller said his priority is to pay his 25 employees and his suppliers. His bank is working to determine whether it can retool the terms of his company’s $450,000 loan to allow for interest-only payments and has increased its credit line by $50,000, enough to cover two weeks of payroll. Pennsylvania is letting him delay certain sales tax payments; American Express Co. has agreed to waive fees and interest if he delays his $270,000 corporate credit card bill for one month.
“Right now everything is on the table because we are in survival mode,” Mr. Bemiller said. “We are reaching out to all vendors and creditors and asking for help and trying to delay payments as much as possible.”
Mr. Bemiller has reduced his own salary. He hopes to defer payments on his mortgage, student loans, credit card bills and other expenses, but hasn’t had time to work on that yet because he’s been singularly focused on the business, which provides all of his family’s income.
At Envision Travel Holdings Inc., a travel agency with 11 offices, revenue has fallen by two-thirds in the past month and is expected to drop to near zero in the next month or so. The Las Vegas company, which normally has 40 employees and 25 independent contractors, has laid off four workers and cut hours by 20%.
All but one of Envision’s landlords has agreed to reduce rents, cutting payments to about $15,000 from $38,000, with missed payments tacked on to the end of the lease. The travel company put a hold on its 401(k) retirement savings plan and, for now, dropped its 50% contribution to the employee dental plan. “We are analyzing every expense, line by line,” owner Thomas Carlsen said.
“The universal advice we are giving tenants is don’t pay your rent and see what happens,” said Derek Wolman, partner at law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP, which often represents bars, restaurants and hotels in lease negotiations. He said this is especially true in New York state, where there is pending legislation that would give 90 days of rent forgiveness to residential and commercial tenants who suffered financially as a result of Covid-19.
In Detroit, Bedrock, a developer and property owner created by billionaire Dan Gilbert, is offering free rent to more than 100 small businesses and restaurants from April to June. “Hopefully, they sense we’re in it to help them,” said Matt Cullen, chief executive of Bedrock. On Monday, Michigan ordered all non-essential businesses to close.
Smaller landlords who don’t have enough reserves to tide them through a prolonged pause in rent collection say they are in a precarious state.
“Why is the landlord the first line in bailing them out?,” said Corey Bialow, a small property owner. He owns a stake in 12 properties in different states including New Jersey and Massachusetts. He said he will be on the hook for additional costs beyond mortgages such as real estate taxes, maintenance and insurance and will have to dip into his savings to pay for these. “I’m personally on the hook.”
Coyote Hole Ciderworks, a three-year-old cider producer in Lake Anna, Va., saw an 80% drop in revenue after it was forced to shutter most of its operations.
Coyote typically employs seven workers most of the year and fifteen or more in the summer. Now, just co-owner Laura Denkers and one employee remain on the payroll; Her husband, Chris, has stopped taking a salary so the company can continue paying health insurance premiums. The Denkers’ 10-year-old twin sons have cystic fibrosis, which makes keeping health coverage crucial.
The couple began applying for a $60,000 disaster loan from the SBA on March 20. They said all the information they put into the system was lost when the SBA revamped the disaster loan application process because of technical difficulties.
The small company has secured a 90-day reprieve on mortgage payments from its bank; Mr. Denkers plans to pay the minimum allowed on his corporate credit card and is trying to defer payments on equipment loans and other bills. “The next three weeks is the real crunch time when we need an influx of money,” he said.
Jodi Rodriguez, until recently director of retail and sales for Ovenly, a New York City-based wholesale and retail bakery that laid off all of its 72 employees, filed for unemployment March 18.
She wrote a letter to the landlord of the building she’s lived in for eleven years, asking for a temporary discount on the rent on her New York apartment. Ms. Rodriguez owns a rental property in Florida, but the tenant is a make-up artist who isn’t currently working. “I’m unsure whether she is going to pay or not,” Ms. Rodriquez.
“The hardest part right now is health insurance,” said Ms. Rodriguez, noting that coverage through Ovenly ends March 31.
Even businesses that have had gains are facing uncertainty. Ms. Douglas, the Boston liquor store owner, said in-store sales are up 130% over what she had budgeted, more than offsetting the collapse of her catering and event business. She’s keeping a close eye on cash flow and expenses, worried that she, her husband or one of their employees might get sick, that worker illnesses could disrupt her supply chain or that the state could order liquor stores to close.
Ms. Douglas is a member of a local business group in Boston’s South End neighborhood that recently surveyed more than 100 small firms. Most of the owners reported revenue is down by 90% or more in March, with monthly losses totaling about $8.5 million for the 72 businesses that provided specific figures.
“Every order we put in is nerve-wracking because we are so worried about getting stuck with product we can’t sell,” she added. “We are open today but that doesn’t mean we will be open next week.”


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Who are the biggest competitors of Amazon company?December 9, 2021
Online retailer Amazon, founded in 1994 by CEO and President Jeff Bezos outside of Seattle, Washington, is one of the world’s largest online retailers. At $232 billion in yearly net sales, Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world. Everyone who owns an e-commerce business must accept that they are competing with Amazon.
It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in or how big your company is. Amazon is your biggest competition if you’re selling tangible goods online. Even a pre-built tiny house is available for purchase on their marketplace. It doesn’t matter how huge Amazon is; the corporation still has a number of rivals. Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are two of the most popular video streaming services. Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa competes with Google Home gadgets. Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud both compete with Amazon Web Services in the cloud computing industry. (AWS).
As far as technology is concerned, there are lots of successful B2B and B2C e-commerce businesses that are competing with Amazon.
Amazon’s Top Ecommerce Rivals
Who is Amazon vying with in the marketplace? You never know what you’ll find. Amazon has a lot of competition in the online retail industry, from small specialty websites to the world’s largest retailers.
The e-commerce market is expanding at a breakneck speed. In fact, retail ecommerce sales worldwide are expected to reach $4.8 trillion by 2021. Wait for it to soak in. While Amazon is the most popular online retailer, it is only one of several.
This is power in numbers at its finest. A single one of such websites may not be able to completely take up Amazon’s market share. Amazon, on the other hand, is under attack from every online retailer.
Niche e-commerce shops
Online book sales were the company’s primary focus when it was founded in 1994. It isn’t that the organisation doesn’t have a distinct area of expertise. There’s nothing they don’t have for sale, as I’ve already stated.
However, there will always be people who favour niche businesses, brands, and makers over the big box retailers. Amazon is clearly an expert in their field. Nevertheless, they are unable to compete with smaller, more specialised businesses that specialise in a single field.
For example, beard oil, CBD for dogs and vegan cosmetics are examples of niche items. For items like these, consumers are more inclined to purchase them directly from an industry-specific firm. Amazon has biggest competetiors in this category.
Walmart is another worldwide corporation. This department store earns $514.41 billion in net sales each year from its customers. However, Walmart’s brick-and-mortar sales account for a major portion of the company’s revenue. Across 27 countries, Walmart has more than 11,000 brick-and-mortar shops.
With its physical locations and extensive online presence, Walmart is one of the world’s largest retail chains. Second in terms of ecommerce income to Amazon, Walmart is the most popular US internet retailer. Despite Amazon’s dominance in the online market, Walmart’s global reach and large client base make them a constant danger.
A 40% increase in year-over-year growth in Walmart’s online sales In the next years, you may expect even more Amazon business to be snatched away by this monster.
In spite of their efforts to keep up with Amazon, Amazon competitors are still lagging behind. There are a few online businesses that have tried to stop Amazon sales, but Amazon has so much potential that they couldn’t even get close.


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Nigeria’s inflation rose by 0.1 percentage points to 15.70% in February, the statistics office said, after fuel shortages increased transport and other costs, while the war in Ukraine is expected to drive up the price of imports such as wheat.
Lagos based Nuli Juice Company, which also owns restaurants, is among those affected by the cost of diesel, which it said climbed to 680 naira ($1.64) a litre from 215 naira in a matter of weeks.
“This is not a good time for businesses. We are hoping that we never shut down, but if the situation continues this way, it is making the business more and more difficult,” Chinyere Onyia, the company’s head of quality, production and procurement, said.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month has added to volatility in financial markets, sending commodity prices higher and affecting logistics, potentially derailing the economic recovery from COVID-19 in Nigeria and elsewhere.
A halt in grain exports from major producer Ukraine could have a severe impact on Nigeria.
Wheat was Nigeria’s second biggest import during the fourth quarter after petrol, the statistics office said on Tuesday.
A surge in international crude prices is theoretically positive for Nigeria as an oil exporter, but it still faces extra costs as it depends almost entirely on imported gasoline, which it subsidies.
“In the long run, we may not be gaining (from high oil prices) because of the tendency of bringing in inflation into the country,” Simon Harry, head of the National Bureau of Statistics, said on Tuesday.
Victoria Laadi, owner of a cement brick factory that uses diesel for his machinery and for transportation, said he was already feeling the effect.
“There is no customer that is ready to pay the increment so it is affecting our business. For like a week or two now I have not worked,” he said.
Nigeria’s inflation has been in double-digits since 2016, impacted by food-related pressure and currency weakness.
Analysts expect flour prices to climb to 30,000 naira ($72) per bag next quarter from 22,000 naira as wheat prices rise.
The central bank is scheduled to meet next week to set interest rates and could face pressure to reconsider its dovish stance given the persistent double-digit inflation.
($1 = 415.45 naira)


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Struggling supermarket chain Southeastern Grocers confirmed a new round of closings Thursday, including its last Bi-Lo store in Mount Pleasant and nine others across South Carolina.
The company plans to shutter 22 locations across its footprint, including the Bi-Lo store in Sweetgrass Corner Shopping Center at U.S. Highway 17 and the Isle of Palms connector in Mount Pleasant, spokesman Joe Caldwell said.
Eight other Bi-Lo stores and one Harveys supermarket also will close in the Palmetto State, he said.
The Mount Pleasant closing will leave the Charleston area with 10 Bi-Lo stores between Moncks Corner and Edisto Island. It's the seventh Bi-Lo to close in the Lowcountry since 2016. Another was converted to Piggly Wiggly last year.
"We realize that the closure of an underperforming store in your community can be challenging," Caldwell said in a statement. "We do not take these decisions lightly, and only make this tough choice after careful consideration of its impact on our associates and our customers has been made."
The Mount Pleasant location is expected to close by March 25. Liquidation discounts can be expected over the next month.
Bi-Lo's departure marks the third grocer to leave the affluent but brutally competitive East Cooper market. Food Lion closed its last store in the Charleston suburb in 2012, and Piggly Wiggly exited the next year after running into financial trouble.
The area is now served by Harris Teeter, Publix, Walmart, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Aldi. Newcomers Lowes Foods and Publix GreenWise are expected to open over the next few months.
The financially troubled Southeastern filed for bankruptcy reorganization in March 2018 and announced it would shutter 94 underperforming stores, including 19 in South Carolina and four in the Charleston area. The measures were meant to trim the Jacksonville, Fla.-based company's debt by about $500 million.
When it emerged from bankruptcy in May, the chain had 582 stores and began upgrading several of them.
Southeastern Grocers owns Bi-Lo, Harveys, Winn-Dixie and Fresco y Mas supermarkets. The company does not have any Winn-Dixie or Fresco y Mas stores in South Carolina.
Bi-Lo, which was started in the South Carolina Upstate, previously filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009 and emerged a year later after a private equity investor bought the chain. It was then combined with Winn-Dixie and Harveys under the Southeastern Grocers umbrella.


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Thai 2012 rice exports may halve
Bangkok, December 6, 2011
Thai rice exports in 2012 may fall by half from this year to around 5 million tonnes as its prices are too high compared with those of rivals Vietnam and India, exporters said on Tuesday.
The drop could topple it off its position as the world's top rice exporter behind Vietnam, which aims to sell a record of more than 7 million tonnes this year through lower prices even as the Thai intervention scheme keeps its prices up.
In the face of intensifying competition, Thailand has revived talks with Indonesia - which recently bought 250,000 tonnes of the staple from Indian suppliers - to sell Thai rice in a government-to-government deal.
'Thailand's private rice trade has completely stopped now because of uncompetitive prices, at a time when there is cheaper rice from India and Vietnam available on the market,' Korbsook Iamsuri, head of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, told Reuters.
Thai rice exports this year were initially forecast at around 10 million tonnes and the country normally exports 9-10 million tonnes annually. In October, Korbsook said Thai rice exports next year could fall to 7 million to 7.5 million tonnes, as export prices have been pushed up by the intervention scheme and floods.
The Thai government intervention has propelled prices to the highest since October 2008 at $640 a tonne in September, when the new administration officially took power and pledged to implement the aggressive plan to support farmers.
The price of benchmark 100 percent B grade Thai white rice was at $610 per tonne on Tuesday, up from $450 to $550 it was offered since early this year. The 5 percent broken grade Thai white rice was offered at $595 a tonne.
Those were well above offer prices from India of $450 to $470 a tonne and higher than Vietnamese rice offers of $540 to $570.
The Thai government said it would purchase every grain from the major rice crop and would even accelerate the buying scheme after the crop was disrupted by the worst flooding in 50 years. The floods were expected to damage about 6 million tonnes of the major crop, from the 25 million tonnes it had expected to produce.
Industry sources said the government may have bought around 1.2 million tonnes of paddy from farmers so far, plus the carry-over volumes of 2 million tonnes milled rice it had bought from farmers from the previous crops.
Pressured by cheaper rice from India that has allowed shipments of 2 million tonnes, a top exporter in Vietnam said on Monday its export prices should be cut in order to attract buyers.
Indicative prices for Vietnam's 5 percent broken rice have dropped to $550 a tonne, free-on-board (FOB) basis on Tuesday, compared to a wide range of $540 to $570 last week. The 25 percent broken rice fell to $510 a tonne, from $520-$530 a week ago.
'The market has been quiet and no deals were sealed in the past week,' a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said.
Adding to the downward pressure, the Philippines said it would allow private firms to import 500,000 tonnes of rice from Vietnam in 2012, a sharp fall from this year.
Some Thai exporters have even switched to seeking rice from other origins for deliveries to their clients, as they struggled to secure cargoes to meet contract commitments due to the high prices, said Korbsook from the Thai Rice Exporters Association.
'In order to survive, some Thai exporters need to seek rice from Pakistan, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia for deliveries to restore their clients,' she added.
Thailand is also in negotiations with Indonesia's state procurement body Bulog to sell rice in a government-to-government deal, industry and government officials said.
This came after Thailand was reported to have cancelled in September a proposed government sale of 300,000 tonnes rice to Indonesia.
'We are still negotiating about prices and terms of delivery,' said an official at the Thai Ministry of Commerce.
He declined to give details on the amount and prices, but traders close to the matter said the two countries were talking about 300,000 to 500,000 tonnes.
'Yes, we are in talks with the Thai government and PWO to rearrange the time delivery of the previous G-to-G rice import contract of 300,000 tonnes,' Bulog's CEO Sutarto Alimoeso said in response to Reuters queries. The Public Warehouse Organisation (PWO) is a Thai state-owned firm that handles government rice stocks.
'Previously it is stated in the contract that it would be shipped by the end of December. However, it is now impossible to deliver 300,000 tonnes in only one month because our destination ports are not able to handle that amount in only one month.'
He added that there should be no changes in the price which had been agreed in the previous contract. The Thai side insists that the price had been agreed by the previous administration.
'We are expecting the Thai government and PWO would respect the contract. In terms of the delivery period, our import permit is valid until the end of February, 2012,' Alimoeso said, but declined to reveal the price level agreed in the previous deal. – Reuters


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A LOT has changed since Gai Selway began working for Coles in 1971, but her love for the job has remained the same.
The 65-year-old is one of the region's longest-serving Coles team members, and this week notched up 50 years of service at Coles Gunnedah.
The self-service Coles stores we know today are a lot different to the Variety stores of the past which set the standard for supermarkets into the 21st century.
When Ms Selway began work as a teenager at the Gunnedah Coles Variety store it didn't sell food, and she predominately looked after apparel, hardware, garden and kitchenware.
"Safety, technology, everything has changed," she said.
"I started in a variety store where you were behind a counter and you used to cut glass to divide the items on the shelves."
Ms Selway worked at the variety store until it closed its doors on December 2005, only stopping work briefly to have her two children.
While waiting for the new Gunnedah Coles store to be built, she completed some short stints at the Tamworth and Coonabarabran Coles and BI-LO stores.
When the current store opened in November 2006, she was Gunnedah's longest serving Coles team member and she's stuck around ever since.
"I just love the job," she said.
"The team you work with are like your family and I've kept in contact with a lot of the people I've worked with over the years."
She plans to complete another 12 months service at the Gunnedah supermarket before enjoying retirement.
"After working for so long, it's still a little bit daunting to think about it, but I think I do need a rest and I'll spend more time with my grandkids," she said.
"I will miss the team and seeing a lot of the customers.
"Reaching 50 years is something I had aimed to do, once I reached 45 I thought well I got this far I'll go on to 50 years.
"It's just starting to sink in a bit."
Over the past 15 years she has worked in almost every department, but now spends most of her time serving customers at the check outs.
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New Product Review Day allows prospective vendors to pitch their products to the giant retailer for an opportunity to sell at West Marine's 372 retail stores and through its website, catalogs and wholesale distribution company.
At a previous New Product Review Day, West Marine was introduced to the Go Bike, a bike that folds in 15 seconds, which West Marine sells exclusively in the United States.
"New products are critical for us as well as our customers and we're hopeful that we'll meet new suppliers and uncover some great new items for 2008," said CEO Geoff Eisenberg, in a statement.
To set up an appointment for New Product Review Day, e-mail West Marine at firstname.lastname@example.org.
West Marine recently reported a drop in net sales for the fourth quarter and fiscal 2007.
In a conference call with analysts today, Eisenberg declined to elaborate on the company's financial results and its plans for this year. Eisenberg, who took over the helm of the company last month, says he will discuss more details when the company releases its full earnings results on Feb. 28.


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By Press Release |
December 8, 2010
CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler uses the opportunity to talk about the markets' inter-connectedness and discuss the role of technology.
By Michael J. McFarlin |
September 30, 2010
The CFTC and SEC jointly released a report detailing the market events that led up to the "Flash Crash" on May 6
Nat gas follows crude lower
Bitreserve raises nearly $10 million; Coinbase funding global expansion
Yen approaches 7-year low
Have retail sales become irrelevant?
Simplifying fibonacci for traders
Conflicted Fed creates opportunity


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TJX Global Success is the Envy of Retailers
The 2015 annual report of the TJX Companies says it all. Net sales for the past fiscal year were $29.1 billion, which is greater than Macy's report of $28.1 billion. In the past year, sales increased 6.2 percent, reflecting customer demand for value fashion. Comparable sales increased 2 percent. It's significant that in the fourth quarter net earnings jumped 15 percent. Today, TJX Companies Inc. is the leading off-price retailer of apparel and home fashions in the United States and worldwide.


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As part of our public awareness campaign on electric vehicles, Plug It In, NY, we released the fourth in our series of fact sheets to encourage New Yorkers to make an EV their next vehicle.
The fact sheet focuses on the costs, incentives, and funding opportunities associated with purchasing and owning an EV.
State, federal, and utility incentives help lower the cost of purchasing and owning electric vehicles.
A federal tax credit for drivers purchasing new EVs ranges from $2,500 to $7,500.
There are also discounts on tolls for electric vehicle drivers, including the Thruway Authority’s Green Pass Discount Plan.
One commonly held misconception is that EVs are cost-prohibitive. While this may have been true decades ago, the upfront cost of an electric vehicle is becoming more competitive with that of its gasoline counterparts.
Electric cars are also cheaper to fuel and maintain.
EV owners will see savings as early as their first year. The average yearly cost of fueling an EV in New York is $708, while for a gas-powered car it’s $1,200. EV maintenance costs are lower than conventional cars because they have fewer moving parts (e.g., belts, crankshaft, fuel pumps, pistons) so they have fewer mechanical failures.
Additionally, a comprehensive study by NYSERDA found that increased adoption of EVs would economically benefit EV owners. Depending on their location within the state, owning an EV could net drivers savings of up to $3,857 over a vehicle’s lifespan. EV owners are not the only beneficiaries of increased EV adoption, either; moderate adoption of electric vehicles would result in a statewide net societal benefit of approximately $5.1 billion reports NYLCVEF.
Read more in our fact sheet today!


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Square has released a new batch of screenshots for the lovely Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, and the lot is posted below. The RPG is out now in Japan, and will launch in the west on 3DS later this year.
Sometimes we include links to online retail stores. If you click on one and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. For more information, go here.


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There's no denying that Chrysler scored big with its giant-sized, two-minute-long Super Bowl ad. The spot, which featured Eminem and the new Chrysler 200, generated a huge response, especially on social networks like Twitter. In fact, a new study says that the commercial is still causing buzz, but we have to wonder: will Chrysler be able to put that buzz to use?
It should go without saying that not all of the chatter around Chrysler's ad has been positive. There are still plenty of consumers in America and elsewhere who hold a grudge against Chrysler for taking federal bailout dough. (And although it's less frequently stated, there's also some bias against the automakers new, Italian management.) Our sister site, PoliticsAndCars, even posted a rebuttal of the clip -- or the glowing response to it -- arguing that the emotions it roused were "bizarre and wrong".
But never underestimate the power of a pumping backbeat and a gospel choir. Media analytics outfit Alterian says that the ad remains a topic of conversation, and that roughly 74% of related mentions of the Chrysler 200 in social media have been positive. No small achievement, that.
So what's the problem?
Well, as we've pointed out on several occasions, Chrysler is playing the catch-up game when it comes to social media: the automaker just gave Jeep a blog (at a time when the blog as we know it is dying), and the company comes up short as far as mentions on Facebook, Twitter, and other networks are concerned. Our colleagues at Wired rightly note that Chrysler marketing typically drives consumers to sites run by dealers and the automaker itself -- where communication is often one-way -- rather than social networks.
Translation: Chrysler hasn't done a great job of creating an online community of fans. That's not to say that fans haven't stepped up to the plate and done that for themselves -- in fact, Jeep and (to a lesser degree) Dodge aficionados have built sizable networks online. But Chrysler hasn't aggressively followed suit, meaning that the automaker is at a disadvantage when it comes to communicating directly with consumers most likely to try and buy its products.
We have a feeling that much of Chrysler's problem lies in its recent restructuring. Before the official bankruptcy proceedings began in 2009, parts of the company completely lost momentum -- which is to be expected, really. After all, if you're unsure of your department's future, much less your own job security, you're not likely to invest much time or energy in it. But while Chrysler's bankruptcy buddy, GM, hit the ground running after restructuring, Chrysler took a lot longer to get up to speed. Here's hoping they catch up soon.
Food for thought for a Tuesday morning. For those who might've missed the Chrysler ad, we've pasted it below.


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Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies list honors the businesses making the most profound impact on both industry and culture, showcasing a variety of ways to thrive in today’s fast-changing world. This year’s list features 434 businesses from 39 countries. Interactions was recognized in the Artificial Intelligence category alongside fellow industry leaders.
“Our core mission is to create amazing customer experiences by advancing AI technology that understands and engages on a human level. Whether it’s in financial services, retail or new opportunities like food services, our focus is on delivering solutions that harness the power of disruptive technologies to deliver extraordinary customer experiences. We’re thrilled to be recognized by Fast Company for our ongoing commitment to reimagining the customer experience.”
-Michael Iacobucci, CEO, Interactions


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Given that Atari’s best years were in the past, Atari has invested a large sum in Antstream, a retro game streaming service, to allow them to expand further. Atari has invested $3.5 million dollars into the streaming service, which includes several classics from Atari consoles including Pac-Man, Mortal Kombat, and Space Invaders.
This latest investment means that Antstream has managed to raise a total amount of $20 million in funding for their platform. This platform turns a profit through both an ad-funded freemium service as well as an ad-free paid model, with both giving consumers access to over 1,200 retro titles.
Currently, this platform, which was founded in 2013, is available across mobile and tablet, as well as PC, Mac, and Amazon Fire Stick. Antstream CEO Steve Cottam hopes to expand to other platforms, however, Including the PlayStation and Xbox, and this investment could be the first steps toward accomplishing that.
Cottam stated in a press release:
Cloud gaming is the future of the games industry, and this latest funding will enable us to expand our industry leading library of games, but also make them available on more devices and in more countries than ever before.
Atari’s interest in this platform is also most likely not entirely altruistic or nostalgic either. The company has recently returned to the console market after releasing its Atari VCS console. While a solid console (I love mine), it is a digital platform banking on versatility to perform as a makeshift secondary PC, as well as a streaming platform for smaller titles. Antstream seems like the perfect fit for the console, offering a wide range of nostalgic content that would fit at home on an Atari. Most likely we will see it jump to that soon, should the Atari VCS survive long enough to make it viable.


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Pastry and dough manufacturer BakeAway has named Marc Garcia as its new UK operations director.
He joins the Northamptonshire-based company after streamlining operations and driving efficiency for two years in the same role at confectionery supplier Barry Callebaut.
Garcia brings extensive industry knowledge and 30 years of experience in leadership of manufacturing brands to BakeAway, which bills him as the ideal candidate to further elevate its growth in the UK market.
“I jumped at the opportunity to work for BakeAway, especially during this period of growth for the organisation,” said Garcia. “I consider myself fortunate to lead BakeAway during this pivotal phase, with a focus on investing further in our people, buildings and machinery, as they are the backbone of our success.”
Garcia claimed to have developed a “passion for continuously striving for excellence” ever since being awarded Apprentice of the Year during his first year at work.
“This mentality has remained with me throughout my professional journey, and I look forward to bringing this same passion and dedication to BakeAway. I was made to feel part of the family from the minute I walked through the door at BakeAway. It also helps that I love baked goods, particularly the Cornish pasty,” he added.
BakeAway supplies grocery retailers with own-label products including puff pastry, shortcrust pastry, pizza dough and cookie dough, as well as branded chilled and frozen pancakes such as its dairy-free HFSS-compliant OaYeah range, which launched earlier this year.
Having started out as a family business in 2010, it was acquired by the Cérélia group in 2016 and moved to a brand-new 92,500 sq ft factory in Corby four years later.
The company’s purchase of frozen pastry specialist Jus-Rol from General Mills in 2021 drew concern from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which then ruled back in January that the merger could leave UK retailers and shoppers facing higher prices and lower quality products. Cérélia subsequently appealed against the CMA’s decision.


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Frontier Communications sells assets
Transaction includes two stores in North IdahoJune 6th, 2019
Connecticut-based telecommunications company Frontier Communications Corp. has agreed to sell its assets and operations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana to Kirkland-based WaveDivision Capital LLC and Searchlight Capital Partners LLC for $1.35 billion, subject to certain closing adjustments.
Frontier Communications, which is based in Norwalk, Connecticut, says its operations in those states serve more than 350,000 residential and commercial customers, and account for $619 million of revenue, $46 million of net income and $272 million of adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization for the twelve months ending March 31, 2019.
The sale would include two stores in North Idaho, one at 2115 Government Way in Coeur d’Alene, and another at 750 Kootenai Cut Off Road in Ponderay.
The company provides high-speed internet and video services and offers bundles with TV and phone service providers in urban, suburban, and rural communities in 29 states through copper-wire and fiber-optic networks.
Dan McCarthy, Frontier president and CEO, says in a press release the sale proceeds are likely to be used to pay off financial obligations, while strengthening its liquid assets.
“We are pleased to have a buyer with extensive experience building and operating advanced fiber-based communications assets in these regions,” he says. “We will be working very closely with the new owners to ensure a smooth, successful transition for our customers and the communities we serve.”
WaveDivision Capital is headed by broadband entrepreneur Steve Weed, who says, “Having grown up in the Northwest, I’m excited to be able to continue to serve my community through this new venture.”
Frontier will continue to operate the business with existing products and services until the transaction is completed, which is expected to occur within the year. It’s also agreed to provide certain transition services to the new ownership group following the closing.
WaveDivision Capital is a private investment firm focused on the broadband industry. The company’s goal is to bring better internet connections to more homes and businesses throughout North America.
Searchlight is a global private investment firm with offices in New York, London, and Toronto.


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Analysis by McKinsey and trivago: Corona is changing German travel habits
Analysis by McKinsey and trivago: Corona is changing German travel habits
- Booking requests have risen 65 percent in the first week of June compared to May
- An exclusive analysis of data by hotel price comparison site trivago shows that Germans are avoiding long-distance trips this year
- No more short breaks: vacations for longer periods are now the choice of preference
- Mountains over Mallorca: Austria prevailed over Italy and Spain as the top choice for trips abroad in May
DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY June 16, 2020 – The international travel warning ended for most European travelers in mid-June—and Germans are once again longing for a vacation. In the first week of June, search queries and vacation booking requests shot up by 50, respectively 65 percent compared to the May average. This follows on from late March/early April where queries had collapsed by 90 percent compared to the previous year. Particularly striking is that Germans are sacrificing short breaks rather than their main holiday. Interest in trips lasting more than seven days is growing far faster than short breaks: compared to 2019, there are far fewer searches for short breaks. Indeed, in the first week of June 2020, searches for longer trips (lasting 7 to 14 days) saw roughly 40 percent year-on-year increase. These are the results of a recent and exclusive analysis conducted by management consultancy McKinsey & Company using anonymized search query data from the hotel price comparison site trivago. General search requests were analyzed as well as booking queries or click-outs, where the user clicks on a link to a selected offer.
The search data and booking queries show that concerns over travel restrictions and the convenience of the travel destination now play a major role in travel planning. Public announcements on travel restrictions have a direct impact on search behavior, which is why destinations in Germany and neighboring countries are currently in such high demand. In May, 70 percent of German searches were for domestic destinations compared to only 46 percent in May 2019. By the first week of June, this had fallen to 62 percent.
Ease of planning and local offers influence choice of destination
“As expected, demand for vacations in natural surroundings and beautiful landscapes has significantly increased, while interest in city breaks has collapsed. This trend will likely continue for a long time even after Corona,” according to Axel Hefer, CEO trivago.
A dashboard developed by McKinsey and trivago allows this data to be interpreted, trends to be determined in travel behavior, and success factors identified for travel firms. “People are now basing their choice of travel destination on completely different criteria than in the time before the coronavirus pandemic,” says Jürgen Schröder, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company. “Not only do pragmatic considerations play a role such as the convenience of traveling to a location, but also the potential experience at the destination itself. People wonder, for example: What will I be able to do there? How will it work?”
Axel Hefer, CEO trivago: “Interestingly, the duration of vacations being searched for has also increased. People seem to feel much safer journeying in their own cars, so it’s hardly surprising that shorter trips are less favored.”
The German coast is the new top destination of Germans
The German destinations on the North Sea and Baltic Sea are the winners in this crisis: With 14 percent of all search queries, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has seen twice as much interest during the crisis (April through June) as before the crisis (7 percent). Interest in Schleswig-Holstein has also nearly doubled from 6 percent to 11 percent. According to Jürgen Schröder: “Low numbers of virus cases and ease of accessibility with a car play a big role. Also, holidaymakers don’t want to miss out on their preferred type of vacation, which makes the German coast a good alternative to a Mediterranean holiday.” Compared to before the crisis, interest in the top city breaks of Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich has fallen by around 40 percent.
Demand for holiday apartments has also grown by more than 65 percent since the crisis. “Vacations in a holiday apartment are less affected by the travel restrictions than, for example, vacations in a hotel complex. They come closest to replicating that pre-corona vacation feeling,” says trivago boss Axel Hefer.
Trips abroad are mostly being postponed to the end of the year
The data shows that the popularity of a destination pre-corona still plays a big role, and Germans are staying true to their traditionally favored travel destinations of Austria, Spain, Italy, the USA, and the Netherlands. With 14 percent of all booking queries for foreign trips, Austria doubled its share between April and June compared to the previous year (7 percent), even overtaking the pre-crisis top destination of Spain. The analysis shows that while Germans continue to look for foreign destinations, actual booking queries tend to be for neighboring countries.
Equally, many Germans are deciding to postpone their travel plans to later in the year. Although as in the previous year, domestic trips are mainly planned for the summer months, the data analysis shows a clear trend of international trips being postponed to later in the year and early 2021.
The travel industry needs to respond quickly to changing customer expectations
According to McKinsey consultant Schröder, the various players in the travel industry including tourism associations, event organizers and hotels face completely new challenges: “They need to ensure that demand and expectations for a destination match the realities and opportunities available at that destination. If this is not the case, measures need to be taken to ensure travelers still enjoy a good experience. Hotels, for example, need to know when capacities can be ramped up or need to be scaled down.” Axel Hefer adds: “Tourism agencies need to weigh up the risks of opening attractions and the danger of a new COVID outbreak. Questions and answers are changing daily, and plenty of flexibility is called for.”
The analysis of the search queries offers an overview of the factors that are most important to Germans who want to travel:
- Travel restrictions: Which destinations are currently open for travel?
- Convenience: Which destinations can currently be reached safely, e.g., by car, availability of alternative transport, and other restrictions such as compulsory face-mask regulations on airplanes, and so on.
- Travel sentiment: Given the current situation, which regions will offer the best vacation experience, e.g., number of COVID-19 cases, local healthcare system, etc.
- Attractiveness: Given the current restrictions, how attractive is the destination, e.g., opening hours of key attractions, restaurant opening times, availability of accommodation, etc.
trivago is a leading global hotel search platform focused on reshaping the way travelers search for and compare hotels and alternative accommodations. Incorporated in 2005 in Düsseldorf, Germany, the platform allows travelers to make informed decisions by personalizing their hotel search and providing them access to a deep supply of hotel information and prices. trivago enables its advertisers to grow their businesses by providing access to a broad audience of travelers via its websites and apps. As of March 31, 2020, trivago has established 54 localized platforms connected to over 4.5 million hotels and alternative accommodations, in over 190 countries.


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Remember when fashion designer Michael Kors became the first brand to run Ads on Instagram, just four days ago?
Well today, Nitrogram, a company specializing in analytics for Instagram, looked into the key metrics of this very first ad campaign on Instagram.
The company says that the ad brought more than 33,000 new followers to Michael Kors, which is 16 times more than the average number for the brand’s previous 5 non-promoted posts, each of which were featured on Instagram’s ‘popular page’.
Moreover, Nitrogram says that the sponsored post generated 218K likes in 18 hours, that’s 370% more likes than the average of Michael Kors’ last 5 posts, with an estimated 6.15 million users viewing it.
Check out all the results from Nitrogram’s research: Nitrogram: Key Metrics from First Instagram Ad
- Meet the Most Influential Instagramers
- Sneak Peek on Instagram Ads
- Postrgram Makes Mosaic Posters from Your Instagram
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Price of Bitcoin plunges overnight23/02/2021|2min
Sky News business reporter Edward Boyd says the price of Bitcoin plunged around 17 per cent overnight following some huge recent price gains. Mr Boyd said despite the recent drop, the price of one Bitcoin still currently sits at $62,000 AUD. "This is quite an interesting story amongst some investment circles," he said. "We know it's a very volatile currency but it's been making huge ground this year in price gains".


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San Francisco — Adjust, the global app marketing platform, announced today the appointments of three senior leaders: Melissa Dickman, Regional VP of Sales, US East and LATAM; Doug Grounds, VP of Global Solutions Consulting; and Guy Sheffer, VP R&D – Unbotify. The hires follow strong H1 performance for the company as the mobile app economy has remained largely resilient amid a surge in usage during the global pandemic.
Doubling down on investments in the United States and Latin America
A seasoned leader in mobile advertising sales, Dickman will focus on accelerating Adjust’s growth in the Americas. She has more than 20 years of experience within brand and performance marketing across traditional, digital, mobile, social and connectedTV platforms. Most recently, she served as SVP of Sales for advertising platform Taptica, overseeing the East Coast expansion and US growth. Before that, she held sales leadership roles at both early-stage and large tech companies, including Viacom, AOL and mobile video ad network RhythmOne.
Strengthening solutions services
As Adjust continues to invest in its multi-product platform, Grounds has joined to help level-up its solutions offerings globally. He brings 25+ years of experience leading global teams in media, web and business intelligence at big SaaS companies such as Coremetrics (now IBM Web Analytics), Omniture, Adobe, Aggregate Knowledge and Domo. Grounds will lead the global Solutions Consulting team focused on ensuring Adjust’s customers are receiving maximum value from its products and services.
Innovating cybersecurity offering, Unbotify, through increased R&D
To help protect apps from the ongoing threat of bots, Adjust continues to beef up its cybersecurity product, Unbotify, which eliminates bot-based fraud in real-time using machine learning. Sheffer, who has nearly 25 years of experience in R&D, is responsible for managing Unbotify’s product development, with the objective of making Adjust the market leader for in-app bot fraud detection. Prior to Adjust, Sheffer held VP-level roles at several mobile and SaaS companies, including Somatix, StartApp, SundaySky and Jacada (acquired by Software AG).
“Adjust recently celebrated its 500th employee milestone, and we’re very pleased to count these three hires among the ranks,” said Christian Henschel, co-founder and CEO of Adjust. “With such diverse and experienced leadership, coupled with a financially sustainable business model, we’re in a strong position to build on the exponential growth we’ve seen in mobile first markets like the US and LATAM.. We’ll continue to expand our teams and strengthen R&D so that we offer the best possible solutions to empower the business success of our clients around the world.”
Adjust currently works with more than 40,000 apps, including Canon, Jam City and Lumos in the US, and Linio and MercadoLibre in Latin America. The company now counts more than 500 employees across its 16 locations.
Adjust is a global app marketing platform. Born at the heart of the mobile app economy and grown out of a passion for technology, the company now has 16 offices around the world. Adjust’s platform includes measurement, fraud prevention, cybersecurity and marketing automation products. Together, they make marketing simpler, smarter and more secure for the 40,000 apps working with Adjust. Global leading brands including Procter & Gamble, Rocket Internet and Tencent Games have implemented its solutions to secure their budgets and improve results.


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Hindustan Copper falls to daily limit of 20% after share sale
Shares in state-run Hindustan Copper fell 20 per cent, to their maximum daily limit for the second day after government's stake sale.
The government raised Rs 8.1 billion ($147 million) by selling shares of Hindustan Copper on Friday, kick-starting a stalled divestment programme that is crucial to reining in a ballooning fiscal deficit.
Dealers say spot market prices are inching closer to the weighted average price of Rs 156.56 in the recently concluded offer for sale.
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The cost of a domain name system (DNS) attack in India is close to $800,000 now, a marginal 6% decline over the previous year, according to a study conducted by technology research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) on behalf of DNS data security firm EfficientIP.
About one in four companies in India has seen its sensitive customer information being stolen, the study said. Cloud service downtime, as a result of these attacks, reached 65% of the organisations in the country. DNS translates into IP addresses, which are used to reach computers. In a DNS attack, hackers take advantage of vulnerabilities in the domain name system.
The study also found an increase in the number of attacks per company.
Globally, almost four-fifths (or 79%) of the companies surveyed saw DNS attacks, with the average cost of each attack at $924,000. There were 9.5 attacks on enterprises this year across all industries. EfficientIP said that the figures indicate the pivotal role of the DNS for network security, as hackers make use of DNS’ dual capacity as either a threat vector or a direct objective, according to a statement.
The study, 2020 global DNS threat report, found that there is a higher decrease in costs compared to the entire Asia region, which saw a decrease of 2.62% from $814,000 to $792,000. The costs of attacks in India decreased by 6.08%, from about $835,000 to $784,000. However, the country also saw the highest number of attacks suffered by a company at 12.13 per organisation on an average.
More than one-fourth of the companies surveyed (or 27%) in India had sensitive customer information stolen, compared to 16% globally. Indian companies also suffered higher brand damage due to DNS attacks with 44% of companies surveyed in the country seeing brand image erosion while the global number stood at 29%.
EfficientIP said that attackers are increasingly targeting the cloud as the multi-cloud and hybrid cloud. The study shows that the number of businesses that suffered from cloud service downtime increased from 41% in 2019 to 50% in 2020, a sharp growth of nearly 22%. The study noted that the increased adoption of cloud services during the global Covid-19 pandemic could make the cloud even more attractive for attackers.
“Recognition of DNS security criticality has increased to 77% as most organisations are now impacted by a DNS attack or vulnerability of some sort on a regular basis, which can have a direct impact on the ability to conduct business,” Romain Fouchereau, research manager of European security at IDC said.
Early this month, another IDC report found that the recent shift to the remote working model by companies amid the Covid-19 crisis will bolster the adoption of cloud-based services with 64% of organisations in India expected to increase their demand for cloud computing services.


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West Music announced the recall of its Basic Beat BB201 standard egg shaker instruments. The end-piece is glued to the top and can come
Dynacraft has announced a recall of about 5,200 of its Hello Kitty City Scooters and 5,500 Monster High City Motor Scooters. Both models of scooters


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J&T Express resumed its operations nationwide as the company is allowed for transporting certain goods such as essential and hygiene products, vitamins and medicines, and other dry goods. This is possible because of the compliance with the memorandum from the Department of Trade and Industry,
The company also announced that customers and clients may contact the branch nearest to them to confirm the delivery status of their parcel or package before going to the branch, if they wish for their item to be picked up. While J&T Express has resumed operations, it still strictly follows and implements social distancing in all its branches.
J&T Express also reiterates that the public should follow the government’s call to practice proper hygiene and safety precautions such as wearing facemasks, thorough washing of hands with water and soap, using hand sanitizers or alcohol, and practice social distancing at all times.
For those who are experiencing symptoms of the virus, it is also advised to be self-quarantined at home or call the DOH hotline (02)8651-7800 for inquiries on what to do.
To know more about J&T Express and our services, visit their official FB Page at https://www.facebook.com/jntexpressphilippines to also know the branch nearest you.
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Watch Dogs was originally designed as a game in Ubisoft's Driver series, according to a new report.
Speaking to several sources at Ubisoft, a new report by VG24/7 (opens in new tab) uncovers the original intentions behind the first Watch Dogs game. "The game that was released as Watch Dogs started life as a sequel in the Driver franchise, but was always largely what you see in the final product," original Driver co-creator Martin Edmonson told VG24/7.
While working on Driver: San Francisco, Edmonson was sent documents by a team at Ubisoft Montreal, who were currently working on what was intended to be the next Driver game. While it was an incredibly early build of the game, it did feature hacking traffic lights and other features that would go on to be present in Watch Dogs when it debuted in 2014.
One other noteworthy section is Edmonson and another source at Ubisoft saying that this changing of a Driver sequel to spawn a different franchise, like what happened with a Prince of Persia sequel leading to Assassin's Creed, isn't uncommon. We'd really recommend reading the full, excellent feature on VG24/7 for a complete look into the goings-on behind the scenes prior to Watch Dogs' release.
The Driver series would go on to release just one game after Watch Dogs launched: Driver: Speedboat Paradise, a free-to-play mobile game that launched a few months after Watch Dogs in December 2014. Right now, although the Driver series has accumulated sales of over 16 million units worldwide as far back as 2011, there are no current new entries planned for the series.
As for the future of the Watch Dogs series, Ubisoft is currently committed to adding new content to Watch Dogs Legion, the third game in the franchise, which launched last year in October 2020. Just recently, a new update hit Legion that added private matches for its co-op PvE online component, and Ubisoft has said that 60 frames per second is on the way for the PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.
For a complete guide to all the games Ubisoft has planned to launch over the coming months, head over to our new games 2021 guide for more.