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Times may be tough at Renault, but as James Baggott discovered, the French giant’s restructuring plans mean that a spectacular fightback is on the way…
Registrations are down some 57 per cent on 2008, and the brand’s posting monthly sales figures that look far worse.
In May, it was the third worst performing marque with sales down 64 per cent, behind only Hummer and Chrysler.
But, sat chatting to the confident UK managing director Roland Bouchara and his commercial operations director Len Curran, you wouldn’t guess it.
These are two guys with a plan – one that’s been two years in the making – and they say the figures only tell half the story.
‘In the first quarter of this year we decided not to follow the other manufacturers with their huge discounting,’ explained Bouchara, in his thick French accent. ‘Availability has hurt us – this is a big part of why market share has been lower than expected – but we are confident in our business plan.
‘Our dealers are happy. They are making good profit on the cars they sell – and this is important. And the scrappage scheme will really start to benefit us from September.’
We’re sat in the boardroom of Renault’s head office in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. Based alongside its ‘alliance’ partner Nissan, Renault’s modern offices are within spitting distance of a snarled-up M25.
It’s a few days since May’s sales figures have been issued by the SMMT, and I was half expecting the meeting to be called off – but it’s testament to the confidence these directors have in their ideas that they’re willing to take the time to explain them.
‘Two years ago we launched a plan called Renault 20 with the key aim for us to work very closely with our dealer network,’ says Bouchara. ‘Usually manufacturers make all manner of demands so this time we said, “Ok, let’s get together and come up with some working rules and work out how we can reduce your distribution costs”.
‘The objective was to achieve, by 2010, a cost reduction for dealers of an average £148,000 per year – as of April we are there on that figure. Dealers are now financially better off.
‘And I would say we are probably one of the manufacturers showing the best profit levels for our network – at a time when most of our rival networks are showing a loss.
‘How are we doing this? Well, that is down to the strategy we started two years ago. Yes, this has not been exactly understood by everyone – but it is through this that we have lost market share.’
LOSS MAKING CHANNELS
Bouchara explains he made a conscious decision to cut loss-making channels from the business. Daily rental and Motability have both been axed, resulting in those sales figures that make such grim reading.
‘We lost market share because we wanted to stop being a non-profitable business first for Renault and then dealers,’ says the UK chief. ‘We have reduced our sales on non-profitable business like Motability, which are not only non-profitable for Renault, but all manufacturers.
‘Our strategy has instead been focussed on improving our image, our customer service problems, making sure our products are attractive and addressing running costs.
‘After that it is quite easy to claw back our market share. I could, if I wanted to, instantly add 1,000 vehicles mechanically to our sales. But we have decided not to do this.
‘With Motability we are at one or two per cent – we should be at six. But tomorrow, if I wanted to lever up the gear, we could add 1,000 vehicles to our figures.
‘Some manufacturers decided to be in all avenues like this – but we did not: it is a choice. If the financial situation and the pound are looking better in the future – we will be back, but for now we have decided it is not for us.
‘At the end of the day, if I come back on daily rental, a fleet deal or Motability then we will be fine – it could quickly change, and that’s quite important to remember.’
The plans Bouchara speaks of have had their drawbacks though – most notably the huge cut in dealer numbers across the UK from 260 to just 200 by the end of the year.
Commercial operations director Curran, who has worked his way up to board level from various dealer-facing roles across the UK, explained the cull wasn’t without emotion.
‘In some cases we have had to issue a number of termination notices in order to get to our target number,’ he explains.
‘In many cases it was by mutual consent. In some areas it was easy where there was a nucleus of dealers in a geographical area that could be taken care of by the one outlet; in some cases it made commercial sense to do it.
‘The ones that were more difficult were the ones where you had to make a decision. We used a scorecard system which showed us which dealers were best suited to manage that territory. These were difficult and there was a bit of emotion in these cuts but it wasn’t just about cutting the size of the network – it was about having the right dealers, in the right locations, with the right management.’
Every Renault retailer in the UK now knows how it fits into the manufacturer’s plans with a few currently working out their notice periods. But that’s not to say there aren’t any open points – Curran confirms they are actively seeking retailers in several areas.
‘We have half a dozen open points in the UK and are in the process of filling them. But we are selective of who we take because we’ve got a model that is profitable and robust. It gives us much more flexibility in who we talk to and who we draw into the franchise.
‘They must have the right level of facility, right level of financial funding and a robust structure, but being alongside another franchise does not frighten us – we have a strong proposition and we’ll take anyone on from that point of view.’
The marque has some exciting plans too. Not only are there a host of new model launches planned – giving Renault one of the youngest model ranges on offer – but it’s also making huge strides in green technologies.
At the forefront of the manufacturer’s plans are electric vehicles and at this year’s Frankfurt Motor Show we’ll see the direction the maker, alongside alliance partner Nissan, is taking.
The marque’s press spokesman Tim Jackson – who was also sat in on our chat – confirmed that Renault plans to have a range of electric vehicles that appeal to 30 per cent of the buying public as early as 2012.
‘The biggest challenge facing the car industry is to manage the transition to the electric vehicle,’ said Bouchara. ‘We cannot continue to manage the world as it is and we believe the electric vehicle – the zero emissions car – is the best solution for the industry. Renault-Nissan want to be launching a car of this type by 2012.
‘We are well in advance of other manufacturers here and there is no reason we cannot be the leader. But the market has to manage this transition. What will be the job of the dealer? We are already speaking with our network on this; we are speaking with the government too – we have to, because electric vehicles will mean we have to rethink the way we do things now.
‘In the next 10 to 15 years – which isn’t that long really – electric vehicles will be a major part of the market.’
The real problem is convincing people that EVs are a viable alternative to conventionally-fuelled cars – short ranges and hassle refuelling will put off many buyers. But Renault has a clever solution to this.
The Renault EVs – which will have a range of 150km – feature an on-board computer system that will divert the car to a battery station when it needs more juice. You’ll simply drive into these car-wash style booths and a computer will slot a new battery in place.
The whole process is designed to take four minutes – quicker than filling your car up with petrol. Obviously this would mean a sea-change across the country and an industry wide standard battery embraced by all marques, not just the Renault-Nissan alliance.
‘We’re working with all manufacturers to try and convince them this is the best way to go because plugging the car in at home is not the way to do it,’ added Jackson.
There are certainly big things ahead for the manufacturer, but what about the here and now? What message would Bouchara give to his dealer network?
‘Have hope in terms of the market share increase and faith in what we’ve done,’ he says.
‘And be confident in our ability to come back.
‘It has been tough in the last two years as we started a strategy that was not easy. In November 2007 we said to our network we wanted to be one of the most profitable franchises within the generalist marques. Today we are – we are – I’m not speaking fiction here, we really are. We did it; we got the results.’
‘We’ve got the best range now in terms of strength and depth. We’re selling good cars, at a good price – but most importantly with an exceptional level of profit per unit. We’ve all been where the Koreans are now – buying volume for the sake of volume – but as they say: volume is vanity, profit is sanity.’
Bouchara adds: ‘All we need to do now is to increase our volume and come back on the channels we left for profitable reasons. But if the market conditions are getting better – and they are – then we are in a better position. Dealers have to keep the faith – we will be back.’


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Briarcliff Manor resident Barb Kobren (aka “BobbySue”) and a friend, both board members at the Westchester SPCA, were brainstorming fundraising ideas for their cause while snacking on homemade seasoned nuts (a Kobren family recipe) when the idea struck: Why not sell the deliciously spiced and roasted pecans, cashews, and almonds and donate the proceeds?
And so BobbySue’s Nuts was born. In the eight years since then, the company has grown steadily, increasing distribution to large chains such as Whole Foods. From 2011 through last year, the company experienced a compound annual growth rate of 47 percent, jumped from 150 to over 1,000 retailers, and increased e-commerce volume by more than 500 percent — while continually supporting animal-welfare causes.
“We’re committed to giving 2 percent of profit, or at least $5,000 a year, no matter what; we’ll take a loss before the SPCA will,” says company president Adam Kobren, Barb’s son, who joined the business in 2011. (BobbySue’s Nuts has donated $50,000 in total over the years.)
While the Kobrens have continued to update packaging and increase production, the recipes themselves will not change. “Whether making small batches or cooking 400 pounds, our process remains the same. We don’t cut corners, and that’s why we’ve become a premium product,” Barb explains.
Apparently the food industry agrees: BobbySue’s Nuts recently received top honors at the Specialty Food Association awards. “I am humbled to be in a position where dedication to product and mission has put success within my grasp,” Barb says.

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With their first raise not yet over, Israeli start-up Steak Tzar Tzar’s chief executive, Dror Tamir, says he is “overwhelmed” by the attention his grasshopper protein company is generating.
“We’ve already gotten a call from Whole Foods, [dozens] of farmers in Africa, orders from north American processors,” he told Agri Investor in a phone interview. The Israeli government is even pitching the start-up at Davos, as an example of the country’s entrepeneurial innovation, Tamir said.
Trendlines Agtech, an Israeli government-franchised agri start-up incubator and part of the venture capital arm of agriculture and medtech group Trendlines Group, will be its first investor.
Trendlines committed an undisclosed amount to the $500,000 raise this month. The firm is looking for a co-investor, with a Singaporean and Russian fund both reportedly interested in the position. Trendlines itself launched a $17.6 million IPO on the Singapore Stock Exchange at the end of last year.
The raise may seem small, but Tamir said the name of his first backer is itself high value – Trendlines Agtech is one of only 24 government-licenced incubators.
Steak Tzar Tzar still needs to get off the ground commercially. It plans to target two markets: the protein sports drink and protein bar market in the US and Europe, and markets that already eat whole bugs as part of their diets, in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
The US has a home-grown cricket powder market, with US protein bar brands attracting financing from the likes of Twitter investor Tim Ferriss. But grasshoppers, which Tamir says are even more nutritional, are less common and “too expensive” on the US market. He also thinks that getting into the sports drinks market will open up the doors to higher profits:
“Most of this market is based on whey, which means on the basic level you get saturated fat and cholesterol, lactose and salt, which are things that the athletes don’t really need or want, and grasshoppers just don’t have,” Tamir said.
Its first outside investment will be used to scale up its secret farming method to semi-industrial scale and kick off sales in North America. Tamir said his way of producing grasshoppers will mean that the insect powder can be produced up to 80 percent cheaper than the current US market price, and sold to the multibillion dollar sport protein drinks and protein bars.
Dror is also looking to franchise his farming technique in other parts of the world – particularly in countries where insects are already part of the diet, including in Asia and Africa.
“We look for companies that focus on the development of new technologies. There needs to be a huge demand in the marketplace, and although we are in Israel they must address an international need,” Trendlines’ vice-president of business development Sarai Kemp told Agri Investor.
In general, Trendlines Agtech invests in four to five new companies each year, with an average investment worth about $1.2 million. They also describe themselves as “intense” investors, giving each portfolio company business, tech, finance, marketing and administrative support. They aim to have 70 percent of their portfolio companies succeed in securing follow-on investment and further growth, said Kemp.
The idea came from Tamir’s most recent success – his company Plate My Meal, which makes plates that divide up the healthy nutrient content of a meal on the plate. It was designed to help parents plan and educate toddlers to eat nutritionally balanced meals, but Tamir also found himself being contacted by businessmen in countries where malnutrition was a problem.
“I started to realise that lack of protein is a big issue. Lack of development mentally and physically and can affect the immune system for life – I stumbled upon insects and eventually decided that grasshoppers are the best solution for that,” he said.
Steak Tzar Tzar takes its name from the Hebrew for cricket, pronounced tzar, but Trendlines sees a long term future for grasshopper protein in more technologically advanced foods like the creation of products that taste and look like beef or other farm animal produce.
Dror is bold about his progress so far: he said that already there has been so much interest from Africa that the Israeli embassy in Kenya is helping them coordinate with potential clients and business partners to use their innovative farming method.
“What we liked about Steak Tzar Tzar is that it addresses two markets, one in developing countries and one in developed countries … It is in an industry where in the future we will need more protein sources, and [grasshopper protein is] very cost effective and has high nutritional value.”


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Earlier this week, a Times of India report claimed that – Keen to expand business operations in India, Italian bike maker Ducati, seeks a partner in the country for manufacture of small engine bikes for global markets.
Ducati seeks partnership in India for the production of smaller size engines between 250cc and 500cc while Ducati’s current portfolio only consists of bikes powered by 800cc and 1,200cc engines. It is with these smaller engined bikes that the company expects to see global sales to the extent of 55,000 units, stated the TOI report.Seen above is a Ducati Multistrada standing next to a Royal Enfield Bullet.
The report also added that Ducati could be seeking partnership with Hero MotoCorp or Royal Enfield following BMW’s plan to introduce motorcycles with 310cc engines from its ‘Motorrad’ division within the country in partnership with TVS Motors. Another example is of Austrian company KTM, who has also entered into an alliance with Bajaj Auto for manufacture of smaller engine bikes for global market.
Refuting the claim made by the TOI report, Ducati India has given the following press statement – “We would like to clarify that Ducati currently has no plans to partner with any Indian two-wheeler manufacturers and/or to build small capacity engine motorcycles in India.”
Scrambler is the most affordable Ducati on sale in India currently.
For 2017, Ducati aims at selling over 1,200 bikes a year in India for which the company is set to increase its network and sales two fold over next few years. As on date, Ducati has 5 dealerships in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Ahmedabad. In the past year, the company saw an 18% growth Y0Y and has now reached an important milestone of selling 1,000 bikes in the country ever since it entered the Indian market 3 years ago. This year the company aims at launching at least 5 new bikes in India.


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The Food and Drug Administration of US has approved a new allergy shot medication as an alternative for Mylan’s EpiPen. EpiPen is known to be costlier making it more unaffordable. The FDA approved Adamis Pharmaceuticals Corp’s product Symjepi would probably be on sale later this year, according to the Associated Press. Unlike EpiPen, Symjepi is a syringe and not an auto-injector, prefilled with two single doses of epinephrine hormone, which helps to stop life-threatening acute allergic reactions from insect bites, drugs, and other allergens, food products such as nuts and eggs, idiopathic or exercise-induced anaphylaxis or other certain medications.
The syringe filled with a set dose comes with a training device. The device is of pocket size and can easily fit into the pocket or purse. Small children and adults having severe food or insects allergies can carry the device in their pocket whenever they leave for the school or work or else when they are at home. Like EpiPen, the drug will be sold in pairs and is user-friendly that could help both retail and non-retail sectors of the epinephrine market. The drug will be similar to previous one in terms of chemical composition and safety but will be cheaper than EpiPen.
The Evercore ISI analyst, Umer Raffat said, “Symjepi is not identical to EpiPen and so the price Adamis sets “will obviously be an important consideration.” Presently, the price of EpiPens is about $630 to $700 without insurance, while the new generic version retails for about $225 to $425.”
The company will launch a generic version of the drug for about $300. President and CEO of Adamis, Dennis J. Carlo said, “We are very excited by this approval, and at the same time, are already preparing to submit our second NDA to the FDA.” The company is also preparing for a junior version of Symjepi that will compete with a junior version of Mylan’s EpiPen. “We are committed to helping patients by providing them with additional therapeutic choices”, he further added.


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Farmers in the rice value chain are exploring measures to bridge the about 2.3 million metric tonnes local rice production gap in Nigeria. This huge gap, they say, provides a lot of opportunity for both investors in the business and prospective rice farmers.
In 2016, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation said Nigeria imported 2.3 million metric tonnes of rice, which is about half the country’s estimated requirement during the review period.
Data from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development put the total demand for rice in Nigeria at about 5.5 million MT a year, of which about 3.3 million MT is produced locally, leaving a shortfall of about 2.2 million MT which is being imported, validating the 2016 report of the UNFAO.
Stakeholders in the rice value chain believe that although the rice importation gap is still huge, there has been increased local production of the commodity. They urge more investors to join in the cultivation and production of rice, considering the opportunities in the business. They also state that more investments in rice production will help the country to achieving self-sufficiency.
Experts say rice farming offers a lot of opportunity to interested farmers such as becoming a source of employment to youths and women. They say investment opportunities in rice farming is not only in production but also in land development, marketing and processing. Experts say rice farming can serve as a source of income to farmers and a host of other groups.
It can also serve as a source of food supply to the nation, raw materials to processors and food manufacturing companies. Rice farming can provide market to agro-allied and non-agro base products. Experts further state that rice by-products such husk and bran can be used for livestock feeds.
They note that the total cultivable land in Nigeria is estimated at 82 million hectares while area suitable for paddy rice cultivation is estimated at 4.6 million hectares. They say the country is also blessed with untapped (about 3.14 million) hectares of land suitable for rice irrigation but only about 50,000 hectares is currently utilised.
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending, Aliyu Abdulhameed, had explained that the demand for rice in Nigeria was increasing at a much faster rate than in other West African countries due to speedy population growth, rising income levels, rapid urbanisation and associated changes in family occupational structures.
Abdulhameed disclosed this in a paper he presented earlier this year entitled, ‘The Imperative of Public Private Partnership in Achieving the Rice Revolution in Nigeria,’ at the AgroNigeria High Level Rice Conference 2018, which held in Abuja. The theme of the conference was, ‘Self sufficiency in Rice Production: A must!’.
Every year, the target shifts, and the journey to self-sufficiency further elongates,” Abdulhameed observed. He, however, expressed hope that stakeholders would come up with practical solutions whether from the just conference or from other fora that would help match or outrun population growth with production.
Experts say the prospect for rice farming in Nigeria is very bright, provided a number of factors are tackled seriously. Some of the prospects include land clearing and development under irrigation, as experts note that this should be given serious attention. They also state that land tenure system should be reviewed so as landownership can be accessible with ease.
They say the government should make irrigation schemes viable through substantial investments. Experts want the government to support in making Nigeria rice consumable and affordable, adding that the production, marketing and processing of rice should be well-integrated.
These concerns are partly alluded to by the NIRSAL boss when he said, “however we look at the progress so far made in rice production, challenges remain.” Abdulhameed added, “Sub-optimal processing capacities, inefficient storage facilities, unavailability of quality inputs and other production-enhancing infrastructure are factors delaying Nigeria’s self sufficiency in food production.
“Whichever way we like to look at the cup – half full, or half empty – there is, without doubt, a lot of work still needs to be done. Interestingly, the production gap that we see today of 2.3 million metric tonnes, is a moving target.”
Experts also state that one of the most original features of rice is the fact that it can be grown under very different environmental conditions. This, they say, is particularly from the point of view of its water supply. Stakeholders say rice cultivation is virtually carried out in all the agro-ecological zones of Nigeria and despite this the area cultivated still appears small.
They identify the types of rice cultivation in Nigeria to include rainfed upland rice, rainfed lowland rice and irrigated rice. Others are deepwater/floating mangrove rice and mangrove swamp rice. Experts also note that there are many challenges associated with rice farming in the country. They outline some of them to include climatic factors such as flood, soil salinity and erosion drought and global warming.
They note that many rice farmers are illiterates, unorganised with low-capital base and employ the use of simple and crude tools with little farm mechanisation equipment usage. Weeds, pests and diseases, high cost of productive inputs such as seeds, fertilisers and other agro-chemicals are few other challenges. Experts, however, state that stakeholders are partnering the government and other agencies to address some of these challenges.


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This emerges from a study by the consulting firm Bearing Point . One of the reasons for optimism is that half of the automotive companies surveyed in Europe, Asia and the United States have a clear digital strategy and are already implementing it. According to the consultants, although many of them also recognize the need to work with partners, they often live in the past: "They cling to a world in which a walled company site protects innovations against the competition," explains Matthias Loebich of Bearing Point.
As a result, only 48% of car manufacturers surveyed believe they need to build up and manage a partner ecosystem to be successful. One possible obstacle could be their own brand strategy: 70% stated that the complexity of such ecosystems could confuse consumers about the brand. 57% also complained that it was difficult to find the right technology for managing a partner ecosystem.
However, according to the consulting company Horváth & Partners , ecosystem innovations benefit all stakeholders, including customers. Key innovation management questions must first be answered when developing such a system, including those about the robustness of the current business model and suitable partners for the target customers.


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The local downtown brewery that manufactures popular beers sold across the state of Georgia recently celebrated its fourth birthday. Rather than receiving gifts, Creature Comforts will be giving back to the community through the opening of a new production facility, doubling the amount of Athena and Tropicália beers that Athenians can get their hands on.
The official opening of their second production facility took place on June 11 at the historic Southern Mill complex off North Chase Street. The brewery announced their expansion plans in the beginning of 2017, broke ground in May 2017 and first began production in March 2018.
“We never expected that two years into opening our doors we would have a need to start working on building a new brewery,” said CEO Chris Herron in a press release. “We are excited to have the opportunity to both increase the quality and quantity of our beer, to create jobs and to reinvest right here in Athens.”
As of right now, this new facility will be purposed as a production facility, with future plans for the addition of a tasting room. The quantity of beer coming out of the facility will increase from an average of 40 cans packaged per minute in the Snow Tire facility, to 185 cans per minutes at Southern Mill.
Additionally, at this new brewery, a 340-barrel batch of Tropicália is brewed in just around 16 hours, as opposed to the downtown location which brews a 120-barrel batch in 20 hours.
“The new facility we’ve build here at Southern Mill gives us the ultimate control to precisely make high quality beer exactly the way we want, with better shelf stability and much greater efficiency,” said Brewmaster Adam Beauchamp in a press release. “All in all, we believe the brewery we’ve built will allow us to provide our consumers with a product that they will consistently be happy with.”
In a previous version of this article, The Red & Black omitted a word within a quote by CEO Chris Herron. The Red & Black regrets this error and it has since been fixed.


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The Yankees announced yesterday that they would not raise ticket prices for the 2002 season, the first time since 1990 that ticket prices will go unchanged.
Yankees officials made the decision early last month, based on the general downturn in the economy, just a few days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Yankees will also offer discounts on full and partial season-ticket plans for next year. The most expensive tickets in Yankee Stadium sell for $62.50. Bleacher seats cost $8.Continue reading the main story


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Your iPhone/Android apps are (probably) watching you…
New research from the Media Trust suggests that while Apple may offer the world’s most secure mobile platform, not all of the apps available within it meet the same high standard of privacy – and shopping apps are particularly curious.
It’s not just iPhones
This doesn’t solely impact iPhones – any platform can be watched using persistent cookies and tracking codes.
This is legal, of course, but the problem is that not everyone using these technologies to build up user profiles is compliant with data protection regulations.
In August 2019, the Media Trust compared ten out of the App Store’s fifty most popular Shopping and Food & Drink apps to check what code is bundled inside the apps.
They found that shopping apps are more likely to install such code than the others.
“Compared to Food & Drink apps, Shopping apps drop more third-party cookies, have more third-party domains present in the install and purchase phases, and drop far more persistent cookies (ie, whose lifespans exceed session),” the report says.
“Shop apps also run a greater risk of noncompliance with data regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA,” it warns.
It is worth noting that protecting against such experiences is part of what the Media Trust’s business does.
This is surveillance
The report finds a whole bunch of insights into how apps can gather personal data and observes that around 90% of the data calls made from inside your apps take place outside of the app developer’s control.
Lots of this information is relatively benign, of course, things like location data for fraud prevention systems or tracking data to ensure legitimate ads.
However, we are aware that some of this activity is connected with companies seeking to harvest user data, and that not all those collecting such data are necessarily benign.
“Policing these third and nth parties’ activities is both time- and resource-intensive because of the digital supply chain’s lack of transparency, dynamism, and complexity,” they warn.
It’s also of concern that around 7% of shopping app cookies last for over three years.
Why is this?
What makes this worse is that Media Trust analysis suggests around 2% of the cookies being dropped from inside apps are “suspicious”, which is a concern.
Who watches the watchmen?
That’s not to say you should stop using apps, of course.
Media Trust seem far more concerned about what happens to the information about users that is collected.
The danger is that some of the vendors who gather such information have become popular targets for hackers, who recognise that in many cases they don’t apply robust security around the data they collect.
This is information that can be combined with other data stacks to provide huge quantities of data about what people do.
The reality of such risk means consumers should always check the terms and conditions around app use and should most certainly limit the information they allow apps to collect through their device using the privacy tools Apple provides.
“Unless publishers can monitor the activities of third-party code from users’ side, these digital strangers will hurt users and, as a result, their business,” they conclude.
Jason Bickham, Vice President, Technical Operations for The Media Trust says:
“What consumers and mobile app publishers themselves should know is how pervasive stalking has become in the digital world. Apps are designed for personalization and, in order to achieve that, these apps are designed to collect a host of personal information from behavioral to payment data.
“These apps are supported by a broad range of digital vendors who also have their own share of digital vendors. Collectively, these vendors harvest user data to provide the rich experience and convenience that consumers have come to expect from their apps.
“If you’re using apps to order take out or purchase a new dishwasher, digital vendors that support those apps will likely know your habits and transactions. Hard though it seems to imagine, in the digital world, monitoring consumers is the new normal.”
This is, indeed, surveillance.


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December 16, 2006
More PS3 Units This Weekend?
It is rumored that tomorrow (December 17) there will be a large shipment of PlayStation 3’s hitting retail stores. According to our partner PS3Sekker.com, “We believe there are going to be Wiis held and released Dec. 17 and that will be the last shipment before Christmas. We think there might be a PS3 shipment about the same time.”
Toys”R”Us and Circuit City are expected to receive more units this weekend.
If this rumor turns out to be true, this will be the last chance for you to get your hands on a PlayStation 3 before Christmas.


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Is China Losing Its Competitive Edge?
Majority staying in China: Despite the rising costs of manufacturing in China, 83% of manufacturers said they will maintain their operations in the country. China’s vast domestic market was cited by 78% of respondents as the reason to maintain the status quo, while 39% were unwilling to establish a new supply chain, motivating them to remain in China.
“China’s phenomenal economic growth and market reform story, together with a dynamic and challenging business environment, will continue to put pressure on manufacturing compa-nies,” said Brenda Foster, President, AmCham Shanghai. “They will have to focus on continually improving their competitiveness and devoting more resources to innovation as they pursue their strategies and plans in China.”
Major economic indexes of the Chinese printing industry, and new market information and business opportunities in India and Vietnam are available to NPES member companies by contacting Mike Hurley, Director, International Trade at e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org or phone: (703) 264-7212.


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There is a lot wrong with this article, as well as the use of some emotive language; for example a range of UK GDP estimates are described as GDP ‘damage’. The article also uses unsubstantiated platitudes such as: ‘most economists accept that the economy will suffer in the long term.’ They throw this line in after admitting that: ‘since Brexit, the UK [National Income] has effectively held its own.’ It is inconceivable to the authors that Brexit may not have made the UK economy ‘suffer’.
There are also several non-sequiturs. For example, under the subtitle Household Income, they complain that UK real disposable income has trailed that of Germany, France and Italy, but then in the next section they complain that an acute labour shortage in the UK is forcing wages to rise. Surely if they are worried about low disposable incomes, they should be happy about higher wages? But while they are honest enough to state that the loss of workers is due to the pandemic, retirement and long-term illness, and not Brexit, they don’t mention that the UK’s low real disposable income is due to high inflation caused by a massive covid-related increase in the money supply, coupled with 18 years of ridiculous energy policies that undermined both domestic supplies and ignored the possibility of the present energy security problems. Both issues have nothing to do with Brexit.
Similarly, they complain about the UK’s low productivity, but admit this has been a problem since the financial crisis fourteen years ago. Again – nothing to do with Brexit per se, although both the UK’s energy policies and the UK’s low productivity growth do make clear that once a country has taken back control of its law it is vital to have a competent government making the country’s regulations. Unfortunately, that has not been the case in the UK.
But the most obvious piece of propaganda in this article is the conflation of trade with trade intensity. The authors define trade intensity as a country’s total trade, imports plus exports, as a proportion of its GDP, then use a graph comparing trade intensity for the UK with the G7 average excluding the UK, under the misleading title Leaving the European Union has had an adverse impact on British trade. This is not a graph title but a biased statement, which is not even illustrated by their graph of trade intensity.
Trade intensity merely measures how important trade is to a country’s economy. Low trade intensity is not necessarily a bad thing, and it is as heavily influenced by the size of a country’s GDP as it is by their total trade. If you look at the trade intensity for all G7 countries individually, the G7 country with the lowest trade intensity is the US, at only 23% in 2020. This doesn’t mean that the US economy is failing. US GDP is an order of magnitude larger than any other G7 economy, and 4.5 times larger than the GDP of the next largest G7 economy, Japan. US GDP is about 4 times larger than US total trade.
Some economists believe that high trade intensity is a bad thing as it makes countries more vulnerable to external shocks. In which case, this may not be an economic attribute the UK should be targeting as we move into a global recession.
Looking at the chart of G7 trade intensity above, the UK is firmly in the middle, with a trade intensity similar to those of France, Canada and Italy. And although UK trade intensity is lower than its 2019 level, it is back near its pre-Referendum 2015 level. So how could this be blamed on Brexit?
And while Germany may be looking robust in the chart above, if you take out the non-EU G7 countries and add in those well-known world leading EU trading nations – Cyprus, Malta, and Ireland, or even some smaller EU nations such as the Netherlands and Belgium, you can see in the graph below the absurdity of using trade intensity as a metric to prove anything about a country’s economy or even its trade. Malta is certainly not a more important trading nation than the US, although its trade intensity is ten times larger. Yet the authors of the Bloomberg article would like us to think that the UK’s trade intensity is a sign of its relative economic weakness.
A more interesting metric that the authors could have used is export volume, indexed from 2000 – the birth year of the Euro (chart below). While German, US and Japanese export volumes are below their 2018 highs, and UK and Canadian export volumes are below their 2019 highs, Italy’s export volume is virtually unchanged since it joined the Euro in 2000 and France is well below not only its 2000 level but also below the very low export volume hit during the 2009 financial crisis. Will the good people at Bloomberg be blaming this on Italeave or Frexit? Or is this a reflection of the relative currency rates when Germany, Italy and France joined the Euro?
It is often claimed that the Euro conversion rate was too low for Germany and too high for Italy, thus enabling German exports to grow while Italian exports shrank. However, there are many other influences on any country’s export competitiveness beside relative currency values – although it is an important factor. Yet the article’s authors complain about the fall in the pound relative to the US dollar a few paragraphs before they decry the UK’s ‘slowdown’ in trade. If anything, the pound’s recent fall against the dollar should help UK trade, as the US is the UK’s largest export market.
The article also quotes Swati Dhingra: ‘we are seeing a much bigger slowdown in trade in the UK compared to the rest of the world’. This is strange, as the ONS isn’t recording a fall in trade in the UK, both imports and exports were up in Q3 2022, does she mean that UK trade isn’t increasing as much as the rest of the world? If this is so, as the UK only left the EU on 1 Jan 2021, giving us less than two years of trade data which also includes Covid lockdowns, I believe that it is far too early to correctly attribute a structural change in trade to Brexit rather than to lockdown induced trade bottlenecks, staff shortages, limited marketing opportunities during Covid or high energy costs which both distort trade values and disrupt local manufacturing.
However, there is one topic where I would completely agree with the authors of the Bloomberg article: investment in the UK has suffered due to uncertainty and instability. I would add that the many policy U-turns of UK governments since the Brexit referendum have had a large part to play here: from Theresa May threatening to trade with the EU on WTO terms then chickening out and extending the negotiating deadline countless times, while simultaneously working to tie the UK to EU regulations indefinitely; to Boris Johnson claiming to Get Brexit Done then leaving Northern Ireland under EU control, while changing few EU regulations but making the UK’s environmental regulations even less competitive than those of the EU.
But worse have been the actions of the UK’s Chancellors: first, Philip Hammond promised to lower UK corporate taxes to 17%; then Rishi Sunak decided to increase them to 25%; then Kwarteng promised to leave them at 19%; and finally, Hunt increased them to 25% again and slapped a 75% windfall tax on the oil and gas sector until 2028, with no explanation as to how a ‘windfall’ can last for 5 years. This incoherent and damaging corporate taxation policy should deter most international investors, with or without Brexit. And the Opposition, which will form the next government according to opinion polls, could be worse, since they are proposing to apply similar windfall taxes retrospectively. This is even less likely to attract new investment funding to the UK.
By any measure, poor UK economic performance in future years will not be the fault of Brexit, but entirely due to the ineptitude of our politicians. Our governing classes must realise that they are in control now. If the economy stagnates, they will be held responsible.
The United Kingdom – all of it – needs a government that will create a regulatory environment which encourages new economic activity, innovation, research and development, SME’s, self-employment, business investment, energy development and trade. Any deviation from this can no longer be blamed on Brussels – our politicians are the architects of our destiny now. So far, there are very few who appear either willing or able to launch a bold independent economic strategy. Perhaps because those who try are undermined by the Establishment, and even hounded out of office, by the devotees of Project Fear.


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New leaders bring extensive experience building best-in-class teams for healthcare and market companies
AUSTIN, TX, July 6 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Wheelthe health technology company powering the next generation of healthcare, today announced the addition of Shoshana Deutschkron as the company’s first marketing director. Wheel also named several new business executives to its leadership team, including brandon castle as Vice President of Sales; Daniel DeSantis as Vice President of Partnerships; and Brendon Kelly as Business Lead, Behavioral Health.
The new leaders join Wheel following its $150 million Series C Funding Round and at a time when the healthcare industry is embracing virtual first aid models while also under pressure to balance growth and profitability. The new leaders will help guide the company’s evolution as it expands both its virtual care platform and its network of clinicians nationwide. Wheel is already enabling the most innovative brands in healthcare – including big tech, retailers, labs and digital health companies – to deliver high-quality, cost-effective virtual care. By partnering with Wheel, businesses have saved up to 70 percent operating expenses while simultaneously improving clinical quality by 80%.
“I am thrilled to welcome these new leaders who not only have outstanding track records in their respective fields, but who also have a deep passion and understanding of the healthcare challenges we face at Wheel,” said michelle davey, CEO and co-founder of Wheel. “Together, their strategic vision and partnership will accelerate our ability to fundamentally change the healthcare experience for millions of people across the country.”
Deutschkron brings more than 20 years of experience in the Silicon Valley technology industry leading teams in digital health, marketplace, e-work and marketing organizations. She most recently served as Chief Marketing Officer at Olive, a healthcare automation company, where she led a mission-driven marketing team to support overall business growth. She was also responsible for communications and branding at the online job market Upwork, where she helped establish the company’s position as a category leader and led outreach efforts through… a merger and an ultimate IPO.
“What drew me to Wheel was its triple threat of a powerful and disruptive business model, an exceptional and diverse team, and its meaningful mission to increase access to high-quality care” , said Shoshana Deutschkron, Marketing Director at Wheel. “Everyone, from patients to clinicians, will benefit from how Wheel is reimagining care. I look forward to combining my passions and understanding of health technology, the marketplace, and the future of workplace businesses to make evolve the impact of Wheel.”
Wheel is also welcoming new business leadership as the market continues to react strongly to the company’s white label virtual care offerings. Castel, DeSantis and Kelly will collectively create new opportunities for business growth and revenue, enabling more companies to deliver high-quality virtual care at scale.
brandon castlevice president of sales – Castel has held senior sales positions at leading healthcare companies, most recently at Omada Health. At Wheel, Castel will be responsible for expanding the company’s sales team strategy and building new business relationships across Wheel’s offerings.
Daniel DeSantisVice President of Partnerships – DeSantis is a longtime telehealth expert and advocate, having led digital care programs at CareFirst, BlueCross BlueShield and Quartet Health. He will lead Wheel’s partnership efforts and build awareness of the company’s offerings with potential strategic partners.
Brendon KellyBusiness Leader, Behavioral Health – Kelly is a seasoned business leader and recognized mental health advocate, having held executive positions at major behavioral health companies including Big Health, BetterUp and Happify Health. He will develop and lead Wheel’s behavioral health go-to-market strategy.
For those interested in learning more about Wheel, please visit wheel.com. For candidates interested in joining a mission-driven company building the future of virtual care, please visit wheel.com/careers.
About the wheel
Wheel is the health technology company powering the next generation of healthcare. Wheel provides businesses and clinicians with everything they need to deliver care virtually. Today, Wheel powers virtual first aid for the most forward-thinking healthcare organizations, including digital health companies, clinical lab networks, retailers and technology companies. To learn more about Wheel, visit wheel.com.
View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wheel-welcomes-chief-marketing-officer–seasoned-commercial-leaders-to-scale-companys-continued-market- expansion-because-it-powers-the-future-of-virtual-care-301580968.html


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Across the country, thousands of drivers with old vehicles sell them to EMR for processing and recycling every week.
“EMR has the widest network of authorised treatment facilities (ATFs) for vehicle recycling in the UK, which means anyone selling their car to us can rest assured that we will recycle any metals and plastics in a compliant and sustainable way, ready for re-use in a whole range of applications,” says Ian Sheppard, Managing Director, EMR.
“As the material contained in an end-of-life vehicle is valuable to manufacturers, EMR is also able to pay drivers a competitive price.”
When EMR receives a vehicle for recycling, it is just the beginning of the story. EMR employs a whole series of processes and technologies to ensure the many different metals, plastics and other materials that make up a modern car can be separated, cleaned and sold on to manufacturers.
So, how does this work?
“As soon as a vehicle arrives, we first remove hazardous liquids such as any remaining fuel, oil or air conditioning and radiator fluid. These are safely stored before being taken away to be processed by specialist contractors. The fuels, oils and air conditioning fluid are recycled where suitable” Ian says.
Once the fluids and tyres have been removed, vehicles are ready to be shredded, breaking them up into thousands of pieces for separation.
“By putting them through one of our six shredder facilities we can process up to 300 vehicles an hour, ending up with fist-sized pieces of material which are much easier to separate,” Ian explains.
EMR’s giant shredders – which operate with between 2,500 and 10,000 horsepower – also begin the separation process, using powerful magnets to separate ferrous metals such as iron and steel.
Ferrous metal represents 60 to 65 percent of the total material in most cars and is sent straight to local steel mills, or exported for processing, where it can be sustainably and responsibly re-used in the next generation of vehicles, consumer goods or in construction.
The rest of the material includes non-ferrous metals such as aluminium, copper, brass and zinc alongside plastic, wood, foam, rubber, paint and dirt. These are separated into two streams using the equivalent of an industrial-sized vacuum cleaner to remove the lighter material, leaving behind the heavy material.
Historically, some of this light material would end up in landfill but EMR has invested significantly in developing processes to extract any valuable material for recycling.
“We now recover any light pieces of metal at our Oldbury and Liverpool sites and hard-to-recycle plastics are turned into high-quality virgin polymer substitutes at our world-leading recycling facility, MBA Polymers, in Nottinghamshire,” says Ian.
This leaves the heavy material, which includes a mixture of non-ferrous metals as well as heavier plastics and rubbers.
“All of this material goes to EMR’s processing site in Newmarket, Suffolk, where our team employs a range of sophisticated mineral separation techniques to produce saleable metals and plastics. This includes sink float separation where EMR carefully alters the density of water, allowing each material to float to the top as the density changes. This produces a very clean non-ferrous metal that goes straight back into the circular economy.
“EMR also produces a wire concentrate from all of the electronics that exist in modern cars which is further processed to extract high-quality copper granules,” Ian adds.
This level of sophistication has only become possible over the past decade as EMR has invested in creating innovative, sustainable ways to reclaim more of the material contained within end-of-life vehicles. And Ian says this investment is continuing to transform the industry:
“In the years ahead, EMR will increasingly use remote sensing and machine learning technology to further increase the quality of the recycled material we produce.”
Across the UK, Ian and the rest of the EMR team are working hard to ensure the material in every end-of-life vehicle it recycles is returned to the supply chain in an efficient, sustainable and effective way:
“And that’s a commitment we’re extremely proud of.”


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Page 4 | PC
It could be a misdirect, but why fake people out on the week Microsoft bought Bethesda?
Ahead of Frictional's return to the series, the older Amnesias are going the way of Doom.
Geoff Keighley's big year-end show will be broadcast from LA, London, and Tokyo.
Hello Games has found a way to expand its universe without, y'know, starting it over.
Even after a big buy, Xbox could still keep growing.
Those bids in the tens of thousands of dollars? They may be meant to oust the scalpers.
Bungie is honoring a coworker and friend today.
Help Chip be cool in one of the most addictive puzzle games ever made.
With today's release of Halo 3: ODST for PC, USgamer sits down with 343's Michael Fahrny to talk about the always improving (but not-yet perfect) Halo compilation.
Tactical Solitaire Espionage.
See the world in even more ways.
Remember the Eggplant run from the previous Spelunky? This is like that, but even weirder.
The 2003 resistance shooter returns.
Bethesda and Obsidian are both Xbox studios now. Will our spurs jingle-jangle again?
Next-gen Rutger Hauer.
It'll be "the beginning of something new," studio founder Sean Murray says.
”I learned a lot, by the end of everything.”
From Treachery in Beatdown City to Evicted, these games reflect the diverse viewpoints of their creators.
Before Jett lifts off, the Sword and Sorcery EP makers say they need more time.
Dragon's Dogma is an anime now, and it sure ain't pretty.
There are a lot of meters, but it all somehow clicks.
Staff are "doing everything humanly possible" to get these new graphics cards in the hands of legitimate buyers.
Cyan is rebuilding the 1993 classic from the ground-up for VR as well as flatscreen play.
With the Harry Potter creator facing criticism over views seen as transphobic, Warner is distancing its new game from Rowling.
The bikes are setting back down on the ground.
There are also some subtle visual ways to tell the two naughty geese apart.
Gather up some Goodfellas, it's time for crime.
The Xbox-published platformer just closed out a Nintendo Direct showcase.
After many leaks and reports, it was finally revealed at today's PS5 event.
Respawn's reboot is coming to Oculus headsets, as well as SteamVR.
The Last Stand Update adds a new campaign and a whole lot more.
Nine Inch Nails' classic tracks have been remastered for vinyl.
The Quest 2 is out next month, and the Rift S will be discontinued next year.
A Monster's Expedition is a charming and freeing open-world puzzle adventure that we can't stop playing.
First Origin Access was renamed to "EA Play." Now, EA's making a new hub on PCs.
Valorant Game Director Joe Ziegler talks new modes, player feedback, and being willing to disrupt the meta.
C'mon man, it's only been out for a few hours!
If you were waiting till season 2 for new challenges, you may want to pop back in.
A decade later, Frictional is returning to Amnesia.
After some soul-searching with the engine, Chapter 2 is underway.
The very speedrun-friendly first-person action title is just a few weeks from launch.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Speedier than a lap of the Downhill Jam dam.
Less incremental, more substantial.
In January, we'll have more incredible speedruns to watch even if we're still socially distant.
EA Motive's dogfighting sim is being shown a bit of storytelling love from the Star Wars hive.
"Nor will it take 10 to 20 years to deliver."
You hopefully never saw Cheater Island, but now it's no more.
Looks like a sequel to the Oculus Quest is on the way.
Time to relive the spin-off that Master Chief sat out.
Madden 21's dollar sales are up double-digits on its predecessor.
We preview Cyberpunk 2077, Yakuza 7, and the rest of this fall's biggest RPGs.
The debut title from Ember Lab is the latest to need more time thanks to work-from-home difficulties.
THIS WEEK IN BUSINESS | Microsoft's Series S reveal caps off an intriguing strategy for upending the console market.
It's still planned for later this year, though.
Everyone gets to build the X-Wing cockpit of their dreams now.
Ubisoft tackles its first remake with the return of a fan-favorite.
A genre once lost is returning.
The game formerly known as Gods & Monsters also looks quite a bit different from the last time we saw it.
This time we'll get a Night City tour, a primer on the city's gangs, and a look into the score.
Tony Stark's headquarters have arrived on the Battle Royale map.
Covering Nier Automata, Replicant, and Reincarnation.
It sounds like Ubisoft's game has undergone some internal change.
The makers of Rock Band are taking a freeform, inclusive approach to letting players create their DJ avatars.
Vicarious Visions delivers an exhilarating, near-unbruised remake of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2.
Set sail with some new canine companions.
As per usual, there's a platform preference and special access granted for pre-orders.
The timed-exclusive Connected modes are coming on November 10.
We go hands-on with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's 1980s-set multiplayer.
Roadie running to a console near you on November 10.
Ubisoft bumps up Valhalla to be a launch game.
A month of returning limited-time modes is kicking off with one of the best.
The two sides of Marvel's Avengers fight each other, ultimately bringing down the entire adventure.
Takaya Kuroda is happy the world is singing his song.
You won't find microtransactions when the main game launches this year.
Digital sales are trending upwards, however.
And it'll be revealed before launch in November.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 makes skateboarding feel truly welcoming to all.
THIS WEEK IN BUSINESS | There's no such thing as a slow news week when the industry is forced to question its most foundational assumptions.
Don't expect to just roll up on Mr. Freeze, smack him down, and be done with it.
The Skullgirls and Indivisible studio is all but shuttered.
You may need more oomph for 4K and 60 FPS, but you can probably run Crysis pretty well as-is.
Ahead of the official multiplayer reveal next week.
In the wake of Mick Gordon and id Software's split.
The Microsoft Store is back at it again.
The backlash against Madden NFL 21 is symptomatic of a larger problem.
Skateboarding can be a socially distant activity, after all.
Visual playoff brackets and more are on the way.
You'll be able to live out your Girl Talk dreams in just a couple months.
It's the biggest PC Game Pass launch yet.
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Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo wants to raise the minimum age to buy tobacco and electronic cigarette products from 18 to 21 and will include the change in his upcoming state budget proposal.
The change will be part of a package of legislation that would end the sale of tobacco and e-cigarette products in pharmacies and clearly authorize the State Health Department to ban the sale of certain flavored e-cigarette liquids. If approved, the state also would prohibit the display of tobacco products and packaging, including e-cigarettes, in retail stores that are not adult-only.
Bills to raise the age to buy tobacco have been presented in other years but never won full legislative approval. About a quarter of New York's counties, however, have already set the age at 21.
The American Lung Association praised the Cuomo proposals.
"In New York, we refuse to stand idly by while unscrupulous businesses target our young people and put their very futures at risk," Cuomo said in a written statement, which noted that tobacco use is the leading cause of death in New York.
"With this comprehensive proposal," he said, "we are taking aggressive action to combat this very real public health crisis and curb the use of nicotine products before they result in deadly consequences for an entire generation of New Yorkers."


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Britain’s retailers have said the soaring cost of living risks dragging down high street sales in 2022 after a bumper Christmas trading period and year of recovery in consumer spending.
Sounding the alarm over the risks for the UK economy as whole, the British Retail Consortium said there were significant headwinds for the industry in 2022 from high inflation, rising energy bills and planned tax increases.
In a joint report with the accountancy firm KPMG, the BRC said soaring living costs would erode households’ spending power and had the potential to weigh on retail sales after a strong festive season and a year of recovering ground that was lost during the first stage of the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the latest snapshot, total retail sales rose by 2.1% during the key month of December, compared with a year earlier, and were up by 4.6% compared with 2019, before the pandemic struck.
Reflecting a stronger performance for the full year, as Britain’s economy recovered from repeated lockdowns, total sales grew by 9.9% compared with 2020, and by 6.6% compared with 2019.
However, retail bosses said the emergence of Omicron and increasing pressure on household budgets could hit sales at the start of 2022.
Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, said: “Retail faces significant headwinds in 2022, as consumer spending is held back by rising inflation, increasing energy bills, and April’s national insurance hike.
“It will take continued agility and resilience if they are to battle the storm ahead, while also tackling issues from labour shortages to rising transport and logistics costs.”
Boris Johnson is under growing pressure from his own MPs to take action over the crisis. Household utility bills are expected to rise sharply from April, when the energy regulator, Ofgem, lifts its consumer price cap after surging wholesale gas and electricity costs. Energy industry bosses have said prices could rise by more than 50%, or about £700 per year, in a “national crisis”. The increase will come in the same month as the government’s plan to raise national insurance by 1.25 percentage points is introduced.
According to the report by BRC and KPMG, sales of clothing and jewellery continued to dominate Christmas gift buying, while spending on food and drink was solid despite concern over the impact of Omicron. Industry leaders said concerns about supply chain problems appeared to have been overcome as retailers “pulled out all the stops”.
Dickinson said many people had chosen to shop online in December rather than travel to nearby high streets and shopping centres. Sales of loungewear were up as office staff returned to working from home and spending on formalwear dipped as Christmas parties were cancelled.
Separate figures from Barclaycard showed consumer card spending grew 12.2% in December compared with the same period in 2019, boosted by supermarket purchases as consumers stocked up on festive food and drink.
However, spending on hospitality and leisure slumped as festive gatherings were cancelled and more people isolated or chose to stay at home.
Barclaycard, the UK’s biggest credit card provider, processing nearly half of all card transactions, said spending at restaurants decreased by 14.1% in December compared with the same month in 2019, and followed a 3.5% fall in November. Spending in bars, pubs and clubs in December rose 21.2%, down on the 35% increase in November, compared with the same months in 2019.
Barclaycard said 43% of 2,000 people surveyed on behalf of the credit card provider expected high inflation to affect their household budgeting. “The wider economic picture is encouraging consumers to be more cautious with their discretionary spending,” it said.


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OWASSO – Macy’s Director of Operations Steve London drew a bright smile from Gov. Mary Fallin as he led her into the three-story shoe department at his company’s new Tulsa County Fulfillment Center.
From the 800,000 boxes in stock, Fallin immediately found several pairs in her size. She quickly asked Macy’s Peter Longo if Macy’s ever allowed contests for people to carry out as much as they could hold.
“How many hands do we have here?” she said, glancing around Thursday’s tour group.
Shoes made up just a small portion of Macy’s 1.3-million-square-foot facility, which actually offers 2 million square feet of useable space when factoring in mezzanines and other partitions designed into the $170 million complex. As operations gather steam over the next two months, the warehouse and distribution center will stock everything from socks and ties to vacuum cleaners and area rugs, said Scott Prieto, executive vice president of logistics and operations.
“We probably at our peak would have somewhere about $150 million and $170 million of inventory,” said Longo, Macy’s president of logistics and operations. “We would probably turn over a building like this five to six times a year.”
Those inventory levels represent just a fraction of $1.3 billion in annual sales projected for the center. The Owasso facility, one of the largest of its kind in North America, is expected to outsell Macy’s downtown New York store on an annual basis, Chairman and CEO Terry Lundgren said.
“The reason we need a facility like this is because a large part of our business has to do with the fact that we’re the seventh-largest Internet company in America,” Lundgren told a Thursday press conference audience before the tour. “I think number six is Netflix and number seven is Macy’s. And I’m really determined to pass Netflix. Hopefully when I come back to talk to you again, we’re going to be number six, then number five, and we’re going to keep on growing.”
Guests marveled at the many sorting systems displayed as London led them around the plant’s 14-mile conveyor belt.
“The technology is astronomical, the engineering and architecture and science of this,” Tulsa Regional Chamber President and CEO Mike Neal said. “We had no idea of the sophistication or the magnitude when this thing when we started (working to bring Macy’s to Owasso). We knew it would be big. We knew it would employ thousands of people. But we had no clue of the technology and the sophistication that we would see today.”
Some of these systems still have areas to grow. London showed the group one distribution line capable of sorting 15,000 items. But even that system will not keep pace with projected traffic during busy seasons, he said.
Lundgren said the center was built to change.
“People say, ‘What’s going to happen in our industry in the next five years?’ and I say, ‘Let me just back you up for a minute,'” he said. “Only five years ago the iPad was launched by Apple, so think about how far we’ve come since then and where the possibilities are, where we’ll go. We just know that things will be more advanced. We’ll be more efficient. Technology will be our friend in terms of creating these opportunities for growth. But it’s very hard to predict just how this will play out.”
He anticipates the Owasso center’s basic platform will hold the line for a while. This center is three times the size of the first such distribution center Macy’s built, which went online just eight years ago.
“The technology that we have in this store, this engineering that we use, is only today used in very few fulfillment centers,” he said. “To my knowledge, only Macy’s and Amazon have this technology, so we’re well ahead of most of our competitors. And while it will advance and it will improve, we hope that we’ve built in this flexibility. We’ve learned that the details are going to change, but hopefully the conveyor system that we’ve built will still be useful 10 years from now.”
The Owasso complex will fall back on manpower in times of need. Macy’s has hired about 450 people, will average about 1,500, Lundgren said. Longo said the center would add about 1,000 temporary workers each holiday season to handle the heightened load.
Longo said the $28 billion-sales company would open the Owasso center carefully under the management of Fred Barnes. It will service Macy’s 600-plus stores across the U.S., as well as online orders.
“If we get this right in the very beginning, it sets the foundation for success,” Longo said. “This building is in a part of the country that fills a very important white space, if you will. You can hit 90 percent of ZIP codes within two days’ transit from here. That’s vitally important.”
Lundgren referred to the distribution center as a store several times. It fit Macy’s point-of-sale focus that included online sales options just as much as brick and mortar.
“In the end, I cannot be concerned with that,” he said. “I can only be concerned if we satisfied the customer. As long as we satisfied the customer, it’s all going to work.”


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Students interested in Goizueta’s Evening MBA program were invited to come and hear Senior Lecturer in Organization & Management and Distinguished Lecturer in Entrepreneurship Charlie Goetz as well as alum Sherezad Rehmann 15EvMBA speak during a fireside chat.
Professor of Marketing Doug Bowman sits down with Business Librarian Ann Cullen to discuss his insights on the complexity of marketing decisions and how shifting the research focus from “asking” to “observing” can lead to better insights on consumer behavior.
For analytical sleuths like Michael Lewis, associate professor of marketing, and Michelle Andrews, assistant professor of marketing, the impact of branding is everywhere, from major league teams to politics.
Is the time of the employee close at hand? After more than 20 years of downsizing, offshoring, buyouts, and innovation setting fire to traditional rules of the workplace, things are looking up for experienced, in-demand professionals.


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National Confectioners Association joins with WCF to tackle cocoa-linked deforestation
A major environmental initiative has been put forward between the National Confectioners Association (NCA) and the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) in forging policy principles to deliver mandatory due diligence in the US to help tackle deforestation within cocoa supply chains, reports Neill Barston.
As the two organisations’ explained, the move has also been intended to offer greater support for conservation of key forest areas that are critical to the industry, which plays an integral part in the confectionery sector.
Moreover, as they added, providing supply chain transparency through due diligence frameworks is an important part of efforts between governments, farmers, NGOs and the private sector to continue restoring forests in regions where cocoa is a major agricultural commodity.
Notably, the issue of deforestation has remained significantly in the spotlight in recent years, with studies revealing forested areas in core cocoa growing nations of Ghana and Ivory Coast being under renewed pressure from being further depleted amid the pandemic.
This was highlighted by recent studies from campaign group Mighty Earth, which asserted that forests were in the region, were in fact still being eroded at ‘near record’ levels according to its own satellite-mapped estimation of the situation on the ground.
Speaking on the issue, John Downs, NCA president & CEO, believed that there must be notable intensification of combined action to deliver lasting positive momentum.
He said: “The commitments from companies, governments, and other key stakeholders are critically important as governments around the world contemplate deploying due diligence laws to increase supply chain transparency,”
“To end deforestation in the supply chain, we must work towards global harmonisation at each point. The industry cannot do this alone; more work needs to be done with our partners on making a lasting, meaningful impact.”
Governments, including the European Commission, are currently debating initiatives to increase supply chain transparency and strengthen trade enforcement by establishing due diligence frameworks. NCA and WCF encourage the inclusion of the principles they are announcing today specific to cocoa supply chains in any finalised due diligence frameworks adopted by governments.
“Action is needed now to preserve what is left of West Africa’s tropical rain forests and mandatory due diligence legislation in the United States is an important tool in helping to achieve that,” said Martin Short, president of the World Cocoa Foundation. “Poverty is the main cause of deforestation and child labor in the cocoa supply chain and so any legislation must ensure that the primary beneficiary is the farmer and his/her financial welfare.”
The cocoa and chocolate industry is leading various initiatives throughout the world in close partnership with cocoa-producing countries to end deforestation, restore forest areas, and promote stronger enforcement of national forest policies.
In 2017, the governments of Ivory Coast and Ghana and 35 leading cocoa and chocolate companies joined together to work toward eliminating deforestation and restoring deforested land, and conserving existing forest areas. They created the Cocoa & Forests Initiative (CFI), which has resulted in:
- The governments of Ivory Coast and Ghana are improving national traceability systems to achieve traceability to the farm level. Companies are achieving 82 percent traceability in Ghana, and 74 percent traceability in Côte d’Ivoire in their direct cocoa supply chain.
- Companies are training 620,000 cocoa farmers on agricultural practices that allow for greater production using less land and improved livelihoods.
- The government of Côte d’Ivoire is adopting a national satellite system to monitor progress and proactively address new deforestation.
Additionally, the governments of Brazil, Colombia and Peru are preparing a plan for sustainable cocoa production in the Amazon and developing a consensus framework that would prevent future deforestation. Through both the Cocoa, Forests & Peace Initiative in Colombia and the CocoaActionBrazil program, stakeholders are coming together to build programs that are working toward ending deforestation and developing new farming practices.


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Disabled man wins payout from airline
AIRPORT operator BAA must pay half the compensation bill slapped on budget airline Ryanair for discriminating against a disabled man who had to pay to use a wheelchair at Stanstead Airport, a court ruled today.
The case was taken to the Court of Appeal by Ryanair after it was ordered to pay damages to a disabled man charged £36 for using a wheelchair at Stansted airport.
Ryanair lost its appeal that the claim should be dismissed - but the judges ruled that Stansted also unlawfully discriminated against the man and should share liability.
In January a London County Court judge ordered Ryanair to pay £2,356 in damages and costs to Bob Ross, 54, who has cerebral palsy.
The Appeal judges said Stansted was also responsible for helping him. Mr Ross said: 'I am very pleased for disabled people everywhere.' A spokesman for Stansted apologised for not doing more.
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Motor News 156
What is itIn this episode of Motor News TV, we feature:
· The new BMW M5, the fifth generation of the world’s most successful high-performance sedan
· ŠKODA who is continuing its growth offensive by introducing its sixth production model, the Citigo
· The next chapter in the continuing MINI success story has begun with the launch of the all-new MINI Coupé
· Volvo Car takes the next step in the evolution of the company's upcoming large luxury sedan.
Motor News 149


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Uganda: Taxes On Mobile Money to Stifle Financial Inclusion
Proposed taxes on mobile money transactions are likely to negatively impact financial inclusion, according to a number of players involved in curbing financial exclusion.
Speaking at launch of the Shs23b Uganda Rural Challenge fund, representatives from financial institutions, said the taxes will make mobile money, a key financial inclusion vehicle, unaffordable. Apart from mobile, government has also proposed new taxes on Saccos, another key vehicle for financial inclusion. Ms Mona Muguma Ssebuliba, the aBi Trust, Chief Operating Officer, told participants that they were concerned as the new taxes will increase the cost of mobile money, which will eventually affect smallholder farmers.
"The day they notice that transacting on mobile money is expensive they will quit, which in a way will negatively affect financial inclusion that we have been trying to achieve for years," she said. Government has proposed a 1 per cent tax on all mobile money transactions, which according to some experts will make the platform unaffordable.
Government is also proposing an increment of Excise Duty on mobile money from 10 per cent to 15 per cent. Patrick Serura from Uganda Cooperative Alliance, said that whereas government badly needs money, it should look at other alternatives that will not stifle financial inclusion. Government, he said, should re-introduce graduated tax, which was banned about 15 years ago.
"Let government use the national identification system to see that every adult pays some tax. Even if it is Shs1,000 instead of squeezing a few," he said. According to data from Uganda Communications Commission, there are about 21 million mobile money subscribers in Uganda. Read more on All Africa.
Source: All Africa


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Being a pioneer in artistic collaborations since the beginning of the second millennium, Louis Vuitton Goes Art Again this year. On April 28th, a limited line of handbags and accessories such as scarves and key chains hit a selection of stores worldwide, featuring the latest mutual project between the brand and a well-acknowledged pop artist Jeff Koons.
The collection is composed by the most iconic Louis Vuitton models such as the Speedy, the Neverfull and the Keepall with paintings of Da Vinci, Titian, Rubens, Fragonard and Van Gogh on top. In addition, each bag has the name of the painter of a masterpiece imprinted in bold metallic letters in front and comes together with an iconic Koons’s rabbit, instead of typical LV tag.
For customers that desire to have a new work of high art proposed by French fashion giant in their hands, the price range varies between €395 for a rabbit keychain and €3.000 for a large carryall. Also, it is important to mention that none of the pieces are going to be available for online sales, so everyone who wants to be a part of a new art-meets-high-fashion intelligence is obliged to go physically to the store and get to experience a cultural immersion.
As Louis Vuitton and Jeff Koons are looking back at the great masters of the past, we should ask ourselves:
Is there a bigger purpose behind this marketing action than just selling?
Nowadays, an overall amount of daily visits in museums is going down rapidly worldwide. As young generation is losing interest in discovering historical treasures captured in museums’ walls, there could be no easier way to bring art to the streets and raise interest among modern minds than through fashion. The collection itself was presented to the most influential people of the industry in complete secrecy in Louvre just before F/W womenswear show of the brand in March. Undoubtedly, there is no better place for French house to launch a new artistic project than the world’s largest museum in surroundings of original paintings themselves.


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The reality TV star is notorious for changing up her 'do on the reg. The new mama, who was bright blond just a couple of months ago, is now a dark-haired beauty. It also looks like Kim got a dramatic haircut recently. While she hasn't posted about it on Twitter like she usually does (bummer), she definitely seemed to be rocking a shorter and more layered hairdo while shopping with Kendall Jenner at Barneys in Los Angeles, California on March 16.
Kim paired her angled style with a tight white dress and a beige blazer on top — a sexy contrast to her deep brown hair color.
Click through the gallery to see Kim's new look. Are you feeling the style? Sound off in the comments!


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SRS Distribution, McKinney, Tx., has opened three new roofing products distribution locations in the Southeast and added five more through acquisition.
After 97 years of business, DuBell Lumber Co., Medford, N.J., abruptly closed all operations on Feb. 9.
Palmer-Donavin, Columbus, Oh., is now distributing Derby Building Products’ TandoStone, TandoShake, and Beach House Shake exterior cladding products to dealers in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, central Kentucky, and western Pennsylvania.
Freres Lumber Co., Lyons, Or., was granted a Canadian patent for its Mass Plywood Panel (MPP), reportedly the only mass timber panel constructed entirely from Structural Composite Lumber (SCL).
Siblings Kay McCarty and Chuck Quenon, operators of Buena Vista True Value, Buena Vista, Co., opened Gypsum Ace Hardware, Gypsum, Co., on Jan. 22.
A year after San Francisco’s Papenhausen Hardware was destroyed by fire, the business has temporarily reopened in a “pop-up location” a few doors away.
True Value Co. president and CEO John Hartmann has agreed to be a keynote speaker at the National Hardware Show May 7 in Las Vegas.
Hawaii Lumber Products Association has installed its 2019 board of directors, led by new president John Heideman, Mendocino Forest Products.


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For anyone who ever complained about the bacon trend (or explosion) of the early 2000's that never seemed to end, we'll bet you're cheering at your keyboards right now because the newest trend is anything but meaty.
Apparently, the New Year has been ushered in by-- of all things --vegan burgers.
In particular, newcomer vegan chef phenomenon, Chloe Coscarelli, has guided in the new year with healthy and tasty alternatives to meatier delights.
After partnering with Esquared Hospitality's Samantha Wasser, Coscarelli opened her restaurant, by Chloe, on July 28th. In spite of the all-vegan, plant-based, and kosher-certified menu, Chloe and Samantha have been receiving over 1,000 orders a day since their inception.
Since then, the pair has announced that they would be opening two more locations early this year, including a spot on Lafayette Street.
Though faux meats have declined in recent years, the duo's most popular item is their "Guac Burger," with a black bean, quinoa, sweet potato patty, corn salsa, onion, guacamole, tortilla strips, and chipotle aioli on a whole grain bun.
And hey, don't knock it until you've tried it. by Chloe has developed a loyal fanbase that is willing to pay $10 for the burger and $3.95 for a side of air baked sweet potato fries.
For now, we'll stick with by Chloe over Chick-fil-A any day of the week.[Feature Image Courtesy Instagram]


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John Sculley on mock turtlenecks, Steve Jobs and Microsoft (Video)
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- Staff Puget Sound Business Journal
(Page 3 of 3)
Sculley said almost every tech company has undergone some near-death experience, and mentors can give the benefit of having learning from their mistakes.
A key concept is the importance of adapting, Sculley said. “Darwin never said survival of the fittest. He said the survival of the most adaptive.”
Although Redmond-based Microsoft has been a fierce rival of Apple for many years, nearly a quarter of the copies of Microsoft Office are sold to Mac users. Microsoft has a team of 200 employees tasked with developing software for Mac computers. Apple also has five retail stores in the Puget Sound region and another locations.
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Introduction | Celebrity News: Get the Inside Scoop
Celebrity news is a popular topic of interest for the general public. From the latest fashion trends to the latest gossip, celebrity news has something for everyone. It can be found in newspapers, magazines, online, and on television. It can also be heard on the radio, in podcasts, and on social media.
There are several types of celebrity news, including fashion, gossip, entertainment, health and wellness, and lifestyle. Each type of news focuses on different aspects of celebrity life. Fashion news focuses on the latest trends in clothing, hairstyles, and makeup. Gossip news focuses on the latest rumors and scandals. Entertainment news focuses on the latest movies, TV shows, and music. Health and wellness news focuses on the latest health and fitness trends. And lifestyle news focuses on the latest luxury items, travel destinations, and home decor.
Celebrity news can be beneficial in many ways. It can provide entertainment and inspiration. It can also keep people informed about the latest trends and news. Additionally, it can provide insight into the lives of celebrities, which can help people understand the entertainment industry better.
In conclusion, celebrity news is a popular topic of interest for the general public. It can provide entertainment and inspiration, as well as keep people informed about the latest trends and news. Understanding celebrity news can also help people better understand the entertainment industry.
Are you looking for the latest celebrity news? Get the inside scoop on all the latest celebrity gossip, from celebrity couples to fashion trends, red carpet events, celebrity interviews, and scandals. Keep up with the latest celebrity news and find out what your favorite stars are up to!
Celebrity couples are always in the spotlight, and their relationships are often the subject of intense media scrutiny. From new relationships to breakups, find out all the latest news on your favorite celebrity couples.
Fashion trends come and go, but when celebrities wear something new it’s often a sign of what’s to come. See what the stars are wearing and get the scoop on the latest fashion trends.
Red carpet events are a great way to get a glimpse at what the stars are wearing, and they often bring out some of the most daring and fashionable looks. Get the inside scoop on the latest red carpet events.
Celebrity interviews provide an intimate look into the lives of the stars. Get the latest celebrity interviews and hear what the stars have to say about their projects and their lives.
Celebrity scandals are always making headlines, and they often provide a glimpse into the lives of the rich and famous. Keep up with the latest scandals and find out who’s making news for all the wrong reasons.
Stay Up to Date
Are you looking for the latest scoop on your favorite celebrities? Look no further! From the latest fashion trends to dating rumors, we have all the news you need to stay up to date on the world of celebrities. Get the inside scoop on the hottest gossip and celebrity news with our comprehensive coverage of the latest news and events. With our up-to-date coverage of celebrity news, you can be sure to never miss a beat in the world of entertainment.
Get an insight into popular culture with our analysis of the latest trends in entertainment. From the hottest music releases to the most talked-about television shows, our experts provide an in-depth look at the world of celebrities. With our coverage of the latest trends in entertainment, you can stay ahead of the curve and gain a better understanding of the social trends that are shaping our culture.
Stay informed and stay up to date on all the latest news and events in the world of celebrities. With our comprehensive coverage of the latest celebrity news and events, you can be sure to stay informed and gain a better understanding of the social trends that are shaping our culture. Get the inside scoop on the hottest gossip and celebrity news with our up-to-date coverage of the latest news and events.
Summary | (Celebrity News: Get the Inside Scoop)
Are you a fan of celebrity news? Do you want to get the inside scoop on the latest celebrity gossip? Then you’ve come to the right place! Here, you’ll find all the information you need to stay up-to-date on the latest news about your favorite stars. From red carpet events to interviews with the stars, we’ll have it all covered. So sit back, relax, and get ready to get the inside scoop on celebrity news!
We’ll be bringing you the latest news on all the top celebrities, from A-list actors and singers to reality TV stars and more. We’ll also be covering the biggest events in the celebrity world, like the Academy Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, and the Cannes Film Festival. You’ll get all the juicy details on who wore what and who said what. Plus, we’ll be bringing you exclusive interviews with the stars, so you can get to know them better and find out their thoughts on the latest news.
So if you’re a fan of celebrity news, then you’ll want to keep checking back here for all the latest updates. We’ll be sure to keep you informed on all the biggest stories in the celebrity world, so you can stay up-to-date on all the latest news!


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The new album from The Prodigy – Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned was just released a few days ago, and from what I’ve heard it’s good stuff. Even before it was released though, bootleggers had their filthy hands on the songs and have released a compilation of unofficial remixes and bootlegs, entitled Always Outsiders, Never Outdone.
It’s available for download from the site, and is really worth a listen, some of the stuff is top class! (from Boom Selection)
Update2: Here’s a Soundcloud link since the Prodigyremixed site is dead.


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Apple acquires sleep tracking vendor Beddit. Aside from the obvious interest in sleep tracking (which is widespread at this point), this could mean they are not making meaningful progress on Apple Watch battery life, because the Watch can track almost all of what Beddit tracks (except room temp and humidity). With that said, Beddit uses ballistocardiography (BCG) to track biometric signals, which has been of interest to Apple in the past. Here.
VR heading into trough of disillusionment? IHS Markit analysts claim Samsung VR’s sales decline YOY. Here.
Fossil’s stock got crushed this week after lackluster earnings, but they claimed over $40M in wearables revenue. If their wearable ASP is $150 across all their brands, that’s over 270K unit sales, which puts them on an annual run rate near the top 5 in IDC market tracker. Here.
Microsoft announced a move into enterprise/industrial wearables, showing off a smartwatch made by TrekStor powered by Windows 10 IoT Core. Demo video Here.
Startup Cardiogram released results from a small clinical study that found that the Apple Watch combined with their algorithms detected atrial fibrillation with 97 percent accuracy, 98 percent sensitivity, and 90.2 percent specificity. Only 51 patients tested, so much more research to be done but interesting findings nonetheless. Here.
FDA is creating a digital health unit within its Center for Devices and Radiological Health in an effort to develop internal technical expertise, and streamline the agency’s software review process and regulation of medical devices.. Here.
Microsoft revealed a prototype wearable (Project Emma) that claims to help those with Parkinson’s disease reduce hand tremors by vibrating at the right time and place to “distract” the mind from creating tremors. Here.
A sign of the times that Amazon Prime (consumer distribution strategy) impacts the share price of a digital health company. Here.
UC Davis taps Healbe to validate caloric intake-tracking wearable band. I’m hugely skeptical of claims that non-invasive energy/caloric intake measurement actually works, but I’m glad to see them taking a long-term (5-year study) clinical validation approach to proving it. Here.
One analyst firm is claiming Samsung’s Tizen OS has overtaken Android Wear for 2nd place in smartwatch deployments (Apple still far ahead in unit sales). If these numbers are anywhere near accurate it means big growth in the last few quarters for Samsung, which was recently in mid-single digits in smartwatch market share. Here.


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"In India, we are seeing around 30 per cent growth in the usage of our solutions. We have recorded over 100 million installations of our offerings," Oliver Steil, CEO of TeamViewer, told IANS, adding that globally there have been about 1.8 billion installation of TeamViewer software.
"Globally, the revenue for this year is set to surpass 200 million euros. We are seeing a healthy growth in India too and really aspiring to double our growth in the country in the next year," Steil added.
Besides enabling collaboration with team members from remote locations, TeamViewer software are being used for training and upskilling purposes in most areas including in the health sector.
"Moreover, with our software you can work from home without a virtual private network (VPN)," Steil said.
"Opening an office in India is integral part of our Asia Pacific growth ambitions with a strong focus on going multi-local to be closer to our existing customers and even better understand the market, client, and partner needs," Steil added.
The TeamViewer CEO said that the company has lately adopted a subscription model and its solutions can help businesses of all sizes.
"Start-ups in India can also scale their businesses with our software, the basic model of which starts at Rs 15,000," Steil said.
"Our cutting-edge yet easy-to-deploy solutions address the use-cases of modern organisations looking for the ability to connect anything, anywhere, anytime," said Konstantin Ebert, Vice President Sales Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), APAC, and Global Channels at TeamViewer.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)


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Promobricks has listed specific details on five of those sets, giving us a clear picture of what to expect from the highly-anticipated 2021 wave of Speed Champions products. And just like last year, we’re looking at three individual vehicles and two pairs of cars.
The majority of them are also based on brands we’ve seen in LEGO before, but the first two models will reportedly introduce two brand new licences to Speed Champions. 76900 Koenigsegg Jesko and 76901 Toyota GR Supra are said to cost €19.99 apiece, in line with last year’s eight-wide cars, and will apparently come in white and yellow respectively.
76902 McLaren Elva is probably less of a surprise given the same car popped up in a Speed Champions polybag earlier this year, but it’s still good to know a larger, 263-piece version is supposedly in the works. The €19.99 set rounds out the trio of single cars for 2021’s line-up, matching the number we saw in 2020.
Both double packs will apparently also continue a trend set by previous Speed Champions sets, combining modern and classic vehicles in a single package. According to Promobricks, 76903 Chevrolet Corvette C8-R & 1968 Chevrolet Corvette C3 will contain 512 parts for €39.99, with the classic Chevy coming in red.
76904 Mopar Dodge/SRT Top Fuel Dragster & 1970 Dodge Challenger will then mix things up with a groovy purple hue for the retro ride, coming in at 627 pieces for €59.99. All these sets are rumoured to release in June 2021, but that doesn’t mean Speed Champions will be completely done for the year.
In fact, a mystery sixth set is also thought to be launching later in the summer, though very little is known about it at the moment. Promobricks says it will likely retail for $49.99, which suggests we could be looking at another two-pack, but we’ll have to wait and see on that one – just as we will with the rest of the range, which is still only a rumour at this stage.


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Speculation has heated up among Bay Street analysts that former Oxford Properties Group chief executive Jon Love is about to buy back a major portion of the retail properties his company once owned.
The rumours have been spurred on by news that KingSett Capital, the investment firm run by Mr. Love., has increased its stake in Primaris Real Estate Investment Trust by 0.004%. It’s a minor move but it gave Kingsett 6.3 million units or 10% of the REIT, triggering a disclosure.
The Ontario Municipal Employment Retirement System spun out some of its retail assets into Primaris in 2003. Some of these assets were properties acquired from Oxford which OMERS bought in 1999 when Mr. Love was CEO.
“OMERS initially retained a stake in the REIT which was sold down in the last year and likely provided the opportunity for KingSett to accumulate units,” said Heather Kirk, an analyst with National Bank Financial.
She noted KingSett has said a target of $1-billion in acquisitions for 2010.
“Primaris is the only retail REIT in Canada without a control position which would facilitate potential takeover and takeover premium,” said Ms. Kirk. “A partnership with Primaris or a level of control over it would provide KingSett with a strategic position in the retail space.”
Pammi Bir, an analyst with Scotia Capital, noted it’s unclear whether the investment is for strategic purposes but he said he still expects its units to react “positivcely” to the news.
“We expect KingSett’s investment to provide near-term support to PMZ’s units,” said Mr. Bir.


text: Research by Statistics Netherlands has examined the online shopping habits of people in the country. The study looked at all products and services purchased digitally in the Netherlands in 2016, and found that clothes and sports equipment were the most popular items that the Dutch bought online, cited by 48% of respondents. Travel and accommodation were also frequently bought online, cited by 44%, as well as event tickets at 38%. Surprisingly, films and music did not appear high on the list, with only 15% of digital buyers purchasing them online. Separate research by PayPal and Ipsos found that online shoppers in the Netherlands much prefer to buy from Dutch websites, with almost a third of digital buyers buying solely from Dutch stores.