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They come like clockwork, once or twice or even four times a year. These small booklets produced by the record industry are packed with data that the media regards as definitive on the health of our industry. The information in these reports — the data on how much of something is sold and how much money it generated — is presented in an easy digestible form, packed with gently sloping bar graphs and juicy green arrows that almost always point up.
Journalists love these reports; the information contained in these documents is probably the most widely circulated PR produced by the record industry today. Every time you read a new story about how streaming has “saved” the industry and that a surge in vinyl sales have filled in the gaps in musicians’ revenue, what you’re reading can likely be sourced from one of these glossy reports produced by the industry.
It’s important to make note of this — that the data, the context and the messaging are sourced either directly from the record industry giants or published by one of their front groups like the RIAA or the IFPI. Nobody really hides that, but then nobody really explains what that means, either.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”
All these numbers, graphs and arrows — “data” — frame all discussion about the effects of streaming in terms that the industry prefers. The arrows point up. Growth is measured in percentages — numbers printed in huge, bold-faced fonts. Streaming is bringing in more money, they say. That’s the answer to the question they want you to ask.
So why are all of our friends still broke?
That’s the question we want to ask. Who’s getting rich from these big numbers and upward trends? There’s more money (relatively: many of these reports do not adjust for inflation and total industry revenue is still less than half of what it was in 1999). But for who? Who’s getting it?
There are other questions too. How much do the streaming platforms pay per stream? It would be trivial for the industry to publish each platform’s average rate per stream in these same glossy reports, and also record how much of that rate makes it to producers, musicians or rights-holders. In fact, it would be ridiculous to believe these rates are unknown to the authorities behind these reports. Of course they know how much they profit per stream from Spotify, AppleMusic and YouTube, and how much they pay in costs. People like David Lowery have spent years asking artists to send in their royalty reports to reverse engineer the payment algorithms and come up with something like an answer in his annual Streaming Price Bible. The RIAA or IFPI or the labels behind them could easily interrupt the flow of highly massaged data and provide a clear, credible and definitive answer to this.
They won’t tell us, though, because these documents are not produced by the accounting department. They’re the product of a highly choreographed influence campaign, and they are intended to persuade, not explain.
By all measurements it is an incredibly effective one. Journalists re-package this content with little to no editorial comment, original research or even a glance at the full report (if they’re even provided with it: IFPI only provides a teaser of their Global Music Report; they sell the 170 page report itself for £15,000.) The industry spends time and money to convey a singular message, and it is rather remarkable how often one hears it and how uniform the pitch is.
That message is that things are hard, but streaming has saved us, we’re all in this together and things are looking better and better every day.
How many musicians actually make a living from streaming royalties?
That’s what we want to know, and it’s embarrassing it took this long for someone to make a credible attempt at coming up with an answer. Needless to say, the answer didn’t come from the industry.
Britain’s Intellectual Property Office (frequently referred to as “UK IPO”) is the operating name for the UK Patent Office, responsible for the business of approving, rejecting and handling inventor patents, trademarks and other matters of intellectual property. In September 2021, four authors from UK IPO published an official document that completely blew me away.
It’s not just you, and it’s not just your friends that are broke. It’s almost everyone, and it’s almost assuredly by design.
In what could be the record industry’s guiding belief, Thomas Pynchon once wrote that “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.” The title of the UK IPO’s report — Music Creators’ Earnings in the Digital Era — suggests they’re asking precisely the right question. It’s actually the second sentence in the document:
“From your favourite rock and pop artists, to film and TV scores, to classical and ambient, music is often the backdrop to our lives. But how do artists earn money from their music? Before COVID-19 lockdowns, artists earned much of their income from live performances. But the pandemic changed that: artists could no longer rely on live performances to make a living and had to look at their other sources of income. This shift brought into sharp focus several issues around streaming, including the way in which artists are remunerated.”
The report provides deeper context by breaking down the question into five more:
- How have changes in the digital music marketplace impacted upon the earnings of music creators?
- How do different stakeholders understand current issues regarding music creators’ earnings?
- How is revenue from streaming distributed to music creators?
- How have the levels, distributions and patterns of earnings changed over time?
- How concentrated, or otherwise, is the distribution of earnings?
To get answers from an industry that has trouble even acknowledging the questions, the authors used a wide variety of sources, conducting focus groups, mostly anonymous interviews with stakeholders and commissioning surveys of over 700 musicians. They also obtained nearly 30 years of anonymized publishing & record contracts from the Musicians Union, royalty data from the UK Performing Rights Society (PRS) and Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) and anonymized sales and royalties from “a UK independent record company” (this part in particular is fascinating if you’re involved in the industry at all.) They also purchased streaming data from 2014 to 2020 collected by the UK Official Charts Company.
This is precisely the kind of industry data which is not used to “persuade” but to “explain.” The data sourcing is robust and probably the best public survey on this subject that has ever been published, and maybe even attempted.
Being an American it is difficult for me to comprehend that this came from a government office. The only reason I can figure out why it’s not being quoted as holy scripture everywhere right now is that a lot of people — even many of those that quoted bits of the report — didn’t actually read it. The conclusions are astounding. And affirmative. Because it’s not just you, and it’s not just your friends that are broke. It’s almost everyone, and it’s almost assuredly by design.
How many musicians actually make a living from streaming? The industry knows the answer, but they’re not telling. Now we know why.
To provide a clear answer to the question posed earlier: the authors suggest that “a sustained achievement of around 1 million UK streams per month may be some kind of guide to a minimum threshold for making a sustainable living out of music.” Note the authors are not claiming a musician can make a living off 1 million UK streams alone, which several journalists misunderstood when reporting on the investigation’s executive summary. The 1 million UK streams is presented only as an indicator; someone with 1 million UK streams would likely be an artist in a position in which “UK streams are complemented by non-UK streams and other sources of income.” In other words: if you’re an artist averaging a million streams per month, you probably have a lot of other revenue streams flowing too.
The authors then dive into their data trove to estimate how many achieved this milestone in 2020. They estimate that approximately 720 UK artists in the whole of last year averaged a million UK streams per month. That’s it: less than 1,000 artists might be able to make a living off streaming per year (and it follows it’s not necessarily the same 720 artists every year.) By way of comparison, the UK National Lottery claims to create six new millionaires every week.
Who are these 720 artists? They’re probably not your friends, unless you hang out in extremely select company. The data describes the shape of streaming as a dystopian industry in which a neo-elite — defined as a fraction of 1% of all streaming artists — grab the lion’s share of revenue.
“Based on a sample of data concerning each October from 2014 to 2020,” they write, “the top 0.1% most popular tracks achieved more than 40% of all streams in all years and the top 0.4% of tracks accounted for more than 65% of all streams from 2016 onwards.”
Expanding the tier to the top 1% of all tracks accounts for 75% to 80% of all streams. And the top 10% of all tracks accounts for nearly all of it, the entire market: one tenth of all tracks account for 95% to 97% of all streams, in all years from 2016 to 2020.
Put another way: 90% of all new releases amount for barely 3% to 5% of all streams.
Readers here may remember our 2019 story Purged: How a failed economic theory still rules the digital music marketplace. In it, we shared the economic fable of the theory of “The Long Tail” — the belief, widespread in the early days of the internet, that digital commerce would result in retailers everywhere selling “less of more.” This theory is still the underlying principle upon which most digital labels are run today, whether their owners have heard of The Long Tail or not. That principle is that with nearly infinite “shelf space” in digital storefronts compared to brick-and-mortar retailers, labels would shift from selling many copies of a few blockbuster songs to selling relative few copies of many songs. Your label wouldn’t sell 1,000 copies of two tracks, but 10 copies of 100 tracks — so pump out them out as fast as you can.
Streaming is a dystopian industry in which a neo-elite — just a fraction of 1% of all streaming artists — earn the vast majority of all streams.
In reality, the exact opposite happened: in nearly every industry that has been disrupted by digital transformation, overall sales, as with streaming, have become more intensely concentrated around “hits” than ever before. We’re selling a lot more of a lot less, shelf space be damned.
Incredibly, even the victors of streaming — this neo-elite — are being squeezed. “Royalties for top hit songs are being shared among an increasing number of composers and lyricists per work,” the authors note. “In contrast, the revenues for top hit recordings are being shared among a declining number of featured artists per recording.” Essentially, more people are helping themselves to a piece of each hit song — except the performers.
The report has some grim figures for overall musician earnings as well. More than a third of musicians report earning £5,000 or less from music in 2019 (that is, before the pandemic crushed live music revenue). Nearly half earned less than £10,000, and nearly 2/3rds earned less than £20,000.
In one of the most shocking revelations in the report, the authors have also discovered the existence of a profound gender pay gap among musicians. Men report a substantially higher median income of £20,160; women just £13,057. That gap of 35% is astonishingly high — more than twice the national gender pay gap for all UK employees, estimated at 17.4% in 2019 by the UK Office of National Statistics.
The authors, to be sure, provide a vital piece of historical context for the report: there is a dearth of evidence, they say, that recorded music was ever the basis of a “substantial income for large numbers of musicians, even when total revenues were higher in the 1990s.” This is true, but doesn’t compare like-with-like. Digital transformation has created a ruthless efficiency in business and especially in the music industry. Giant national distributors have been replaced by a small handful of digital distributors with as few as a dozen or so employees. Retail has been eviscerated and with the shuttered stores went tens of thousands of jobs, rents, inventory and fixtures. Advertising is now targeted compared to the giant print ads and radio spots of the past.
The authors concur with this, brushing aside the music recording sector’s claims that current royalties are fair because of their “high level of spending on A&R and marketing, and the economic risks involved in signing new artists.” The authors point out that digital transformation has slashed the associated costs of manufacture and distribution, and this decline in expenses “has not been matched by any new cost.” For this particular pie, there are far fewer hands grabbing pieces before the artist gets their share. There is compelling evidence suggesting the fewer hands are simply taking larger slices.
Streaming music has made many people millionaires, it seems, and a vanishingly small number of them are the people who made the music.
How did we get here? We’ve published a lot about that, the winners and losers, the villains and grifters circling the industry even in the best of times.
Where are we now? The answer to that question is capably answered by this report, and if you need a good data-based snapshot of where we really are, this is the best I’ve found. Knowing the ground we’re on determines where we go next, and it is vitally important we get it right this time.
Photo by Agê Barros
There’s more inside 5 Mag’s member’s section — get first access to each issue for only $1/issue.


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“Nerdy News” is a mini-news show geared towards gamers, technosexuals, and all other geeky peeps.
In this week’s episode of Nerdy News, I’ll be reporting on:
- A new bill proposes California’s public post-secondary schools have a video game design program.
- More than ever video games are being integrated into schools by educators.
- Minecraft was recently released for the miniature Raspberry Pi computer.
- Chinese government’s decade-long ban on video gaming may be coming to an end.
Here’s the new episode of Nerdy News!
What do you think?
Should more public colleges provide video game design programs? Do you have a favorite example of games being used in the classroom to educate students? Should more game developers export their games to the Raspberry Pi computer? What games would you like to see come to the RasPi? Do you think the Chinese government will finally lift the ban on video games? What might the effects on the game market be?

domain: news


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Google is experimenting with the way it helps Android users find the right app for their needs. As spotted by Android Police, some users are seeing an updated version of the Play Store that features new head-to-head comparisons between similar apps.
Incremental, but convenient — Unlike the existing "Related apps" section, the new "Compare apps" directly presents the feature set of the app you're viewing against that of competing options. For instance, when looking at the page for the VLC streaming app, a comparison with MX Player is presented that lists key attributes of each — like whether the apps can play content offline. By putting these details on one page, users don't need to tap through each app's listing to find that information.
When users leave reviews on apps, Google asks them general questions about functionality, and this is likely the data it's using to make these comparisons.
Balancing act — It's unclear exactly what factors Google uses to determine which apps get placement in this section. It probably uses a combination of signals like popularity and average ratings. This could easily become controversial if, for instance, a new app is trying to break through but doesn't get placement in the comparisons. Placing popular apps there, meanwhile, could only help to reinforce their popularity.
The company is already facing heat for its control over developers who want to offer apps in the Play Store. After years of lax enforcement, Google announced back in September that it will crackdown on developers who avoid paying 30 percent fees on in-app purchases by using their own payment systems. A coalition of developers including Epic Games and Spotify is pushing for better terms in Apple and Google's respective app stores.
Cautiously optimistic — Google will need to take into consideration how it incorporates these new comparisons, but they certainly look like a convenient addition and there's a lot of ways they could be useful. Google might compare apps based on how often they're updated so users know whether or not they can expect consistent improvement and customer support.
The feature still seems to be in testing, and there's no guarantee that Google will roll it out more widely. But we remain, as ever, optimistic.


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A new Nielsen Global Survey on new product innovation finds consumers in developing markets to be the most inclined to try new products. More than half of respondents in Asia-Pacific (69%), Africa/Middle East (57%) and Latin America (56%) say they purchased a new product during their last grocery shopping trip, compared to 44% of European and 31% of North American respondents. Though lower than the Asia Pacific total average, the percentage of trying new products for Taiwan consumers is relatively high with its 55 percent comparing to Asia Pacific developed markets.
What are the most important reasons to attract Taiwan consumers to purchase a new product? Products that are there “to meet specific needs” — more than a third (36%) of Taiwanese respondents recall that the last time they purchased a new product was because the product addressed “a specific need” was addressed in a product, displaying hopes for new products to hit the market. Nearly one-third (32%) of respondents would like future new products “to meet specific needs.”
Prices and convenience remain the key values for Taiwanese consumers upon looking to buy new products, and are considered the top two aspects of new products. 23% of respondents recall that the reason behind their last purchase of a product was because “compared to the daily living products, the prices of the new products are much cheaper”; moreover, more than 50% respondents express hopes for cheaper prices for new products in the near future.
“Convenience” (20%) and “Making life simpler” (18%) are cited as the main reasons for the latest purchases of Taiwanese consumers. 42% of respondents hope to have more “products that make daily life activities simpler,” placing Taiwan only behind Turkey (48%) and Brazil (46%) in respect to the world. Approximately 35% of respondents hope to have more convenient products, which ties both Taiwan with Vietnam for the 10th place in the world in terms of valuing convenience.
Additionally, “new products” (29%) – or for the sake of novelty – remains the second biggest reason for Taiwanese consumers to purchase new products.
HOW DO CONSUMERS DISCOVER NEW PRODUCTS?
The most commonly used source to learn about new products for Taiwanese consumers is reliance on friends and family, cited by 60% of Taiwan respondents, followed by seeing it in a store (47%), using active internet search (45%), viewing TV ads (52%) and browsing internet forum/message boards, as well as receiving a free sample (both 31%). In fact, Internet-related platforms are half of the top ten sources cited for new product discoveries: in addition to active internet searching and internet forum/message board browsing, social media posting, internet ads (26%), and articles/ contents on frequently visited news or lifestyle websites (all 27%) are the other three sources—these are all other top sources cited, and the percentages are more than newspaper/magazines (25%) and professional/expert’s words (23%).
While the top list of sources combines a mix of paid, owned and earned media options, reliance on social media showed the largest potential. However, traditional marketing platforms, such as distribution (see in the store) and free sampling remain critical for new product communications in Taiwan.
BRAND COMPETTION IS INTENSE
Over half Taiwan consumers would try new products; however, two-third of them would still wait until a new innovation has proven itself before purchasing. “This means new products are required to convince consumers that ‘they are new’ and also to provide ‘reasons to buy’. However, new trials are just the very first step. In order to continue the sales performance of new products, fitting specific needs for consumers with convenience in affordable prices, and communicating to the consumers via mass media together with some targeting digital media are needed,” said Seren Su, the senior director of Consumer Insights, Nielsen Taiwan.
Brand competition is intense, and shelves are crowded. The vast majority of new product introductions are brought to distributions before the end of their launch year. Indeed, less than 10 percent of new products among 25,000 new items in 2014 in Taiwan remained its good sales performance in three months afterwards, according to Nielsen Retail Measurement Services.
“New product failure rates are extremely high, but the success is no fluke,” said Su. “Success is not simply the result of luck or even genius. Rather, successful product launches are the culmination of organizational focus and commitments to product developments, creative marketing; smart leadership and, above all else, an in-depth understanding of what drives consumer preferences.”
As for the globe, the most commonly used source to learn about new products is reliance on friends and family, cited by 56% of global respondents, followed by viewing TV ads (52%), seeing it in a store (48%), and using active internet search (44%).
Affordability (23%), convenience (22%), brand recognition (21%) and novelty (20%) are top reasons for purchases. When it comes to the types of products consumers wish were on the market but are not readily available, affordability (43%) and convenience (27%) again top the list, and are followed by health and wellness (28%) before environmentally friendly (26%) attributes.
The study found that nine of the 11 markets with the highest percentage of early adopters (based on new product purchase sentiments) are developing countries: Brazil (39%), Peru (30%), Israel (30%), Colombia (28%), India (28%), Latvia (28%), South Africa (28%), Bulgaria (27%), Serbia (27%), Croatia (26%) and Romania (26%).
“Developing countries can be attractive markets for new product expansion efforts due to their younger demographic composition, rising middle class population, and strong appetite for ‘affordable luxuries,’” said Rob Wengel, senior vice president and managing director of Nielsen Innovation in the U.S. “But developing-market consumer needs, standards and expectations can vary dramatically from those in more mature markets, and finding the right mix takes a market-by-market approach.”
ABOUT THE NIELSEN GLOBAL RETAIL FORMAT PREFERENCES SURVEY
The Nielsen Global New Product Innovation Survey polled 30,000 online respondents in 60 countries to understand consumer attitudes and sentiments about the drivers behind new product purchase intent. For the purposes of this study, we define a new product as any item a consumer has never purchased in the past. The study uncovers the reasons for making a new product purchase, identifies the types of products consumers want but can’t find, and details the sources consumers use to learn about them.
Nielsen N.V. (NYSE: NLSN) is a global performance management company that provides a comprehensive understanding of what consumers Watch and Buy. Nielsen’s Watch segment provides media and advertising clients with Total Audience measurement services across all devices where content—video, audio and text—is consumed. The Buy segment offers consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers the industry’s only global view of retail performance measurement. By integrating information from its Watch and Buy segments and other data sources, Nielsen provides its clients with both world-class measurement as well as analytics that help improve performance. Nielsen, an S&P 500 company, has operations in over 100 countries that cover more than 90% of the world’s population. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.


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First they claimed Crowded House, now this: an Earth Hour ad for Unilever’s Persil brand that was produced by Sydney boutique agency Naked Communications has won the Newspaper Advertising Bureau’s (NAB) March Newspaper Ad of the Month.
The judges were Rod Prosser of JWT and Mike Davison, previously head of art at DDB and now a freelancer, who thought the ad was “topical, simple and funny”.
Robert Munro, the NAB’s general manager, says it is “reasonably unusual” for an overseas agency to win and he can think of just one or two other occasions (one for Veet and one for Mastercard) when it has happened.
“Obviously, we would prefer to have Kiwi ads win. But the short answer is that there’s nothing to stop [overseas agencies]entering,” he says. If the ad has run in a New Zealand newspaper, it’s eligible. Added to that, the esteemed judges judge each entry blind (aside from the ads entered by their own agency) to ensure the best ad wins and its agency provenance doesn’t come into play.
Naked’s winning creative team (creatives: Sesh Moodley and Paul Swann; designer: Kelly O’Rourke; and photographer: Chris Barlow) gets $250 cash and the ad will be sponsored by the NAB into the 2011 Axis Awards. The ad also becomes a finalist in the 09/10 $10,000 Newspaper Ad of the Year competition. But Munro hinted at the possibility of some patriotic bias for the big final: he thinks it would be “extremely unlikely” that the local executive creative directors who are chosen to judge the best newspaper ad of the year would decide on an overseas entry. To him, it would be akin to choosing a foreign campaign for Grand Axis.
Any ad that’s run in any newspaper around the country is eligible to enter the competition (email [email protected] for competition details). And to view all the finalists in the current Newspaper Ad of the Year series visit the NAB website www.nabs.co.nz/Inspiration/AdofMonth.


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Toyo Tires pulled the cover off its new off-road tire recently – but only a little bit. Off-Road.com was recently invited to get an early look at its newest off-road tire, the Open Country R/T, which won’t be available in dealers until September of this year.
The Open Country R/T will be situated in the Toyo Tires lineup just between its popular A/T II all-terrain tire and its M/T mud-terrain tire, offering buyers a truck and SUV tire that is still very aggressive for off-roading while providing great on-road characteristics. The new tire, which will be the first Toyo tire fully made in the U.S., certainly has our interest piqued, as it blends together a tread design inspired by both the A/T and M/T.
We’ll be getting our hands on a set of the new R/Ts to check out first hand and will have a full report near the tire’s launch date in early September. Be sure to check back for a full report and review on the R/T in the coming weeks.
More on Toyo Tires
Review: Toyo Tire A/T II


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Fewer children across Northamptonshire will be going hungry on Christmas Day this year after a local farm generously donated food hampers to those in need.
With hunger and the free school dinner campaign hitting the news agenda in recent months, Smiths Farm Shop decided to get involved in supporting local children.
The family business has already donated food parcels to a children’s home in Northampton as part of its Caring at Christmas campaign.
In addition, a percentage of each Christmas tree sale will be used to purchase gifts for young people across the county.
Former social worker Jeanette Walsh, the county’s Christmas campaign co-ordinator, has been busy buying the presents to make sure as many children as possible receive something on Christmas morning.
Also known as Mrs Christmas, Jeanette said: “This year has been pretty bleak for everyone, but the impact of COVID-19 has affected some people more than others. Many have lost their jobs and are struggling to pay the bills and sadly there are families and children out there who are really hungry.
“Smiths Farm Shop is a local business which firmly believes in supporting its local community. I urge people to buy their tree from them this year, so we can collect as much money as possible for the kids in care across the county.”
All the gifts will be donated to several care homes across the county.
Proprietor of the farm shop, Adrian Smith said: “My heart aches to think of any child going to bed hungry at night. Footballer Marcus Rashford’s petition urging the government to extend free school meals helped highlight there’s a real hunger problem in this country and we wanted to do something to help.
“Christmas is a busy time for us as a business but I’d like to think that COVID-19 has made us more compassionate towards others. We hope that our small contribution has helped put a smile on at least one child’s face and food in their belly this Christmas.”
Smiths Farm Shop has been selling Christmas trees for more than 30 years and believe the firs they sell last longer than trees bought elsewhere. This is because they are cut fresh from a nearby plantation and are transported straight to the farm where they are laid out immediately for sale.
Once again, farm visitors can view a massive range of trees displayed in the front field so they can see their tree first in all its finery before purchasing.
The Smith family have been in business since 1958. Proud of their heritage, the company supports like-minded local food producers, providing them with an outlet to sell their homegrown products.
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text: Plenty of people swear by probiotics for digestive health and immunity. But research now suggests that the “good bacteria” has a lot of benefits to skin health too. According to Whitney P. Bowe, MD, stress alone or in combination with processed foods that lack fiber can slow digestion and boost unhealthy bacteria. The immune system springs into action to counter this potential threat resulting in inflammation, redness or breakouts. The healthy signals produced by the probiotics stop the skin cells from sending “attack” messages to the immune system that result in flares of acne or rosacea.


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I suppose, in a pitch FOR global warming, Daimaru is selling swim suits in Japan 6 weeks EARLIER this year than normal. What’s up with that?
It seems to me that for good or for bad, everyone is trying to capitalize on the global warming trend hype in one way or another. Or, am I just being over sensitive?
Maybe there is nothing wrong with department stores putting their wares out earlier and earlier each year. Maybe that’s it. I mean, who could object to seeing Japanese girls in bathing suits more and more throughout the year, right?
But, seriously. Are companies taking advantage of the global warming trend news? What do you think?
Image by idua_Japan


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Elon Musk: First Tesla Model 3 Dual Motor Performance has rolled off new assembly line
According to a confirmation by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the first Dual Motor Performance version of the Model 3 electric car was recently rolled off the automaker’s new assembly line in Fremont. The roll off of the first Model 3 Dual Motor Performance has come nearly one month after Tesla unveiled the electric car’s new Dual Motor and Dual Motor Performance versions.
In confirming that the new Model 3 assembly line in Fremont is now up and running, with the “first Model 3 Dual Motor Performance” having just been produced, Musk has also released an image which shows the Performance Model 3 off the assembly line.
The image released by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk shows the red brake callipers of the Performance Model 3 version, as well as its new white interior, which is being made available by Tesla for the first time in the new version.
Moreover, going by the details of the Performance Model 3 shared by Musk in May, the new version will be equipped with the same motors as the Model 3 Dual Motor version. Musk also said that the Performance version boasts a 310-mile range, and can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in merely 3.5 seconds. The new model with dual motor has a top speed of 155 mph.
Furthermore, Musk had also announced the Model 3 Performance version comes with 20-inch Performance wheels; and had asserted that the vehicle will have the ability to “beat anything in its class on the track.”
Electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors has recently released a new image of its forthcoming Model Y all-electric compact SUV. The image, in the form of a design sketch, was released by the automaker at its shareholder meeting held recently.
In an indication that Tesla’s Model S and Model X high-end electric luxury cars may soon be challenged by a potential competitor, Porsche has announced its first purely-electric sports car --- the ‘Taycan.’
In a recent disclosure by Nissan hinting at a high demand for its new LEAF electric vehicle (EV), the Japanese automaker has revealed that the orders for the new LEAF in Europe have reached 37,000 units.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has recently confirmed the timing for the launch of the electric vehicle manufacturer’s powerful new fast charger, the Supercharger V3.
US electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk shared some interesting information about the automaker’s upcoming products last week, saying that the pickup truck is his ‘favorite next Tesla product.’ The statement was made by Musk during Te
In a move which marks a notable new milestone for The Netherlands-based electric car leasing company Mister Green EV, the company now has 1,000 units of Tesla’s electric vehicles (EVs) in its fleet.


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In this week's roundup:
- Nintendo announces new games for Switch consoles
- Google to provide details on Nest microphone error
- Amazon allow Prime members to set a delivery date
Nintendo announces new games for Switch console
This week Nintendo have announced new games coming to their Switch console in the next few months.
The games announced were: Pokemon Sword, Pokemon Sword. Nintendo released this video showing gameplay of both games.
Google to provide details on Nest microphone error
Last week, we reported that people found that Nest devices had a hidden microphone in them that had not been told to customers, apparently under a genuine error.
Google own the company Nest, who create smart home technology, like smoke alarms.
Amazon allow Prime members to set a delivery date
If you're paying for Amazon Prime, you'll now be able to select what day of the week you want all of your deliveries to arrive on.
The feature called Amazon Day, will allow users to select if they want to use Amazon Day or not for a specific delivery.


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Fonterra NZMP Ingredients general manager for South & East Asia, Hamish Gowans, spoke with DairyReporter recently about the region, and how Asian consumers are increasingly seeking specific nutritional benefits to support their growing interest in health and active living, while demanding greater convenience to fit urban, time-poor lifestyles.
Gowans said the diverse region covers 19 countries, from Afghanistan to the Indian sub-continent, on through Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.
“It’s diverse in terms of many things including cultures and language, things around market access, around just the evolution of our customers in those regions, and in the consumer evolution,” Gowans said.
“Markets like Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, are becoming a bit more sophisticated in terms of the consumer offerings and convenience requirements.”
He said protein is rapidly evolving from a ‘fitness’ to a ‘health and wellness’ ingredient, as incomes rise and people become more aware of its benefits.
He added that while protein has long been associated with body builders and elite athletes, protein-fortified food has now expanded into the mainstream.
“Dairy in particular is an excellent source of high quality protein,” he said.
Dairy not just calcium
However, making the connection between dairy and protein can be a challenge.
“In some areas just the general knowledge from when we talk from a dairy perspective around dairy protein, you talk to a lot of people about dairy and for them it probably means calcium, but do they automatically make a link to dairy protein and the great protein that it is, certainly around the amino acid profile, which is critical for muscle development and satiety?
“So there is a little bit of education and engagement required and certainly the engagement we have with our customers here, they get it. They can hear this trend coming.”
He said there will likely be an evolution of products as education and product knowledge grows.
NZMP is committed to Asia for the future, and has already been in the market for some time, which Gowans acknowledges is a positive.
“We've got a long history with a lot of a lot of customers in the region so that certainly helps. Some of the free trade agreements that the New Zealand Government has been able to negotiate into this part of the world certainly helps that flow.
“This has partly been because of a deeper understanding of the markets. Another has been the structure of NZMP.”
Research on NPD
He noted the ingredients business is built on five key pillars: dairy beverages, consumer powders, pediatrics, active nutrition and dairy foods.
“Within those pillars you have a full complement of resource, right from manufacturing, R&D, market insights and a lot of research to understand where we should be heading,” Gowans explained.
“We spend around NZ$100m (US$72m) a year on R&D through our research center in Palmerston North. So you've got 350 people, with the bulk of them being scientists, purely focused around dairy protein and so we are starting to see more and more new launches.”


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After 15 Months Away, Smorgasburg LA Plots a Post-Pandemic Return
Eater Los Angeles
Good news, food fans: Smorgasburg LA is back. The long-running outdoor food and goods marketplace at the Row development in Downtown LA has been on hiatus for the entirety of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in LA, but yesterday operators announced a return date for July 4.
For more details, click the link below!FULL ARTICLE


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Dove commissions largest study to date analysing global body confidence
Dove has commissioned its largest study to date into the attitudes of women surrounding body confidence.
The Dove Global Beauty and Confidence Report aims to use its findings to support the brand’s ethos that beauty should be a source of confidence and not a source of anxiety.
The survey analysed attitudes of women in 13 countries and girls in 12 countries. A total of 6,000 women and 4,500 girls were involved in the study, spanning India, Brazil, China, Canada, Japan, Germany, Russia, Turkey, the US, the UK, Mexico, South Africa and Australia.. . .
This is a small extract of the full article which is available ONLY to premium content subscribers. Subscribers sign-in (top right) to read the article.
Subscribe now to premium content on Cosmetics Business


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Home Tags GDP growth
Tag: GDP growth
China's economy grew 6.2% last quarter, its slowest pace in at least 27 years, raising hopes the government will ramp up its efforts to boost demand.
Venezuela's central bank released its first inflation data since 2015, showing the dismal state of the economy. GDP fell at least 10% for 11 quarters.
A closely watched outlook just predicted US economic growth is about to crawl at a ‘near-recession pace’
The UCLA Anderson Forecast, a widely watched and often-cited economic outlook, says that US growth will slow to 1.7% in 2019, and 1.1% in 2020.
Rankings of the biggest growth stars in emerging markets sees India take top spot in the next decade, according to Oxford Economics.
Global debt is not yet at financial crisis levels — but could be set for an explosion with China leading the way
Global debt is at significant levels but isn't high enough to draw comparisons with 2008 just yet though emerging markets are in a dangerous position.
China has been throwing all sorts of stimuli at its slowing economy to counteract President Donald Trump's trade war. In the long term, it could work.
Weeks of protests by "yellow vests" in France have touched a nerve of discontent. The damage to the economy is apparent, and more is still to come.
According to the GDP report, business investment showed signs of stalling even after the biggest corporate tax overhaul in 30 years.
The US economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter, boosted by consumer spending and business inventories.
The US economy in the second quarter grew even faster than had been previously estimated, according to Commerce Department report released Wednesday. Gross domestic product rose at an annual rate of 4.2%, its fastest since the third quarter of 2014.


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YOUNG families and pensioners are benefiting from fresh fruit and vegetables from Merseyside allotments.
The Wirral-based Bag A Bargain scheme takes cut-price, locally-grown produce from garden fork to dinner fork in one of the country’s most deprived areas.
Since the healthy eating project launched two years ago, 12,000 bags of fruit and vegetables, costing £2.50 each, have been sold to young families and pensioners.
More than 300 people a week buy the produce.
But it is the hard work put in by an army of volunteers who garden, bag up, deliver and run the project which helped it to take off.
The team tends potatoes, rhubarb, cabbages, beans, peas and a herb garden on the Tranmere plot.
The project has been such a hit it is expanding, with a team of unemployed young men tending 15 allotments in Rock Ferry to keep up with the demand for home grown spuds, organic onions and local strawberries.
Tranmere warden Sharon Simpson said: “The feedback has been brilliant.
“Everyone who takes part in the Bag A Bargain scheme knows where their fruit and vegetables have come from and who has grown it.
“The home grown stuff is as fresh as you can get, because it has just come out of the ground.”
The project, supported by neighbourhood and health officials, aims to help residents who do not have ready access to fresh fruit and vegetables from nearby shops.
Recipes are handed out with the bags and cookery classes have taught customers how to turn them into nutritious family meals.
Last year, Riverside Housing funded a greenhouse for the allotment in Church Road, Tranmere, so customers will be able to sample odd-shaped cucumbers, fiery chilli peppers and juicy tomatoes this summer.
The gardening team is expanding to cope with the new 15 allotments.
Anyone interested in helping out can contact Sharon Simpson or John Lally on 0151 943 0522.
. . . and to follow, an ex-Tory leader
DINERS at a business network have treated themselves to an extra special dessert.
Shadow foreign secretary William Hague was the special guest at the Winning Women event at Wirral’s Thornton Hough - and was promptly auctioned off to go with the last course.
One table paid £500 for the pleasure of the former Tory leader’s company.
Founder Esther McVey said: “There were over 250 people at the event; we’re one of the biggest women’s networks in the region.
“William was lending his support; he’s a top after dinner speaker and he’s a politician who a lot of our members are interested in, both for his politics and his personality.
“The auction was a great success - the table decided to bid for him and at £50 each it was an expensive dessert!”
Information is available at www.winningwomen.co.uk


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Essentially the most cypherpunk approach to rejoice Valentine’s Day could also be to purchase lingerie with bitcoin.
Panties.com founder Lila Williams advised CoinDesk that she receives “a handful” of bitcoin funds each month since she began accepting bitcoin in March 2017. So, this Valentine’s Day season, her web site is working a marketing campaign the place all purchases paid in bitcoin get 15 % off and a free pair of lace panties.
Some bitcoin followers is likely to be reluctant to spend their crypto on attire. But lingerie, specifically, is commonly seen by aficionados as a purchase order much like jewellery – an funding in a bit of fantastic craftsmanship.
If bitcoin is an funding, then spending bitcoin on lingerie from women-led corporations that settle for crypto – like Naja and Kala, each of which pay garment makers above-average wages and use fair-trade supplies – is a approach to put money into girls.
Chatting with this broader business dynamic, Rebecca Migirov, an alumna of ethereum enterprise studio ConsenSys and presently the CEO of lingerie model Kala, advised CoinDesk that the business is seeing a “woman-led revolution when it comes to product.” One of the simplest ways to assist crypto adoption, she says, is for shoppers to “present there’s demand out there.”
That’s why Rick Shaddock, a member of the Digital Forex Affiliation, mentioned he used bitcoin he acquired in the course of the market peak in December 2017 to purchase his spouse panties for his or her anniversary as a result of there’s no volatility in lacy underthings.
“It turned out to be a sensible trade, as a result of BTC went down 80 %,” Shaddock mentioned in an e mail. “Panties have been a significantly better funding than bitcoin in 2018.”
Needing censorship resistance
Stepping again, the American lingerie business is extensively dominated by companies with controversial labor practices, since bras, specifically, are troublesome to mass produce and should be partially assembled by hand.
For instance, Victoria’s Secret – majority owned by billionaire Lex Wexner – has reportedly relied on low cost prison labor and child labor. Lingerie corporations with greater moral requirements however much less company energy face rampant promoting censorship from subscription websites like Patreon to digital portals like Google and Instagram.
“There are huge issues with promoting even luxurious lingerie,” Panties.com founder Williams mentioned.
Williams advised CoinDesk that, along with having bother with Google Advertisements, Fb steadily bans her commercials and labels them “sexual content material,” even when the image includes a lady in a modest satin gown and nightgown.
Migirov’s Kala model has the identical difficulty changing consumers by means of social media platforms like Instagram, which frequently mislabel area of interest lingerie commercials as pornography. As such, Migirov mentioned the lingerie business may benefit from censorship-resistant platforms with clean bitcoin fee choices.
The one bother, each Williams and Migirov say, is that the lingerie business isn’t significantly tech-savvy. Till crypto-friendly retail platforms like OpenBazaar or AdLedger achieve traction with mainstream audiences, siloed web sites might restrict boutique promoting and gross sales.
Chatting with her 33 years of expertise within the lingerie business, first launching a web site then accepting bank card funds earlier than most of her opponents, Williams added:
“Sure, computer systems have been the large disappointment of 1990, however they aren’t any extra. And I consider that at some point the identical will probably be mentioned of bitcoin.”
Williams mentioned she is likely to be eager about processing her personal bitcoin funds sometime if the know-how turns into extra user-friendly.
“One of many issues with bitcoin is while you push that button it’s gone, gone, gone, there isn’t a recourse,” Williams mentioned, including she often holds some bitcoin financial savings relatively than instantly changing it to fiat.
Utilizing conventional bank card processors, she pays greater than three % of her earnings every month, along with a $75 month-to-month payment, which dwarfs BitPay’s common 1 percent transaction payment.
Past fee processors like Bitpay and Shopify, which provide the comforting assure of recourse if one thing goes fallacious, a number of plug-and-play bitcoin node devices have emerged over the previous six months that leverage the lighting network’s to scale back community charges to unprecedented lows.
Node retailers like Michel Luczak, co-founder of the French startup Nodl, and Lightning in a Field co-founder Norman Moore in New York, each advised CoinDesk that they count on 2019 will see gradual adoption throughout service provider sectors as a result of schooling is the most important hurdle to adoption exterior the tech business.
“We try to promote not one node per store, however for a bunch of outlets, to point out them that this will deliver them extra freedom,” Luczak mentioned, talking broadly about a variety of distributors. “It’s an issue of making an attempt to teach individuals and present what [a node] can deliver them.”
Adoption could also be sluggish throughout the lingerie business, but it surely continues on a gradual incline. In a sector of the style economic system the place feminine entrepreneurs are sometimes censored and sidelined, cryptocurrency funds provide a method for consumers to instantly empower companies they consider are difficult company norms.
“Extra individuals ask to make use of bitcoin over the telephone than ask to make use of Uncover card,” Williams mentioned.
Lingerie picture courtesy of Kala


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The multi-award-winning new Kia Sorento has received two more globally renowned awards. The brand’s flagship SUV has won both the Red Dot Award and the iF Award for its product design.
With this latest recognition in the Red Dot and iF awards, the design-led Kia brand continues its extraordinary series of successes in the two competitions. Since the Kia Soul was the first vehicle from a Korean brand to receive the Red Dot in 2009, a total of 26 Kia models have been awarded the coveted ‘red dot’. And in the iF Award, which the brand received for the first time in 2010, the number of award-winning Kia vehicles has risen to a total of 21 with the new Sorento.
Shortly after its premiere last year, the new Sorento was honored for its outstanding design in the ‘All-Wheel Drive Car of the Year 2020’ poll by Auto Bild Allrad. A short time later, it received the most important German automotive award, the ‘Golden Steering Wheel 2020’ in the ‘Large SUVs’ class. In March this year, it was voted ‘Women’s World Car of the Year 2021’ in the ‘Large SUV’ category.


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Licensing and eCommerce News: Tinder Forays into Creating Original Shows, WarnerMedia Buys Rights to Stream ‘The Big Bang Theory’ for USD 1 Billion, MLC Requires USD 66.5 Million Initial Funding, eCommerce Companies Accused of Violating FDI Norms, Deadline to Submit Feedback on Draft eCommerce Guidelines Extended, SoftBank Invests in Latin eCommerce Market, and more.
eCommerce Companies Accused of Violating FDI Norms
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has recently stated that Amazon and Flipkart violated the Press Note No.2 of the FDI policy 2018, by hosting festival sales on their respective platforms. According to the FDI policy, e-commerce companies are not allowed to host sales and offer discounts, and are only allowed to conduct B2B business.
The CAIT spokesperson has asked the e-commerce companies to provide details of their top 10 vendors. Further, CAIT has stated that if the government does not take any direct action against the e-commerce platforms, then it will approach the courts for the appropriate remedy.
Deadline to Submit Feedback on Draft E-Commerce Guidelines Extended
After multiple requests from various stakeholders, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs has decided to extend the deadline for submitting feedback on the draft e-commerce guidelines, from 16th September to 31st October. The draft e-commerce guidelines which were notified last month are primarily directed at curbing the sale of counterfeit goods, streamlining returns and refunds, and delineating the liabilities of sellers and online marketplaces. These guidelines would also prevent e-commerce marketplaces from influencing the prices of products or engaging in ‘unfair or deceptive’ practices.
A majority of the stakeholders have asked for clarity on certain issues, like the definition of unfair trade practices, demarcation of marketplace versus inventory-led e-commerce and norms for advertising.
SoftBank Invests in Latin E-commerce Market
SoftBank, the Japanese multinational conglomerate, has recently invested USD 110 million in MadeiraMadeira, a Brazilian e-commerce company. This investment is directed towards developing technology, boosting logistics and improving the customer experience. MadeiraMadeira, which was founded in 2009, sells its own products and those of other merchants, and is expected to boost the digital transformation of Brazil’s growing home goods segment, with the financial backing of SoftBank.
Other investors including Light Street Capital and Flybridge Capital Partners backed the Brazilian e-commerce startup in its initial period, when it raised USD 38.8 million.
Tinder Forays into Creating Original Shows
Dating app Tinder recently completed the shooting one of its first television shows, as it gradually expands its services into creating scripted original content. Tinder has a larger plan for the future which includes launching an online platform to stream this content. The first show will be a multi-episode series and was filmed in Mexico City, in August. The show, centers on an “apocalyptic” storyline and includes a relationship sub-plot but is not directly connected to Tinder’s core dating app business.
Prior to this, Tinder launched a lifestyle website called Swipe Life last October, to publish original content including articles and videos about dating and relationships. Through this move Tinder could engage users on a deeper level even when they are not using the service. Foraying into streaming platforms seems to be the next best strategy in the US, with brands like Walmart and Costco collaborating with other production houses to create original content.
WarnerMedia Buys Rights to Stream ‘The Big Bang Theory’ for USD 1 Billion
WarnerMedia has recently bought the licensing rights to stream the hit CBS sitcom ‘The Big Bang Theory’, for USD 1 billion. This show will be streamed on the new HBO Max streaming service. About a day before WarnerMedia closed the deal with CBS, Netflix bought the rights to stream another hit show, ‘Seinfeld’, for USD 500 million. Other large deals include NBCUniversal paying USD 500 million for exclusive US streaming rights for workplace-comedy “The Office”, and HBO Max paying out USD 425 million over five years (USD 85 million per year) to move mega-hit Friends from Netflix to its own platform.
However, experts question the current trend of production houses buying streaming rights for a few hit TV series for enormous sums. This is because streaming one hit show does not necessarily guarantee an increase in the number of subscribers for the platform, as consumers periodically switch from one streaming service to another. The increase in bidding wars has also led streaming platforms to produce more original content, which gives them greater returns.
MLC Requires USD 66 Million Initial Funding
The MLC which was created by the Music Modernization Act (MMA), which was inked into law by President Trump in October 2018, has requested the US Copyright Office for granting funds worth USD 66.25 million, in order to start its operations. This is a huge starting amount for an agency that is yet to be formed. The main aim of the agency is to collect, process, and pay mechanical streaming licenses specifically to US-based publishers and songwriters.
The MLC proposal, which was made public on September 17th, has been backed by major publishers which include major publishers like Sony/ATV, Warner Chappell, and Universal Music. These publishers have insisted that their estimate was both efficient” and “effective”. The proposal has been put together after months of research by the Copyright Royalties Board (CRB), to determine the most efficient and effective way to serve the needs of both the songwriters and their music publishers, as well as the digital music services.
However, the entire amount of the investment will not be provided by the U.S. Government and it will be the major streaming platforms and tech behemoths like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google/Alphabet, and others who will pay the larger share of modest start-up fortune. However, certain music streaming platforms may be asked by major music publishers to withhold streaming mechanical payments to songwriters and publishers who claim them, and instead allocate the money towards the MLC fund.
Authored and compiled by Neharika Vhatkar and Ashwini Arun (Associates, BananaIP Counsels)
The eCommerce Law and IP Transactions News Bulletin is brought to you by the eCommerce Law and Consulting/Strategy Division of BananaIP Counsels, a Top IP Firm in India. If you have any questions, or need any clarifications, please write to [email protected] with the subject: eCommerce Law News.
Disclaimer: Please note that the news bulletin has been put together from different sources, primary and secondary, and BananaIP’s reporters may not have verified all the news published in the bulletin. You may write to [email protected] for corrections and take down.


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Fonterra and DSM introduce precision fermentation start-up for dairy-like proteins
25 Aug 2022 --- Fonterra and Royal DSM are launching a start-up seeking to commercialize fermentation-derived proteins with dairy-like properties in what is described as a “complementary nutrition partnership.”
The two companies have been collaborating since 2019 to build a comprehensive understanding of how to use precision fermentation science and technology to produce proteins similar to those found in dairy.
“This venture between Fonterra and Royal DSM will accelerate the development and commercialization of fermentation-derived ingredients with dairy-like properties,” Jonathan Boswell, program leader for complementary nutrition and new partnerships development, tells NutritionInsight.
“As consumer preferences continue to evolve, we see both dairy and other sources of nutrition playing a complementary role in consumer choice.”
The start-up does not yet have a name but will be determined ahead of incorporation, Boswell explains.
The start-up is the next step in Fonterra and DSM’s long-standing joint development relationship. To date, the work has created “valuable intellectual property for which Fonterra and DSM have filed patents.”
It will enable the acceleration of commercial product solutions utilizing this intellectual property while continuing to focus on further precision fermentation research and development.
“The new start-up is an exciting opportunity to combine DSM’s world-leading expertise in precision fermentation science and technology with Fonterra’s world-leading dairy science and technology,” says Komal Mistry-Mehta, chief innovation and brand officer at Fonterra.
“With fermentation-produced proteins having a wide array of potential applications for customers and consumers, this partnership aligns well with the co-op’s strategy to be a leader in dairy innovation and science.”
Evolving consumer preferences
Precision fermentation is a food technology where microorganisms can be harnessed to produce ingredients with similar properties to those found in dairy. There are already a number of products containing fermentation-derived analog whey in the market across several categories, including ice cream, beverages and cream cheese, Boswell adds.
“Dairy nutrition will always be our core strength, now and into the future, and there will continue to be strong demand for our sustainable, pasture-based dairy. At the same time, we are conscious that the preferences of some consumers are evolving, and we believe proteins produced with emerging technologies can work alongside our dairy products,” he underscores.
“With continued population growth, there will be a role for both dairy and other sources of nutrition in feeding the world’s population – they offer choice and they are complementary.”
Fonterra and DSM are also collaborating to reduce on-farm greenhouse gas emissions by exploring applications for DSM’s methane-inhibiting Bovaer technology in the New Zealand pasture-based farming system.
Precision fermentation technology is largely spearheading innovations across the space. TurtleTree is in the process of producing the “world’s first” environmentally sustainable bovine lactoferrin in 2023.
The technology is also used in infant formula, where nutrition start-up Helaina has been carrying out research on delivering the first humanized infant formula, containing human proteins that functionally perform in the same manner as breast milk.
Earlier this month, ADM partnered with Asia Sustainable Foods Platform in a joint venture company, ScaleUp Bio. Based in Singapore, the new firm will operate a new pilot laboratory for start-ups engaging in precision fermentation for food applications, helping them to propel innovation rapidly.
By Andria Kades
To contact our editorial team please email us at email@example.com
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Mirakl, the leading marketplace platform provider, today announced that Darty, a leading European electronics retailer, is seeing better visibility in search, greater profit margins, and new category growth after implementing the Mirakl Marketplace Solution in 2014.
According to a new case study published by Forrester Research, Darty attributes its marketplace success to buy in from C-level support and the foresight to start with non-overlapping product categories, dedicate adequate employee resources, and take advantage Mirakl’s marketplace platform versus custom building their own solution.
Darty’s online marketplace has delivered the following results to date:
- The retailer is able to generate €6 to €7 euros for every €100 sold through the marketplace (including any costs for administering the marketplace), compared to €2 to €3 that it generates from €100 sold in products that it stocks directly.
- 20% of visits to Darty website are driven by its marketplace items, which it attributes to increased visibility in search engine results.
- An increase from 120,000 owned SKUs on Darty.com to 520,000 SKUs via the marketplace initiative.
Database Marketing has revealed that Data8, a leading data solutions provider, has been shortlisted for ‘Outstanding Data Provider’ in the DBM Awards 2016.
The DBM awards were launched in 2011 with the aim of placing data in the spotlight and recognizing it as the cornerstone of successful, measurable marketing. It celebrates excellence in the UK’s data and insight-driven marketing industry.
“It’s extremely exciting to be a finalist for the second year in a row. We constantly ensure that our services provide clients with premium data quality solutions and we are delighted that our team’s efforts are reflected in the nomination.” Antony Allen – Data8 Managing Director.
The nomination comes after an introduction of a variety of dynamic, innovative services. One of which is the Business Universe which contains over 9million contacts and is a truly unique master database that is revolutionising the B2B data industry. Alongside new products, a strong part of the application was including real accounts from our customers and the results they achieved from using our services.
AudienceScience today announced the opening of its Shanghai office, making it the first and only western-based, fully integrated data management and programmatic buying platform operating in mainland China with locations in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.
AudienceScience is already serving more than 200 million impressions per day in China, and has doubled its market share within the country within the past quarter. Advertisers are now reaching Chinese consumers with the same audience targeting, optimisation, and fraud and viewability protections that they’ve come to expect from AudienceScience.
As the first western programmatic technology company with a Chinese entity operating within the country, AudienceScience now provides global advertisers with access to unique Chinese inventory and local data partners, allowing them to reach Chinese consumers in the mobile and video-heavy media market.


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The local unit of Dutch financial company ING Bank expects inflation to remain benign in 2020 as the Rice Tariffication Law will continue to temper the price of the staple.
ING Bank Manila senior economist Nicholas Mapa said in a report that Republic Act No. 11203, or the Rice Tariffication Law, was “possibly the single most effective inflation fighting development in 2019 and will likely help keep inflation in-check going into 2020.”
“Thus, with the ability to import rice on demand and better weather ahead [no El Niño forecast in 2020], we can expect inflation to bounce and settle in 2020, gradually rising towards Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ 3 percent inflation target and average 3.2 percent in 2020,” Mapa said.
Mapa said inflation was the bane in 2018 after it surged to 6.7 percent amid a shortage in rice supply and severe weather disturbances (typhoon Ompong) that pushed the price index for food to as high as 9.7 percent.
The all-important staple of rice was in the spotlight, recording double-digit inflation as supplies dwindled on late importation.
“The passage of RA 11203 or the law that removed quotas on rice imports has helped replenish the stock of local rice, forcing prices downward and helping stabilize a good 10 percent of the CPI basket,” Mapa said.
The BSP expressed optimism last week that inflation rate would continue to be benign until 2022, as demand-induced price pressures were likely to remain manageable over the target horizon.
The interagency Development Budget Coordination Committee, in its meeting on Dec. 11, decided to keep the current inflation target at 2 percent to 4 percent for 2020 to 2022. The government’s inflation target is defined in terms of the average year-on-year change in the consumer price index over the calendar year.
“The announcement of the inflation target is in line with the BSP’s commitment to transparency and accountability as well as the forward-looking approach in the conduct of monetary policy,” the BSP said in a statement.
“The 3.0 percent ± 1.0 percentage point inflation target for 2020 to 2022 continues to be an appropriate quantitative representation of the BSP’s medium-term price stability goal that is conducive to the balanced and sustainable growth of the Philippine economy,” it said.
It said the latest inflation forecasts indicated within-target inflation over the policy horizon, even as the balance of risks to the inflation outlook continued to lean slightly toward the upside in 2020 and toward the downside in 2021.
“While price volatilities cannot be ruled out, inflationary impulses from international commodity prices are expected to remain modest. This expectation is supported by the current assessment of favorable demand-supply balance and lower pass-through to domestic inflation of exchange rate and international commodity price inflation,” it said.
“Similarly, demand-induced price pressures are likely to remain manageable over the target horizon. Improved productive capacity of the domestic economy, fueled by higher infrastructure investments by the national government alongside the implementation of purposeful structural reforms, implies continued robust economic growth amid a low and stable inflation environment,” it said.


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Satellite Beach resident Bill Lenz is one of thousands who took advantage of the 1984 breakup of American Telephone and Telegraph to switch to a smaller long-distance phone company offering low rates.
He was aware that Network 1 Metromedia, like all of AT&T's young competitors, would charge him for incomplete calls if he let the phone ring more than four times or listened to a busy signal too long. So he always promptly hung up if his calls weren't answered or if he got a busy signal.
But his October 1985 phone bill reflected about $30 worth of brief calls he knew were incomplete and shouldn't have cost anything. The phone company found a problem in its timing system and credited Lenz for those calls.
The key is that Lenz knew enough about his company's billing practices to recognize a problem. Phone company representatives and government officials say too many people don't and that may be costing them a lot of money.
''You have to shop for long-distance companies like you shop for a new car or other goods and services,'' Southern Bell area manager Larry Strickler said. ''It's just something that we as consumers have taken for granted for years and can't do anymore. Otherwise, we'll end up buying a pig in a poke.'' A sales representative for Americall LDC Inc., a long-distance company in Melbourne, said, ''If they use it right, they'll save money. If they don't use it right, they'll get burned.''
There are about 50 long-distance upstarts in Florida offering a dizzying array of minute-by-minute billing plans, but they all offer one thing: the potential for the customer being billed for an incomplete call or busy signal. That isn't how AT&T did it, but for most of the long-distance phone companies popping up in the tracks of AT&T's breakup, it is the way it must be done. And it is legal, as far as the Federal Communications Commission is concerned.
FCC spokeswoman Susan O'Connell said, ''I think it is a function of the free marketplace. They can charge whatever the market will bear.''
She said that if a consumer doesn't like the way a phone company does its billing, ''he has other options. And because he has other alternatives, it is not in the best interest of the public to concern ourselves with this kind of complaint.''
''We want to let these companies experiment and see what kind of rates consumers are willing to accept,'' she said.
It is the high cost of high technology that causes the companies to charge for incomplete phone calls. They can't afford the technology used by AT&T to detect someone answering a phone call before a timer starts to bill the caller.
Long-distance phone companies that charge for incomplete calls include the policy in instructions to new customers.
Mina Kelly, office manager of PSA Inc., a small long-distance phone company in Daytona Beach, said if a consumer misses that warning and doesn't learn from studying his bills, the incomplete calls he makes could cost him more than the completed ones.
''The public really isn't very knowledgeable when it comes to these companies,'' she said. ''They really don't understand how it works. They only understand picking up the phone and dialing. You have to educate them.''


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Carrentals.co.uk Campaigns Raise Over £5000 for Homeless Charity StreetSmart
Leading online price comparators customers contribute to big donation to British homeless charities
Lightwater, Surrey (PRUnderground) April 9th, 2012
Car hire comparison website Carrentals.co.uk this week reports that its ‘Book & Donate’ fundraising scheme has raised a sum of £5,662 for leading UK homeless charity StreetSmart. Streetsmart is one of the country’s leading homeless charities and creates education, training, health and housing projects to help homeless citizens through more than 90 homeless charities around the UK.
On top of its ‘Book & Donate’ scheme, Carrentals.co.uk also conducted a ‘12 days of Christmas’ campaign in 2011 which contributed a further £700 to the Streetsmart fund. This was added to the monies raised by ‘Book & Donate’ which came to £2,131, and was matched by the government – making a grand total of £5,662 for Streetsmart.
Gareth Robinson, Managing Director of Carrentals.co.uk, commented: “We are ecstatic at how well our ‘Book & Donate’ scheme has turned out – StreetSmart does really valuable work for UK homeless and so we are really pleased to help them out like this.”
“A combination of our ‘Book & Donate’ scheme and the Christmas campaign we ran – backed by the government donation – means that StreetSmart will receive over £5,000. We’re delighted that our Carrentals.co.uk customers has contributed to such a worthy cause in this way.”
StreetSmart works with top UK restaurants each November and December such as Nobu, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal and Restaurant Gordon Ramsay to raise money in a similar manner. Restaurants include a £1 donation on the end of each diner’s bill to help generate funds for the charity.
Glenn Pougnet, Director of StreetSmart, said: “The Carrentals.co.uk Book & Donate day has been a great success and we are delighted that they have announced such a great sum raised by them and their customers for our worthy cause. This donation will help us to make a real difference.”
Carrentals.co.uk is the UK’s leading car rental comparison site, comparing deals from up to 50 rental companies including Alamo, Auto Europe, Budget, Holiday Autos and Sixt, in over 15,000 locations worldwide including Spain, Portugal and Greece. Deals on show at present for summer include Majorca car hire plus great deals in the likes of Faro and Crete.
Jenny White/Verity Garber
T: 01625 511966
F: 01625 511967
About ASAP Ventures Ltd
Carrentals.co.uk was launched in February 2003 and grew to become one of the UK’s leading online car hire companies by 2006.
In 2007 the company re-launched its site to create the first major online price comparator in the travel industry. Using the latest technology the Carrentals.co.uk site now searches up to 50 different car hire websites, providing an impartial comparison of the best prices available in over 15,000 locations.
Websites searched include Alamo, Auto Europe, Avis, Budget, Ebookers, Hertz, Holiday Autos, Opodo, Sixt and Thrifty, with the Carrentals.co.uk site quickly comparing prices and allowing customers to refine their search by car type.
The Carrentals.co.uk site also features over 5,000 pages of travel information in a mini-guide format.
In 2008 Carrentals.co.uk was voted Best Car Hire Website in the Travolution Awards, and in 2010 it was Highly Commended in the Best Meta-search/Price Comparison category. To book or for further information visit www.carrentals.co.uk.


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A new report from Deutsche Bank’s Jamie Isenwater says that the spirits sector has taken a short-term approach by cutting their marketing budgets during the downturn, which almost guarantees it will be expensive to rebuild once the environment improves. In the last 6 months, Pernod Ricard (Sell), Diageo (Hold), AB Inbev (Hold) and Campari (Hold) cut A&P the furthest out of 30 European and US consumer staples companies, while Beiersdorf (Buy), Unilever (Buy), Henkel (Buy) and L’Oreal (upgraded to Buy) invested the most aggressively.
Jamie says that Pernod and Diageo cut their organic marketing spend by -24% and -18% respectively in the first half of calendar 2009. “We remain underweight Beverages with a particular caution on Spirits given the aggressive cutting of A&P spend seen on the back of the downturn,” said Jamie. “We see little earnings rebound for the Spirits sector as a result and struggle to see where earnings upgrades are likely to come from. Pernod Ricard remains a key Sell recommendation and we see little upside to Diageo at current levels.”
LOWER A&P EQUALS LOWER MARGINS. “When we analyze our entire consumer staples dataset we find a similar result – companies that cut A&P see their operating margins fall over time,” said Jamie.
The note points to a McGraw-Hill study of the early 1980s recession that says “companies that maintained or increased their advertising spend in 1980-81 grew over 50% faster in 1982 than those who cut spend and grew over three times faster by 1985. Whilst it may not be entirely surprising that increasing A&P, increases sales growth...a study of the PIMS (Profit Impact of Market Strategy) database shows that those companies who increased marketing spend also increased profits and returns post-recession.”
Deutsche Bank realizes that “in a difficult environment it can be very tempting for companies to cut marketing spend to protect profitability,” but that “the benefits of the cost savings are short-lived with profits dipping in the following year and again the year after as marketing spend needs to be rebuilt.”
Why is A&P spending so important? Deutsche believes it’s because “consumers are prepared to pay higher prices for brands they like and trust.”
DIGITAL MARKETING GAINS IMPORTANCE. Note that traditional media spend on TV and billboards are becoming less important as companies invest more in digital and word of mouth marketing. Diageo has said that its Smirnoff brand will spend 20% of its advertising budget this year on digital media, compared with the 10% Diageo as a whole spent on advertising through digital channels last year, according to the report. It’s estimated that 12-13% of advertising is now online globally although it’s very difficult to measure. Companies are also putting more effort into “category management, customer relationship management, and more sophisticated interaction with retailers and consumers in an effort to ‘push’ branded products.”
DIAGEO today won a case against UK-based Intercontinental Brands over its Vodkat spirits. Diageo alleged the brand misled consumers into thinking it was vodka. Vodkat is actually a vodka based brand with a 22% abv mix of fermented alcohol and vodka. In the European Union, vodka must be made of 100% distilled alcohol and at least 37.5% abv. ICB has already changed Vodkat’s packaging to read “Vodkat Schnapps” and says it will consider other truth in labeling measures. Unless ICB appeals the decision, a final ruling is expected next month. Regardless, this case shows that vodka is a protected category in the EU much like Champagne and Scotch.
GOV CORZINE LEGALIZES SPIRITS TASTINGS. In one of his final gubernatorial acts, Governor Jon Corzine signed legislation last night allowing New Jerseyans the chance to sample distilled spirits at liquor stores, according to Discus. It allows adults to sample up to three separate one-half ounce servings of spirits in any one calendar day at a pre-planned tasting event. The law takes effect May 1.
MEXICAN TEQUILA PRODUCTION fell -20% to 249 million liters last year from a bumper crop of 312 million liters in 2008, according to the Agriculture Ministry. Exports in 2009 were about the same as 2008 at 136.1 million liters. Exports of tequila made entirely from the agave plant grew 3.9% to 37.3 million liters.
UK BANS “BINGE” PROMOTIONS. Starting in April, the UK will ban alcohol promotions that encourage binge drinking, such as speed drinking competitions and all you can drink events at the on-premise. In October on-premise locations will be required to offer drinks in smaller measures and tap water for free.
NEW YORK GOV DAVID PATERSON is again trying to push wine sales in grocery stores in the 2010-11 state budget. He claims the state could bring in $93 million in the next fiscal year through a one-time fee paid by grocery stores for licenses to sell wine. It is being hotly contested in the state.
BRINLEY GOLD RUM has signed a marketing agreement with Bedford & Grove, LLC to distribute the brand in 28 states with an emphasis on the midwest and west coast.
Until tomorrow, Megan
“Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
--------- Sell Day Calendar ----------
Today's Sell Day: 12
Sell days this month: 20
Sell days this month last year: 21
This month ends on a: Fri.
This month last year ended on a: Fri.
YTD sell days Over/Under: 0
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CHICAGO – Ever wonder what’s in your food? Consumers have been asking that question much more in recent years as the food industry has been shaken by food scandals, including questions of transparency in food preparation and the treatment of animals.
Consequently, restaurants are focusing their attention on using a greater number and wider variety of menu claims that reflect trending food concerns in hopes of regaining consumers’ trust.
“Organic” is still the most-used claim on restaurant menus, yet according to Mintel Menu Insights, its usage declined 28 percent between the fourth quarter of 2010 and the fourth quarter of 2013.
"The reality is that organic foods are quite expensive and consumers are looking for alternative claims to help them determine what other types of menu items are safe and of good quality to eat,” said Julia Gallo-Torres, Mintel category manager. “Tying into this, we are seeing a return to tried-and-true, traditional preparations, signaled by claims tied to classic, original, homemade, etc.”
The claim “made from scratch” contributed 10 percent to the overall growth of all restaurant menu claims, as consumers search for food that is representative of being homemade. Consumers are also looking for claims such as “original recipe,” “freshly-picked,” “farmstead,” and “farm style.” Even the claim “signature” as an ingredient grew 34 percent between Q4 2010 and Q4 2013.
"Gluten free” is another claim appearing more frequently on menus. During the same timeframe, “gluten free” usage posted a 200-percent increase and accounted for 40 percent of the total growth in ingredient nutritional claims on menus, according to Mintel Menu Insights.
Additionally, nutritional claims increased by 14 percent and geographic claims increased 12 percent.
"Many Americans look to menu information to eat better and healthier. “Nutritional claims signal that certain foods can contribute to general health. In terms of geographic claims, consumers are seeking dining experiences that are more authentic and these claims also can convey a healthier presentation," Gallo-Torres continued. "…Consumers will continue to look to menus for guidance on what to eat.”
Mintel is a global supplier of consumer, product and media intelligence. Mintel Menu Insights tracks and analyzes trends on a daily basis from more than 2,500 menus and 1.5 million items.


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In the middle East issued the first state license to trade cryptocurrency – got it registered in Dubai company Regal RA DMCC, a subsidiary of Regal Assets Inc.
The company, from 2016, focusing on investment and trade ingots from precious metals, can now offer as a investment tools bitcoin, ether, ripe and litecoin.
«In the long-term strategic development plan DMCC is the use of technology and innovation for the development of new markets, industries and customers,» said DMCC Executive Chairman Ahmed Bin Sulayem.
According to the head of Regal RA DMCC Tyler Gallagher, cryptocurrency investors are afraid to store large amount of coins in online wallets and exchanges due to the risk of hacking, viruses and intruders. The company offers the investors have also a special service – cold storage of crypto-currencies.
«We have developed the safest way of investing in bitcoin, ether and other cryptocurrencies,» he said.
According to the Manager of the company’s office in Dubai Ksenia Kiseleva, the company is considering cryptocurrency as a commodity, not as a method of payment.


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OFIS appoints Adrian Shaw as the new CEO
OFIS, a leading office furniture and solutions supplier, welcomes Adrian Shaw as the new Chief Executive Officer. As part of the Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group, OFIS has been operational in the UAE for 34-years and Adrian plans to drive the brand forward starting with opening a new showroom which will be located on Al Ittihad Road.
Shaw has been with the Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group for nine years, and currently manages the award-winning home-grown furniture store Chattels & More and quirky German interiors brand, KARE. He brings over 20 years of international experience in developing new and existing businesses, driving sales and profitability.
In the early years, Shaw oversaw IDdesign operations throughout the UAE, including eight stores and over 200 staff, moving on to become the General Manager of Chattels & More and KARE. He is now embarking on a new journey with OFIS, adding this well regarded brand to his purview.
“OFIS is a respected amongst the designer community, As part of my new responsibilities I plan to continue to grow the brand, expand our network and create inspirational spaces alongside our designers and loyal customers,” says Adrian Shaw.
He continues, “The OFIS brand lineage is interwoven with the Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group story and I intend to continue to build on this while staying true to its heritage from the last 34-years in the UAE. The new showroom will mark an exciting new chapter for OFIS and the team.”
Shaw plans to continue to transform customers’ vision into reality using innovation and believes that at OFIS, there is an opportunity to build spaces that inspire, engage, offer solutions, and motivate anyone who enters.


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A tablet-style computer from Apple Inc. might be the first major launch in a new class of slatelike multimedia devices that could leapfrog the laptop.
With a gleaming touch screen, it might be perfect for watching movies, reading books, listening to music or surfing the Web. It might come out next summer and it might cost $800.
Or it might not.
Despite a growing chorus of online rumors, Apple has resolutely declined to acknowledge that any such device exists. But that has not stopped the community of zealous Apple watchers from digging through patent applications, sharing countless images of what the device might look like and sniffing down every last scrap of fourth-hand information. They've even assembled a list of possible names, variously dubbing it the iSlate, iGuide, iScreen and iPad.
"The tablet rumors have been going crazy in the last few months," said Arnold Kim, senior editor of Mac Rumors, a blog that tracks Apple scuttlebutt. "It's almost at iPhone levels."
It seems that almost every day, a new blog post or media story offers an anonymous report, or educated guess, about what the tablet might look like, what it might do and when it will be available.
Last week, the Financial Times reported that Apple has rented space in a San Francisco convention center in late January, ostensibly to showcase a new product. According to the blog Silicon Alley Insider, the company has been advising software-makers to get their applications ready for a large, mobile device with high resolution. Both reports cite anonymous sources, and Apple would not comment on rumors about the tablet.
The Cupertino, Calif., company's ability to generate hurricanes of hype around invisible products stems from its track record of delivering blockbusters. Apple scored major hits this decade with the iPod music player and then the iPhone, both of which have become cultural touchstones and sold tens of millions of units along the way.
With the tablet, Kim said, gadget fans stubbornly expect to be dazzled again.
The tablet's marquee feature is likely to be its screen. As popularly imagined, the device would look like a single-color panel a little larger than Amazon's Kindle e-reader. Because the user would be able to manipulate on-screen objects by touch, including a virtual keyboard, there no longer would be a need for a mouse or conventional set of keys.


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|COVID–19 NEWS||Japan registers record 250,403 COVID-19 cases within past 24 hours | COVID: Malaysia records increase in new cases, fatalities - Dr Noor Hisham | New COVID-19 cases drop 5.2 pct last week - Health Dg | Witness still COVID-19 positive, Ahmad Zahid's corruption trial postponed | Japan's daily COVID cases top 180,000, set fresh record amid 7th wave ||
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 3 (Bernama) -- IJM Corporation Bhd (IJM) has recently entered into a strategic partnership with China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC) for the development of Malaysia-China Kuantan International Logistics Park (MCKILP), an integrated mixed development and logistic hub in Kuantan.
Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park (MCKIP) chairman, who is also IJM deputy chief executive officer and deputy managing director, Lee Chun Fai said the partnership marked IJM’s first foray into the industrial and logistics market to meet the growing logistics demands in the east coast region.
“I am excited for the opportunities that MCKILP will bring to the East Coast Economic Region (ECER). Its development is extremely timely and will provide critical infrastructure that will enhance the region’s logistics and supply-chain capabilities,” he said in a statement today.
He said together with MCKIP 1 and 2, IJM envisioned MCKILP’s complement to the industrial ecosystem, catalysing more investments in the region in the future.
According to IJM, MCKILP would be developed on a proposed 258.99-hectare site in MCKIP 3 and would comprise light and medium industrial, logistics and warehousing as well as residential and commercial components.
It said the new development would turn MCKIP 3 into a premier industrial and logistics hub in the ECER.
“MCKILP is set to attract downstream industries in logistics, automobile, marine engineering, advanced steel materials, palm oil processing, petrochemical and e-commerce that could become value chain suppliers to surrounding industrial parks such as MCKIP 1 and 2, Gebeng Industrial Estate and Pekan Automotive Park.
“In terms of growth, Kuantan Port, MCKIP and now, MCKILP go hand in hand. MCKILP serves as the missing link that would boost the trade distribution network and functions as an intermodal connecting point with Kuantan Port, the national highways, airport and ECRL,” it said.
It said MCKILP would be strategically located less than 10 kilometres from the ECRL’s Kuantan Port station and is 1.7 kilometre from Kuantan Port and 25 kilometres from Kuantan town.
IJM said the enhanced connectivity of the ECRL provided a viable land route alternative to the traditional and overcrowded shipping routes between the South China Sea and Melaka Straits, positioning Kuantan Port as a major regional shipping hub.
Lee said MCKIP, MCKILP and ECRL are expected to contribute positively to IJM-owned Kuantan Port’s bulk cargo and container throughput.
“Collectively, these ambitious projects represent one of the most significant integrated industrial, transport and logistics hub that the east coast region has seen in recent years,” he added.
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GlobalWafers plans November start for Texas plant construction
Taipei, June 28 (CNA) Taiwan-based GlobalWafers Co., the world's third-largest supplier of silicon wafers, said Tuesday it was aiming to start work on a proposed Texas plant by November - provided the U.S. Congress approves CHIPS for America Act funding before August.
During a virtual press conference, GlobalWafers Chairwoman and CEO Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said the firm was ready to begin construction on the 3.2 million-square-foot 12-inch silicon wafer plant in Sherman, Texas before the end of the year - but only if it secures expected subsidies under the CHIPS (Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors) for America Act before the Congressional recess in August.
Hsu said GlobalWafers would likely adjust its investment plan for Sherman if legislative wrangling sees the funding help up.
Hsu spoke with the press Tuesday after her company announced plans on Monday for the Sherman plant, which GlobalWafers anticipates will begin operations in 2025 and have an ultimate production capacity of 1.2 million wafers per month.
"With the global chips shortage and ongoing geopolitical concerns, GlobalWafers is taking this opportunity to address issues surrounding U.S. semiconductor supply chain resiliency, by building a state-of-the-art, 300-millimeter silicon wafer factory," Hsu said in a statement released Monday.
"Instead of importing wafers from Asia, GlobalWafers USA (GWA) will produce and supply wafers locally, thereby reducing carbon emissions," Hsu added.
In the Tuesday online meeting, Hsu said in addition to CHIPS for America subsidies, GlobalWafers had also taken into account other factors including the availability of talent, electricity, and water supplies in Texas.
Hsu said GlobalWafer has secured a deal for favorable power tariffs for the new plant in Texas, adding that the company would work with universities in the U.S. and Taiwan to train skilled workers for the plant.
Hsu said GlobalWafers would pour an initial investment of NT$55 billion (US$1.86 billion) into the plant, but estimated that the firm's total investment would hit around US$5 billion if monthly production is to reach 1.2 million units.
Liu Pei-chen (劉佩真), a researcher at the Taiwan Industry Economics Database under the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, said the decision for GlobalWafers to invest in Texas showed the company was banking on the state's future as a hotbed of wafer fabrication.
In May, Texas Instruments broke ground on a US$30 billion in Sherman, while Tesla and IBM have likewise set up shop in other cities in the state. GlobalWafers' plan in Texas came after the company's deal to acquire its German peer, Siltronic AG., fell apart in February as it failed to secure regulatory approval from the German government.
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Former Asda chief executive Andy Bond has set up a retail investment vehicle with a team of City bankers.
According to the Financial Times, Bond has set up the vehicle, called Sparetop, with head of retail investment banking at Goldman Sachs Daniel Yealland. It is understood the vehicle will be used to acquire small retail businesses.
Two other directors in the venture are James George, a partner at OC&C Strategy Consultants and Tim Macready, chief executive of SkillCapital, a headhunter to private equity firms.
The first venture is thought to be an online company and just weeks away.
Bond is also chairman of fashion chain Republic and online bikes retailer Wiggle.