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(Bloomberg) — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. slashed its outlook for fiscal 2022 revenue after intensifying competition and dwindling consumer spending depressed growth at China’s top e-commerce firm.
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The disappointing forecast followed sales that missed analyst estimates for a second straight quarter. Alibaba posted a less-than-expected 29% rise in revenue for the September quarter to 200.7 billion yuan ($31.4 billion). It forecast 20% to 23% growth in fiscal 2022 revenue, short of the 27% that analysts were projecting. Net income plummeted 81% to 5.4 billion yuan, lagging estimates after the internet giant marked down the value of equity investments.
On Thursday, executives fielded a barrage of questions from analysts concerned about the longer-term picture for growth and Alibaba’s efforts to fend off rivals. The lackluster numbers underscored the former stock market darling’s struggle to revive businesses walloped by macroeconomic and regulatory turmoil. Alibaba’s stock fell 10% in New York.
The results “missed already lowered consensus by 3.2%,” Citigroup analysts wrote in a quick note. “More alarmingly, FY2022 full year revenue guidance was revised to only grow at 20-23%.”
Read more: Jack Ma’s Ant Group Sees Profit Rise 39% on Investments
Chief Executive Officer Daniel Zhang said Alibaba will share its outlook in greater detail during an annual investor forum starting Dec. 16.
Revenue growth at a plethora of divisions including its Cainiao logistics arm and local on-demand services underperformed expectations, while bread-and-butter customer management revenue from platforms like Taobao and Tmall grew just 3% — the slowest in at least five quarters.
Competition is intensifying just as China grapples with the widest Covid-19 outbreak since the virus first emerged in Wuhan. Rivals like JD.com Inc. and Pinduoduo Inc. are stepping up investments to win over Alibaba’s users, just as a resurgence in coronavirus cases dents consumer spending. Gross domestic product expanded 4.9% in the September quarter, cooling from the 7.9% growth in the previous period, partly because of lockdown measures across many cities.
“Looking ahead, we will continue to invest heavily into three growth engines of domestic consumption, globalization, cloud computing and data intelligence,” Zhang told analysts on the call.
Pinduoduo this year surpassed Alibaba as the largest Chinese e-commerce platform by annual active shoppers, reaching 849.9 million users in the 12 months to June. Meanwhile, JD.com has been attracting new and returning brands like Starbucks and Estee Lauder to its platforms, taking advantage of Beijing’s edict to end exclusivity arrangements previously imposed upon merchants.
Executives said they will continue to build features to round out their platforms and retain consumers. The company reported 953 million annual active buyers in China over the past 12 months and said it’s on track to hit a billion before the end of the fiscal year.
The cloud division, the second-largest revenue contributor, was another bright spot in the quarter. The firm in October unveiled a new server chip built with 5-nanometer technology, one of the most advanced in the country.
Sales at that unit grew 33% during the quarter, accelerating from previous periods thanks to investments in technology, Zhang said. The division had been struggling to recover after losing a major customer, which Bloomberg News has reported was ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok service.
Read more: In Alibaba’s Parallel Universe, Where Ant Had an IPO: Tim Culpan
The slowdown at Alibaba looked set to extend into a December quarter that included Singles’ Day, the year’s biggest shopping festival. Alibaba last week reported sales of $84.5 billion during the blockbuster event, reaching yet another record. But the 8.5% increase was a stark slowdown from previous years, as the company eschewed high-profile promotions to focus on sustainability and philanthropy — key pillars of President Xi Jinping’s drive to achieve “common prosperity.”
What Bloomberg Intelligence Says:
Alibaba may expedite investments into newer services such as Taobao Deals and Taocaicai in 2022 to counter rising competition on its existing commerce businesses. The company’s gross merchandise value (GMV) gain of 8% from the 2021 Singles’ Day shopping vs. a year earlier compared to rival JD.com’s 29% reflects rising pressure on the internet giant to fan growth over the next 12 months, even if it meets expectations for a 6% year-over-year rise in fiscal 2022 GMV.
— Catherine Lim and Tiffany Tam, analysts
Click here for the research
Alibaba’s sales fell short of expectations for the first time in more than two years during the June quarter, battered by an antitrust probe that ended in a record $2.8 billion fine. Since Beijing kicked off its tech crackdown a year ago, the campaign has grown to encompass areas from fintech to data privacy, online advertising as well as content — arenas Alibaba depends on to drive growth beyond its core business.
Beijing’s vision for breaking up so-called walled gardens by its tech giants may benefit Alibaba in the long run. Fellow behemoth Tencent has pledged to make it easier for users to share external links, including those to Alibaba’s platforms, on its WeChat super-app. On Thursday, Zhang repeated that Alibaba welcomed more open-ness in the internet sphere.
(Updates with share action and executives’ comments from the third paragraph)
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©2021 Bloomberg L.P.


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Songs played on services like Spotify, Deezer and Napster are set to feature in the chart, marking the first time positions could be affected without fans paying any money.
The Official Charts Company says 100 plays will equal a single sale.
Songs will have to be streamed for a minimum of 30 seconds to qualify.
There will also be controls in place to prevent users playing songs too many times to manipulate the rankings.
The initiative reflects the growing popularity of online streaming.
The number of streams rose from 100 million each week in January 2013, to 200 million at the beginning of 2014.
Official Charts Company chief executive Martin Talbot said: "Audio streaming has grown at an extraordinary rate over the past year - and the time is now right to take this important step.
"The Official Singles Chart is, and always has been, the most trusted and definitive measure of Britain's music tastes.
"Just as it has evolved through the years to reflect the most popular music in the UK, from 10-inch to 7-inch, vinyl to cassingles, CD singles to downloads, this is the latest stage of that progression."
Geoff Taylor, chief executive of music industry body the BPI, said: "The Official Charts are respected around the world as the authoritative measure of UK musical popularity, so it's vital they continue to reflect the new ways that fans are consuming their favourite music."
Streaming data will also be included by the BPI when it certifies platinum, gold and silver discs.

domain: news


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Alcohol prices go high by 20 percent
Pay 20 percent extra for raising a toast.
All alcoholic products will be charged 20 percent extra this Saturday (today) onwards. State government has declared to increase 20 percent surcharge under VAT act. This surcharge is applicable on beer, country liquor, English and even imported liquor. Recently an amendment was made under VAT act for levying cess on liquor. A provision was made to use this cess for the development of cows. On the other hand, consumers were already fuming over licensed stores charging more than MRP.
Raising a toast is not going to be so easy anymore.
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Texans can soon savor Tim Hortons’ delights, renowned for coffee and delectable offerings. The new 1,640 sq ft restaurant, at an estimated cost of $900,000, adds Canadian flavor to North Texas, according to a Local Profile article which says,
“North Texas will soon be able to enjoy the delicacy of Tim Hortons. The Canadian multinational fast-food restaurant is known for its focus on coffee, baked goods, donuts and sandwiches.
A filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Registration shows that Tim Hortons is set to utilize a space spanning 1,640 square feet. The anticipated cost for the construction of the new quick-service restaurant is approximately $900,000.”
Houston restaurateur Emad Lakhany, set to open Tim Hortons in Coppell, aims for a mid-2024 launch. The global coffee chain expands its Texan presence, with more DFW locations planned, according to a Dallas Morning News article. They say,
A Houston restaurateur, Emad Lakhany, who is opening the franchised location in Coppell, told the Journal that the coffee shop is expected to open mid-2024.
The coffee chain was founded in the 1960s and now has thousands of locations around the world, but its first Texas location opened in Katy, near Houston, in 2022. Nicolas Henrich, former Tim Hortons head of U.S. development, told The Dallas Morning News in 2022 that several locations are planned for the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Tim Hortons, famed for coffee, doughnuts, and more, is set to open at 440 N. State Highway 121 in 2024, marking its North Texas expansion


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U.S. President Donald Trump will sign legislation that imposes sanctions on Russia, the White House said on Friday. » Read More
By: Phil LeBeau
Tesla delivered the first 30 Model 3s employees of the company. » Read More
By: Michael Sheetz
Mnuchin, in a letter Friday, exhorted Congress to raise the federal borrowing limit before Sept. 29. » Read More
AT&T's John Stankey will lead the team charged with Time Warner's integration before transitioning to chief executive of the media business. » Read More
Noted security experts Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek — famed for remotely hacking a Jeep — are joining Cruise, GM's self-driving car company.
Preliminary data from the launch reveals at least half the continental U.S. is in range of the missile tested Friday, defense experts say.
Facebook shares rose 1 percent to a new closing high, while its valuation puts it on the brink of entering a very exclusive club.
Shkreli snacked on a bag of Fritos chips while a judge read legal instructions to jurors after they heard closing arguments from lawyers.
Shkreli had boasted that he would get to have sex with a female journalist if he is acquitted during an ongoing trial.
RV sales continue to grow and have brought new, unexpected customers into the fold: millennials.
Speculation is rife that Amazon will attempt to disrupt PBM companies like ExpressScripts.
President Donald Trump expressed dismay on Friday that the Senate failed to repeal Obamacare.
The GOP senator is going home to begin radiation and chemotherapy.
Jurors are expected to start deliberations in the "Pharma bro's" trial later Friday.
Japanese tech giant SoftBank has been plowing billions of dollars into tech companies in the last year, some through its $93 billion Vision Fund
Obamacare remains the law of the land, but the administration has tremendous leeway in how it enforces the program.
July's jobs report and Apple earnings are the big events for a stock market that suddenly has become a shade less confident.
You pay Twitter $99. Twitter decides which tweets to promote, Recode reports.
President Donald Trump heads to Long Island on Friday to speak about gangs.
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker told CNBC that Qatar Airlines and other Gulf airlines receive "unfair" government subsidies.
Get the best of CNBC in your inbox
Slovakian company AeroMobil promises to start delivering this flying car in 2020.
Tesla delivers the first Model 3 vehicles to employee reservation holders.
Jim Cramer shares his methods for how to react when stocks sell off.


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SHANGHAI (AP) — An anti-counterfeiting group said Friday it was suspending Alibaba's membership following an uproar by some companies that view the Chinese e-commerce giant as the world's largest marketplace for fakes.
The International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition told members that it had failed to inform the board of directors about conflicts of interest involving the group's president, Robert Barchiesi.
Earlier Friday, The Associated Press reported that Barchiesi had stock in Alibaba, had close ties to an Alibaba executive and had used family members to help run the coalition.
The coalition, in a letter to members sent after the AP report came out, said conflicts weren't disclosed to the board "because of a weakness in our corporate governance procedures." It said the failure was not because of "inaction on Bob's part," referring to Barchiesi.
The coalition said that it is hiring an independent firm to review its corporate governance policies.
In its letter, the board said that as a result of members' concerns, it was suspending a new class of membership under which Alibaba had recently joined. The move would affect two other companies that signed up under the new rules.
Jennifer Kuperman, Alibaba's head of international corporate affairs, said companies like Alibaba were important for solving the problem of counterfeiting.
"Whether or not we are a member of the IACC, we will continue our productive and results-oriented relationships with brands, governments and all industry partners," she said.
At issue is the independence of a small but influential coalition that lobbies U.S. officials and testifies before Congress.
Alibaba's membership could help shape the global fight against counterfeits. Fakes damage companies' bottom lines, can harm consumers who unknowingly buy such products, and feed a vast underground money-laundering industry that supports criminal syndicates.
In recent weeks Gucci America, Michael Kors and Tiffany have quit the Washington D.C.-based coalition, which has more than 250 members.
The AP found several ties between the group's president and Alibaba:
—Barchiesi has owned Alibaba stock since its 2014 listing in New York. The IACC said in a statement that the holdings represent "a small percentage of his investment portfolio."
—Matthew Bassiur, who took over as vice president of global intellectual property enforcement at Alibaba in January, hired Barchiesi's son, Robert Barchiesi II, to work at Apple back in 2011. Alibaba said that hire was made on merit. Apple declined to comment.
—Bassiur is a founding board member of the ICE Foundation, which supports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees. Since 2013, the foundation has been run by Barchiesi's other son, James Barchiesi. That same year, the foundation's board voted to award a contract for "fiscal and operational management" to a private company, also run by James Barchiesi. The foundation has received grants of $10,000 from the anti-counterfeiting coalition every year since 2012, tax filings show.
Kuperman, of Alibaba, said Bassiur's expertise would help the company "further instill trust in our marketplaces."
"We are highly confident in his abilities and proud to have him at Alibaba in this critical global role," she said.
Robert Barchiesi had also come under fire for his stewardship of the coalition and allegations of conflicts of interest on the move to include Alibaba.
"It's crossed the line ethically," said Deborah Greaves, a partner at Brutzkus Gubner law firm and a coalition board member from 2011 to 2013. She said she didn't know that IACC chief Robert Barchiesi had stock in Alibaba until informed by the AP. "Really problematic," she said.
"Everything the IACC does that makes Alibaba look better potentially drives up the price of the stock," said Greaves, whose firm is a coalition member. "As a board member, I would never have bought stock in Alibaba."
The storm has laid bare the loathing that some feel for a company heralded as one of communist China's greatest capitalist success stories.
Critics had feared Alibaba would use IACC membership to gain legitimacy while papering over fundamental flaws in how it does business. Gucci and other brands owned by France's Kering Group allege in U.S. court filings that Alibaba knowingly profits from the sale of fakes. Alibaba has dismissed the case as "wasteful litigation."
Michael Kors' general counsel has called Alibaba "our most dangerous and damaging adversary."
The coalition's tax filings show that, in addition to the ties to Alibaba, Robert Barchiesi runs his organization like a family business. The coalition paid companies founded and run by one of Barchiesi's sons nearly $150,000 from 2012 to 2014 for rental costs, accounting, IT support and advertising. It employs the son's wife, Kathryn Barchiesi, as a program manager.
Though the coalition attests that its financial statements were reviewed by an independent accountant, tax filings show the accounting firm was owned by Barchiesi's son.
In a statement, the coalition said the family connections had been disclosed and the contracts were fairly valued. "The board of directors of the IACC believes that Mr. Barchiesi's performance as president has been exemplary, and he has the board's full confidence and support," the statement said. The group told its members the same in its letter, which it said was a response to an anonymous letter sent to board members Wednesday that detailed a list of concerns about governance. The letter threatened a mass walkout unless Alibaba was pushed out. The writer claimed to represent a group of concerned members, but that could not be verified.
"What you have allowed this organization to become is utterly disgusting and changes must be made immediately," the email says.
The move to suspend Alibaba comes ahead of the IACC's spring conference in Orlando next week, where the Chinese company's founder Jack Ma was scheduled to speak.


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Hyperloop One is exploring building its first commercial Hyperloop system in Dubai.
On Monday evening, the company signed a deal with DP World, one of the largest port terminal operators in the world. The two companies will conduct a feasibility study to see if a Hyperloop route for Port Jebel Ali located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates would be more efficient than the current system.
The Hyperloop, of course, is a tubular transport system that carries passengers or freight in capsules at speeds reaching more than 700 miles per hour. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk first proposed the idea in a white paper published in 2013 and made his research public so others could pursue developing the concept. The LA-based startup Hyperloop One is doing just that.
Essentially, the idea is that a Hyperloop system would move freight more effectively to an inland location from the port in Dubai.
"By eliminating the barriers of time and distance, we believe we can increase the volume of freight DP World moves through the port using a Hyperloop to a new inland depot, which supports more revenue and profit for all stakeholders," said Rob Lloyd, Hyperloop One’s CEO, in a press statement. "A Hyperloop system fits very seamlessly with existing transportation corridors, minimizing any impact on urban Dubai and reducing freeway congestion and emissions."
Hyperloop One has been busy forming new partnerships with cities and companies in its effort to make the futuristic transportation system a reality.
In June, Hyperloop One announced a partnership with the City of Moscow and a local company called Summa Group to explore bringing the Hyperloop to Russia.
Hyperloop One is pressing ahead in its development of the Hyperloop despite an explosive lawsuit that was brought against the company about a month ago by former employees, including one of the company’s co-founders, Brogan BamBrogan.
BamBrogan, who was also the chief technology officer, accused Shervin Pishevar, co-founder and executive chairman, of breaching his fiduciary duty as well as mismanagement of funds.
According to the lawsuit, defendant Afshin Pishevar, who is the company's chief legal counsel, allegedly placed a hangman's noose on BamBrogan's chair after BamBrogan and 10 other employees voiced their concerns to top executives.
The lawsuit includes a picture allegedly taken from a security camera showing Afshin carrying the noose.
Hyperloop One, though, fired back, filing a counter lawsuit of its own accusing BamBrogan and the other employees of manufacturing a rebellion “in a transparent attempt to seize control of the company.”
NOW WATCH: The Best Features Of Elon Musk's Hyperloop


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KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysia Autoshow 2024 (MAS 2024), to be held between May 22 and 26 2024, is expected to bring in between RM1.6 and RM1.7 billion of potential sales, surpassing last year's sales of RM1.4 billion.
Investment, Trade, and Industry minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said the amount reached last year was a testament to the collective strength of the automotive industry in creating awareness on the products, technologies and brands that define Malaysia's automotive landscape.
"In acknowledging the achievements of MAS 2023 and setting the stage for MAS 2024, we must recognize and celebrate the talent within our local automotive community. "The individuals and teams driving the innovations showcased at MAS represent the best of Malaysian ingenuity. Their dedication, skill, and unwavering commitment contribute significantly to the growth and success of our automotive sector. "It is therefore, through their efforts that Malaysia continues to be a force to be reckoned with in the global automotive landscape," he said in his speech at the launch of MAS 2024.
The seventh edition of the autoshow organised by the Malaysia Automotive, Robotics and IoT Institute (MARii), continues the tradition of showcasing the latest vehicles on the market, for both internal combustion engine (ICE) and electric vehicles (EV) alike, highlighting more brands with an expansion from 30,000 square meter to 40,000 square meters of exhibition space.
Tengku Zafrul said MAS 2024 was strategically designed to emphasise the importance of sustainable practices within the automotive sector.
He said the autoshow does not only aim to promote a green future for the industry by featuring eco-friendly and energy efficient vehicles, it also looks to inspire a collective shift towards responsible and sustainable practices, both at the industry and consumer levels.
"While the government has spoken a lot about electric vehicles, it by no means should take away attention from energy efficiency in traditional power trains. "Even for internal combustion engines, the government is continuously incentivising the production of energy efficient vehicles (EEVs) in tandem with alternative powertrains," he said.
MARii chief executive officer Azrul Reza Aziz said the bigger venue capacity of Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang (MAEPS), and nearby IOI City Mall, is expected to attract 250,000 visitors.
Tickets are available for sale from today, Dec 12, 2023.


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New video series entitled “Exploring Main Street”
Cornwall Business Enterprise Centre
A new video series entitled “Exploring Main Street” has been launched to highlight local small businesses in Cornwall, SDG and Akwesasne.
We are excited to now share Simply Baked Catering’s showcase video.
This initiative was developed to help connect consumers with small bricks and mortar businesses in the region. The project is funded by the Digital Main Street program and administered by the Cornwall Business Enterprise Centre.


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Top Green Products for Buyers? The Ones that Save Money
WASHINGTON – According to a recent survey of builders and remodelers by the National Association of Home Builders, buyers are most interested in green products and services that directly affect utility bills and indoor environmental quality (IEQ).
Of the survey respondents, 57% ranked “finding an energy-efficient home” as their top request, while 84% ranked it as one of their top three requests.
In regard to product systems that impact IEQ – water conservation and renewable energy – around 44% to 54% of builders and remodelers ranked those requests in their top three as well.
Roughly 25% of builders and remodelers said homeowners and homebuyers requested material and resource-conserving products. LED lighting was the most requested energy-efficient item, with an 85% request rate. It also ranked as the top green project in terms of what remodelers have actually undertaken at 91%.
Direct outdoor ventilation using fans was the top IEQ home improvement request from homeowners and homebuyers (72%), and 81% of builders and remodelers are currently putting those types of projects in place.
The results for water conservation are similar: 72% of homeowners and buyers requested high-efficiency plumbing fixtures as their top green product, and 81% of builders have started those projects.
Looking at reusable materials, 84% of builders and remodelers are implementing products based on a 64% homeowner and homebuyer request rate.
However, only 8% of homeowners and homebuyers have requested solar power, which may be why only 16% of solar projects have been put into place.
Source: Miami Agent Magazine (06/25/2020) Girardin, Alessia
© Copyright 2020 INFORMATION INC., Bethesda, MD (301) 215-4688


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A teardown of the new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone conducted by TechInsights shows that the device’s NFC functionality is provided by an Inside Secure SecuRead NFC controller and secure element module. Earlier BlackBerry NFC phones also used chips from Inside Secure for NFC.
- UAE launches blockchain postage stamp with NFC authentication
- Apple delays rollout of digital IDs in Wallet until early 2022
- Researchers use extended-range NFC to develop smart fabric for multiple use cases
- British Standards Institute unveils NFC digital ID system for construction products
- Researchers develop ultra-thin ‘computer on the bone’ using NFC for bone health monitoring
This article is more than eight years old


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We’ve touched on the new Model 110 in other posts, but now it’s time to take a closer look. First off, this rifle is the real deal. Savage has slowly solidified itself as a serious name in the firearm industry as one of the few brands that produces high-quality products at a fair price. They
The post Close-Up from SHOT Show: Savage’s New Model 110 with AccuFit appeared first on Wide Open Spaces.


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Taxi traffic falls by 90% in a matter of a few weeks
GagliardiPhotography / Shutterstock.com
Nationwide, taxi traffic has fallen by 90%, according to the National Taxi Association, writes Világgazdaság.
A distinctive yellow Budapest taxi in Budapest’s downtown on March 30, 2019. Recent weeks have seen a catastrophic fall in trips made by cab. Photo by GagliardiPhotography / Shutterstock.com
At the beginning of the year, there were more than 7,000 taxis in Budapest, and now fewer than 2,500 travel the streets.
The number of taxi journey orders has decreased by 80% in recent weeks; the previous average of 4,200 daily journeys has fallen to about 1,200 during the coronavirus crisis, falling further to only 300-400 on weekends, Miklós Tamás, president of City Taxi, told the economic daily.
The cooperative firm organizes the transport for 850 taxi drivers and employs 30-40 workers. The president stressed that City wants to keep all its employees. Attempts are being made to bridge the current situation with paid or unpaid leave, and only half of taxi drivers work one day at a time, vg.hu notes.
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Tablets are the next big thing! They're brilliant! They're wonderful to use! They're super-convenient and awesome!
That's what everybody is saying, isn't it? But where are all these brilliant devices that everyone's been squawking so loudly about?
It's fairly safe to say that the tablet market hasn't exactly exploded in a whirlwind of fiery, world-beating über-tablets. Not yet, anyway.
Until the likes of the BlackBerry Playbook, the Motorola Xoom and the Asus Eee Pads finally make their way onto the shelves and into our homes (not long, now), we're left with a fairly disjointed-looking product line-up.
The latest Android tablet to grace the TechRadar office is the Creative Ziio 7-inch. It was announced last year alongside the Creative Ziio 10-inch, which has yet to hit the shops.
At just £199, it's one of the cheapest Android tablets available. So is it a bargainous wonder, or is it a dead touchscreen dog?
The specs don't promise much. This is a tablet running a slightly modified Android 2.1, a resistive touchscreen, no 3G connectivity and no Android Market.
Can it recover from that fairly so-so start?


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Sunday Alcohol Ban Will Finally Get Debate in Legislature
The Indiana House plans to hold its first-ever committee hearing on whether to lift the state's ban on Sunday alcohol sales.
Study committees have reviewed the so-called blue law, but when House Public Policy Chairman Bill Davis (R-Portland) gavels in his committee, it'll be the first time the House has considered a bill on the subject. Davis says he hasn't decided whether he'll allow a vote on the bill, nor which way he'll vote himself if he does. But he says lobbyists on both sides have been pressing the issue anyway, and the debate might as well take place in public.
The law has long pitted two groups of retailers against each other in mortal combat, with supermarkets arguing customers deserve the convenience of seven-day-a-week availability, and liquor stores warning they'd be driven out of business if they have to compete on Sundays.


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New information spotted online has confirmed previous reports about the existence of Windows Lite. According to reports, the presence of a Lite version for Windows has been confirmed along with why Microsoft is making such a move. Diving into the details, the company is making this version to target Chromebook-like devices along with upcoming dual-screen devices. The report revealed that such devices may launch in the market later this year. Though that depends on how ready the PC and chip makers are. Also Read - Productivity paranoia making hybrid work unsustainable, says MicrosoftAlso Read - How to enable Dynamic Lock on Windows PC: A step-by-step guide
Talking about the Windows Lite version. essentially it is a more stripped-down version of Windows that has been prioritized for devices with two screens. This is in line with the new hardware lineup that Intel has been trying to create with other OEMs as noted in a report by The Verge. According to the report, it is likely that future devices may look like the much-rumored Courier along with dual screen laptops or even any with a foldable display as we saw in a number of devices at Mobile World Congress 2019. Also Read - Microsoft Excel: How to import data from websites, images, or printouts into the Excel sheet
Watch: Snapdragon 8cx Always Connected PCs
Even though the devices are not ready, it looks like the company wants to be ready for the future of computing devices. As part of building Windows Lite, the company is also working on Composable Shell or C-Shell along with Windows Core OS, a more modular version of the current Windows Shell. The modular version is currently powering Windows on new devices including HoloLens 2, and the upcoming Surface Hub 2X.
According to the report, the interface of the Windows Lite will be somewhat similar to what we see on the full version of Windows. Though, it will also look similar to the interface on the Surface Hub shell along with the functionality from the Windows Phone Continuum UI. Though it is possible that the interface may undergo significant changes before the final version.


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BELVIDERE, Ill. -- Italian automaker Fiat SpA is open to expanding a newly announced partnership with Mazda Motor Corp. and building the Japanese automaker's vehicles at Fiat and Chrysler Group LLC factories worldwide.
Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive of Fiat and Chrysler, added that Fiat was open to other partnerships to help lower the automaker's costs and expand its global reach.
"We will continue to look at other bilateral arrangements," Mr. Marchionne told reporters on the sidelines of an event at a Chrysler plant in Belvidere. "We're totally open."
Fiat and Mazda announced Wednesday that they were working together on developing and manufacturing a roadster, or two-seater convertible, although the automakers said they would come up with different, distinctly styled models. And each company would use its own engine.
"The economics make it very difficult" for most automakers to continue to produce all their own platforms and powertrains, Mr. Marchionne told reporters. "We're willing to engage in discussions with anyone else."
At the Belvidere Assembly Plant, Chrysler builds the Dodge Dart compact car, the first vehicle to be offered from a platform developed by Fiat and Chrysler. Chrysler builds Jeeps at its Toledo Assembly complex.
Meanwhile, Mr. Marchionne said there was a "better than 50 percent chance" that Fiat would boost its stake in Chrysler by 3.3 percent in July. Fiat took management control and a 20 percent stake in Chrysler three years ago when the No. 3 U.S. automaker emerged from a government-funded bankruptcy. Fiat owns 58.5 percent of Chrysler, while the retiree health-care trust affiliated with the United Auto Workers union, the VEBA, owns the rest.
Starting in July, Fiat has the option to buy 40 percent of the VEBA's stake in Chrysler in small increments. Fiat can buy a maximum of 3.3 percent of Chrysler every six months. This option expires in 2016.
VEBA and its stake in Chrysler are managed by an independent fiduciary. In a statement, the trust said it had "no knowledge" of the arrangement.
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Black Friday Record Store Day is set for Friday, NOv. 27, and Scheuenstuhl is gearing up to sell a bevy of Record Store Day exclusive vinyl release.
Record Store Day started as a grassroots campaign in 2007 to support independent record stores that were facing extinction in an increasingly digital music business. The event features hundreds of musicians appearing and performing at independent stores across the country, and issuing special vinyl and CD releases to mark the occasion. It has grown immensely over the years. In 2008, there were 10 special Record Store Day releases. In recent years, there have been hundreds of special RSD releases.
Scheuenstuhl uses RSD as a way to remind customers about his fantastic inventory, holding a storewide sale – 20 percent off new items and 30 percent off used items that are not RSD-specific releases – to reward those who come to the shop on Saturday.
The 411: Black Friday Record Store Day 2015 is Friday, Nov. 27. Mill Valley Music is located at 320 Miller Ave., (415) 389-9090. Click here for more details, and click here for a full list of Record Store Day releases nationwide.


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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Gretchen Salter, Safer States, 206- 619-0973
(Portland, OR) –States are stepping up to protect public health from harmful chemicals, according to an analysis by Safer States. The analysis found that at least 29 states will consider more than 180 policies to require companies to disclose what is in their products as well as limit exposures to toxic chemicals. These policies include bans on PFAS in food packaging and firefighting foam as well as bans on toxic flame retardants in electronics. The analysis, including a searchable database, is available online at SaferStates.org/bill-tracker.
CONTACT: Jamie Nolan, email@example.com, 410-463-9869
Seattle, WA– A coalition of environmental health advocacy groups today released new research revealing hazardous and outdated flame retardant chemicals contained in streaming televisions from Best Buy and Amazon. Continue reading
In a groundbreaking move, the European Commission has adopted a regulation to ban organohalogen flame retardants in televisions and other displays. The ban goes into effect in 2021, protecting Europeans as well as workers around the globe from unnecessary exposure to these harmful chemicals. Continue reading
As consumers increasingly demand less toxic products and laws require the use of safer chemicals, retailers are requiring suppliers to stop using harmful chemicals in consumer products.
Chemicals included in these voluntary phaseouts include four classes of chemicals that have emerged as a particular concern for the health of both humans and wildlife: PFAS, toxic flame retardants, phthalates, and APEs.
It’s time for immediate action to address the toxic chemicals harming orcas and people! That’s why over 40 organizations have come together to urge action on the Pollution Prevention for Our Future Act.
Harmful toxic chemicals added to consumer products, like TVs or carpeting, can escape the product and contaminate our homes, food, breastmilk, and bodies. The same toxic chemicals, including toxic flame retardants, phthalates, and nonstick PFAS, are making their way into the environment and affecting the health of orcas, their young, and their food sources too. Continue reading
Five classes of chemicals in consumer products are emerging as particular concern for the health of both humans and orcas. Continue reading
Seattle – Today, Governor Inslee’s Southern Resident Killer Whale Task Force released its recommendations for protecting the endangered southern resident orca population, including recommendations for reducing threats posed by toxic contaminants. Toxic pollution is one of the major threats to orcas, not only affecting orca health but also the availability of their favored food source, Chinook salmon. Continue reading
Shopping at a store shouldn’t involve guesswork about whether a TV contains toxic flame retardants or a shampoo is made with hormone-disrupting chemicals. But the reality is that consumers are hard-put to make healthy decisions for their families because there are few restrictions on the toxic chemicals used in consumer products. Continue reading
Over the last month we’ve been glued to news reports about Tahlequah, the 22-year-old Southern Resident Killer Whale that carried her dead calf hundreds of miles for nearly three weeks. I had tears in my eyes more than once thinking about the baby orca that had deadly chemicals flowing from its mother to its body before it even had a chance to be born. We know that this is what happens with human babies too. Continue reading


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Summer is in full-swing, and for some South Florida consumers this means vacation time. But for their four-legged friends, this often means a staycation at a pet boarding facility or at home with pet sitter.
About 2 million Floridians traveled more than 50 miles for the Fourth of July holiday this year, estimated AAA Travel, and about 1.6 million traveled for Labor Day last year.
Americans will spend about $55.53 billion on their pets this year, according to the American Pet Products Association, and $4.54 billion of that will be spent on pet services, which includes boarding and pet sitting.
"Our pet hotel is busy, busy, busy all summer long," said veterinarian Kenneth Simmons, the owner of the Barkers Hotel & Purrington Inn at the Simmons Veterinary Hospital in Lake Worth.
The Barkers Hotel had 160 to 170 dogs and 30 to 40 cats boarding during the Fourth of July weekend. During the rest of the summer, the hotel has 50 to 70 dogs boarding every week.
The hotel mostly caters to cats and dogs but will accept "anything that moves," said hospital administrator Sherri Kelley.
Inspired by the renowned Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Barkers distinguishes itself from other boarding facilities by trying to provide pets with the same luxury experience their owners expect when going on vacation.
The most expensive room goes for $90 a night and includes the pet equivalent of a king-sized bed, a flat screen TV that plays movies and skylights.
"It's a very sexy place," said Simmons, who owns three dogs.
Cheaper rooms are smaller in size and include the pet equivalent of a queen-sized or a twin-sized bed. Most rooms are tiled.
Busboys deliver food on carts, and all dogs receive baths.
During the day, the dogs are let loose to play in a pool area dubbed Barkeritaville Lagoon and in a grassy park, which together cover 2 acres. More than 40 employees supervise the residents. Grooming and training services are also available.
"I don't want to just board animals," said Simmons. "I wanted to have a place that pets and their owners want to come."
The Coral Springs Animal Hospital offers a more cost-conscious option that still includes plenty of play time. Rooms start at $18 a night and include four walks a day for all dogs. The hospital also eschews wire cages, opting for glass-enclosed rooms.
During the summer months, the boarding facility averages about 60 dogs, which is almost double what the hospital has during the rest of the year. During a holiday, they board more than 150 animals.
"Our goal is for them to have as good a time here as they do at home, actually even better," said hospital manager Shayne Gardner.
Boarding is not always a feasible option for all owners and their pets.
"Pet sitters are a wonderful option for certain types of dogs," said Simmons, who has been a vet for more than 30 years.
Andrea Torrents is the owner of The Pet Nanny Services Inc., which offers in-home pet sitting across Broward County. One visit costs $20, regardless of how many animals are at home, and sitters will visit as many as four times a day. During these visits, the sitters will feed, play with and clean up after the pets, water plants, pick up the mail and make the house look lived in.
Torrents employs between 6 and 14 sitters and has about 2,200 clients. During the summer months and holiday season, she and her sitters can make as many as 40 visits a day. On a normal day, they make between 10 and 15 visits.
"Summer is a big time for us," she said.
When selecting a sitter, Terry Chance, a director at Pet Sitters International, recommends that owners ensure the individual has insurance, a contingency plan, a clean criminal history and prior experience caring for animals.
A sitter who meets these criteria can bring a professional quality to pet care, something "your friend or neighbor can't do," she said.
A clean, well-lighted place
Tips for selecting a pet boarding facility:
Cleanliness: An odor-free environment is a good clue to how clean a boarding facility is. Accidents happen, but the overall facility shouldn't smell bad, said veterinarian Kenneth Simmons.
Service: The personnel should be friendly and welcoming.
Cost: The facility should be affordable for the pet owner.
Tour: Ask for a spontaneous tour. A good facility should be able to give you one on the spot, said Simmons.
Source: Veterinarian Kenneth Simmons


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Famous holiday resort to reopen with 50 new restaurant suites
- Credit: Nick Butcher
A holiday resort is emerging from lockdown completely remodelled with 50 new restaurant suites providing “dining bubbles” for its all-inclusive guests.
Potter’s Resort, in Hopton, was among the first to shutdown in the early days of the pandemic, and has been significantly affected.
It now aims to reopen on July 17 offering “new breaks for the new normal” with guests dining in exclusive, private restaurants, and entertainment from the Potters team beamed live into their rooms and around the resort.
To achieve the change and restart bookings owner John Potter has stripped back 50 large hotel rooms to create restaurant suites for between six and 18 people.
He says he has also invested heavily in technology.
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Guests will have exclusive use of the suites during their stay in resort accommodation.
The offer is being billed as “unique” and a saviour for the resort, which was built up over 100 years as a mainly indoor concept designed to meet the challenges of the British weather, not a global pandemic.
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Speaking on a live stream YouTube broadcast Mr Potter said the restaurant suite was a second room for guests they could “call home”.
“I think it is going to turn out to be a saviour,” he said.
“It is not what Potters was last year in terms of numbers, and it is going to be much more exclusive, an even more intimate and exclusive Potters.
“We have a fantastic opportunity to ride this out in a fun way.
“When it kicked off we were in the eye of the storm and I thought ‘is this going to end on my watch’?”
MORE: Seaside communities have ‘nothing to fear’ from returning touristsHowever he added he had been “humbled” by the patience and feedback of guests as the resort looked to reinvent itself in its centenary year.
“I think we have the perfect safe bubble for everybody,” he said. “It is really exciting and I cannot wait to welcome everybody back on the resort. It has taken a lot of investment and a lot of planning.”
The new “perfectly formed” restaurants allow multiple groups of up to 18 people to shelter and socialise as long as separate households are socially distanced.
Although guidelines have allowed him to reopen the large dining area he was wary of “stranger danger” and understood some guests wanted to mingle with their own trusted friends and family in a private, shared space.
There would still be all the “madness and fun” of Potters, for those who wanted it, he said, with entertainment and activities organised both online and in person, including tennis, bingo, archery, quizzes and interactive competitions between suites.
Having invested heavily in technology, it means guests can star in broadcasts from the new Live channel.
The pool, theatre, and gym remain closed under current guidelines, but with things changing all the time he was poised to adapt, he said.
Each suite will be provided with a double fridge full of drinks, food will be served all day with staff summoned at the touch of a button, and a dinner party every night for each group.
Usual capacity for the resort, also known as ‘the home of bowls’, is 800 people.
It employs some 600 staff, 105 in the theatre alone, with around 1,800 local members of the fitness club.
Mr Potter said the new concept would save jobs.
It is hoped live entertainment will soon be allowed on the newly created south terrace which people will be able to view from their private restaurant balconies.
Under the new programme people can book a four-night midweek break (beginning Mondays) or a three-night weekend break (beginning Fridays), from Friday July 17.
Prices start at £349 per adult.
In March Mr Potter announced he was “heartbroken” to be closing Potters as the pandemic took hold.


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Nintendo just snuck out a new version of the original ‘Legend of Zelda’ — and it’s available now on the Nintendo Switch
When you weren't looking, Nintendo snuck out a fancy new version of the original "Legend of Zelda" — the one from the Nintendo Entertainment System! The one that came out in 1986! That one!
People lined up for hours at New York Comic Con to try new, unreleased video game demos — here are the hottest games at the show
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"Borderlands 2 VR" will launch in December as a PlayStation VR exclusive with enhanced visuals and new abilities.
"Minecraft," the second-highest selling game of all time, is no longer available on Apple's set-top box, The Apple TV. Microsoft says it's dropping support due to a lack of players.
Sony's next version of the PlayStation — widely expected to be named the PlayStation 5 — is already in development. Sony's new president calls the console "necessary," pushing back on the idea of a Netflix-like game streaming future.
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The beginner’s guide to technology in 2018: All of the essential gadgets and services actually worth your money
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THE NEW YORK OBSERVER -- Nov 10 -- The high-end matchmaker Janis Spindel, who charges up to $250,000 for her services, told the Daily Transom she's been receiving more barter offers than ever. "Instead of writing me a check, they want to give me townhomes, cars, diamond jewelry", Ms. Spindel said. Last weekend, the owner of a high-end car dealership enticed Ms. Spindel with a brand-new Rolls Royce. She and her prospective client are still negotiating the terms of their contract, but Ms. Spindel is more than willing to make it work. "It's really not a bad deal," she said. "He wants a wife and I want a red Corniche."
The full article was originally published at The New York Observer, but is no longer available.


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Automotive tech start-ups catapulted on to the US stock market via blank cheque vehicles have together amassed a market capitalisation of approaching $60bn even as several are yet to book a single dollar of revenue or make a product.
The electric vehicle sector proved fertile hunting ground last year for special purpose acquisition vehicles, which take companies public by raising money from investors and then cutting deals.
After stock markets recovered from a March meltdown when the pandemic erupted, blue-chip mutual funds, private equity firms and retail investors ploughed money into Spacs, which often bought companies with grand ambitions but limited track records.
With technology disrupting the car industry, investors have raced to secure exposure to potential winners — whether battery makers, manufacturers of other forms of power storage or developers of the “lidar” sensors that some believe are key to the development of self-driving cars.
Yet according to a Financial Times analysis, the nine auto tech groups that listed via a Spac last year expected revenues of just $139m between them for 2020. They include QuantumScape, a battery company backed by Bill Gates and Volkswagen; the hydrogen truck start-up Nikola; and the lidar company Luminar Technologies.
While the past 12 months proved a hot market for tech groups doing conventional IPOs, bankers and lawyers say that the Spac process gives companies — and the vehicles acquiring them — far greater latitude in disclosing future financial projections. The nine auto tech companies, for example, together predict their revenues will reach $26bn by 2024.
Spacs often justify stratospheric projections by pointing to large “addressable markets” such as that for electric vehicles, where even a tiny market share can be lucrative and make valuations based on predictions of future revenues appear cheap.
“There is a regulatory arbitrage between the Spac model and traditional IPOs,” said Gary Posternack, head of global M&A at Barclays.
“In the marketing process around Spac combinations, there is an ability to discuss projections or forward guidance, whereas in regular-way IPOs, companies can’t provide that information. The regulators may ultimately try to narrow this gap, but for now the difference is creating real opportunities,” he added.
The money pouring into the sector — and not just via blank cheque vehicles — is a bet that electric vehicles will eventually become ubiquitous. The market research firm IDTechEx estimates EVs will constitute up to 80 per cent of the global market by 2040, while heavyweights such as Volkswagen and General Motors are investing billions of dollars to develop their own models.
But even if EVs do become dominant, it will not happen overnight. And as the talismanic performance of the electric vehicle pioneer Tesla — now with a market value of almost $800bn — helps underpin the investment mania for car tech groups, venture capitalists who specialise in backing risky start-ups warn of the potential dangers.
“If you project that your first revenue is in 2025 and you have to build out a model based on a product you haven’t built yet, I think that’s really hard,” said Arjun Sethi, partner at Tribe Capital, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco. “It’s one of the reasons you have venture capitalists.”
QuantumScape’s short history as a public company underlines the volatility investors face. Riding a wave of demand, shares in the group peaked at $131 in late December, a thirteen-fold increase on the $10 at which Spacs typically list.
Spun out from Stanford University, QuantamScape released data that it says shows advances in solid-state battery technology, which could help improve the driving range of electric vehicles. The market capitalisation of the company, which does not expect any revenues until 2024 and any profits for three years after that, last year briefly eclipsed that of Ford and Fiat Chrysler.
However, the stock has since plunged 60 per cent from its peak. QuantumScape did not respond to a request for comment.
Luminar Technologies is another Spac with a brief but so far striking life as a public company. Shares in the group, which develops laser-based imaging sensors, or lidars, that can be used for autonomous driving, have almost doubled since listing in December.
Founded by 25-year-old engineer Austin Russell, the Silicon Valley company has signed a production agreement with Volvo due to begin in 2022, setting it apart from competitors. But its roughly $10bn valuation dwarfs the market for automotive lidar, which Northland Securities analyst Gus Richard estimates will be worth $2.5bn in 2025. Luminar declined to comment.
One senior Wall Street lawyer who has worked on numerous Spac deals says that the enthusiasm of retail investors has been a key feature of the mania for the car tech sector.
“If the trading strategy is ‘I’m going to buy across the spectrum, because there will be winners and I know there will be losers’ then that’s not a crazy investment strategy,” the Spac adviser said. “But not all the electric vehicle companies will survive. They just can’t, there’s too many of them.”
Retail investors were among those caught out by the crisis that engulfed Nikola, a US electric truck start-up and early beneficiary of the investment craze. After peaking in June, Nikola shares tumbled in September after shortseller Hindenburg Research alleged that the company was an “intricate fraud”. Its founder Trevor Milton, who stepped down in September, has denied any wrongdoing.
Despite the turbulence, shares in all nine of the auto tech companies that used Spacs to go public last year trade well above $10, with a median price above $20. Indeed, shares in almost three quarters of the 37 completed Spac deals last year are trading above $10. More than a third are trading above $20.
Nor is there any sign that the wave of interest has peaked. Lucid Motors, a Californian electric vehicle group controlled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund that has yet to deliver a single model, is in talks to merge with one of the Spacs launched by former Citigroup investment banker Michael Klein, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.
However, some caution that the combination of the mania for car tech and Spacs is likely to remain a combustible one this year.
“It’s not sustainable because at some point things are going to normalise and investors are now buying these things blindly,” said a senior equity sales bank executive.
Additional reporting by Arash Massoudi in London
Bridgepoint golden hellos a challenge to private equity and investors alike
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Just what an industry under fire needed. Private equity has been taking flak amid a wave of take-private deals for UK companies.
The charge sheet is long (and not always fair): reckless use of debt, aggressive cost cutting, outsize rewards for those on the inside and a general sense that the rules of engagement, particularly around governance, don’t always apply.
A high-profile listing of one of their own should have been a cause for celebration. Bridgepoint’s shares surged on their first day of trading this month, reflecting strong interest in alternative investments and the rarity of a private equity group joining the premium ranks of the London market.
Yet it was overshadowed by a governance bust-up that played into the worst stereotypes: sorry but the rules don’t apply to us.
First, Bridgepoint’s executive chair William Jackson is staying in that role, something common among US-listed alternative investment groups but in contravention of City best practice. Second, the big name recruited as senior independent director, chair of Marks and Spencer Archie Norman, received a highly unusual signing-on bonus, or “golden hello”, of £1.75m, on top of his annual fee of £200,000.
Amid angst that onerous corporate governance rules are pushing listed companies into private hands, it is sporting of Bridgepoint to attempt to narrow the gap. In reality, it underlines the need to extend some of the more stringent regulations and disclosure requirements for listed companies to their private peers — a key plank of the government’s audit reform proposals.
Sure, the company wanted a high calibre board; three other independent directors received payments of £500,000 too. The sums were, after tax, invested in the company’s stock (which would have provided considerably better alignment with other shareholders if it had involved directors’ own money).
But the payments set a bad precedent and risk the board’s credibility, especially around overseeing pay. The UK Corporate Governance Code, which applies to premium-listed companies, is clear: independence is threatened where a director “has received or receives additional remuneration from the company apart from a director’s fee”. The fact Bridgepoint labelled the payments “initial fees” is perhaps no coincidence but is an explanation surely too cute to run with.
And therein lies the problem. Under the “comply or explain” system, designed to give companies flexibility, shareholders can look forward to a discussion of this in the annual report, long after the point where it was a done deal.
Everyone knows those explanations tend to be pointless boilerplate, something regulator the Financial Reporting Council addressed earlier this year. Giving the FRC more powers to call out code breaches and insipid explanations is another welcome suggestion in the government’s reforms.
There has been much gnashing of teeth from institutional investors this year over the risk to London’s reputation from a mooted overhaul of listing rules, which propose watering down free float requirements and allowing dual-class listing structures in the top tier of the market. There was vocal opposition to Deliveroo’s listing, which eschewed premium status in favour of lower governance expectations.
But the job of enforcing the corporate governance code specifically falls to institutional shareholders, as part of the diligence and oversight exercised in investing clients’ money. Which makes you wonder whether the stewardship teams at asset managers had seen Bridgepoint’s pre-IPO pathfinder prospectus disclosing the payments before their colleagues in effect gave them the nod by buying shares in the listing.
Perhaps they didn’t make it to the relevant bit, page 261 of the 300-page document. There were, I’m told, no questions on the issue in investor meetings as part of the listing process.
The FRC is preparing to announce which of about 200 applicants will be the first signatories to the new Stewardship Code for investors, an effort to set higher expectations around these issues and, presumably, a desirable badge for any money manager professing to be ESG-minded (all of them).
When it comes to explanation, large investors should now be asked not only how they’re addressing issues after the fact but why, on balance, they decided to invest in the first place.
Robinhood IPO: why believers failed to deliver the ‘moonshot’
Robinhood built its business on helping millions of American investors lift stocks “to the moon”, a phrase adopted by those seeking to drive up share prices of favoured “meme-stocks”. But as the US brokerage sold its own shares to the public for the first time on Thursday, the favour was not returned as many ignored the call to buy and some even relished the slide in its shares.
In its few short years Robinhood has revitalised a type of day trading last seen in the dotcom boom, and subsequent bust, more than two decades ago. Investors on its app have sent stocks like Tesla and cryptocurrencies such as dogecoin to all-time highs, and brought conversations about financial markets back to dinner tables across the US.
Its pitch to investors has become marketing folklore: everyone should have access to the US stock market, not simply moneyed institutions on Wall Street. For a moment this year the populist narrative almost held, as newly minted online traders helped send shares of GameStop rallying to the detriment of a prominent hedge fund. Its user base swelled to 31m and it now counts 22.5m funded accounts.
But its rise has been pockmarked by crisis and scandal. It has suffered outages. Customers have been locked out of accounts, with little access to support. It has been fined heavily and regulators have ramped up investigations into how it makes money and whether its game-like features have crossed the line. Vlad Tenev, the Robinhood chief executive, was forced to appear before US Congress earlier this year.
Robinhood’s stock market debut was meant to start a new chapter for the broker. Instead, with shares falling 8.4 per cent from the $32bn market capitalisation set by the company just hours earlier, it represented one of the worst ever starts for an IPO of its size. And it underscored how much work it will have to do to convince the investing world its business can withstand growing pressure from regulators, and that the American public will keep trading once the pandemic is over.
“The whole business model could be impacted by a regulatory crackdown,” says Reena Aggarwal, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington. “The IPO performance doesn’t help. People are feeling like ‘I’m not the only one who has doubts.’ The whole market has doubts about the future of the company.”
For many, the Robinhood brand has come to represent an entire generation of younger, active investors who have surged into the market since the start of the pandemic. The company’s rise began in 2013 with a free app that let users share stock predictions. Two years later, it developed an app that allowed commission-free trading, attracting a waiting list of 800,000 people before launch.
Co-founders Tenev and Baiju Bhatt and their early investors wagered that stock trading would be the wedge into the wallets of millions of new consumers.
Chad Byers, whose firm Susa Ventures first invested in Robinhood in 2013, says the company benefited from “unfair customer acquisition costs” compared with other financial technology start-ups due to the hype around low-cost trading. “It was the most inherently viral part of fintech,” Byers says.
“The brand Robinhood stands for the next generation of consumers,” Tenev said in an interview with CNBC on the morning of the float. “Over time we’d like to be the most trusted, and most culturally relevant investment app worldwide.”
Cultural relevance came easily to the broker. Its easy-to-use app, with dopamine-inducing features, attracted customers and inspired them to check in with the app seven times a day on average.
Its more recent dramatic rise has piggybacked on a once-in-a-lifetime moment that sent US markets into a tailspin and locked most people in their homes. Government stimulus to deal with the pandemic helped plump up savings accounts, and with betting and sporting events cancelled millions of Americans turned to Robinhood to try their hand at something new. And they did so just as the market caught fire, hitting dizzying new heights.
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Zero account minimums and the ability to trade fractional shares helped supercharge its growth and attract people who wanted to enter the market with small sums. This growth put pressure on established brokers and nearly every major player dropped trading commissions by the end of 2019.
Trust has been a bigger challenge. Technical difficulties with its platform on high-volume trading days have cost customers tens of thousands of dollars in losses, according to the regulators of which it has repeatedly run foul.
Several large institutional investors — which are normally crucial to the success of any company in its IPO — sat out Thursday’s flotation, according to people briefed on the matter. Some could not be convinced that Robinhood did not face an “existential threat” to its business from possible regulatory reform, according to one adviser to the company.
Others looked askance at an IPO that planned to put as many as 35 per cent of the 55m shares on sale in the hands of everyday retail investors, a major departure from a traditional listing where the figure often hovers at about 10 per cent.
Robinhood developed plans to offer a portion of the IPO to customers well before it selected banks to lead the process, says one person familiar with the decision. In the end, it sold between 20 and 25 per cent of its shares to customers on its own app, one adviser says. The broker had billed the move as another step along the road to democratising the way high finance operates.
But bankers involved in the process worried about the potential for a lukewarm reception to the offering. As they worked to gauge demand over the past week, it became clear that they faced difficulties drumming up support from many big money managers.
Robinhood’s private backers were equally nervous as it became apparent via feedback from top fund managers that the company’s IPO would receive a lacklustre reception from the public markets. The company ultimately priced its shares at the bottom of a range marketed to investors, and in the first minutes of trading it sank rapidly even from that level, cutting its valuation by nearly $3bn to $29bn.
Death of a day trader
Robinhood’s business model is heavily dependent on revenue from selling buy and sell orders from clients to high-speed market makers, a controversial practice known as payment for order flow. So-called Pfof has come under scrutiny for failing to provide the best prices to investors, and regulation of the practice was one of the many things listed in a more than 70-page “risk factor” section of the Robinhood prospectus.
Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, sponsored a bill in Congress in July that would direct the Securities and Exchange Commission to study Pfof and make recommendations including potentially banning the practice. Gary Gensler, the commission’s chair, is an outspoken critic of Pfof.
Robinhood makes it possible to easily trade stocks in seconds. But it has also lowered barriers to access for higher-risk trading products such as derivatives, leverage and cryptocurrencies, which are difficult to understand and can intensify investor losses, say critics.
Options trading represents the largest chunk of Robinhood’s revenues, contributing 38 per cent of business in the first quarter of 2021. Another 17 per cent came from cryptocurrency trading, with more than one-third of that attributed to speculation in dogecoin, which was initially set up as a joke.
In the run-up to the IPO, Tenev emphasised that Robinhood was a “safety first” company, an attempt to combat criticism that the brokerage incentivised novice traders — half of its customers are first-time traders — to play in these riskier products while providing inadequate customer support. But experts say the numbers don’t stack up.
“The conventional wisdom in customer services is 1,000 or 2,000 customers to one [customer service representative],” says Thomas Peterffy, chief executive of trading platform Interactive Brokers. “Robinhood has 22m customers . . . but only 2,000 total employees. How do they do any customer service?”
This lack of customer support came to a head in June 2020, when Robinhood customer Alex Kearns died by suicide after mistakenly believing he had incurred $730,165 in losses on a margin trade. In fact, his account had a balance of $16,000. Kearns emailed the brokerage’s customer service email — there was no phone number at that time — but only received automated responses before his death.
People close to the company say Robinhood recognised its problems too late to avoid tragedy. Former employees say the death of Kearns was a turning point for the broker’s disrupter approach to financial markets, and it rushed to reinforce its legal and compliance teams, as well as its lobbying presence in Washington.
“Robinhood said they are first and foremost a tech company, but if you are managing people’s wealth, you better see yourself as more than a tech company,” says Democratic congressman Sean Casten, a member of the powerful House Committee on Financial Services.
Lawmakers say providing access is not enough when an app is designed to incentivise trading behaviour and leaves vulnerable customers exposed to the sharp end of the markets.
“If we just say market participation per se is a good thing then we will have negative consequences like what happened to the Kearns family,” Casten says. “Why are we encouraging people to day trade?”
In May, the US regulator Finra levied its highest-ever fine against the brokerage, $70m, for causing “widespread and significant harm” to investors. Robinhood’s business model and practices have also drawn ire from the SEC and Massachusetts, New York and California state regulators.
It is unclear how the brokerage will continue its breakneck growth as it attempts to transition from disrupter to part of the firmament of the financial industry. Robinhood’s revenues are dependent on trading volumes, which hit record levels during the pandemic but are expected to drop as pandemic restrictions are eased.
Experts say Robinhood’s wild success has also been dependent on something it cannot control: a bull market.
“It’s easy to make positive speeches about democratising finance when everything is going up,” says Patrick Krizan, senior economist at Allianz. “It will be more interesting to see how people behave when we democratise the downturn.”
Robinhood push to democratise finance falters with own shares
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Robinhood has had a pretty clear pitch as it has taken on Wall Street’s traditional brokerages with its trading app — democratise finance for all.
That slogan hearkens back to the origins of the company in 2013 in the wake of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement, which railed against wealth inequality and the power of big banks.
Robinhood’s co-founders said they saw a need to disrupt the established, elitist financial system and make equity markets more accessible to everyday investors.
That pitch — reinforced with branding that played on the original Robin Hood ideal of stealing from the rich to give back to the poor — helped make the company the brokerage of choice for many new, young investors piling into equity markets since the start of the pandemic.
But in making its $32bn initial public offering this week, corporate governance activists believe the upstart company has not lived up to the democratic ideals of its mission statement.
Robinhood offered up to 35 per cent of its shares to its own customers, offering access for retail investors to a part of the market traditionally reserved for large investment institutions. It allocated the shares itself, bypassing traditional Wall Street banks by using the new IPO access feature on its app.
However, it has eschewed what corporate governance experts believe is the gold standard for shareholder structures of one share, one vote.
Not all Robinhood shares are created equal. Its co-founders will retain an extraordinary level of control over their company after it goes public. Robinhood’s dual class structure means the shares sold to retail investors and institutions carry one vote, while the shares held by its co-founders Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt carry 10 votes per share.
The former high-frequency traders will own approximately 16 per cent of the company’s shares (7.9 per cent each), yet control 65 per cent of the votes, with Tenev holding 26.2 per cent and Bhatt holding 39 per cent, according to the company’s prospectus.
Dennis Kelleher, the chief executive of Better Markets, a financial reform advocacy group, said it was not clear that retail investors understand that “the owners of Robinhood are rigging share ownership in their favour”.
“Robinhood should tell retail traders that its shares available to them are in fact impaired shares that are always going to be less valuable than the shares of people running Robinhood for their own benefit,” he said.
Some 85 per cent of companies in America that went public in 2020 used one share one vote structures according to data from the Council of Institutional Investors, a corporate governance advocacy body. However, many higher profile companies — particularly in the tech sector — have more power over their investors to push through dual-class structures.
When ride-hailing service Lyft went public, for example, its co-founders owned just 5 per cent of the stock but held on to 49 per cent of the votes using a 20 to 1 dual share structure. In some companies, the extra voting rights even extend to the afterlife. Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann was also issued shares that gave him 20 times the number of votes of common stock shareholders, a privilege that gave him voting rights for up to 540 days after his death.
If the company actually succeeds, the shareholder power imbalance will widen. Tenev and Bhatt’s voting share rises if the share price hits certain price targets. If they receive their maximum agreed compensation including shares, the co-founders’ voting rights would represent more than 75 per cent of total shareholder votes in the company, according to the company’s prospectus.
IPO investors raised concerns about the dual class structure, and the unusual amount of power it gave both Tenev and his increasingly silent partner Bhatt. Both have been dealing with numerous regulatory interventions as a result of their “move fast and break things” approach to Robinhood’s early growth.
One large money manager who declined to invest in the IPO said: “You have no power over the management team if you want to get rid of them, and that is something to worry about.”
Premium valuations placed on hot companies with dual voting class structures in IPOs also tend to dissipate in subsequent years, according to research from the European Corporate Governance Institute on US companies from 1980-2017.
David Erickson, a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school and former IPO banker, said it was not uncommon in recent years for tech companies over the last few years to have a dual-class voting structure. But he said it was odd to have one if a company was claiming to democratise investing.
“One share one vote is how you democratise investing,” he said.
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The latest figures in a report from the London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) had some very positive news for the music industry, demonstrating that global sales had undergone its first growth since 1999 (which just so happens to be when Napster launched), largely thanks to the influx of digital revenue, which was up by 9% at $16.5 billion in 2012.
The latest report from the Record Industry Association of America however, shows sales figures that are in direct contrast with the IFPI’s Digital Music Report, showing instead that music sales in the US fell in 2012, with streaming services being the only thing that keeps revenue afloat, with ‘Access Models’ like Spotify and YouTube making up 15% of the industry’s revenue.
The RIAA report demonstrates that in America, the music industry generated $7.1 billion in sales, and though the record body states the “revenues showed a second year of stabilisation relative to the steep declines of prior years,” the figures show a drop of 0.9% from 2011.
Despite the drop, industry revenue from digital formats continue to grow, and in the last twelve months topped $4 billion, a first for the industry, and up 14% from the previous year, while overall, digitally distributed formats made up 59% of the total US market by dollar value.
The digital growth is chiefly driven by what the RIAA report labels as “access models”, which it defines as services “where users can choose to listen from large libraries of music rather than purchasing individual songs or albums.” RIAA shows sales figures that are in direct contrast with the IFPI’s Digital Music Report, showing instead that music sales in the US fell in 2012…
Basically this includes the on-demand, subscription model based services like Spotify and Deezer, through to internet radio services like Pandora, but also video streaming titans YouTube and Vevo, which generate revenue through advertising.
It is the first time the RIAA has reported revenue from ad-supported models like Spotify’s free service, YouTube, and Vevo; a good thing considering that combined under the ‘access models’ umbrella banner, they made up 15% of the American music industry’s total revenue.
That 15% accounts for over $1 billion for 2012 and is a 6% leap from 2011’s figures, and five times that of the 3% they contributed in 2007.
The breakdown of money generated by specific services within these ‘access models’ isn’t clear, but does note that “revenues from subscription services and streaming services that do not fall under a statutory license were $570.8 million in 2012, up 58.9% from $359.2 million in 2011.”
The report also notes that the number of digital subscribers to paid on-demand services grew to the record high of 3.4 million, a significant contribution to the IFPI’s Digital Music Report figures that showed 20 million paying subscribers worldwide, a 44% rise on 2011, helping account for %10 of digital music revenues, while traditional download stores – like iTunes, Amazon, and Google and Microsoft’s recently launched services – represented approximately 70% of global digital revenues.
The RIAA reports that digital downloads of albums, singles, and videos were up 8.6% by value, from $2.6 billion last year to $2.9 billion in 2012. Of the digital sales, albums grew 12.5% to $1.2 billion, marking the second year where sales of digital albums exceeded 100 million to 116.7 million units. Single downloads also experienced growth from 2011, up 6.7% to $1.6 billion in revenue value.
Once again, physical sales continued to experience a moderate decline, from $3.4 billion in 2011 to $2.8 billion in 2012, a drop of 16.5%, while actual shipping of physical product like CDs and DVDs, was down at 11.7% but vinyl continues to be the dogged bastion of the physical format, following the general trend that its experiencing a revival with a growth in the US report to $163 million in 2012, up 36% from the previous year.
Vinyl also accounts for 2% of the market, which the report points out nearly equals the combined revenue from “ringtones, ringbacks, and other mobile products.”
The RIAA report concludes that the mix of digitally distributed formats is continuing to grow, marking not only the dominant part of the music industry (at 60% according to the report) but also becoming its largest earner when it comes to music sales, forming a significant contribution to the music industry.


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There has been a rise in the use of climate labels on food packaging and menus, but how effective are they? What use do they serve, exactly?
The climatic crisis has arrived. It's a sobering reality, and it's easy to feel helpless as people in the face of rising temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events. Although reform must originate at the governmental level, businesses, and the food industry in particular, may assist individuals make greener decisions. Brands can be more forthcoming about the sustainability of their products and aid in educating consumers about the effects of their eating habits by using climate labels. Find out why many companies, eateries, and even governments are embracing or advocating for climate labels on food goods. Let's start with the obvious question: how is food related to the climate crisis?
Climate change and food insecurity
plant-based alternatives, such as tofu or veggies, are significantly easier on the environment than meats like beef and pork.
Eating beef once or twice a week (so that's, say, one burger and one portion of mince) every week for one year requires about the same amount of land as six tennis courts, and eating the same amount of pork uses up more than 20,500 liters of water, according to the BBC's climate change food calculator, which is based on research from the University of oxford. beans, on the other hand, require slightly more than 1900 liters of water for the same volume of consumption, and tofu requires about 587 liters.
This study also found that compared to eating the same amount of beef, increasing your annual greenhouse gas emissions by just 12 and 7 kg by switching to a plant-based diet of tofu and beans, respectively. About 140 kg of pork is also included. This is so because raising animals for food is a major source of pollution. The UN estimates that it is responsible for 14.5% of annual worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.
A climatic label defined.
Understanding the effects of particular ingredients is crucial because of the widespread impact that the food industry has on the environment. This is aided by climate labels. In a word, these labels inform buyers about the item's effect on the planet.
The products of Meatless Farms, for instance, now have a traffic light labeling scheme. The label, developed by environmental score expert Foundation Earth, considers such factors as emissions, water consumption, pollution, and the product's influence on biodiversity. The best possible ranking is an A+ in the Eco Impact category, which indicates a very little influence on the environment, and the worst possible rating is a G. For emissions, pollution, and impact on biodiversity, Meatless Farms' Plant-Based Mince receives an A, while its water usage receives a B.
Meatless Farm CEO Morten Toft Bech told VegansBay, “By releasing this information, we intend to assist educate our clients about the impact of their food choices on the environment.” “Just think, if shoppers were aware of how their weekly buy could affect the environment, they might be more careful about what they bought,” the author writes.
Will consumers eat more sustainably if they are labeled with climate information?
It's not just Meatless Farm either. Oatly, a plant-based milk company, just announced that they will begin including climate labels on certain of their products. Julie Kunen, the company's director of sustainability, has said, “Transforming the food business is crucial to face the current climate issue.” “We think that one way we may help to that endeavor is by providing people with information to understand the impact of their food choices.”
Some restaurants' menus now include climatic details, such as The Canteen in Bristol, UK, and Just Salad locations in the United States. In addition, Denmark made history last year by funding the creation of its very own government-run climate labeling for food.
In spite of this widespread adoption of climate labels, is there any evidence that they are effective? In fact, studies show that they are an efficient method of encouraging people to make better decisions.
The identical food was presented in three distinct forms to roughly 1400 study participants in 2022 at the University of Bristol. There were three types of labels: one that indicated that the product was Fair Trade, another that indicated that the vegetarian option was the “most popular,” and a third that indicated that the product was environmentally friendly. The vegetarian option was rated as a 1, indicating it was the most environmentally friendly option, while the chicken and beef options were rated as 3 and 5, respectively. When given a menu with climate labels, eighty-four percent of participants preferred vegetarian or chicken options over beef.
According to research out of Johns Hopkins University published in the Jama Network Open journal, if beef burgers were labeled as having a “high climate impact,” 23% more people would opt for a vegetarian or vegan alternative. Results “indicate that menu labeling, particularly labels warning that an item has significant climate impact, can be an effective technique for encouraging more sustainable food choices in a fast food context,” said Julia Wolfson, PhD, of the Bloomberg School of Public health, to the Independent.
Who wants to buy food that has been labeled with a “G” from Foundation Earth, a red 5, or a “high climate impact” badge? Bech thinks that a “harmonized approach” to climate labels would not only help persuade consumers to make more sustainable choices, but would also incentivize brands to look for “more eco-friendly ways of producing, manufacturing, transporting, and packaging food.” He continued by saying that as a result of these adjustments, consumers will start to favor products with better sustainability ratings and smaller carbon footprints.
The Canteen's executive chef, Matthew Harris, thinks the same thing would happen in the restaurant business. Last year, he told Bristol247 that if carbon labeling was implemented throughout the UK, businesses and customers would be driven to make better decisions about the food they consume.


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News Briefs for March 7, 2023March 7, 2023
•The Kraken Rum is rolling out a new Gold Spiced expression. The 35% abv extension retails at $22 a 750-ml. and is also available in 1-liter and 1.75-liter bottles. Lander Otegui, SVP of marketing at Proximo Spirits, noted that “gold spiced rum occasions are now the highest among the rum category.” To back the launch, the brand is launching a new visual campaign, “Tale of Gold,” as well as a Golden Hour sweepstakes. The advertisement is directed by Rich Lee, known for his work on the first three The Pirates of the Caribbean films.
•RumChata, part of the Spirit of Gallo portfolio, is introducing a new flavor, Coconut Cream. Billed as a summery, rum-forward expression of the liqueur brand, Coconut Cream joins the original RumChata as well as flavors like Limón and Peppermint Bark in the lineup. RumChata is backed by an ongoing “Have Your Unusual” consumer campaign. RumChata grew an estimated 1.5% to 645,000 cases in the U.S. last year, according to Impact Databank.
•Treasury Wine Estates is extending 19 Crimes with a California Sauvignon Blanc. Snoop Cali Blanc retails at $15 and marks the fourth entry in 19 Crimes’ collaboration with Snoop Dogg. It joins Snoop Cali Red, Cali Rose, and Snoop Cali Gold in the collection. 19 Crimes benefited from new product activity last year, with its Martha’s Chard and Cali Gold offerings—the former marketed in collaboration with Martha Stewart—jumping out to 170,000 cases and 65,000 cases respectively in 2022.
•Compass Box is launching The Peat Monster Cask Strength, a new limited edition blended malt Scotch whisky. The 56.7% abv offering is a blend of Williamson Islay Malt aged in refill American oak hogsheads (35%); malt whisky from the Caol Ila Distillery, aged in refill American oak hogsheads (34.2%), American oak Bourbon barrels (17.9%), and refill puncheons (11.8%); and a Highland malt blend aged in custom French oak barrels with a heavy toast (1.1%). The Peat Monster Cask Strength is rolling out in a global supply of 9,126 bottles retailing at $125 each.
•Chicago-based Zing Zang is introducing a new Blazing Bloody Mary flavor in both RTD and mixer format, billed as an extra spicy version of the classic cocktail. For the RTD variant, each 12-ounce slim can contains 9% alcohol by volume and offers the equivalent of two cocktails in each can. Zing Zang’s other RTDs include Bloody Mary, Margarita, Mango Margarita, and Bourbon Whiskey Sour. Across both its mixers and RTDs, Zing Zang is available in over 200,000 retail and on-premise locations nationwide.Subscribe to Shanken News Daily’s Email Newsletter, delivered to your inbox each morning.
Tagged : 19 Crimes, Compass Box, Proximo, RumChata, Spirit of Gallo, The Kraken, Treasury Wine Estates, Zing Zang
GET YOUR FIRST LOOK AT 2021 DATA AND 2022 PROJECTIONS FOR THE WINE AND SPIRITS INDUSTRIES. ORDER YOUR 2022 IMPACT DATABANK REPORTS. CLICK HERE.


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This year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), to run from Jan. 9-12 as the world’s largest trade fair for household electronics and information and communications technology held in Las Vegas, will feature the biggest Korean Pavilion in the event’s history.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency on Jan. 8 said a record 443 domestic companies and 32 organizations will participate in the pavilion at CES 2024, around three times more than 140 and 14 last year, respectively.
Korean companies taking part in this year’s event will thus account for a whopping 58% of all participants, a huge leap from 19% last year.
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups and Seoul Metropolitan Government will also take part in the pavilion for the first time, as will 13 companies that won 2024 CES Innovation Awards in November last year including Mand.ro and Onecom.
The trade ministry said, “By actively utilizing the Republic of Korea’s brand marketing through the Korea Pavilion, we expect higher export results for participating Korean companies.”


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The company clocked operational revenue of only Rs 86 lakh as it did not sell a single product during the period. Employee benefits made up close to 70% of total expenses.
Revenue from swapping and subscriptions was Rs 85 lakh.
The company shut that business and cofounder Ankit Jain quit in August 2020.
Ola Electric did not respond.
The company acquired Dutch electric scooter company Etergo in May 2020 and brought its ‘app scooter’ to India. The vehicle underwent many changes before it started being sold as the Ola S1 Pro.
The company began building its scooter factory in February 2021 and in December delivered its first 100 scooters.
Ola Electric’s overall revenue, which included interest earned on bank deposits, was Rs 106 crore.
The company brought in Rs 97 crore as interest from bank deposits.
It went through multiple funding rounds even before it started its business, which is likely to have contributed to the income from interest.
In July 2019, Ola Electric raised $250 million from Japan’s SoftBank to become a unicorn.
It raised a further $200 million in September 2021 from Alpha Wave Ventures and SoftBank, valuing it at $3 billion. In January 2022, it raised $200 million at a valuation of $5 billion.
The company started taking bookings from customers for its electric scooter in July.
In October, it said it had clocked sales worth Rs 1,100 crore in two days.
In March, it became the best-selling electric two-wheeler after Hero Electric, clocking over 9,000 units.
However, many customers have raised complaints about the quality of the vehicle.
An Ola S1 Pro caught fire on March 27 in Pune, one of many such recent incidents involving electric scooters.
Saturday, 02 Dec, 2023
- For the Economy, a Strong Third Quarter on Cards
India’s economy is set for a strong third quarter after a stellar show in the July-September period, showed a series of high-frequency indicators released on Friday.Bulls set New Records on One-Way D Street
India’s equity gauges Friday towered above shrinking benchmarks in export-focused Asian economies to leap to a record, with higher-than-expected economic growth, softer energy prices and subdued US bond yields drawing both overseas and local funds to domestic risk assets.RBI, BoE Ink MoU on CCIL, Clear Decks for Bond Trade
Banking regulators in India and the UK signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) Friday on the oversight of local transaction settlement apparatus Clearing Corp of India (CCIL), paving the decks for billions of dollars of trade in Indian sovereign bonds routed through London lenders that needed a mutually beneficial deal to commit personal funds and effectively discharge their custodian role.


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Trees are really fantastic. They're remarkably beautiful, they provide homes for animals, and they allow us to breathe. Since we all like to breathe, eco-friendly clothing brand Alternative Apparel has announced a really dope plan for Earth Day called the "Buy a tee, plant a tree" initiative. Until April 22, Alternative Apparel will have a tree planted for every item you purchase, and you get 10% off on top of that. This promotion goes hand in hand with Alternative's dedication to organic clothing, and with the Earth Day anniversary of their Venice, CA flagship store. To participate in the arbor mania, visit their website, cop a tee, and enter the code FOREST at checkout.
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