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New Delhi :Telecom operator Reliance Jio has signed an agreement to raise about Rs 3,250 crore as samurai term loan from Japan-based banks.
“Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited has signed an approximately JPY 53.5 billion samurai term loan with 7 year bullet maturity. The facility is guaranteed by Reliance Industries Limited and will be used for funding RJIL’s ongoing capital expenditure,” RJIL said in a late night statement on Friday.
At exchange rate of 60 paise per Japanese yen, the loan value comes to around Rs 3,248 crore.
This deal represents the largest samurai loan (low interest loans from Japanese investors) for an Asian corporate, the statement said.
“The facility has been fully underwritten by Mizuho Bank, Ltd., MUFG Bank, Ltd. and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Singapore Branch and will be shortly launched into syndication,” RJIL said.
Last month, the Reliance Jio board had approved raising of around Rs 20,000 crore in debt. The company has invested over Rs 2 lakh crore in the mobile business which has garnered over 168 million customers.
The Mukesh Ambani firm has also signed agreement to buy mobile business assets of Reliance Communications — the company led by his younger brother Anil Ambani — for around Rs 25,000 crore.
The 4G mobile service provider RJIL said that the network of the company is future ready and can be easily upgraded to support even more data, as technologies advance on to 5G, 6G and beyond.
“Jio will bring transformational changes in the Indian digital services space to enable the vision of Digital India for 1.2 billion Indians and propel India into global leadership in digital economy,” the statement said.
Sensex sheds 298.82 to close at 38,811; Nifty shrinks to 11,650
Mumbai: The benchmark BSE Sensex erased early gains to end 299 points lower Thursday as investors booked profits after stocks soared to record highs after BJP’s strong showing in the Lok Sabha polls.
Sensex and NSE Nifty went on to record highs even as Lok Sabha election results showed that PM Modi-led NDA leading on over 300 seats. However after the euphoria during the morning session, Sensex shed 298.82 to close at 38,811 and Nifty shrank to 11,650 on the closing bell.
During the day, the Sensex hit the 40,000 mark while the Nifty crossed the 12,000-level for the first time ever. However, the indices succumbed to profit booking towards the fag-end of the session.
The 30-share Sensex tumbled 298.82 points, or 0.76 per cent, to close at 38,811.39. Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty settled 80.85 points, or 0.69 per cent, lower at 11,657.05.
IndusInd Bank was the biggest gainer in the Sensex pack, rallying 5.23 per cent, followed by Hero MotoCorp, Coal India, Yes Bank, PowerGrid, ICICI Bank, HCL Tech, L&T, Kotak Bank and Bharti Airtel, rising up to 1.56 per cent. On the other hand, Vedanta, ITC, Tata Motors, HDFC twins, Bajaj Finance, Sun Pharma, Tata Steel, TCS, ONGC and Infosys fell up to 5.53 per cent.
Riding on a massive Modi wave sweeping through most parts of India, the BJP was set to return to power Thursday as it led in 298 seats while the Congress trailed far behind with 52, according to trends released by the Election Commission for all 542 seats that went to polls.
“Markets were initially enthused to see the election results falling in line with the exit polls. However, the run up to the D-day was so sharp that it turned out to be a sell on news phenomenon,” said Devang Mehta, Head – Equity Advisory, Centrum Wealth Management.
Participants would now be keen to know the future course of action for bringing the economy back on track, solution to the liquidity situation, the union budget, onset and progress of monsoon in June and most importantly the earnings trajectory, he added.
According to traders, weak cues from other global markets and a depreciating rupee also weighed on investor sentiment. The rupee depreciated 37 paise to 70.04 against the US dollar in afternoon trade. Globally, bourses in Asia ended in the red.
Indices in Europe were also trading on a negative note in early deals. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading 1.79 per cent lower at USD 69.72 per barrel.
Silver up on increased offtake; gold steady
New Delhi: Silver prices rallied by Rs 200 to Rs 37,400 per kg in the national capital on Thursday, while gold held steady, according to the All India Sarafa Association.
Traders said silver prices rose on pick-up in offtake by industrial units and coin makers at the local spot market. Globally, spot gold was trading marginally higher at USD 1,276 an ounce, while silver was slightly up at USD 14.53 an ounce in New York.
In the national capital, gold of 99.9 per cent and 99.5 per cent purity dropped by Rs 10 each to Rs 32,670 per ten 10 gram and Rs 32,500 per 10 gram. Sovereign gold, however, held steady at Rs 26,500 per eight gram.
Silver ready surged Rs 200 to Rs 37,400 per kg, while weekly-based delivery fell by Rs 66 to Rs 36,234 per kg. Silver coins held flat at Rs 79,000 for buying and Rs 80,000 for selling of 100 pieces.
India PC mkt declines 8.3 per cent to 2.15 mn units in Jan-Mar qarter
New Delhi: Personal Computer (PC) shipment in India fell by 8.3 per cent in the January-March quarter of 2019 to 2.15 million units, registering a year-on-year decline for the third consecutive quarter, according to research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).
Besides, big commercial deals, market remained weak due to weak consumer demand, high inventory from previous quarters, and supply issues for Intel chips.
Shipments in the consumer segment saw a 26.5 per cent dip in the said quarter compared to the year-ago period. The commercial PC market saw a total shipment of 1.35 million units in the said quarter, a growth of 7.3 per cent over last year.
“The announcement of central elections on March 10, 2019 resulted in the model code of conduct coming into immediate effect further resulting in a delay in execution of government projects and impacting the commercial segment,” IDC said in a statement.
However, IDC expects the overall PC market in India to witness a growth in the second quarter. The commercial market is expected to pick up post new government formation in May, while the consumer market is expected to pick up largely driven by back to school campaign by vendors and online sales.
HP maintained its leadership position with an overall market share of 28.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2019, followed by Dell (25.9 per cent), Lenovo (25.2 per cent) and Acer (11.7 per cent).
The notebook PC (laptop) category accounted for 61.4 per cent of the shipment and witnessed a 9.8 per cent year-on-year decline.


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Many Americans don’t think twice about making a weekly trip to the grocery store because they live in proximity to their local grocer. But for people who don’t have the convenience of living down the street, grocery shopping is not just an inconvenience, it’s a financial and nutritional burden.
According to Minnesota Public Radio, the problem is especially prevalent in Minnesota, where buying healthy food is complicated by the lengthy distance to the grocery store. These “urban food deserts,” or low-income areas where the majority fo residents have to travel more than a mile to get to a grocery store, are scattered all over Minnesota, limiting how often the residents can make a trip to the store. If they do buy vegetables, they often go bad before they are eaten. And when they run out of fun, many people make the shorter trip to the gas station, which lacks a produce section altogether, or to fast food restaurants which offer limited nutritional value.
Adam Pine, a geographer at the University of Minnesota Duluth, is researching the Linkin Park area specifically to see where residents get their food. The residents have little to no money and no cars, and walk to the Little Store, a convenience store, to get frozen pizza and milk. But according to Pine’s research, a basket of food from a local convenience store costs 50 percent more than a basket from a grocery store.
The problem comes down to grocery stores not opening in the area because they would have trouble making a profit and face higher security costs. Community groups are still working to provide more options for residents, and are organizing a neighborhood gardening program that will sell discounted produce in Linkin Park this summer.
Nonprofit organizations are also helping to solve the problem of urban food deserts around the country. According to Nonprofit Quarterly, nonprofits such as the emergency food aid group Philabundance have partnered with supermarket chains to bring them to these low-income areas.
Check out Sarah Kliff’s blog post in the Washington Post for the results from a recent survey offered by Public Health Nutrition related to this issue of convenience.

domain: news


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While a majority of Boothies are talking about ideas in “mainstream” businesses such as healthcare, fin tech and education, three first-year MBA students and a lab school student, yes you read it correctly a lab school student, are trying to disrupt a market that does not get a lot of attention in business school - mobile game publishing. With more than 30 billion global revenue, mobile game has overtaken console as the number one sector in the gaming industry, which China, Japan and US sharing more than 60% of that pie as the three leading market. With more and more saturated market in China, a lot of developers start to look at opportunities overseas. Famous for its mature market and high ROI, US market has drawn increasing attention from these Chinese mobile game developers and publishers. However, unlike most of mobile apps, such as Spotify or Evernote, which essentially look and feel the same, mobile games have many factors to fine-tune to achieve expected ROI across cultures. While app platforms such as App Store and Google Play are doing a terrible job facilitating app discovery and eliciting structured player feedback - a key to understand the success factor of a game - WillowFlare is uniquely positioned to solve this problem by providing a crowdsourced market research platform with a panel of US players.
WillowFlare team is an interesting combination just like its name. The four founders are all extremely interested in the business after Ray Liu, the CEO who built up the initial client relationship in China, introduced the idea. Richard Zhang, the “Jack of all trades” in the team, is helping build a sustainable financial model while tapping into the player base with his previous gaming startup experience. Now both the mobile game developers in China and players in US are covered, they are spending a lot of time to build the platform, where players can play the game, write feedback and get rewarded. Valentina Fernandez is the marketing guru in the team who is exploring what is the best way to get players to add value to the mobile games. Last but not the least, Wanqi Zhu is the lab school student mentioned above, but make no mistake, he is also a grader for the graduate level computer science courses at UChicago. He is the coder in the team.
Reflecting back to how it got started, Ray mentioned that he went through the whole lifecycle of the entrepreneurship programming offered by the Polsky Center and EVC club. From just an idea coming out of a random conversation, to what is now believed by the team a real business, the resources, coaching and network that Booth provided are truly instrumental.
If you want to know more about how WillowFlare works, why not sign up now at WillowFlare.com!
To get your NVC story published please reach out to email@example.com.


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Roof collapses at Minnesota hardware store
According to an article in the Echo Press, a Glenwood, Minn., hardware store suffered a collapsed roof last week. Heavy snow accumulation was blamed.
The damage to Wagner Hardware in downtown Glenwood was "quite extensive," according to a police department release.
No one was hurt by the roof collapse, according to the news report.


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Here’s some evidence to support the claim by Britney Spears ’ manager that ticket sales for her Las Vegas shows have been selling like hotcakes.
After RadarOnline.com reported this week that ticket sales for Britney, Pieces of Me at Planet Hollywood have been "dismal," Brit's manager, Larry Rudolph , countered to E! Online that it is “the best-selling show in the history of Vegas."
While the veracity of Rudolph’s claim has yet to be determined, TMZ reports that Britney has sold more than 70 thousand of the 73,600 tickets made available for the first 16 shows in her residency. Not too shabby.
In fact, TMZ says Britney may even add more dates to the two-year residency.
Caesars Entertainment, which runs Planet Hollywood, says in a statement, "As we suspected, ticket demand for Britney Spears' headlining residency at Planet Hollywood has been extraordinary. This is as strong an on-sale performance as we've seen for any of our iconic Las Vegas headliner shows. Interest in our VIP packages and meet and greets has been incredible. The vast majority of those packages we've placed on sale, have sold out. We -- and clearly many others throughout the world -- are all eagerly awaiting the show opening December 27."
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio


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Consider this an early Christmas present from BMW. The respective debuts of the new M3 Sedan and M4 Coupe were initially earmarked for early next year, and the public debuts are still scheduled to take place at the North American International Auto Show. The first look at these new models, however, is now rumored to happen as early as this Thursday when Gran Turismo 6 drops a new DLC that features both the new M models.
In true BMW fashion, the German automaker decided that a nice little teaser video would do well enough to drive up the anticipation leading up to the online unveilings of both models.
Well, Mission accomplished, BMW.
The video itself doesn’t give us a close look at the two models, only a creative strobe lights effect that shows the silhouettes of both models. It wasn’t much at the end of the day, but it was enough to make us all geeked up to see if Thursday really is the day that the next generation M3 Sedan and the M4 Coupe finally make their world debuts, albeit in a virtual setting.
Click past the jump to read about the 2014 BMW M3 Sedan and the 2014 BMW M4 Coupe
The next-generation BMW M3 is coming and its coming with a lot of new additions with the most important being a new 3.0-liter, straight-six engine that bumps up the M3’s horsepower to over 400 ponies.
Equally important, the new M3 is likely to get a slew of new cosmetic changes, including new to-the-grille headlights and a forward-leaning kidney grille. With the release of the M4 Coupe, the M3 will come in a sedan version and a hatchback model inspired by the 5-Series GT.
The upcoming BMW M4 Coupe will be powered by a 3.0-liter turbocharged engine that produces 430 horsepower and 413 pound-feet of torque. The car will weight under 3,300 pounds and will hit 60 mph in less than 4 seconds.
The new BMW M4 Coupe will be offered in eight exterior colors: Alpine White, Mineral Grey Metallic, Black Sapphire Metallic, Sakhir Orange Metallic, Silverstone Metallic, Austin Yellow Metallic, Mineral White Metallic and Yas Marina Blue Metallic.
Source: You Tube


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Titans of Tourism: Peter Pantuso
Leisure Group Travel
December 15, 2022
Peter Pantuso talks to Leisure Group Travel magazine about how THE NEW NORMAL HAS ARRIVED.
"Looking forward, 2023 looks bright on all fronts. Business will be stronger than in 2022. The demand for travel will continue to grow. Tour operations and most motorcoach operations should be back to 2019 levels. Travel partners will also continue to see expanded growth and revenue growth as demand increases. In addition, travelers from around the world, who have mostly stayed in-country, will begin coming to the U.S. again, further increasing demand for all segments of the packaged travel industry. All great news.
"At the same time, 2023 will continue to bring the challenge of worker shortages that we’ve all seen this year in all segments of the economy, especially the service sector. The shortage of motorcoach drivers, and supply chain issues that made it difficult to get parts, along with the 30 percent reduction of motorcoach companies, made finding a coach for a tour, meeting, convention, and all other uses difficult. It also meant that because the supply did not meet the demand, prices rose. This will continue and will be enhanced in 2023 as demand increases even more, and the supply of needed drivers will not grow at the same pace. A classic supply and demand curve, which means trip planning should be done as far in advance as possible, especially when motorcoaches are needed.
"As we look to 2024, we believe that much of life as we know it, at least for motorcoach and packaged travel, will get back to pre-pandemic levels. As we recover, we also need to remember that COVID still exists and probably always will, just like the flu. This means that many of the cleaning and sanitizing protocols, not only on coach but across all industry partners, must continue. When we talk about the importance of safety in travel, for the last few years and into the future, safety means more than just safe vehicles and travel."


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We’re just days away from seeing the first Android 5.0 devices start to ship. Google’s premium Nexus 9 tablet is set to launch this coming Monday, November 3rd, and Google’s first phablet will follow soon after, though an exact release date for the Nexus 6 is still unknown. What we do know, however, is that the new Lollipop software that powers both new Nexus devices features a stunning user interface overhaul and some great new features that Android users will love.
And what better way is there to show off those great new features than with a bunch of animated GIFs? More →


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- Plan to cut uniform business rate confirmed
- However mayors will be able to raise fees as well as lower them
- Overall review of business rates will not be finalised until next Budget
- Big firms will pay new apprenticeship levy of 0.5%
- Osborne scraps plan to cut tax credits
Chancellor George Osborne has confirmed plans to scrap the uniform business rate but said mayors will be able to increase rates.
However during his autumn statement and spending review today, Osborne said he will not report back on an overall review of business rates until the next Budget.
Speaking in the House of Commons, the Chancellor confirmed his plan revealed last month to devolve powers on business rates to local authorities and abolish the uniform business rate. He admitted though that mayors could raise rates under certain circumstances.
Directly elected mayors, if they win the support of a majority vote at the Local Enterprise Partnership, are able to add a “premium” to business rates in order to pay for new infrastructure.
Separately, the Government is carrying out a long-awaited review of business rates. Reports suggested the Government will report back by the end of the year. However Osborne said today he will reveal the results of the review in his next Budget in March.
The delay is likely to disppoint many in the retail industry, who have been campaigning for a review.
Meanwhile, Osborne said the Government’s small busines rate relief scheme will be extended for another year, which will help 600,000 small firms.
Meanwhile, the Chancellor revealed plans to introduce an apprenticeship levy to pay for the cost of training for young people. Companies will recieve a £15,000 allowance to offset the levy and only those with a wage bill of more than £3m will pay.
Osborne also unveiled plans to create 26 new enterprise zones.
The Chancellor also announced he will scrap his plans to cut tax credits. The move could boost retailers as those affected have more disposable income.


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update: The Game Awards live stream has just begun, and host Geoff Keighley is on the stage of this live broadcast. Want to know how to watch The Game Awards? Here’s a live video with a list of candidates, presenters, and potential games revealed.
The only way to watch The Game Awards this year is to use the livestream video embedded below for your 2020 presentation. It’s not It’s happening directly.
I also follow the award show hosted by Geoff Keighley. This is the 7th year. A live update provides a summary in case you miss the start of the live stream.
As we have learned, Game Awards are more than a “video game Oscar”. The real reason to watch The Game Awards is to reveal the epic games (and in some cases hardware) that occur between the award segments. This makes TGA a must-see TV or live streaming online video.
When does The Game Awards start? How can I see it? On December 10th, the broadcast is just a few hours away, so all these answers are in place.
Watch the Game Awards live stream here
You don’t have to travel far to see The Game Awards. In fact, we’ve added a live stream video here so you can watch awards and trailers of the best games in the world without leaving this page.
The Game Awards are free to watch and streamed on 45 platforms around the world. This includes YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook Live, Steam, Oculus Venues, and this year’s TikTok Live. Unlike the old Spike TV Awards, “How to Watch Game Awards” is a much easier question to answer. It’s almost everywhere.
According to the official Game Awards website, the show will be broadcast live from Los Angeles, London and Tokyo with strict safety protocols. But this time there is no audience in Los Angeles. Everyone will be looking from home.
Game Awards Time-This is the beginning
The official Game Awards began on December 10th at 7pm (Eastern Standard Time) / 4pm (Pacific Standard Time) and December 11th at 12am (Greenwich Mean Time) / 11am (Eastern Standard Time). It’s broadcast for free all over the world at the same time, so you can watch it wherever you are. ..
The Game Awards live stream had a small pre-show that started 30 minutes before the main event. It was 6:30 pm Eastern Standard Time / 3:30 pm Pacific Standard Time / 11:30 pm Greenwich Mean Time, and was given a less flashy technical award.
Why watch the Game Awards 2020?
It’s easy to dismiss The Game Awards as a pageantly show for stroking game developers at the end of the year. But anyone who has actually watched The Game Awards live stream in the last few years knows it’s about a big announcement.
can you see it New Super Smash Brothers Ultimate Fighter??Our first bullying Spiderman 3 movies? Halo Infinite gameplay trailer?How about your first look? Unknown 5,surely PS5 System seller (not that we can find it PS5 replenishment Anyways)? You’ll know when The Game Awards will start in a few hours.
Game Award Candidates and Presenters
There are 30 different award categories, and Game of the Year Game Award candidates are narrowed down to 7 titles.
- Doom Eternal
- FINAL FANTASY 7 Remake
- Ghost of Tsushima
- Animal Crossing New Horizons
- Last of Us Part II
In addition to Geoff Keighley, the host of The Game Awards, you’ll find familiar faces as celebrity presenters.Director Christopher Nolan, former Nintendo US President Reginald Fiss Aime, sports commentator Stephen A. Smith, rocker Ediveder, superheroes Gargadot and Bree Larson, and his fresh Cyberpunk 2077 Role, actor Keanu Reeves.
Introvert. Beer guru. Communicator. Travel fanatic. Web advocate. Certified alcohol geek. Tv buff. Subtly charming internet aficionado.


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Although still in the nascent stage, the startup ecosystem in Cambodia is on the rise. It has been highlighted by a Startup Cambodia survey indicating 96% of Cambodians aged 18 to 35 have the desire to start their own company. The kingdom is also ideally located in Southeast Asia with land borders to Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, together with short flights to the rest of the region. Companies can be 100% foreign-owned, motivating international entrepreneurs to build their startup in Cambodia and connect with the rest of Southeast Asia.
To further fuel the startup scene, the kingdom’s GDP grew 7%, the highest in the region. And the government is getting more involved with helping startups, drafting policies to tackle areas such as funding, tax incentives, tech-based educational programs, regulatory frameworks, and incubator consultations. The government intends to invest $6 to $7 million USD in existing private sector funds to support startup research, education, and funding programs.
Education in STEM subjects is also being promoted to help invest in Cambodia’s digital and technological future. One example that highlights the exciting progression of young Cambodian talent comes from the Liger Leadership Academy, whose students have become internationally published authors, app and digital currency developers, regionally recognized robotics engineers, speakers at TEDX conferences and national award-winning filmmakers – all by the age of 15.
Here is a guide to Vietnam’s startup scene
With a young population that is evidently tech-savvy (80% of them own smartphones), together with the government targets of 100% broadband coverage in urban areas and 70% in rural areas by 2020, it is clear that the tech scene will be a priority sector for economic growth.
The Current State Of The Startup Ecosystem
Currently, Startup Cambodia lists 84 startups and AngelList Cambodia lists 97, indicating that young companies are accessing funding and support–a concept which is further evidenced by the growth of incubators, accelerators, co-working spaces, and investors. There is also international support from DAI-led Development Innovations that targets economic growth and digital acceleration. Also, various online platforms exist to provide information to aspiring entrepreneurs, motivating connections with stakeholders in the startup world. Most startups are tech-related with industry examples including gaming, app development, FinTech, and E-commerce.
Agriculture remains to be a powerful sector in Cambodia, yet farmers struggle to access technical and market knowledge. With farmers becoming more mobile-friendly, the Agritech scene has a demanding consumer base to meet. One such company meeting the demands is Agribuddy. This Hong Kong-based technology platform helps small farmers in the developing world compete with industrial farms. The app provides small farmers with affordable credit, quality agro-inputs, and expert knowledge in a timely fashion to connect them with suppliers and buyers. This system uses agents known as buddies: individuals who work closely with farmers to help them with credit applications and providing technical advice.
Ultimately, the addition of technology results in farmers achieving better yields and more competitive prices for their products. From its inception in 2015, Agribuddy was signing up 350 farmers every day in 2017, working across countries in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Cambodia. In just over three years, this startup has made $54 million USD through diverse income streams such as credit rating, insurance, market aggregation, tools, analytics, crop trading, and transaction platforms. Their future plan is to be present across the whole of Southeast Asia by encouraging incubator investments that will ensure farmers are more sustainable. Developing a peer-to-peer lending platform, their goal is to create a network of a million happy farmers.
Here are the top HR startups in the region
Some Exciting Startups To Note
Started in 2013, the BookMeBus app and website helps people use the national bus, ferry, and taxis services through a convenient online platform. The service allows users to check schedules, compare prices, and order tickets. From July 2016 to November 2016, the platform’s profits rose from $30,000 USD to $70,000 USD. Looking to expand into the rail industry, BookMeBus has widened its outreach into Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. With funding from four Angel investors, founder Langda Chea also benefitted from a 3-month accelerator programme run by Smallworld Cambodia and Tikers@Mekong.
Launched in 2014, Morakot Technology is a cloud-based banking and loan management platform for microfinance institutions. It is the only FinTech company from Cambodia to be selected to be part of Singapore Startup Bootcamp 2017. Supported by Smart Axiata Digital Innovation Fund (SADIF), Morakot has identified expansion opportunities in Myanmar, Indonesia, and the Philippines. With mobile payments becoming more commonplace as the kingdom becomes an increasingly digital-first region, this startup has a promising future.
After being launched in 2014 by Jay Kong, Joonaak Delivery has successfully secured funding from GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator and SADIF. The company is Cambodia’s first Tech Summit 2018 winner held by Seedstars Asia, gaining further funding and mentorship. Operating locally, they are the first in the market to be delivering packages and letters on a same-day basis.They also have warehousing and packaging services that provide e-commerce fulfillment solutions. Their future looks bright with plans to expand nationally and offer services through their app–a project that is currently in development.
My Dream Home
Founded by Kongngy Hav, My Dream Home seeks to resolve the affordable housing problem in Cambodia. Gaining exposure in Australia, Hav developed a construction method using cheap materials to produce interlocking Lego-like bricks made from local eco-friendly sources. His house prices start at 64% of the least expensive houses available in the mainstream market. From 2015 to 2016, enough bricks were sold to produce 105 homes, and in 2016 My Dream House built 10 houses which were all sold within 15 days.
Pi Pay is a cashless payment platform that also features chat, maps, entertainment, retail, and lifestyle brands to engage with the young and digital-savvy demographic. Founded in 2016, they have 250,000 active users making $150 million USD in transactions through their app. With only a small percentage of the population having a bank account, Pi Pay has paved the way for the kingdom to become digitally-focused; hinting towards a potentially cashless future for the country. Backed by Malaysia’s CIMB Bank and Germany’s Wirecard, they are also licensed and regulated by the National Bank of Cambodia for compliance and transparency in their operation. Moving forward, they have partnered with Alipay and WeChat, tapping into the Chinese tourism market.
The startup scene has great potential in Cambodia and businesses are taking advantage of the available support, drawing inspiration from both local and global services to address the needs of the population.


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Case in point: following Google’s announcement (and immediate release) of the Pixel 3a last week, Samsung revealed two new additions to their Galaxy A line of phones today – the Galaxy A20 and Galaxy A70.
The first thing you should know about these new phones is their price – the 6.7-inch A70 and 6.4-inch A20 come in at a very affordable S$498 and S$248 respectively, which is impressive when you consider some of the features that they come with.
Both phones, for example, come with Super AMOLED displays – something that you won’t even find on some phones that cost twice as much.
The A70 and A20 are also equipped above average batteries (4,500mAh for the A70, 4,000mAh for the A20), which – based on our experience with other phones with this capacity – should easily last over a day of use.
While the cool features stop there for the A20, the A70 still has one more trick up its sleeve – a triple rear camera setup that includes a 32 megapixel wide, 5 megapixel ultrawide and 8 megapixel telephoto lens.
Considering that triple camera phones only debuted earlier this year with the aforementioned S10 and P30, it’s surprising to see a mid-range phone rocking it so soon (not that we’re complaining, of course).
The A70 will be available later this week on the 18th of May, and will be available at selected telcos, electronics & IT stores, authorised retailers, Samsung Experience Stores and Lazada. The A20, on the other hand, will be available a week later on the 25th of May at Singtel and M1 stores.
With an excellent screen for watching videos and battery life to back it up, the A20 and A70 might be the perfect phones for less technologically-inclined individuals who just need something to take calls and watch Korean dramas. A late mother’s day present, perhaps?
Header Image Credit: Samsung


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Friday, July 11, 2014
Kirk Hammett Action Figure To Debut At San Diego Comic-Con!
Kirk Von Hammett Toys is proud to present the Famous Zombies Jr. limited edition toy at the year's San Diego Comic Con. The very limited edition green Hammett figure will be available exclusively at San Diego Comic Con, and Kirk will be signing the toy itself at the Nuclear Blast Records/Stern Pinball/JSR merch SDCC booth 503 on Friday July 25th from 1pm to 2pm, and on Saturday July 26th from 2pm to 3pm.
Fans will be able to purchase tickets starting on Wednesday July 23rd for the Friday appearance. Once Friday's tickets are sold-out, Saturday tickets will be released. Tickets are available at the Nuclear Blast Records/Stern Pinball/JSR merch booth (503).
"I'm stoked to be bringing more exclusive wares to the San Diego Comic Con," says Kirk Von Hammett himself, "Nuclear Blast have been friends for quite some time, so I'm happy to be able to bring one of my exclusives to their booth. Being a fan of comics and movies since I was a kid, it's just a huge honor to be at Comic Con on both sides, selling and buying!"
Be warned, only a strict 300 of these Nuclear Blast Green collectible classics will be available, so act fast to make sure you're in line for yours!
Find out more about Hammett's horrible predilections at Fear Festival.com


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The social media platform TikTok is creating a huge push into purchasing.
The video sharing app is well-known for its brief lip sync videos, dance workouts and humour.
And its recognition has soared throughout the pandemic.
TikTok is now generating its first stay purchasing and leisure occasion on Wednesday in which humans can purchase merchandise without delay at the platform, tapping into the upward thrust of “social purchasing”.
“We assume it is a truly huge moment. E-trade is a huge possibility for TikTok and it is some thing we are making an investment in significantly,” stated Rich Waterworth, TikTok General Manager, UK and EU.
Whether it is sports wear or make up, clients are more and more more browsing, coming across and shopping for gadgets on social media systems like Facebook and Instagram. TikTok, which released withinside the UK in 2018, is now aiming to capture up.
The pandemic has elevated this shift. As shops closed throughout lockdowns, shops raced to get greater in their merchandise on-line. Social media apps additionally truly upped their recreation to assist corporations and types promote without delay to customers.
According to an Insider Intelligence report, from 2019 to 2020 the range of US social e-trade customers grew 25% to 80m, various that is forecast to develop to greater than 100m via way of means of 2023.
Now TikTok has selected the United Kingdom to make its first principal circulate into this on-line retail space, hoping a mix of leisure and innovative content material can win it a slice of festive spending.
It’s already held a few livestream purchasing with manufacturers over the Black Friday weekend however now it is generating and web website hosting its very own -day occasion anchored via way of means of Rylan Clark-Neal, with influencers, tune and a quiz.
Mr Waterworth believes his enterprise can create a brand new kind of purchasing revel in with a TikTok twist. “People who’ve a shared hobby or a shared love for a writer or a product area, those groups come collectively and make the revel in of locating and taking part in the ones merchandise greater interesting,” Mr Waterworth explains.
“So whilst you deliver those matters collectively, the energy of the TikTok network and the manufacturers … it is truly exciting,” he adds. Livestream purchasing remains in its infancy, however a bunch of outlets and types are experimenting with the format, which lets in visitors to look at on-line content material and save on the identical time, commonly with an immediate buying feature. Social media systems are becoming in at the act, too.
Like different apps, TikTok receives a reduce from income which can be made via the site. It already has greater than 1000000000 month-to-month worldwide customers and says its inner information suggests that one in 4 of them both studies a product or make a buy after looking a TikTok video.
Social purchasing, says Mr Waterworth, goes to be a “huge prize” for the enterprise. TikTok genuinely has the energy to get large numbers of humans speakme approximately an concept or a product. #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, in which customers publish what they have sold way to suggestions approximately merchandise at the site, has been used 7bn times. Retail expert, Kate Hardcastle, specialises in purchaser perception and says purchasing on social media is now a pressure to be reckoned with if you want to purpose huge disruption for the retail enterprise in addition to chip away at conventional excessive avenue income.
“It’s so exceedingly quick, clean and seamless. It takes away the barriers,” she says. “You do not truly think about it as purchasing it is a part of a communication with someone, that is some thing you are getting much less revel in of on the store ground those days”.
“I surely assume in case you are a store and now no longer going into those large increase regions which can be applicable on your goal marketplace then greater idiot you.”


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A recently leaked RIM roadmap reveals all the upcoming BlackBerries for 2012. Unfortunately there is nothing really interesting scheduled before November this year.
RIM is preparing two new mid-range Curves for the spring seaso and for Q1 and Q2 release respectively. White Bold 9790 and Curve 9380 will hit the market in March or April as well.
RIM first QWERTY BlackBerry 10 handset will not arrive until December, according to the latest leaks from the ailing company, with a further keyboard-toting slider tipped for early 2013.
After last week twin PlayBook tidbits as well as news on new Curves, BGR‘s sources reckon the BlackBerry London will hit in September, but will be followed in December by a combo touch and QWERTY device running the BlackBerry 10 OS and slotting into the Bold series.
has elected a new CEO and President , with previous co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis stepping back after investors and the company board demanded change. Heins who was previously co-COO at RIM, and before that Senior VP of Handhelds takes his new role today, where he says he will "focus both on short-term and long-term growth, strategic planning, a customer- and market-based product approach, and flawless execution."
Jim Balsillie will remain a RIM board member and a Director of the company. Mike Lazaridis, meanwhile, will become Vice Chair of the Board as well as head a new Innovation Committee; to further pacify investors, he is grabbed another $50m of RIM shares to show confidence in Heins abilities and the company future.
ZeptoLab has released their highly popular Cut the Rope HD for the PlayBook. The premise is simple but the game can get quite tricky, especially in the later levels.
Not sure if developers suddenly found out about the existence of the PlayBook or if the recent fire sale has finally made them take interest in the device but the troubled tablet has finally started getting some popular titles.
The Argentinian government has banned the import and sales of Apple iPhone and all BlackBerry smartphones, among others. The ban also extends over all foreign-made phones, but it seems Apple and RIM among the few of the major phone makers who do not have factories in Argentina, so their ban is in focus.
Nokia, Samsung, LG and Motorola have already built plants in Argentina, so they all escape the recent Government ban.
Apple and RIM though are not so lucky. Their only option is to build a factory in Argentina. RIM is already looking for a partner to do so, while we do not have any info on Appleplans.


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Trade War With China?
James A. Morrissey, Washington Correspondent
Issues other than dollars and job losses are involved, with reports of Chinese tainted food, unsafe toys, tires, toothpaste and other products. These have resulted in a rash of calls for more government oversight and restrictions on Chinese imports. The Chinese, on the other hand, are fighting back. They retaliated by blocking shipments of chicken feet, pork ribs and other food products from major US companies. This international food fight is not likely to upset US/China relations at this point, but special interests often use product safety concerns to block imports. US textile manufacturers now are looking at the flammability of Chinese textile and apparel imports.
The flash point is likely to be the Chinese currency issue. Textiles and other manufacturers contend China’s refusal to let its currency float amounts to an unfair trade practice that gives it an advantage in international trade. While both the Bush administration and the Chinese government admit the currency under-valuation is a problem, the Chinese want to address it in their own time and in their own way. But Congress is getting impatient. Pending legislation in both the House and Senate would force the Secretary of the Treasury to declare China a currency manipulator and take actions ranging from filing complaints with the World Trade Organization and the World Bank to subjecting currency manipulation to punitive tariffs under US anti-dumping and countervailing laws.
Bush administration trade officials are strongly opposed to the legislation, saying “ direct robust discussions” with Chinese officials are the way to go.
Chinese officials were upset when the US Department of Commerce announced that for the first time it would use its anti-subsidy countervailing duty laws in a case involving paper products from China. Textile industry officials quickly said they were looking at the possibility of similar actions against subsidized textile and apparel imports. Textile industry lobbyists also support legislation that would further nail down the right to use anti-subsidy laws against state-run economies such as China and Vietnam. Textile importers are strongly opposed to such legislation, saying it would be anti-consumer and would create uncertainty in their overseas sourcing.
A trade war also is brewing between the Bush administration and Congress. It all started in June, when Congress derailed the administration’s free trade agenda by refusing to renew the president’s trade promotion authority, also known as fast track. Four agreements — with Peru, Panama, Colombia and South Korea — were negotiated in time to qualify for fast track treatment by Congress. It was felt the pacts with Peru and Panama would have clear sailing, Colombia would be a little more difficult, and South Korea faced some major hurdles in Congress.
Optimism with regard to the FTAs grew out of a May 10 agreement between Bush administration trade officials and the Democratic leadership. A key element in the bipartisan policy statement was a provision that FTA participating nations would agree to enforce fair labor standards and environmental preservation. Problems developed with the Peruvian and Colombian agreements when House Democratic leadership said these standards should be met before Congress deals with them, and congressional consideration was put on hold. However, problems with Peru appear to be resolved.
Meanwhile, Rep. Sander M. Levin, D-Mich., who as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Trade Subcommittee is one of the most powerful members of Congress in the area of international trade, has sharply criticized the administration’s trade policies, claiming too much emphasis has been placed on exports and not enough on controlling imports.
Despite objections from the administration, legislation is moving through Congress that would punish China for what sponsors of the legislation say is China’s illegal manipulation of its currency in order to gain advantages in international trade. Chances of passage are pretty good.
There is no doubt trade with China will enjoy high priority in Congress in the next few months.
US companies that supply textiles and apparel to the military are conducting a major effort to improve military procurement practices in order to ensure they will be able to continue meeting the immediate and longer-range needs of the armed forces. The program is spearheaded by the National Textile Association, the American Apparel and Footwear Association, the Parachute Industry Association and Clemson University. Other organizations are expected to come on board soon.
Although the US industry has a long history of meeting the needs of the military in times of peace and war, a series of problems arose from changing needs following 9/11 and the war in Iraq. Product complexity increased as services changed from standard to unique uniform systems and new technologies. Many new customers appeared, and the existing system simply was just not up to responding quickly and efficiently enough to what has become a market approaching $2 billion in value.
After several meetings between the staff and top brass in the Defense Logistics Agency and textile and apparel industry representatives, there are signs of progress toward streamlining some processes and strengthening the industry’s ability to respond. Joint efforts are underway to address several concerns.
Problems resulting from price changes when costs unexpectedly go up or down could be addressed by grouping like products and tracing the Producer Price Indexes, which would enable producers to recover unexpected costs, and the government could benefit from cost reductions.
Reducing the risks of fluctuations in maximum and minimum orders could overcome the problem of dedicating too much or too little capacity that may or may not be used.
Current problems with standardized color and shadings of textiles could be resolved by using techniques similar to those used in private industry.
Agreement may be reached on better methods for ensuring prompt payments for military orders. Consideration is being given to employing better means for forecasting needs, by tracing the past history of the relationship between a forecast and actual purchases.
It also has been suggested that industry/military teams continually monitor supply chain performance, changes and other developments.
Dan Pezold, senior vice president of Textiles, and chairman of the National Textile Association’s Government Textiles Committee, believes the two-year effort is paying dividends, and he is optimistic that what he calls the “unnecessary peaks and valleys” of military procurement can be ironed out. Pezold believes the original effort to educate military procurement officials about the complexities of the supply chain has been successful, effective communications have been established and there is a much better understanding of how to address problems. “We have outlined what needs to be done,” he says, “and now we just have to do it.”


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The Sleep Company’s Comfort Quotient
Priyanka Salot,Co-founder, The Sleep Company
Sleepless nights with the new-born led to the launch of Priyanka and Harshil Salot’s The Sleep Company, a premium mattress and related accessories brand. It started operations just five months before the nationwide lockdown hit the country in March 2020. Since the material invention had stopped in the 60s with the memory foam (which provides pressure relief), the Salots decided to focus on the much-needed comfort factor. Dr Tripathi, a consultant for one of the Salots’ family businesses, teamed up. SmartGRID was born out of a material used for treating elbow and hip joint pain. An in-house, rented manufacturing facility at Bhiwandi, near Mumbai with a handful of employees was as Harshil notes, “a moat for the business in the long term that seemed necessary to protect our IP, keep us agile to changes and remain quality consistent.” After positive feedback from family and friends, and a bit of marketing, the Salots got on Flipkart and Amazon.
Though half the market is above the price point of ₹15,000, SmartGRID, designed after taking into account body ergonomics and pressure per surface area, has given the brand an edge above the memory foam and spring mattresses in pricing, positioning it in the ₹18,000-30,000 range. A digital-first, D2C brand, 50% of The Sleep Company’s customers are from its web store, while the rest are from Flipkart and Amazon.
In fact, due to Covid, and awareness around sleep and pain relief (due to the work-from-home model), the brand has grown by 600% over the last one year, selling 100,000 units and adding over 100,000 customers — 30% from Tier-II. “We are currently at ₹100 crore annual recurring revenue (ARR) and are aiming at ₹500 crore within the next two years. An omni-channel reach is on the cards,” says Priyanka.
The Salots dream of revolutionising the comfort tech market, worth $7 billion in India and $400 billion-plus globally, addressing both the way people sleep and sit. The company will soon come up with its own range of sitting products, including office chairs, sofas etc.
With $6-million funding by Fireside Ventures in a single round, The Sleep Company is looking to raise another $20 million, valuing it at over $100 million. With its technology patent, the brand has made inroads into Japan and UAE and is awaiting patents in 25 locations for export. “Operating in India, one of the biggest consumer markets globally, we want to be pioneers in our field, like Apple in tech,” says Priyanka.


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According to a published report, among the top 5 brands with the highest sales in the third quarter of 2020 Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, Apple and Vivo took place. Who is the leader in the list that Apple is ranked 4th? The answer is in the continuation of our article.
The top selling phone brands in the third quarter of 2020 have been announced!
International Data Corporation , published its smartphone sales report for the third quarter of 2020 . The report opened the door to quite striking results. According to the report Xiaomi managed to surpass Apple by selling 5 million more devices in the third quarter.
Phone sales forecast of International Data Corporation for the third quarter showed a 9% contraction. However, in the published report, it was stated that in the third quarter of the year, worldwide smartphone sales decreased by only 1.3% below the expected.
The third quarter sales figures of phone brands are as follows:
1- Samsung – 80.4 million ( 22.7% of the smartphone market )
2- Huawei – 51.2 million (decreased 22%)
3- Xiaomi – 46.5 million (increased 42%)
4- Apple – 41.6 million (decreased 10.6%)
5- vivo – 31.5 million (experienced an increase of 4.2% )
According to IDC’s report, this sales amount, which was 358.5 million in the third quarter of 2019, is 353.6 million in the quarter.


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Encouraging people to shop, eat, and live in Downtown Roanoke is all a part of Downtown Roanoke Inc.'s mission. Now, they are targeting moving businesses into office space.
DRI showed business leaders 600,000 square feet of space during their office tour and panel discussion.
They hope by showing existing companies that have done well in the area, they'll help get more people to work downtown.
"The goal here is to raise the profile of Downtown Roanoke as a business location," DRI Economic Development Specialist Price Gusthall says.
Price Gusthall tells us that in the 1990's, Downtown Roanoke had about 12,000 employees working in the area. Now, the number has increased to 15,000 employees.
There's also a 7% vacancy rate, which Gusthall says means there's still plenty of room for future growth.
"You have great office space, office space you can't find outside of downtown market." Gutshall says.
Pam Banks says she's can't imagine not working in Downtown Roanoke.
"I love working downtown. There's a variety of people, businesses, and I get to do a little shopping sometimes," Pam Banks says.
She says she remembers a time when most of the buildings had "For Lease" signs in the windows. She's happy to see much fewer of those.
"I'm glad everything's moving back downtown," Smith says.


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A tsunami of information is sweeping logistics all along the supply chain. It's time to sound "all hands on deck."
In the past two years, the total amount of the world's newly generated digital information is expected to explode by 60%--to 8 exabytes this year from 5 exabytes in 2003, according to figures and extrapolations developed by the University of California at Berkeley.
That means that, this year, the world will generate 57,000 times the total of all information in the Library of Congress--that's 8 exabytes.
So this will also lead this year to a data-warehousing market totaling $8.7 billion in revenue. Some of the major players in the data-warehousing-server marketplace are IBM's
People are used to kilobytes (1,000 bytes) and megabytes, and gigabytes, and terabytes, even petabytes (each an order of a thousand beyond the lower figure). Business people who are used to thinking in terabytes will have to go one stage higher--the killer exabyte.
An exabyte is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, or 1 million billion. All human spoken words in history are calculated to be 5 exabytes. Information in magnetic media (such as business digital information) account for more than 90% of this staggering total. U.C. Berkeley estimates that global information increases about 30% per year.
Terabyte scales of information are the new standard for information servers dealing with large databases in corporations and governments.
The need for processing terabyte-sized volumes of information in logistics stems from vastly increased information requirements for compliance, security and customs, and a staggering increase in volume of transaction information over the Web.
“The 20th century definition of a supply chain was a set of facilities connected by transportation. In the 21st century, a supply chain should be defined as a set of databases connected by communication,” says David Morgan, chief executive of D.W. Morgan and an expert on logistics and information technology.
Intelligent and sophisticated use of information may be the top priority for a company planning to optimize its supply chain. Being competitive requires organization of huge terabyte volumes of information spread across many databases.
“Most of the time the information you need is in someone else’s database, whether it’s a supplier, a carrier, a partner or a customer,” Morgan observes. The information needs to be integrated, and this requires analyzing and processing massive amounts of data.
“There is a need for data warehousing that is specific to warranty, financial or governmental compliance,” Morgan says. Moreover, “a supply chain is dynamic, so information and goods must synchronize with customer expectations."
An enterprise can trim the duplication of data in the supply-chain process by recognizing when manual processes are replicating information that already exists in digital form. The manual execution of shipping documents is a good example of where duplication can be reduced.
Netezza seems to be one company that's already prepared to take advantage of this data explosion. “The Netezza Performance Server data warehouse appliance is designed specifically to analyze terabytes of dynamic, detailed data," says Jit Saxena, CEO of Netezza.
“Our retail customers, including Ahold USA, Neiman Marcus, the TJX Cos. and others, use the Netezza appliance to analyze customer and operational data to optimize store operations," Saxena says.
According to Saxena, the Netezza system offers higher performance--at least ten to 50 times faster than current data warehouse options; better value, half the cost or less of other options; and simplicity in terms of installation, maintenance and use.
As for managers whose operations are being buried by radio frequency identification, compliance, security and Internet transaction data, with "data volumes growing exponentially, organizations must fully leverage all their data, and get results in real time, for a competitive advantage. But many are being held back by the limitations of their existing data warehouse systems," says Saxena.
Take TJX, parent of TJ Maxx stores--a $12 billion retail company--which chose the Netezza Performance Sever data warehouse appliance to help them deal with their growing volumes of supply-chain data used in their retail businesses. TJX wanted to overcome the limitations of their old data storage by using the Netezza system that allows them to handle terabytes of data generated by their store’s supply and distribution processing.
At the same time, Ahold USA, a division of Royal Ahold of the Netherlands--the world’s third-largest food retailer--is using the Netezza system to store and manage its customer data. This system will allow Ahold to optimize operations, improve customer performance and increase their profit. They needed a faster system to handle their terabyte volumes of data processing and transactions, which is expanding faster than their old system could handle.
In particular, companies need systems that scale up as their data volumes multiply. At the same time, they need to analyze and interpret this data with a constant view toward increasing profit margins and efficiency.
The technology to accomplish this is here and improving on a daily basis.


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MICHAEL Novogratz, billionaire and CEO of Galaxy Digital Ventures LLC, has a quite interesting take on bitcoin’s future: “Bitcoin is going to be digital gold.”
In a Bloomberg interview earlier today, the former Goldman Sachs partner expressed his confidence in Bitcoin recovering from its fall from its 2017 all-time high market price. He recounts how painful it was for investors who saw the cryptocurrency bubble burst last year. After all, his company suffered a tremendous $136 million dollar loss in cryptocurrency trading when crypto prices plummeted.
“We had a fantastic bubble in
This post is an exerpt of an original post published on Live Bitcoin News. All copyrights about images and text belong to their respective owners.Click the above button to read the original post.


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Samsung reports better-than-expected first-quarter profits
Seoul - Samsung Electronics Co Friday reported net profits of 619 billion won (458 million dollars) for the first three months of 2009, following losses of 20 billion won in the previous quarter.
Analysts had predicted net losses of 150 billion won, the Yonhap news agency said.
However, South Korea's leading electronics company's profits were down 72 per cent from 2.19 trillion won year-on-year, as demand for computer memory chips and flat-screen (liquid crystal display LCD) television sets declined.
Samsung said the slump was offset by its mobile handset business.
Quarterly sales were up 8.5 per cent to 18.57 trillion won.
The world's largest chipmaker reported its first quarterly losses in company history in for the last three months of 2008. (dpa)


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Selling the Value of Digital
Promotional products entrepreneur Rick Mann had a significant opportunity. A major client wanted him to print and store sales collateral alongside the promotional products warehoused by Mann’s other business, Sinking Spring, Pa.-based Lasting Image, a promotional products company.
The move into printing had all the potential to be a growing profit center when he started offering it three years ago with the opening of an International Minute Press franchise. His current customers showed consistent interest, and Mann had structured his print offering around an efficient, just-in-time inventory of digital printing that would help his base of large industrial corporations reduce their costs when compared with a wasteful and costly offset print fulfillment requiring unnecessarily high print volumes.
Mann’s business offers a robust print management system that helps determine the needed quantity. The two businesses also offer warehousing. But just as his print business was taking off, he realized he needed better digital print management systems. The production workflow, even on very short-run jobs, would sometimes take hours, making it difficult to meet delivery requirements profitably.
The business was selling more variable data printing work, increasing workflow demands. Plus, production operations for commonly produced products like tabbed binders did not have the amount of automation needed to handle growing volumes.
Despite those challenges, International Minute Press was delivering an exceptional value for its customers. With several promotional products clients showing great interest in moving their printing to Mann’s operation, the company traded its existing digital color press for two Fiery-driven digital presses: a Canon imagePRESS C800 with an imagePRESS Server F200 and a Canon imagePRESS C10000VP that uses an imagePRESS Server B5000 powered by an EFI Fiery QX DFE.
“I started our promotional products business, Lasting Image Inc., 26 years ago,” Mann says. “About three years ago, one of our large clients in the commercial battery business asked us if we could warehouse their printing, and we said no. But after they asked a couple more times, we realized that if we didn’t add printing to our portfolio of services, we were likely to lose the promotional products business to someone else who could do both.”
That client got more than its money’s worth by partnering with Mann for its printing. By moving from offset to print-on-demand, Mann was able to reduce the inventory value by 34%, reduce the amount of inventory destroyed due to obsolescence by 71% and reduce the overall amount of inventory by 45%. And according to Mann, “we are continually driving ourselves to improve those percentages to further save the client money.”
Digital printing was the linchpin in this International Minute Press franchise’s success story, as it gave the company the power to have clients rethink how they approach their marketing while saving money and improving results. But having consistent, high-quality printing with a growing volume of orders is an important part of the equation.
“Brand management is key for our clients,” Mann explains. “A customer might have 500 SKUs and they all need to match. We were spending hours trying to get colors to match. We believed in the print-on-demand model and knew there had to be a better solution out there.”
The Fiery workflow at the International Minute Press franchise includes Fiery JobMaster, a makeready tool that reduces job preparation times and last-minute corrections by enabling users to do document composition and content editing operations, including reducing the steps required to design and add tabbed dividers to jobs.
The franchise’s workflow also includes Fiery Impose, which applies imposition layouts to jobs, creates layouts for variable data jobs and saves imposed jobs as PDF files.
Those features, along with Fiery color imaging capabilities, helped ensure exceptional results for customers. “It made a huge difference in our business,” he says. It is similarly transformative for Mann’s customers, who are now getting better-quality printing with shorter turnaround times and fewer mistakes, even on complex jobs.
A medical device company the International Minute Press franchise serves is a good example of the value Mann and his team offer. Mann could tell from the beginning that the medical device company could benefit from a robust digital printing operation: the client had 500 SKUs and more than a dozen color palettes that had to match exactly.
“The challenge here was selling the print-on-demand concept,” he points out. “The company was buying 10,000 brochures for $200 more than I offered them for 1,000 units. I explained to them that with 500 SKUs, reducing $200 in spend on 500 SKUs equals $100,000, but it does not end there. If they were to print the extra 9,000 pieces that were not needed just because it was only slightly more to print them, they would have additional warehouse costs as well.”
These coupled savings — printing less and having less in inventory — reduce costs and add to the company’s bottom line. Managing the right amount of inventory takes a system that Mann built in 2012 to manage cost-cutting. He believes that technology is the thrust of today’s business environment. Properly managed inventory can save hundreds of thousands of dollars over a two- to three-year period, more or less depending on the size of the company and how its print is being managed. Many times, customers just guess at a quantity or rely on quantity savings when, in reality, they are overspending.
“Our system helps customers manage their spend better,” says Mann. “And then, on top of that, when customers stop buying more than they need for no reason, they have the ability to make frequent changes in their marketing pieces with little waste. Plus there is the risk of inventory obsolescence.”
The printing operation goes to great lengths to save its customers money and avoid waste. Obsolescence, costly as it can be, is the type of problem that can be caused by “something as simple as a trademark symbol being changed to a registered trademark symbol,” he explains.
With the major boost in production capability provided by the Fiery workflow and Canon presses, the franchise can really back up what it promises. “We’ve committed to saving the medical device company 41% on storage fees annually and reducing its inventory by 67% over the next three years,” Mann notes, “and we are on track to do so. We have certainly improved quality compared with what the offset company had in their warehouse when we took it over.”
With the Fiery-driven front ends for its Canon digital presses, International Minute Press has seen many other benefits in addition to cost savings and color fidelity for its clients, including:
- Faster job setup. Orders for business cards, for example, are submitted and automatically imposed 24-up.
- Streamlined production of variable data using the DFE’s Fiery HyperRIP technology, which can process variable data and other complex jobs up to 50 times faster than other print servers. “We run variable data, and the Fiery server doesn’t hold anything up,” he notes.
- Exceptional color matching. Once a color has been specified, it prints faultlessly. In many cases, customers are happier with Fiery color than they were with offset.
“With Fiery, everything is faster,” Mann explains. Plus, it meets his company’s high standards. “I am a quality-oriented guy,” he says. “I will stop a press on a dime if the quality isn’t there. I have seen customers who have used several different printing companies see the variation in quality between multiple suppliers. In many cases, those customers have consolidated all of their work with us because of the quality and efficiency of our offerings.”


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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is organising a seminar on ‘Consumer rights - Products & services - opportunities & challenges’ at Hotel Hilton Garden Inn here on Friday. The seminar will be held to educate today’s consumer on their rights and what they need to consider while choosing a particular product.
Deliberations will be held on current issues pertaining to consumer rights in India and particularly in Kerala. It includes various initiatives being taken up by Kerala Government to protect consumer rights and the way forward on consumer rights protection. The topics that will be covered include Consumer Protection, Misleading Promotions and Liability, Alternate Dispute Redressal Mechanism, International Consumer Policy and Standardisation.


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The financial landscape is undergoing a seismic shift, with digital currencies taking center stage. As the world gradually moves away from traditional banking, cryptocurrencies are gaining acceptance at an unprecedented rate. These digital currencies are not only challenging the conventional notion of central banks but are also enticing skeptics to become adopters of this new form of currency.
Institutions are showing an increasing interest in the value of cryptocurrencies. Traditional banks and other financial institutions are investing significant resources to understand how cryptocurrencies can benefit their businesses. These digital currencies are not just shaping the future of finance, but they are already redefining it today. As these digital currencies continue to evolve, a surge in crypto value is expected, providing substantial value for those who are prepared.
Bitcoin (BTC-USD), the pioneer of digital currencies, was first introduced in a white paper in 2008. Its value lies in its ability to facilitate independent peer-to-peer transactions, emphasizing the concept of decentralization. This is one of the primary reasons why Bitcoin has been so influential.
“Bitcoin has managed to shift the consciousness of the public in regard to cryptocurrency. What was once widely considered a scam has now become a very legitimate form of value transfer and creation.”
Bitcoin’s acceptance is evident in the emergence of Spot Bitcoin ETFs. In just 15 years, Bitcoin has evolved from a fringe idea to a form of digital currency that is becoming deeply ingrained in the traditional financial system. It is expected that Bitcoin will become even more intertwined with the ‘regular’ money supply as time progresses.
Ethereum (ETH-USD), often compared to digital oil, serves as the backbone of DeFi. Initially, Ethereum was envisioned to be the global computer of cryptocurrency, a vision that has been realized. Ethereum dominates smart contracts and serves as a platform for multiple other cryptocurrencies.
“Ethereum is as integral to the digital economy as oil is to the broader traditional economy.”
Solana (SOL-USD) is reshaping the future of finance by improving transaction processing. Developed by engineers from leading Silicon Valley firms, Solana was designed to enhance the speed and cost of transactions on Ethereum’s network. Today, Solana is one of the most valuable crypto projects globally, processing more than 10 million transactions and challenging Ethereum’s dominance.
Chainlink (LINK-USD) and similar projects are defining the future of finance. The value of any currency, digital or otherwise, is inherently constrained by its network. Chainlink connects data from disparate smart contracts on different networks, making the entire digital payment system more interconnected.
Hedera (HBAR-USD) is deeply connected to two powerful factors that shape DeFi: Enterprise-grade decentralization and its relationship to decentralized apps, or DApps. Governed by more than 30 of the world’s leading organizations and companies, Hedera is positioning itself as a central figure in the development of traditional finance and DeFi.
Cardano’s (ADA-USD) contribution to the future of finance is its reliance on empirical evidence as a guiding force. It employs a slow, methodical development approach, utilizing the latest computer science research as a guiding force. This approach is likely to result in a cryptocurrency that is technically sound and valuable over the long run.
Monero (XMR-USD) is a shaping force in the future of finance due to its strict belief in the value of anonymity, one of the defining principles of DeFi. While not advocating for illicit transactions, there is inherent value in privacy and anonymity of transactions. As cryptocurrency and traditional finance continue to merge, the value of privacy and anonymity will become increasingly important, giving Monero an inherent advantage.
Let us know what you think, please share your thoughts in the comments below.


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Care/of, a year-old, New York-based company that makes subscription-only vitamin supplements that it says are tailored specifically to user’s needs, has raised $12 million in Series A funding to get more of its pill packs on users’ welcome mats. Goodwater Capital led the round, with participation from Tusk Ventures, RRE Ventures, the co-founders of the prototyping tools company… Read More on Tech Crunch
Care/of raises $12 million in Series A for its home-delivered customized nutrition packs
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Gizmo News brings you the latest buzz about Gizmos, Gadgets and Tech Gifts. If you want to keep up just check Gizmo News.


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Nearly 8,300 employees will serve customers from 170 sales, service and manufacturing locations on five continents. Combined revenues for 2007 are estimated to be €2.55 billion (US $3.32 billion).
The agreement was signed on 20 April, with closing expected to occur in 30 to 60 days, subject to necessary regulatory approvals.
"By combining the complementary product lines of the two companies, we are creating a stronger supplier with a significantly broader range of products for our customers around the world," said Dave Frescoln, CEO of Flint Group. "In addition, Day's image transfer technologies provide a strong avenue to market for all of our products, in both conventional and digital printing."
"Combining Day International's range of products with those of Flint Group creates an exceptionally strong portfolio to support printers around the globe," stated Dennis Wolters, president and CEO of Day. "The expanded organisation will be in a strong competitive position in the best sense, allowing customers to meet most of their pressroom needs from a single, trusted resource."


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Monday, January 30, 2017
The family-owned business invests in its future and reaps rewards quickly.
INDIANAPOLIS, IN – The Moeller family got into the print business in 1931, when the patriarch of the family, who was an engraver, photographer, and printer by trade, decided to open his own business. Today, there are three generations of Moellers running Moeller Printing — David Moeller Sr., the son of the original founder, David Moeller Jr., and Chuck Moeller. Printing runs in their blood, with extended family also involved in the industry in a variety of capacities, with one exception — one relative decided to be a teacher, and they joke that she’s the “black sheep” of the family.
The operation that ran out of a garage until the early 1970s, running a 29-inch press, has come a long way over the years. Just recently, they decided to upgrade their 15-year-old offset press with an RMGT 9 Series Press. When they first started operations, they focused on products like handbills for farm sales and hardware stores. Today, they primarily focus on marketing materials of all types for highly demanding customers in the services, industrial and the educational markets.
When they set out to buy a new press, RMGT wasn’t on their radar. Their previous press was a Komori, and they knew the local KBA dealer, so they had no plans to look at anything beyond those two brands. But, noted David Jr., Diana Griffith, the RMGT sales representative from Graphco, asked the company to hold off on signing the contract for one more day, and give her the opportunity to demonstrate what she could do for them.
“Said it was a waste of time, but she asked so we decided one day couldn’t hurt anything,” said David Moeller, Jr. “And Wednesday afternoon we signed a contract with her. Our other dealers weren’t happy with us.”
“When they shared what the RMGT press could do, the quality and speed, it just made perfect sense,” said Chuck Moeller. “It brought size and automation to the table that the KBA we were considering just didn’t offer.” Bringing a highly automated 8-up solution to the table in a footprint and price point that closely matched the 6-up offer from the competition became an obvious choice for Moeller Printing.
The RMGT 9 at Moeller Printing has been up and running for about five weeks now, taking delivery just after Thanksgiving 2016, and they are amazed at how much new business and production capacity it has opened up for their shop. The 8-up format allows them to produce double the signatures on a page than their previous press could handle, and the new press is much faster in both SPH and make-ready time, so Moeller Printing has more than doubled their capacity through this single investment.
“We have one client, a magazine, that it cut the production in half, if not more,” said David Moeller, Sr. “Between the larger size and the automation we didn’t have on the old press, we were able to complete a job that took us 24 hours to print before, and complete it in just 7.5 hours on the RMGT press. It is just remarkable. On this kind of work it has, in essence, tripled our capacity.”
And while servicing current clients faster and more profitably is a big deal, the new press has also allowed Moeller Printing to open up new markets they didn’t have a hope of competing in previously. “One of our goals was to open up new markets,” noted David Moeller, Sr. “And we just took on our first packaging project. The size and quality of our old press just wasn’t a fit for packaging, so we couldn’t have won this job without the RMGT 9 Series press.”
On the horizon for Moeller Printing are upgrades to other parts of the operation, such as the bindery, where the speeds of the new press could quickly create bottlenecks in finishing, especially as they win more packaging work going forward.
Eventually, the Moellers hope to expand business enough to require a second RMGT press in the future. For now, they decided to forego the LED-UV feature, since they don’t currently need the capability, but they were pleased to know that should the need arise that it’s an easy add-on later. “It is a great feeling to know we have options if we need them,” said Chuck Moeller. “There is a lot of flexibility with this press already so adding LED UV could make sense in the near future.”
And their relationship with Graphco has exceed their expectations as well. “The way they handled the installation, their efficiency, their support — it has been a really good situation all around,” said David Moeller, Jr. “It could not have gone any smoother. We operate out of a 10,000 square-foot facility, so to handle this kind of installation and keep the rest of our production up and running was a huge undertaking. And they were absolutely flawless.”
“We are incredibly honored to be part of the Moeller Printing story,” said Chris Manley, President, Graphco, which is the Midwest distributor for RMGT and a founding member of the Graphic Systems North America (GSNA). “This is the second investment Moeller has made with Graphco and they are a fantastic company, with amazing people. We are pleased that we can help them grow with our best in class equipment. As they continue to evolve and expand their operations, we look forward to being their partner every step of the way.”


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Just prior to its quarterly earnings call, Apple issued a press release trumpeting the latest financial results. In the release, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “We’ve also just updated the entire MacBook line, will release Mountain Lion tomorrow and will be launching iOS 6 this Fall. We are also really looking forward to the amazing new products we’ve got in the pipeline.” Mountain Lion is being distributed exclusively through the Mac App Store, and costs just $19.99. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! follow link
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OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to Appear Tomorrow, 25 July 2012
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Dodge Challenger owners warned to stop driving as Chrysler recalls vehicles to fix electrical problem
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DETROIT — Chrysler Group LLC is recalling 4,459 model-year 2013 Dodge Challenger cars with V-6 engines to address a potential short circuit that could cause a fire.
The U.S. automaker, controlled by Italy’s Fiat SpA, said about 2,500 of the cars are in owners’ hands, while the rest are still with dealers.
Affected owners are being advised to stop driving the cars and contact their dealers for loaner vehicles while repairs are completed, Chrysler said.


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There are talks that Microsoft is planning to place Kinect into the next-generation TV sets. Microsoft is said to be negotiating about licensing its Kinect technology to TV makers
such as Sony and Vizio. A TV with Kinect would let the user control it through gestures. It is possible that the system can recognize the individual and automatically resume
programming where it was paused.
This move fits with Microsoft’s plans of bringing its motion sensor technology to other areas aside from gaming. The company recently announced the launch of Kinect for
Windows commercial program, scheduled for early next year. It is aimed to give enterprises the tools to develop apps that would improve their operations as well as
revolutionize their industries.
Microsoft would release the SDK 2 for developers who are already toying around with the Kinect on PC. At present, there are around 200 companies that are taking part in its
pilot program. The companies said that Kinect for Windows help improve their processes, brands, businesses and products.
Placing Kinect on TV sets could pave the way for Microsoft into the TV market. With the recent move, Microsoft would compete against Google TV as well as Apple, if the
rumors of Apple TV are true.


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In early June, Nissan announced a recall of more than 1.8 million Altima sedans around the world, mostly in the U.S. and Canada. The recall is due to a faulty secondary hood latch that could cause the hood to get stuck in the open position. Used car buyers may be affected, as the expanded recall now covers 2013 to 2018 model years.
Once opened then closed, the hood latch can fail to secure the hood. Corrosion of the primary hood latch can prevent the secondary latch from engaging as rust causes it to stick; furthermore, the part can bend if you try to close the hood. This increases the risk of the hood opening while a driver is operating the vehicle. because the part secures the primary lever. If this were to happen, the hood would obstruct the driver’s view, potentially causing a crash.
Nissan also said signs of impending danger include the hood fluttering or making noise. But examining the secondary hood latch can be difficult because it’s a small lever hidden under the hood or in the grille. Vehicle owner’s typically need to reach in and pull it up to open the hood.
The recall took effect June 22 and includes two- and four-door Altima sedans. Vehicle owners will be notified starting August 1, and Nissan is still developing a fix to the problem according to a recent filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Owners will need to correct the problem even if they had similar repairs done before.
Nissan issued a recall for the same issue in 2015, covering 2013 and 2015 model years and 625,000 vehicles, which had been expanded to 846,000 in 2016, which included cars built as early as March 2012.1 The company said that vehicles in which the hood latches were replaced were not involved in any accidents or injuries afterward. In another report, Nissan said there were 16 claims of minor accidents or injuries related to vehicles not being repaired.
Is There an Open Recall on the Used Car You Want?
Millions of cars have been recalled this year. While federal law requires new car dealers to fix open defects before selling a vehicle to consumers, dealers and private sellers aren’t required to make repairs on used models. And they may not inform potential buyers a recall has been issued. Nor do car manufacturers trace down and notify used car owners of recalls by mail.
Nonetheless, you can check on your own for recalls. To find out if a car is under recall, locate the vehicle identification number (VIN), visit the NHTSA’s safercar.gov website, and enter the VIN to find whether an open recall has been posted. If a vehicle is recalled, you can request a seller fix any open defects. Doing so may add time to closing the sale; yet it can ensure the vehicle you are interested in is safe.
Shop for Used Cars in Hawthorne at CarWorld
At CarWorld, we have hundreds of high-quality, low-mileage used cars for sale at our Hawthorne Buy-Here Pay-Here dealership. Our in-house financing is available regardless of the status of your credit or the type of income you receive. We’re also taking measures to protect our customers from COVID-19 with sanitary and social distancing guidelines recommended by the CDC. Visit us in person or call 833-219-9951 to learn more about our used car inventory and receive help finding the make and model you want.


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It's been known for a little while that the OnePlus 6T would be getting one of those fancy in-display fingerprint scanners, negating the need for a rear-mounted scanner that inevitably leads to fingerprint smudges on your camera lens. It's not such a common feature on current smartphones, so it makes sense that the 6T's official hype campaign would kick off by emphasising this new addition to OnePlus devices:
OnePlus 6T. It's coming. pic.twitter.com/Wrdt9sCdIs
— OnePlus (@oneplus) September 28, 2018
There's not much to go on, but the teaser does confirm that the phone is using the slogan 'Unlock the Speed', as first revealed by leaked images of what were alleged to be invites to the OnePlus 6T's launch event in India. As with the OnePlus 6, it also means the company's focus is on speed above all else. Hopefully that speed will not ignore the in-display scanner itself, because nobody wants to have to wait too long for their phone to unlock.
Despite the fact the phone is rumoured to launch on 17th October, which is about two and a half weeks away, we haven't seen much from the phone. There have been leaks, naturally, though some of them are far less trustworthy than others. We've also had a few bits of information from OnePlus itself, like the aforementioned in-display fingerprint scanner, as well as the fact that the 6T will not have a 3.5mm headphone jack. Other bits of speculation include a 3,700 mAh battery, a chipset that's identical to the OnePlus 6, and a smaller teardrop notch. Those last bits are still unconfirmed, so be sceptical.
Hopefully we don't have very long to wait before we find out what's what, but in the meantime you can be sure OnePlus is going to kick the marketing campaign into gear. [Android and Me]


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India had exported 18.73 million tonne of onion in 2009-10 financial year.The sources attributed the dip in 2010-11 to damage to the crop due to unseasonal rains in main producing regions of Maharashtra and Gujarat in October-November last year.
It was also due to government imposing ban on its export since last week of December, 2010 in view of soaring prices of the bulb.
Onion prices had skyrocketed to R70-85 a kg in retail in the national capital and other parts of the country around last week of December 2010 forcing the government to take stern measures including first suspending its export and later prohibiting it completely.
Skyrocketing onion prices had pushed food inflation to a high level with opposition parties making hue and cry over the issue and forcing the UPA government on the back foot.
The ban continued for nearly two months before the government lifted it on February 17, 2011. Sources in the agri-cooperative Nafed, the nodal agency for contracting onion exports, said that the shipment started declining from middle of October last year when the unseasonal rains caused large scale damage to the crops in Nashik region of Maharashtra.
Prior to the ban, India had exported 11.58 lakh tonne of onions mainly to gulf countries, Sri Lanka and Malaysia during April-November of 2010-11 fiscal.
Thanks to a bumper rabi onion crop and lifting of ban on exports, shipment of the important veggie has picked up in the 2011-12 season, Nafed sources said.
While lifting ban, Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in a bid to assure against possibility of price shooting again, had decided to allow shipments of onions at a Minimum export price of about R28,000 per tonne.
Owing to high MEP of onion, shipment of the bulb from India dropped to as low as about 10% as compared to last year, a development which helped onion exporters of Pakistan, China and Iran having lower MEP.
Indian onion traders contracted only 27,300 tonne of the root vegetable for exports from February 17 (when thegovernment lifted the ban) to March 23 this year, sources in agri-cooperative Nafed, the main agency for contracting onion export, said.
The country had exported 2.81 lakh tonne of onion during the corresponding period a year ago, they said.
The government slashed MEP of onions other than forBangalore rose onions and krishnapuram onions, to $170 a tonne on March 31, 2011 from $600 per tonne on February 17.


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SEG celebrated Super Bowl LIV by collaborating with Sike
Style Industries to produce and execute a pop-up activation
for Oakley in Tampa, FL. From Friday, Feb.5th to Sunday, Feb
7th, guests that visited the 20×20 pop-up received a custom
illustration by Sike (@sikestyle) and took home a limited-edition Oakley football with purchase of Oakley Sutro or Sutro
The pop-up space included an interactive mural wall photo op
featuring Oakley athlete, Patrick Mahomes, which was
illustrated by Sike and fabricated by SEG.


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AA plans to track lorry and company car drivers' habits to make efficiency and safety improvements
The AA has expanded its venture with Trakm8 to track drivers of business vehicles and company cars
Businesses will be able to track their drivers on the road after a deal between roadside rescue group AA and telematics firm Trakm8.
Breakdown specialist AA has expanded its venture with Trakm8 to offer an extra service on top of its rescue cover to track drivers of business vehicles and company cars.
The remote monitoring system records and feeds back vehicle data, including fuel consumption, driver behaviour and routes taken.
The information devices can reveal which drivers need training and how to improve efficiencies in terms of time, fuel and safety.
The AA has been working with Trakm8 for four years and has used it for its own fleet of patrol cars.
By tracking usage it identified which patrol cars had left engines idling and said after giving training it saved around £1million a year in fuel costs.
The AA also uses the device in its driving services business where it provides driver education courses for businesses including grocer Sainsbury’s.
Kirsty Lloyd-Jukes, AA’s strategy director, said: ‘We are looking at a number of options that will add value to our proposition for the rest of our business customers and our personal members.’
The product is targeted at companies with large fleets of vehicles such as delivery businesses as well as small and medium size companies with five or more vehicles.
Dorset-based Trakm8’s range of products are used by transport, distribution and logistics companies who need to monitor truck drivers and delivery routes as well as insurance companies to track drivers. It has a number of other products including in-vehicle safety black box camera recording systems.
AA, which floated at 250p a share last year, rose 2.1p to 269.6p. AIM-listed Trakm8 shares climbed 10.5p to 353.5p.
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MIDAS SHARE TIPS: From Speckled Hen, to pubs and Loch Fyne, if you fancy a taste of a modern brewery then raise a glass to Greene King
TV adverts for Old Speckled Hen exhort drinkers to ‘Seek a richer life’, and investors in the brewer behind the premium bitter are hoping for the same.
As well as Hen – created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the MG car factory in Abingdon in 1979 – Greene King brews Abbot Ale and Greene King IPA.
It is also the business behind brands as diverse as Old English Inns, the Loch Fyne chain of high street eateries and family pubs Hungry Horse and Wacky Warehouse.
Good cheer: Greene King has seen growing sales in recent months
The company is proud of its heritage, stretching back to 1799, but Greene King owes much of its current structure to its 2015 acquisition of Spirit Group, which catapulted it into the top spot as the UK’s largest managed pubs operator.
Spirit, which had been demerged from Punch Taverns four years earlier, owned the Chef & Brewer and Taylor Walker brands.
At the time, Greene King chief executive officer Rooney Anand forecast £30 million a year in cost savings from the takeover, much of which was to come from the restructuring of the head office as well as lower distribution costs and better deals from suppliers.
Cost savings have materialised, but the deal left Greene King with debts to service, as well as increased exposure to the food side of the pub business – an area that is now showing lower growth than drinks sales.
That said, Greene King’s diversity and size has helped it to weather the storms that have recently engulfed so many restaurants in the casual dining sector. Its most recent first-half results, released in early December, provided at least a half-pint of good cheer.
Like-for-like sales in the pub company part of the business were up 2.7 per cent in the 24 weeks to October 14, putting them well ahead of those of rivals such as Marston’s and Enterprise Inns.
The figures were buoyed by high consumer confidence and spending in the summer, particularly around the World Cup, but Anand noted that confidence has declined since then, although Christmas bookings were up year on year.
The company has been focusing on three strategic priorities; improving underlying sales growth, becoming more efficient, and refinancing debt.
It announced progress in each of these areas, including the disposal of non-core pubs as well as a head office restructure and a strengthening of capital structure that the company says will assist the continued payout of ‘attractive dividends’.
Greene King shares bounced eight per cent on the figures, hitting £5.50, but have since fallen back considerably in line with the rest of the market. On Friday they closed at £5.45.
At this level, one of the most attractive things about the stock is its dividend yield. With the dividend forecast to remain at 33.2p for 2019, the stock is now yielding around six per cent.
What’s next for Greene King? Apart from the spectre of Brexit, which haunts all pub companies like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, the business has internal changes to deal with.
Anand steps down from the business in April, with an announcement expected on his successor early this year.
Some see this as a good thing, with analysts at Liberum Capital suggesting it could be a ‘positive catalyst’ for sentiment towards the stock that will draw the line under a period of acquisitions.
MIDAS VERDICT: It’s a tough time to run a pub group or a casual dining business, so why buy Greene King now? Put simply, it’s undervalued at this level, and the six per cent dividend yield on top of this makes the glass half full, rather than half empty. If Brexit drives us all to drink, Greene King will be one of the main beneficiaries. If it doesn’t, there’s still a healthy bricks and mortar component to this business that should underpin the valuation. Buy.
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Amber Agriculture, a University of Illinois student startup with ties to EnterpriseWorks, has been named the top startup of the 2017 Consumer Electronic Show (CES).
Amber Agriculture’s agtech product helps farmers manage their stored product, and is part of the connected farm movement.
“Plenty of startups promise solutions to problems that are either overblown or don’t really exist, but we can’t say the same about Amber Agriculture. With Amber’s array of sensors, farmers can more easily check the quality of their stored grain and get their wares to the companies that make our food at the right time. Beyond ensuring these farmers get the biggest return on their crop yields, the ability to monitor for the conditions that lead to spoilage could eventually help whole countries deal with food supply issues. Long story short: Amber’s is a savvy approach to a pressing problem most people don’t even know about,” wrote Endgadget editor Chris Velazco.
Engadget wrote a longer piece on Amber Agriculture: “What’s more, Amber’s approach falls in line with other big trends at the show. You’ve heard of the smart home. Now the Amber team is trying to help build the smart farm.
Amber Agriculture won the 2016 Cozad New Venture Competition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and subsequently participated in the iVenture Accelerator student program over the summer, housed at Research Park. After a short stint at EnteprieseWorks, the team spent the past semester at Hax Accelerator in China. They have received grant money from EnterpriseWorks and plan to resume tenancy there in 2017.
Interested in learning more about Amber Agriculture? Visit the link to hear more from co-founder, Lucas Frye.