Even Facebook and Google had their troubles when they first went public, so Deliveroo’s bad experience is far from uniqueAmazon listed on the Nasdaq at $18 a share with a market value of $438m in 1997, when it was just an online bookseller, with 256 employees. The share price rose gradually over the years, but started to rocket in 2015 after the firm posted substantial profits. Three years later, it became the world’s second trillion-dollar company, just weeks after Apple reached that milestone, and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos became the world’s richest man. Amazon is now worth about $1.6tn, with its shares trading at $3,161 last week.Google’s IPO in August 2004, six years after it was founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, valued it at $23bn, well below the $39bn achieved by rival Yahoo. Google had been forced to cut its float price by almost 40% and halve the number of shares being sold when the process was mired in controversy by technical mishaps, an interview with the founders published in Playboy and other IPO rule breaches. Shares in Google, now Alphabet, started trading on Nasdaq at $85 and rose to more than $100 on their first day. They are now worth $2,129, valuing the company at $1.4tn. Continue reading...

03 Apr 2021 15:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Analysis finds 77% of directors on boards of seven US banks have ties to ‘climate-conflicted’ groups, as banks continue to finance projects like the Line 3 oil pipelineUS banks are pledging to help fight the climate crisis alongside the Biden administration, but their boards are dominated by people with climate-related conflicts of interest, and they continue to invest deeply in fossil fuel projects.Three out of every four board members at seven major US banks (77%) have current or past ties to climate-conflicted companies or organizations – from oil and gas corporations to trade groups that lobby against reducing climate pollution, according to a first-of-its-kind review by climate influence analysts for DeSmog. Continue reading...

07 Apr 2021 04:01 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

After a tough couple of years, the firm has a new philanthropic focus and a new look for the summerEthical shoe brand Toms hit the big time by making shoppers feel good about buying shoes as it donated a pair of its canvas espadrilles every time it banked a sale. But then consumers stopped buying.Now the US brand is on the comeback trail with a different profit-sharing setup and a new image. A chunky soled version of its slip-ons, aimed at Gen Z-ers cool enough to wear them with their socks pulled up, will hit the shops this summer. Continue reading...

06 Apr 2021 13:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Group aims to have €1bn-a-year plant-based foods business by 2028, after success of its vegan productsUnilever has said expanding its range of plant-based foods is one of its new strategic priorities as the FTSE 100 company zooms in on the fastest-growing consumer markets.The group, which is behind household names such as Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream, Marmite and Dove soap, wants to have a €1bn(£865m)-a-year plant-based foods business in five to seven years’ time. That compares with a €200m business today. Continue reading...

04 Feb 2021 17:55 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Next year will be the last for publication that challenged the Bible for No. 1 circulation spot At its peak, the Ikea catalogue was said to have a greater circulation than that of the Bible. But while around 40m copies of the Bible are expected to be distributed around the world next year, the catalogue of the Swedish furniture giant will, after seven decades, no longer be published because demand has fallen.“It has been one of our best-known and best-loved products for 70 years, inspiring billions of people around the world,” an Ikea manager, Konrad Grüss, said in a statement. As ever fewer people were reading it, leading to the decision to “respectfully end the successful career of the Ikea catalogue”. Continue reading...

07 Dec 2020 19:32 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Rishi Sunak says disclosures will be mandatory within five years as part of net-zero plansLarge companies and financial institutions in the UK will have to come clean about their exposure to climate risks within five years under the terms of a tougher regime announced by the chancellor, Rishi Sunak.In an attempt to demonstrate the government’s commitment to tackling global heating, Sunak said the UK would go further than an international taskforce had recommended and make disclosure by large businesses mandatory. Continue reading...

09 Nov 2020 19:18 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

NHS, Linklaters and PwC among companies pledging to cumulatively hire 10,000 black interns as part of campaignThe NHS, the law firm Linklaters and the accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers are among the large companies that have promised to cumulatively hire 10,000 black interns amid a push to improve the diversity of the UK’s professional industries.Businesses who sign up to the #10000BlackInterns programme will offer paid internships in sectors that have struggled to increase their ethnic diversity to match the broader UK population. Continue reading...

26 Oct 2020 19:08 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN