James Timpson has employed ex-prisoners since 2008 and says putting trust in people pays offFor James Timpson there is nothing charitable about employing former prisoners. The head of the high street shoe repair and locksmithing firm Timpson – which had a turnover of £209.3m last year – insists he is the “most commercially minded person you will ever meet”, but that employing ex-offenders makes good business sense because “the people we recruit from jails are so bloody good”.Since 2008, when he opened a shoe repair workshop in HMP Liverpool (no key-cutting skills were practised), his company has employed more than 1,500 ex-prisoners. Just four have returned to jail. Many of those who turned their backs on crime – including some with drug and alcohol issues – have progressed to senior roles in the company, including a current board member. Continue reading...

02 Aug 2021 13:41 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

From badges to foam hats, switch to selling quirky items has offered financial respite during pandemicCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageSmall online sellers who were affected by the pandemic have switched to selling quirky vaccine-themed items in order to regain income lost.On the shopping platform Etsy items such as “Vaccinated” badges, Moderna cup holders and “Pfizer alumni” T-shirts have been big sellers, and have provided small businesses with economic respite after the ravages of last year. Continue reading...

04 Apr 2021 17:25 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

GFG says it is launching an investigation as group seeks new lender following Greensill collapseSanjeev Gupta’s metals group is to launch an independent investigation after web domains resembling those of commodities trading firms were reportedly registered to a Gupta company email address.The web domains were only slightly different to existing domains owned by commodities trading businesses. One of the companies affected has sent Gupta’s GFG Alliance a cease and desist letter and demanded an explanation for why the web domains existed, after the Financial Times reported their existence. Continue reading...

05 Apr 2021 15:28 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Having stepped down as Amazon’s chief, the billionaire is ‘super passionate’ about other projectsInside the mind of Jeff BezosA quarter of a century after he founded Amazon in a Seattle garage, Jeff Bezos announced this week that he is preparing to loosen his grip on the $1.7tn (£1.2tn) company. The billionaire – who until he was recently overtaken by Tesla’s Elon Musk was the world’s richest person – will this summer pass the reins to top lieutenant Andy Jassy and Bezos will become executive chairman.Few employees in the sphere conservatories at Amazon’s sprawling Seattle campus headquarters reckon Bezos will relinquish much of his iron grip on the company’s day-to-day decision making. But Bezos, 57, told his 1.3 million employees (who he refers to as “fellow Amazonians”) that “as much as I still tap dance into the office, I’m excited about this transition”. Continue reading...

03 Feb 2021 19:27 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

The Amazon founder’s relentless quest for ‘customer ecstasy’ made him one of the world’s richest people – now he’s looking to the unlimited resources of space. Is he the genius our age of consumerism deserves?The first thing I ever bought on Amazon was an edutainment DVD for babies. I don’t recall making the purchase, but the data is unequivocal on this point: on 14 November 2004, I bought Baby Einstein: Baby Noah – Animal Expedition for the sum of £7.85. My nearest guess is that I got it as a Christmas present for my nephew, who would at that point have been one year old, and at the very peak of his interest in finger-puppet animals who cavort to xylophone arrangements of Beethoven. This was swiftly followed by three more DVD purchases I have no memory of making. Strangely, I bought nothing at all from Amazon the following year, and then, in 2006, I embarked on a PhD and started ramping up my acquisition of the sort of books that were not easily to be found in brick-and-mortar establishments. Dry treatises on psychoanalysis. Obscure narrative theory texts. The occasional poetry collection. Everything ever published by the American novelist Nicholson Baker.I know these things because I recently spent a desultory morning clicking through all 16 years of my Amazon purchase history. Seeing all those hundreds of items bought and delivered, many of them long since forgotten, was a vaguely melancholy experience. I experienced an estranged recognition, as if reading an avant-garde biography of myself, ghost-written by an algorithm. From the bare facts of the things I once bought, I began to reconstruct where I was in life, and what I was doing at the time, and what I was (or wanted to be) interested in. And yet an essential mystery endured. What kind of person purchases within the space of a few days, as I did in August of 2012, a Le Creuset non-stick crepe pan, three blue and white herringbone tea-towels, and a 700-odd page biography of the Marxist philosopher Theodor Adorno? (The tea-towels are still in use, and so is the crepe pan, while the 700-plus page Adorno biography remains, inevitably, unread.) Perhaps the answer is as simple as: a person with an Amazon account. Continue reading...

03 Feb 2021 18:01 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

The co-founder of Robey Warshaw has been described as the City’s ‘trillion dollar man’ and is an old friend of the former UK chancellorSir Simon Robey had his career planned out. He wanted to become a professional opera singer and his dream was to sing on stage at the Royal Opera House, but he accidentally stumbled into investment banking.It’s a decision he occasionally regrets while singing in the shower in the morning. But Robey, 60, turned out to be a pretty good banker, and has been described as the City’s “trillion dollar man” for the cumulative size of the mega-deals he has worked on, including advising the Cadbury board on the sale of the 197-year-old chocolate company to America’s Kraft in 2010. His sought-after advice has earned him at least £137m in the last seven years alone. Continue reading...

02 Feb 2021 19:56 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

The pandemic has accelerated huge shifts in the way people shop. Now firms and government will have to wake up and innovateCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThe collapse of three major chains last week has put 30,000 retail jobs at risk and triggered fears for the future of town centres. But the picture isn’t all bleak, according to experts including the former government retail tsar, Mary Portas, who says there is too much nostalgia and too little optimism about the future of the British high street.“The days of stacking stuff high and selling it fast are completely and utterly over,” says Portas, who has worked in retail for more than 40 years. “The brands that dominated did that for years and they failed to offer anything beyond mediocrity. Does anyone really miss BHS? Does anyone care about Dorothy Perkins?” Continue reading...

06 Dec 2020 08:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN