The county getting Europe's largest theme park
Wool and Nike haven't been having a great week
Good morning,
This week the weather got better in the UK and like clockwork we all started complaining about how hot it is. If you listen carefully you can hear the world’s smallest violin playing for the real victims of a heatwave, office-workers and their sartorial choices.
It’s not sulphur-mining or even asphalt-laying, but getting public transport (it literally wouldn’t be legal to transport animals on some bits of the tube during summer) and sitting at a desk all day when it’s 25C really does make you think we should all have six week summer holidays.
And sure, shorts are allowed at work but will you ever be taken seriously again? What if you accidentally touch knees with a colleague, also wearing shorts, whilst sitting at a meeting table? It’s unthinkable. This is a serious business, not the Bash Street Kids. And I love shorts! I’ll wear shorts deep into autumn in my personal life but the office is just not ready for my knobbly knees.
Short it all,
Hugo
Chief Shorts Officer
The Business of Stuff
The Stuff
Nike shares in trouble as competition from smaller brands grows 👟 - the shoemaker warned sales would fall this year which led to a 20% drop in share price. Some analysts reckon this is due to the success of companies like Hoka and Lululemon that are eating into their market share. Head to toe Nike was never the best look anyway.
Companies are questioning the viability of the cloud ☁️ - ‘move to the cloud’ (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform etc.) has been the mantra of most technology companies and departments for the past 10 years, but there’s an awkward truth emerging that in many circumstances it’s not great value for money. 37Signals has taken the plunge and bought its own servers, saving over $2m a year.
People are buying massive televisions to watch the Euros 📺 - sales at Currys were up 35% and a lot of them have been over 85 inches. I remember when 50 inches was ostentatious. Presumably the people buying them are hoping to have a better chance of spotting some entertaining football.
AI-washing gets humans to do the job of what is meant to be AI 🤖 - this is where we’re going to end up isn’t it. Robots will be sitting around writing limericks whilst we, the subservient humans, scuttle about doing the jobs we thought they’d do. It was claimed back in April that Amazon was using workers in India to manually check people’s baskets when they were leaving one of its supermarkets when it claimed to be using AI. It’s part of a much wider trend of every single product claiming to be in some part powered by AI.
The price of wool is dropping and it’s impacting Aussie farmers 🐑 - Australia is responsible for producing 80% of the world’s superfine wool that is used in clothing. Prices have dropped from AU$20 to $AU7. Demand has dropped as people are wearing wool suits less and buying cheaper synthetic fabrics thanks to a poor economic climate globally.
Inside Out 2 has restored everyone’s faith in the film business 📽️ - the Pixar film is expected to hit gross sales of $1 billion, currently at $863million which has got the film industry hot under the collar.
Universal plans to build a theme park in Bedfordshire 🎢 - as if you needed another reason to go to the county responsible for Luton and the world’s first tractor! They have estimated the theme park would add £50bn to the UK economy and up to 20,000 jobs. It will be Europe’s biggest theme park across 500 acres that has already been bought by Universal.
Amazon to begin selling even more cheap nonsense 🧼 - it wants to take on Temu and Shein with direct shipping of discount products from China. It will offer unbranded items in fashion, beauty and home. We really do all need to start buying less stuff don’t we. Sure Amazon needs to compete but there’s already too much stuff, and it’s not that great for old mother Earth.
Over-35s account for 57% of renters in the UK 🏘️ - the number of people who are priced out of buying somewhere is continuing to grow whilst build-to-rent developers coin it in. Corporate developers aren’t as big a feature in the UK as they are in the US, but this is changing as companies like Blackstone look to get in on the action. You’ll own nothing and be happy etc etc.
US Supreme Court invalidates protection of Sackler family ⚖️ - when Purdue Pharma, which played a huge part in the opioid epidemic, agreed its bankruptcy settlement, clauses were put in place which protected the Sacklers - who controlled the company from further legal action. The Supreme Court has ruled this invalid, opening up further recourse for the 100,000+ victims.
Quote of the week
“Coffee is for closers” - Blake, Glengarry Glenross