By Nick Lambe, Group Managing Director, Links International
Now that the Olympics are over, it seems that it’s been a bit of a slow news week across the board with possibly the exception of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe rocking up dressed as Super Mario!Shadow-banking back in the news…
Something that raises its ugly head time and time again is the practice of shadow-banking in mainland China. This has come to light again with the Bank of Tangshan being the best performing bank in China, despite it being housed in a struggling city in the northeast. This small lender reports the fastest growth of 156 Chinese financial institutions, the lowest level of bad loans and a whopping 400%+ jump in profits. This off-loan-book activity is so widespread that Moody’s Investors Services survey of 26 banks said that they had quadrupled these activities. Now, we have seen many examples of this before, but what are the long-term implications and which firms will reach breaking point first?
Burberry does it again…
Burberry’s latest campaign for its new fragrance, My Burberry, is inspired by the iconic Burberry trench coat and features a trench coat and Lily James, but not a lot else. Shot by Mario Testino and featuring the ‘I put a spell on you’ sound track, could this be Burberry’s raunchiest campaign yet? Furthermore, with the brand’s ambition to outperform the luxury sector growth and the new CEO (Marco Gobbetti) joining in 2017, is Burberry needing to ‘shock’ to ensure that they can deliver on their growth targets and their continued digital growth, with markets like Hong Kong dragging down numbers and slowing global tourism?
‘Internet of things’ innovation…
As many families and homes are in ‘back to school’ mode, the smart-home of the future is full of gizmos to do your daily tasks for you… from waking you up in an intelligent way, to arranging your morning juice, to the intelligent intercom to nag your kids for you. I almost have visions of children on travelators with machines putting their jumpers on for them, whilst another is brushing their teeth, before promptly booting them into the family Tesla to be auto-driven to school! Where is the fun in that??
Disclaimer: This column is designed to be a lighthearted weekly update on the global business news that I enjoyed reading. We would welcome your thoughts, comments and suggestions. Please feel free to contact us.
More next week…