The Economist: Business
Business
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Pharmaceuticals: Buying opportunity
Will drugs giants defy the credit crunch and splash out on biotech deals?THE financial crisis means that most lawyers and bankers specialising in mergers and acquisitions are twiddling their thumbs. With confidence shattered and credit hard to come by, deals have dried up in most industries. But not ...
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The music industry: Qualms with music
Cross-subsidised subscriptions offer a promising new modelaif the sums add upIT IS a gift that keeps on givingafor a year, at least. Starting in Britain this month, buyers of some handsets made by Nokia will be able to download as much digital music as they like. The handsets, starting with a model ...
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Mergers and acquisitions: The Japanese are coming (again)
Japanas cash-rich companies are buying up foreign firmsTHE credit crunch has reduced merger and acquisition (M&A) activity around the world. Banks have tightened their purse-strings and the cheap credit that financed deals during the private-equity boom has dried up. This year the value of deals ...
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America's car industry: A bail-out that passed
In the slipstream of Wall Streetas woes, the Big Three land a huge subsidyDETROIT seems to be where Wall Street meets Main Street. Tight credit is reckoned to have cost the American carmakers 40,000 sales in August, worth about $1 billion in revenue. The impact has been felt most by Americaas Big Th ...
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Face value: The specialty generalist
Hans Wijers of AkzoNobel has taken an unusual path to the top of Europeas chemical industryJUST as Americaas dodgy subprime mortgages were triggering the credit crunch in August last year, Hans Wijers, the boss of AkzoNobel, a European specialty chemicals company, shook hands with John McAdam, the b ...
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Liquefied natural gas: A more liquid market
Offshore terminals and other tricks could promote greater trade in LNGAMID the waters of the Adriatic, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Venice, a curious new structure is being installed. It is the size of two football pitches, as tall as a ten-storey building and will soon be connected to the ...
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GE: Buffett to the rescue
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, itas SuperWarrenSHORT, septuagenarian and bespectacled, Warren Buffett does not resemble a typical superhero. Yet twice in barely a week he has swooped to rescue two of the worldas greatest companies from tight spots. First it was Goldman Sachs, which had a near-deat ...
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Japan?€™s luxury-goods market: Losing its shine
Why sales of luxury goods are slowingWHEN Louis Vuitton, part of LVMH, the worldas biggest luxury-goods firm, opened a giant shop in Tokyoas Omotesando district in 2002, hundreds of people queued outside. The first dayas takings surpassed $1m. Rather than symbolising Japanas apparently insatiable de ...
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Face value: Virgin rebirth
Two books give very different views of Sir Richard Branson, Britains best-known businessmanHE HAS just said that he would like to buy Londons Gatwick Airport when it comes on the market next year, and by the end of October he aims to break the transatlantic monohull sailing record. There is no escap ...
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French companies in China: Francophobia
Politicians pro-Tibet stance has harmed prospects for French firms in ChinaON SEPTEMBER 18th at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Frances president, Nicolas Sarkozy, hosted Jin Jing, the handicapped Chinese Olympic torchbearer who had been accosted by pro-Tibet protesters in the French capital in April. O ...
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Mobile phones: The un-iPhone
What Apple did for smartphones, Google may do for all the restNOT since the launch of Apples iPhone last year has the unveiling of a handset caused such a stir. On September 23rd T-Mobile, a mobile operator owned by Germanys Deutsche Telekom, presented its new phone, the G1, which is made by HTC, a ...
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Management consulting: Giving advice in adversity
Wall Streets woes are yet another headache for the consulting industryWHEN even consultants suggest that companies might want to spend less on consultancy, you know the industry is in for a difficult time. A recent article in the McKinsey Quarterly argues that Wall Streets ailing banks could slash u ...
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Social networking: Facebook for suits
Websites that encourage business networking are thrivingAMONG the few firms benefiting from the upheaval in the financial markets are professional social networkswebsites that help with business networking and job-hunting. On LinkedIn, the market leader, members have been updating their profiles in ...
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Companies and human rights: Not the usual suspects
A new report on corporate complicity takes a broad-brush approachIMAGINE a company accused of human-rights abuses and you will probably conjure up an image of a mining group or an oil firm operating in some unstable, tropical place where governance is weak and corruption rampant. But a report from t ...
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Food regulation in China: The poison spreads
Tainted milk kills childrenand harms Chinas image abroadWITH each passing day the news about Chinas tainted-milk scandal gets worse. It started with reports in the Chinese press on September 10th about tainted baby-formula produced by Sanlu, a large diary firm, but has since spread to 21 other produ ...
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Airlines: Under the hammer
JetBlue finds a novel way to perk up its sales: selling tickets on eBayCOLLECTORS and bargain-hunters have long been devotees of eBay, but the online auction site may have won a new group of converts. On September 8th JetBlue, Americas eighth-largest airline, put 300 tickets up for sale on eBay, wit ...
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Face value: The quiet Brazilian
Daniel Dantas, a brilliant and controversial banker, is waiting to see if he will go to jailIT IS three oclock in the afternoon, and Daniel Dantas has just discovered that $300m of his banks money has been frozen by the courts. The mornings papers were filled with stories about Mr Dantas, government ...
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Japan’s luxury-goods market: Losing its shine
Why sales of luxury goods are slowingWHEN Louis Vuitton, part of LVMH, the worlds biggest luxury-goods firm, opened a giant shop in Tokyos Omotesando district in 2002, hundreds of people queued outside. The first days takings surpassed $1m. Rather than symbolising Japans apparently insatiable desire ...
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Airlines and the credit crunch: Shredding money
Lower oil prices have revived airlines shares, but they are still in troubleTHE airline industry dodged two bullets this week. The rescue of AIG, once the worlds biggest insurer, also saved its subsidiary, ILFC, a market leader in aircraft-leasing. As a result 900 planes did not fall into the hands ...
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Biofuels in India: Power plants
The slow ripening of Indias biofuel industryOUTSIDE his village in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, Sudarshan Dhrube inspects a field of jatropha, planted in rust-red soils, heavy with iron. His village is growing the shrub under the watchful eye of D1-BP Fuel Crops, a joint venture between D1 Oils ...
The Economist: Business
