The shares of Visa, the largest card company in the world, have been floated on the New York Stock Exchange and, as a result, banks that have issued Visa cards will receive shares worth millions of dollars. For Australian institutions, this injection of funds, although one-off in nature, will be warmly received at a time when banks are facing a liquidity squeeze. Visa’s decision to follow in the footsteps of smaller competitor MasterCard, which was listed in 2006, has resulted in the largest IPO ever recorded, raising $17.9 billion (A$19.4 billion).

As Visa is owned by a consortium of the banks that issue Visa cards, the public listing of Visa means that shares will be disbursed to the constituent banks in proportion to the number of cards issued. The banks can then keep the Visa shares or sell them on the market as they see fit. While the benefits of this listing will be felt by banks around the globe, not least those in the US, Australian banks are also set to reap substantial bonuses.

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The Brazilian government has proposed a scheme whereby it would offer an environmental seal of approval for its biofuel exports. While this is a response to possible punitive measures against current production methods, the certification scheme provides an innovative approach to the biofuels problem, and offers fuel retailers a means of differentiating themselves from their competitors.

In order to counter the dwindling support for biofuels, Brazil, the world’s largest exporter of the alternative fuel, has proposed the creation of an environmental seal of approval for its ethanol exports. The seal would provide importers with a guarantee that the biofuels have been produced in an ethical manner while following the strictest environmental regulations.
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The next 12 months will see the broadcast sector addressing new business models for distribution and advertising in a bid to retain and attract new audiences. This is one of the key conclusions to be drawn in a new report which says that the transforming communications and entertainment sector is creating a challenging new environment for traditional broadcasters. In order to remain competitive, digital TV players will need to utilize effective technological solutions to aide in multi-platform distribution and value-add services.

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The ACEA has announced that over 50% of cars sold in Europe in 2007 had diesel engines.

Diesel cars accounted for over half of new car registrations in 2007. With fuel prices expected to stay high for the foreseeable future, the growing preference for diesel cars is likely to continue. However, while there is a general trend towards diesel cars in Europe, this is not necessarily the case in other markets. Fuel retailers with networks across borders need to take this into account.
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Premium/luxury operators are driving growth in the £14.7bn UK department store says a new report. The sector returned to growth in 2006 following two years of decline, and has not only sustained this trend for the second consecutive year in 2007, but is likely to outperform in 2008. Though Marks & Spencer’s recovery was a major factor in the return to growth in 2006, it is the high end operators that have been the main drivers in 2007.

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Faced with dwindling growth rates in the US and Europe, pharmaceutical companies are turning their attention towards emerging pharmaceutical markets whose double-digit growth is fuelled by their recent economic booms. However, although the patient potential of the emerging market countries is enormous, foreign pharma companies are currently tapping into only a fraction of the consumers, due to fairly poor access to drugs in countries like India and China, and to an extent in Russia, Brazil and Turkey.

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More people than ever before in the UK, are shopping at supermarkets for items other than food, a new report reveals. Over 62% of all shoppers regularly use supermarkets to buy non-food items, collectively spending over £19.7bn. These numbers have risen sharply compared to five years back when just 45% used grocers for non-food, collectively spending £13.3bn.

Continue reading “UK: Customers Choose Asda and Tesco Over Big High Street Names such as H&M and Gap” »

A new report, which profiles the 100 top earning companies in China’s electric motor industry, says that more and more multinational corporations are adopting new strategies and working to enter China’s booming motor market.

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H&M has acquired 60% of Fabric Scandinavien. Besides allowing H&M to leverage its scale through the Swedish retailer’s fashion chains, Weekday and Monki, H&M can also exploit the success of its acquisition’s fashion brand, Cheap Monday. With its trendy, fashion-driven style, H&M will be keen to develop the brand further, building on recent efforts to improve the retailer’s fashion credentials.
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The next time you go to your doctor’s office, check to see if he/she is using an iPhone, along with a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff, to evaluate your health. With Apple’s announcement that it is allowing third party developers to create applications on the iPhone, Datamonitor believes that healthcare technology application, particularly electronic health records (EHRs) and clinical decision support (CDS), will be more likely to be adopted by physicians, translating into better healthcare for patients.

EHRs allow providers to access all the information on a patient in one place, giving them more information at the point of care. CDS tools help providers sort through the huge amount of patient data and medical literature now available, checking, for example, if the medication they are about to prescribe will interact with a drug the patient is already taking.

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