Most coffee shops have customers who drop in occasionally and Starbucks has a boss who does the same. Howard Schultz started his third stint in 35 years as chief executive this week with a pledge to restore the heart of a global chain that grew from one café in Seattle. “We are longing for love,
The largest living organism on our planet is neither animal nor plant. It lives in or, more accurately, under a forest in Oregon, spread over nine square kilometres. It glows eerily in the dark, and scientists reckon it’s about 2,500 years old. This is not the elevator pitch for a Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster, though I
On the surface, April 2020 was apocalyptic. You could walk the sunny streets of Oxford and barely see a soul: shops closed, roads empty, just the occasional pedestrian nervously crossing to the other side of the street. Of course, it wasn’t just Oxford. The International Labour Organization estimated that, globally, more than 80 per cent
UK investors poured more than £1bn into venture capital trusts in the tax year just ended, in a record fundraising season for the early-stage businesses investment vehicles. Figures published by the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) show that a record £1.13bn was invested in venture capital trusts in 2021-22, a 65 per cent increase compared
It’s always intriguing when you get to view an organisation’s internal emails, particularly when they’re about you. A recent Freedom of Information request made to the Scottish Government has yielded more than 100 pages of internal communications, revealing its discussions between staff about how it should deal with the final stages of a separate and
BlackRock will not go ahead with plans to switch a €1.4bn iShares corporate bond exchange traded fund to an environmental, social and governance index, after a shareholder meeting to approve the change failed to reach quorum. Last month the world’s largest asset manager proposed changing the index for its €1.4bn iShares € Corp Bond ex-Financials
The Thai hotel group that won full control of London’s Wolseley and Delaunay restaurants last week has accused their original co-founder Jeremy King of refusing its offer to recapitalise the business, leaving it with no option but to launch a “last resort” sale. Minor Hotel Group became outright owners of Corbin & King, which owns
Just Eat Takeaway: taking the piste Unperturbed by a recent share price that resembles a ski slope, Just Eat Takeaway staff decamped this week to Arosa in Switzerland. Hundreds of employees from the food delivery group’s two-dozen international markets were delivered to the Alpine resort for Snow Fest, an all-expenses-paid skiing and team-building junket. Snow
Of the 1.5mn people living with a learning disability in the UK, just six per cent are in paid work. Despite the promises of the 2010 Equality Act, employment rates have shown little progress, with numerous reports of unfair hiring practices. But in a refurbished car park in Peckham, south London, an unusual design studio
Imran Khan faces the greatest challenge of his political career after Pakistan’s supreme court ruled that the prime minister’s attempt to avoid a no-confidence vote by dissolving parliament was unconstitutional. The ruling, announced late on Thursday evening, set the stage for a weekend showdown in the national assembly that is widely expected to end the
The delay in legislation to create a right to flexible working is to be welcomed (“Tories shelve flexible working plans”, Report, April 2). This will give more time for this movement to be exposed for what it is, an opportunistic attempt to secure four (or even three) day working by stealth. This movement is being
John Thornhill’s recent article looking at a potential artificial intelligence power imbalance between the public and private sectors (Opinion, April 1) certainly doesn’t understate the risks of a brain drain from AI research into industry. Translation of deep tech research into successful industrial applications has always been a challenge in the UK — and having
Janan Ganesh follows a torturous line of logic by contrasting the real world approach of President Joe Biden in Ukraine, with some imagining of what Biden’s predecessor would be doing (“The war in Ukraine is not the end of Trump”, Opinion, March 30). Yet it strains credibility to assume tough talk or strategic ambiguity from
I was surprised to read Jonathan Guthrie’s statement that “good governance . . . prescribes box ticking over the independence of non-executive directors and similar matters of little significance” (“ESG category errors need unbundling for ethical investors”, Opinion, April 5). Especially when the FT’s own non-executive director (NED) diploma — quoting from Sir David Walker’s “Review of Corporate Governance
“It is not contrary to reason,” wrote David Hume, the 18th century Scottish philosopher, “for me to chuse my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me.” The US, the UK, the EU and Nato have all said they will not directly intervene militarily to prevent the
Russian missiles on Friday hit a railway station in Kramatorsk, killing “dozens” in the town in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region as Moscow strengthened its offensive in the east of the country. “Thousands of people were at the station during the missile strike, as residents of Donetsk region are being evacuated to safer regions of Ukraine,”
Mexico’s Supreme Court on Thursday denied a bid to invalidate President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s electricity market reform in a decision that puts him on a collision course with the US government and creates a headache for the private sector. The 2021 reform, which has not yet taken effect, proposed to change electricity dispatch rules
On Tuesday, Russia’s new AntiFake TV show aired on the most popular Kremlin-controlled television channel. Superimposed on the horrifying images that have emerged of Ukrainian civilians lying dead in Bucha’s streets was the word “FAKE”. As the TV hosts accused Ukraine of colluding with western media by hiring “poorly-trained actors” to play victims in the
More than half of all new cars sold in the UK must be fully electric by 2028, under detailed government proposals unveiled on Thursday to pave the way for phasing out the sale of traditional petrol and diesel vehicles by the end of the decade. Ministers want to bring in a China-style sales mandate from
Warren Buffett has made tens of billions of dollars from buying dull, industrial companies at staid prices. Despite its Silicon Valley headquarters, the Sage of Omaha’s latest target should be considered in that same genre. A securities filing disclosed Berkshire Hathaway had acquired an 11 per cent stake in HP Inc, formerly known as Hewlett-Packard,