In late 2019 Philip Morris was added to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) North America which recognised, in the eyes of the tobacco giant’s wide-eyed PR, the company’s “exemplary sustainability performance” and “best in class” performance against the DJSI’s apparent wobbly ESG metrics. It’s a development that jars with the view of the World… Read More Scoring

‘It’s not going to be normal by September’ so the readership of the FT was bluntly informed, many apparently reeling from a market sell-off that left headline indices just a tick or two off all-time highs. The fast spreading ‘delta’ variant, by all accounts, having put paid to the much-vaunted reflation trade and hopes of… Read More Surprise

Whilst the market skulks about at giddy all-time highs there is stuff happening below the surface. Violent rotations: out of this, into that, recoiling from data that is starting to come off the boil. The 30-year bond yield just stooped below 2% for the first time since February, shepherding skittish investors back into the growth… Read More Stage left

Half-time. Not only in the Euros, but in markets too. With June all but in the can, there is much to ponder. Indices bounce about at all-time highs giving the punch bowl its punch, and for good reason. It’s been a fiesta of economic data on the upside, with everything, literally everything on a tear.… Read More Half Time

Tighten the belt. Lind Rendle on a recent call said “… we’re seeing an incredibly inflationary environment. I think that’s true in what your seeing across the industry, on both the retailer side, the manufacturer side, and supplier side, it is intense for sure”. Linda Rendle is CEO of Clorox, the purveyor of all sorts… Read More Debt

For the beleaguered executives of the retail C-suite the Covid pandemic was almost it, capping a brittle and bitter multi-year period that saw bankruptcy courts claim many peers and set in motion a slide in profits that would likely claim many more. The assault of Amazon.com on high streets and precincts savaged many a flat… Read More Paradigms

Tracking the short term data is always a messy affair. The data is noisy, distorted by weather, holidays and the occasional error by those filling in the forms. That said, the tone tells a tale. The soft shift in patterns allows insights to be gleaned. When it comes to the economy, there is evidence across… Read More Consumer

It appears dresses are back in fashion. So too, special outfits like prom get-gos and the all-encompassing and verdant pick-me-out tones of the ‘mother of the bride’. And as the weather heats up and vaccines snuff out the virus, the consumer is getting back into denim. Macy’s CEO Jeffrey Gennette was just one of the… Read More Turnaround

Whilst there continues to be plenty of steamy discussion and hot collared dispute over the means by which the ever increasing body of experts actually measure ESG, there is an indisputable momentum behind the push for organisations of all shapes and sizes to get it on the agenda. And get it on fast. Stakeholders demand… Read More Healthcare

The high-octane series Mad Men lit up living rooms with the rich and vivid goings on of 1960s Madison Avenue, and showered the power age of advertising in glamour and a lot of martini. The phrase Mad Men was supposedly a slang term used to describe the tight-suited movers and shakers, Mad being short for… Read More Mad Men