City watchers will recall that consumer goods giant Unilever fell out with its ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s last year when the latter tried to stop selling its products in the Palestinian areas of the West Bank.
The outcome of the tough battle with the Vermont-based company – despite Unilever’s attempts to burnish its own ‘woke’ credentials – appears to have left its mark on the attack on Israel by terror group Hamas this month.
Despite previously claiming that selling its ice cream in the West Bank was “contrary” to its values, Ben & Jerry’s has remained unusually quiet amid the recent events, with no mention on its website or social media channels made of the attack.
Silence: Despite previously claiming that selling its ice cream in the West Bank was ‘contrary’ to its values, Ben & Jerry’s has remained silent amid recent events
Emails to the press team have gone unanswered, while Unilever has so far declined to comment.
Considering the ice cream brand and the owner’s stated focus on social justice and the “purpose” of their products, the silence is deafening.
Seraphim ‘confident’ despite investor concerns
Seraphim, a London-listed investment trust focused on the space industry, this week published its results for the year to June, with boss Mark Boggett remaining ‘confident’ in the prospects for the sector and his portfolio.
Investors appear to be less confident, as shares experienced a nearly 50 percent freefall during this period.
Seraphim blamed this on “significant volatility” in global markets, but Houston, maybe Houston’s stocks have a problem.
Gun stockpile owners have little to offer in return for their support
Cambridge-based chipmaker Arm’s short history on the US technology market Nasdaq has proven rocky for investors, to say the least.
It initially rose as much as 25 percent above the listing price of $51 per share.
That rally has since fizzled out and is now changing hands for around $48, leaving those who stayed on board with little to show for their support so far.
And it appears the misery will continue, according to Morningstar analysts, who last week placed the shares at a $34 price target, a third less than their debut price.
The number crunchers said they would ‘struggle’ to justify the current market capitalization and therefore described the shares as ‘overvalued’.
Perhaps that American rating was not better than London after all.
Chancellor bumps IFS head
Last week, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Paul Johnson, head of Britain’s top economic think tank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), were spotted having breakfast.
Wednesday’s rumbling came a day after the IFS released a report saying the government had no room for unfunded tax cuts ahead of the election and was in a “terrible budget crisis.”
Whispers assumes that Hunt, who is busy preparing his Autumn Statement on November 22, had this appointment in his diary before the latest publication of the IFS.
How Whispers wished he had been a fly on that particular wall that morning.