26 10 / 2011
You! Get on Paul Smiths catwalk now!
By Marie-Louise Gumuchian
I am usually accustomed to sitting far away from the catwalk, rows behind the fashion elite and squeezed between other reporters. Sometimes, I donât even have a seat but stand with media or production crews, straining my neck to see a designerâs offerings for next season.
But this fashion week in London, I got to taste the real deal as I was catapulted onto the catwalk itself, strutting with other models. Not exactly something I had ever imagined doing.
As part of our coverage of London Fashion Week this weekend, I had just finished interviewing British designer Paul Smith backstage ahead of his spring/summer 2012 womenswear show.
I chatted with my colleagues about how friendly he had been with us and how with 40 minutes to go until show time, how amazingly calm everyone backstage was â a rare sight during the fashion week frenzy. We watched as models lined up preparing for their rehearsal with music blaring in the background â a required ritual ahead of any show. Suddenly the lady lining them up called out loudly: âYou! Come over here.â
I was not sure who she was talking, but it seemed she was facing my direction â âYou, come hereâ she said, now clearly looking at me.
âBut Iâm not a model,â I protested as my TV producer colleague held onto me to prove we were part of the same team. âIâm a journalist, Iâm here to cover the show.â
âDoesnât matter, come here, we need one of you here,â she answered, waving me over. Confused, I obliged, not quite sure what she wanted me to do.
âStand here,â she said, placing me between two young models. And then she walked off. I looked in front and I could see models, one by one, making their entrance on the catwalk just behind the screen.
HORRIFIED
I was horrified. âWhat do I do now? Do I actually have to walk down?â I cried out to my colleagues. They laughed, one even whipped out her phone and told our cameraman, in place at the end of the catwalk, to get ready to film.
I desperately looked for the lady who had placed me in the line of models, questioning myself as to why I had come over, but she was busy fussing getting other girls in place. She even placed another girl â not a model â in the queue. Phew I thought, Iâm not the only one. But this girl seemed a lot calmer than I was, clearly accustomed to such impromptu moves in fashion show rehearsals.
âWhat do I do,â I asked when the choreographer lady finally came round to me, noticing the line in front of me was getting alarmingly shorter.
âWalk down the catwalk, just enjoy it!â she said.
Okay I thought, Iâm not 100 percent sure about the ethics of hitting the catwalk, but to avoid any drama, Iâll play along.
I thought, this will be fine, as three, then two, then one and then no more models were in front of me anymore. And so my turn came. A friendly looking man, who was timing the rehearsal, held onto my arm, clearly seeing I looked a little nervous: âJust enjoy it, itâs only a rehearsal, he said. âNow go.â
STRUT? SWAY? POUT?
And so I went. And there was the huge catwalk in front of me. A dozen thoughts suddenly crammed my head â Where do I look? Do I strut down? Do I sway my hips? Do I pout? Do I smile? Panic spread so I just held on tightly to my blackberry.
I must have walked three steps when a new message arrived â not now I thought! I quickly looked down at it but realised that was not very model-like behaviour so I looked back up and straight ahead.
I could see the few people sitting on the sidelines looked confused at my presence as I clearly was not a model. While I like to think I had made a stylish effort for Fashion Week, I clearly was not wearing designer clothes. But I stared straight ahead, thinking what a surreal experience this was â â especially as only weeks ago I was in North Africa helping out on our coverage of the Libyan conflict with fashion the last thing on my mind.
The lights were blazing and I could not make out the photographers nor cameramen in front of me. So this is what it feels like to be a catwalk model, I thought, itâs quite easy. Then I recalled I was actually wearing comfortable wedges and not skyscraper heels.
The catwalk was not an average up and down runway, but a rectangle shaped around a central seating space. As I approached the TV and picture crews, I looked straight ahead Âand swiftly turned my heel round.
Phew, I thought, halfway done. The walking back down the catwalk was a lot easier  mainly because this part of the huge room was practically empty. Although I must have walked a little too fast as I could see I was cutting into the approaching modelÂs space. I held back, let her do her thing, and then calmly made my exit.
My colleagues greeted me with beaming smiles and applause. Our cameraman rushed back, confused: âWhat was that all about?â he asked. âI have no idea,â I replied, laughing. âBut it was fun.â
18 10 / 2011
Apple earnings to showcase iPhone strength
Investors worried about crumbling consumer spending, a darkening economic outlook and the rapid expansion of Google Inc’s Android mobile software got some assurance after the company moved 4 million iPhone 4S units in three days — more than double its predecessor — despite lukewarm reviews.Apple’s shareholders have had plenty to fret about since August, when Steve Jobs handed the reins to Tim Cook.The company then lost its leading visionary and co-founder when he died October 5. Some analysts say the short-term disruption offered a brief window for rivals like Google and its foremost Android partner, Samsung, to swoop in.But the world’s largest technology company by market value is expected to present a positive short-term picture — sparked by roaring sales of its iPhone and iPad — when it reports results for the July-September period Tuesday.The iPhone 4S sales numbers catapulted Apple’s shares to a record high last week, even though some of that rally rested on the iPhone 4S being available in two additional countries and more telecoms carriers from launch day.The record sales have heightened expectations for the current quarter, which many investors expect will be enormous for Apple.”The quarter we are focusing on is the holiday quarter,” said Channing Smith, co-manager of the Capital Advisors Growth Fund, which owns Apple shares.”We expect Apple to absolutely blow the doors off during Christmas.”Still, Apple has encountered a few uncharacteristic glitches or hiccups since Jobs exited in August. While the iPhone 4S rode pent-up demand and wider availability to record numbers, the initial response was disappointment over a lack of design changes.And while the woes of rivals such as Research in Motion — which experienced its severest outage last week — appear to benefit Apple, the impending re-launch of Microsoft Corp and Nokia into the mobile arena and the increasing footprint of Android could hit Apple’s sales.Others worry that Apple’s shares have gone too far, too fast.On Monday, BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis lowered his recommendation on Apple to hold, citing a steep run-up in price and some short-term turbulence such as some risk to profit margin from education pricing discounts offered on some Apple products and competition to the iPad from low-cost manufacturers.”The company has to constantly set records just to meet expectations,” Gillis said. “There is nothing wrong with Apple’s business model or execution, but we do see that sentiment is overwhelmingly positive.”“It is possible shares pull back below $400, possibly even this week after the earnings report,” he added.For Cook and his executive bench, quarterly results offer what some analysts say is a welcome opportunity to focus on business, after headlines were dominated for a fortnight by Jobs’ passing, which ignited a spontaneous outpouring of grief and sympathy from heads of state, Silicon Valley royalty and across the Internet.Apple’s iPhone delivers more than 40 percent of its revenue and provides much of the growth momentum. Wall Street has begun building in projections for up to 30 million of the smartphones sold in the December quarter, the crucial holiday period.As with previous quarters, Apple — which provides current-quarter estimates that Wall Street says are typically conservative — needs to truly surpass expectations to drive a share rally, analysts said.Current average projections put fiscal fourth-quarter revenue at $29.6 billion and earnings per share at $7.38.But according to StarMine SmartEstimates, which places more emphasis on the timeliest forecasts by the most historically accurate analysts, Apple is expected to post earnings of $7.47 per share — about 2.4 percent above the average estimate.Revenue could come in at $29.8 billion — about 1 percent above the average expectation.BEYOND IPHONESSome investors recommend looking beyond merely iPhones and looking at Apple’s other main devices: the two-year-old iPad, and the stalwart Macintosh line of desktop and laptop computers.Wall Street in general expects sales somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 million to 22 million iPhones in the September quarter, north of 4 million Macs, and about 10 million iPads.”Investors have plenty to look forward to from Apple as the year comes to a close, including stronger than expected demand for the new iPhone 4S, a strengthened digital ecosystem with the recent launch of the iOS 5 and iCloud, the continued momentum around the iPad 2,” Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White said.Beyond 2011, the picture is less clear. Many analysts expect Apple, sustaining its long-established product cycle, to unveil the third version of the iPad, which helped create the tablet computing market that it still dominates.But rivals aren’t sitting still. Microsoft is gearing up to launch Windows 8 for tablets, and its new phone operating software will soon debut on new partner Nokia.Google, whose Android is already the world’s most-used mobile software, continues to score partners. And Samsung, riding Android’s success, may overtake Apple as the world’s bestselling smartphone brand in the fourth quarter and beyond.Still, investor enthusiasm for Apple continues for now.”It’s very hard to find any type of problem in the business,” Capital Advisors Growth Fund’s Smith said.
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14 10 / 2011
UPDATE 1-Bank of Ireland divests 5 bln euros of loans
Bank of Ireland, the only domestic lender to avoid falling
into state control, said it had raised 4.54 billion euros from
the sale of the loan books, a higher price than expected,
meaning there was no impact on its core tier one ratio.Bank of Ireland had a pro forma core tier one ratio, a key
measure of financial strength, of 15.4 percent at the end of
June.Ireland’s banks need to shrink their loan books to reduce
their dependence on emergency funding from the European Central
Bank and the Irish central bank, which at the end of September
stood at 153.6 billion euros.Bank of Ireland needs to dispose of another 5 billion euros
worth of loans by the end of 2013, and it said it was making
good progress.It said it was in advanced talks with potential purchasers
of project finance loans.The loans already sold include a U.S. commercial real
estate portfolio valued at $1.13 billion, some 1.33 billion
pounds of UK commercial property loans sold to Kennedy Wilson
and institutional partners for 1.07 billion pounds, and 1.23
billion pounds of British residential mortgages sold to a unit
of Britain’s Nationwide Building Society for 1.13 billion
pounds.Bank of Ireland also sold a portfolio of project finance
loans with total commitments of 670 million euros to GE Energy
Financial Services . The loans relate to a portfolio of
energy assets across North America, the UK, continental Europe
and the Middle East.The group also accepted repayment of some 700 million euros
of loans at or close to par in its UK corporate banking
division.
14 10 / 2011
iWill: Britons leaving heirs “digital inheritance”
Around 11 percent of the 2,000 British people surveyed by the Center for Creative & Social Technology (CAST) at the University of London for their “Cloud Generation” report said they had included internet passwords or plan to include them in their wills in a trend that CAST labeled “digital inheritance.”“It’s an area that will become increasingly important given, for instance, the monetary value of music collections and sentimental value of photograph collections - fewer people now keep hard copies of either,” the report quoted Steven Thorpe, partner at Gardner Thorpe Solicitors, as saying.”Cloud Generation” co-authors Chris Brauer and Jennifer Barth used 15 in-depth case studies and the larger poll to investigate the implications for people whose personal and cultural keepsakes increasingly exist only in the so-called cloud — online services run on remote computers rather than one’s own PC.In the course of their study, they discovered people naturally wanted to save valuable music, photos and videos for their own use during their lifetime, but now increasingly are seeking to preserve those things for their heirs.”It’s that it’s representative of your identity, of who you are,” Brauer told Reuters on Friday.Brauer said they discovered that “digital natives” as — he called them — now instinctively rely on the cloud to interact, save, store and share their personal tastes and data.The idea of digital legacies appeared when they asked cloud users what they would rescue if the house caught fire.”They said: ‘I would go to my computer, email my photos (and other digital treasures) to myself and then leave the house’,” Brauer said.What happens to people’s online identity and activities after they die has become a growing issue with the ubiquity of cloud computing, digital memorabilia, social networking and an aging generation of Internet users.For example, social networking site Facebook allows a deceased user’s profile to be taken down, but will not pass on passwords to give next of kin access to the account.The use of smartphones and other gadgets has also increased the amount of online services people use — including storing movies, emails, family videos and work data.About 25 percent of respondents to the report believed that by 2020 they would no longer print photos and 14.5 percent thought they would not own any physical books.
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14 10 / 2011
Walmart to close all Marketside stores next week
* Will keep selling Marketside branded goods elsewhereBy Jessica WohlOct 14 (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc will shut
its four Marketside stores next week, abandoning the concept
after three years as it works on opening other small shops.Marketside marked Wal-Mart’s attempt to give U.S. shoppers
a quick place to buy prepared food such as roasted chicken and
freshly baked bread for last-minute meals without the need for
a trip to a larger grocery store or supercenter. The stores
also carry produce, wine and other groceries.The world’s largest retailer opened its four Marketside
stores in the Phoenix metropolitan area in 2008. A year later,
it started to sell some Marketside branded food in other
Walmart stores.The four Arizona stores — in Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa and
Tempe — will close on Oct. 21, a spokesman said on Friday.Wal-Mart is not the first U.S. grocer to abandon the
concept of a small shop selling prepared food to harried
consumers looking for quick meal solutions. Supervalu Inc shut down a similar upscale concept store in Chicago,
Urban Fresh, in 2009 after just over a year.Now, Wal-Mart is banking on another small-store concept,
more aligned with its roots, as a potential growth vehicle in
rural and urban locations where its larger shops would not
work.Wal-Mart’s Marketside stores, at roughly 16,000 square
feet, are about the same size as the Walmart Express test
format the company launched in June.So far, Wal-Mart is pleased with the five Walmart Express
stores in Arkansas, North Carolina and Chicago. It plans to
have 11 such stores by the end of the year.Walmart Express stores, which range from about 10,000
square feet to 15,000 square feet, feel more like traditional
Walmart stores than the Marketside shops. Walmart Express
stores are stocked with groceries and some housewares.
Pharmacies are included in some of the locations.Earlier this week, Wal-Mart said it would ramp up openings
of its Neighborhood Market stores, which at about 42,000 square
feet are much larger than Marketside or Walmart Express stores
but much smaller than Walmart supercenters.The first Neighborhood Market opened in 1998. There are
about 185 such stores now. Wal-Mart plans to open 80 to 100
small- and medium-format stores in its next fiscal year. Most
will be Neighborhood Markets. This year, it plans to open just
25 to 30 small and medium shops.The majority of Wal-Mart’s new U.S. stores — up to 120
this year and up to 135 in fiscal 2013 — will continue to be
supercenters.Even those are getting a bit smaller.New supercenters are set to be roughly 90,000 to 120,000
square feet. Walmart supercenters used to average about 185,000
square feet.
12 10 / 2011
Investment in European property rises in Q3
The CBRE data showed third-quarter property investment in
the UK was 7.5 billion euros, down 22 percent from a year
earlier. In Germany it rose 56 percent to 5.7 billion euros,
while in France it was up 43 percent to 3.6 billion.In central and eastern Europe (CEE), property investment
rose 70 percent to 2.7 billion euros, making it the
fastest-growing European property investment market, with
activity focused on Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.”With 81 billion euros of investment activity reported in
the market in the first three quarters of the year, we expect
European investment turnover to exceed that in 2010, when 110
billion euros was transacted for the full year,” Hull said.
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