Founded and launched in December 2014 by Whitney Wolfe Herd, former co-founder of Tinder, and Andrey Andreev, the founder of Badoo dating app, Bumble was designed to offer women a safer and more protected online space to socialize and possibly find a partner. “I founded Bumble to empower women to build healthier and more equitable connections to improve relationships for everyone,” Herd said in the IPO filing.

Wolfe Herd’s departure from Tinder had not been a quiet one – she accused her cofounders of subjecting her to sexual harassment, and her then-partner and direct manager, Justin Mateen of becoming “verbally controlling and abusive.” She sued both, Tinder and its parent company, IAC, which denied all allegations but later paid her more than $1m plus stocks in Tinder to settle the dispute. Her initial plan was to build a competitor for Instagram where people could only post positive comments but was convinced by Andreev to launch the online dating app for women. Andreev initially invested $10m making him the majority owner – 79% stake, while Wolfe Herd had 20%. 

The strategy behind the app was the same as Tinder’s: targeting college campuses, and the way it would work would be to swipe right if you like the person and left if you don’t. One key difference compared to other dating apps – in heterosexual relationships women have to make the first move, having a 24h window to act before the matches disappeared.

The app became successful at Auburn University and the University of Texas at Austin – where the company is based. By the end of 2017, it gained 22 million users. Match Group, the same company that owns Tinder offered to buy out the company for $450 million but it got turned down. In return, Match Group had filed a lawsuit against Bumble, claiming intellectual property infringement. That backfired and Bumble counter-sued two weeks later, accusing Match of fraud and trade secrets theft. Both lawsuits were later dropped.

Bumble has been known to act as an advocate against misogyny. In July 2019 a Forbes investigation revealed that Badoo, Bumble’s sister company had a history of drug-fuelled parties and sexist behaviour. That caused Andreev to sell his entire stake in MagicLab, the parent company of Bumble and Badoo to the Blackstone Group, the private equity firm backing Bumble. Wolfe Herd became the CEO. The company’s feminist approach seems to be consistent throughout the years. An announcement read: “Dear Connor, it has been brought to our attention that you lost your cool on one of our female users, Ashley,” the company wrote, adding: “Consider yourself blocked from Bumble.” 

In March 2019, Wolfe Herd had lobbied for a bill which would make lustful photos illegal. She was successful and as a result, Bumble introduced its own technology to remove those types of images. On January 27th, 2021 she tweeted: We at @bumble are pleased to be supporting the call to amend the UK’s Domestic Abuse Bill, which would make the threat to share intimate images and videos a crime. Thank you to @RefugeCharity for leading the campaign to stop #TheNakedThreat.

In 2019 revenues soared more than 35% with a profit of $68.6m. In 2020 the company suffered a $116m loss with a decline of 15% year-on-year. Nevertheless, since 2015 the company grew up to 100 million users and Magic Lab changed its name to Bumble. As of 2021, Bumble’s figures show 42 million active monthly users, including more than 2.4 million paying users. In addition to the dating feature, Bumble had also set up networks for professional and friendship interests. Celebrities like Priyanka Chopra and Serena Williams invested in the app.

According to a Business Insider’s report, the major findings from Bumble’s pre-IPO filings were based on four key considerations: saturated and competitive dating market, a rise both in revenues and costs, the need to increase paid subscribers, and that Bumble will be a “controlled company” under Blackstone. Bumble’s IPOs opened much higher than predicted: the initial target was $43 per share and opening started at $76 per share. The app is offering 45 million shares. Insider reported that Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Jefferies, RBC Capital, and Evercore ISI are underwriting the offering.

At 31, Wolfe Herd became the youngest female CEO to take a company public in the US and to ever lead an IPO, making her the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, with a stake valued at $1.6 billion (£1.1bn). According to Bumble’s prospectus, Wolfe Herd owns a total of 21.54 million shares, which is the equivalent to 11.6 per cent of the company.

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The business which was divided between two parent holding companies: Unilever plc with shares listed in London and New York and Unilever NV with shares listed in Amsterdam and New York – had now merged into one company, Unilever plc based in London – transforming it into the biggest company in the FTSE 100. The decision which was finalised in November would offer the company more flexibility in case it wanted to do more mergers or acquisitions. 

Updating the market on its 2020 performance, Unilever announced its underlying sales grew by 1.9%, with 1.6% volume and 0.3% price. However, its total sales decreased by 2.4%, primarily driven by a negative impact of 5.4% from currency-related items, while underlying operating profit decreased 5.8%, but increased by 0.7% at constant exchange rates.

Alan Jope, the chief executive said that 60% of the business had enjoyed growth. “2020…I think it’s stating the obvious to say it was far from business as usual. Typically, we would start this presentation by sharing our underlying sales growth, underlying operating margin earnings and cash. But in this year of incredible volatility and uncertainty, we prioritized three things: that was volume-led competitive growth, absolute profit and cash delivery.”

Overall, in 2020 Unilever has reported a 3.5% loss bringing it to €8bn, which had subsequently been brought back up to 3.9% profit after the currency movements came into place. The political unification is hoped to serve as a tool for higher growth and “to prove incontrovertibly that sustainable business does drive superior financial performance.”

At the beginning of this month, Unilever brought in something called “Strategy refresh” – lose on the roundabouts, win on the swings as a result of their products being used by 2.5 billion people around the world. PG Tips and Lipton brands will be sold or demerged together with several other smaller beauty brands in Europe and North America. Due to COVID-19 their products involving hygiene and laundry products, as well as their plant-based food and “foods consumed at home” had seen a rise in sales, while grooming products declined as people are spending more time in their homes.

There have also been big swings in sales of individual brands. Domestos sales had risen by 25%, while Lifebuoy – their star soap product grew by more than 50% – bringing revenues of more than €1bn. Ben & Jerry’s had to change its strategy to cater for eating at home, which led to a growth of 17% in comparison to the 20% loss for ‘out of home’ products.

The strategy refresh is based on three core strengths. First, its brand leadership in several categories. The top two brands, Dove and Knorr generated more than €4bn each, with another 13 other brands which generated more than €1bn.

Secondly, there are strong positions in the fast-growing markets. In a chart for analysts and investors showing 10 countries: US, UK, Brazil, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, China, and Turkey, the figures are expected to add up to more than 67% of the global GDP growth during the following decade.

Lastly, its global leadership regarding sustainability. Mr Jope told investors higher growth is targeted by prioritising categories like hygiene, skincare, and plant-based foods which seem to appeal to millennials and Gen Z “There is clear growing and compelling evidence that sustainable business drives superior growth. Measurable brand purpose grows measurable brand power and that in turn drives market share and growth. We see this in our own brands”. 

As one of the most significant companies regarding marketing, Unilever increased its marketing spend by €160m with campaigns like Ben & Jerry’s refugee rights and Dove’s ‘self-esteem. There is a particular focus on the environment. All the company’s plastic will be recyclable by 2025. Its supply chain is targeted to drop to zero net emissions by 2039 and they also want to ensure all their employees will receive a living wage by 2030.

US, India, and China account for 35% of Unilever’s current sales – Mr Jope said this will be made a priority for future growth. This led to shares dropping by more than 4%. The business strategy focused on reinstating financial targets and faster growth in areas like high-end beauty and plant-based foods brought the company’s shares to drop to a nine-month low as shareholders became concerned by profitability.

Unilever is aiming to reach an annual sales growth of 3% to 5%, in comparison with 1.9% achieved in 2020 and 2.9% the previous year. Experts see it as a slow-moving, bureaucratic business when compared to more hard-driving rivals like Reckitt Benckiser.

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When the global pandemic hit businesses at the beginning of last year, Sony, the Japanese tech giant, predicted its operating profit may be hit by more than 30 per cent. “Based on its best assumptions now, operating income for the fiscal year ending March 31st, 2021 is currently estimated to be at least 30 per cent lower than the level achieved in the previous fiscal year.” At that moment, it would have been hard to imagine that music and indoor entertainment will cover all their losses and some more. A lot more.

By August, the wider corporation had seen an increase of 53 per cent in net income, reaching the amount of $2.19 billion (233bn yen) within the first quarter. Two of their divisions did suffer losses: the imaging division, and the electronic products and solutions division. Motion Pictures saw an overall decrease which cut their revenues in half due to the closure of cinemas.

The final quarter of the year revealed that Sony music revenues increased by 19.5 per cent (+467m) in 2020 bringing it to a total $4.5bn. That same report, Quarterly Financial Statements for the Third Quarter Ended December 31, 2020, And Outlook for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31, 2021, disclosed that all of Sony’s division’s revenues are expected to see an increase from the October forecast. “Sales and operating revenue +3.5 per cent Operating income +34.3 per cent Income before income taxes +46.4 per cent Net income attributable to Sony Corporation’s stockholders +35.6 per cent. For all segments excluding the Financial Services segment * Net cash provided by operating activities +34.9 per cent.”

The video-gaming industry was expected to boom in the current scene, and it did. It exceeded all expectations. After Sony released their quarterly results on October 28th, figures showed an increase of 11.5 per cent year-on-year, and operating profits soared by 61 per cent. In comparison, its biggest competitor, Xbox One console revenues soared by 30 per cent. PlayStation sold 100m of their PS4s consoles in the first release, with an additional 14.8 million in the second year of the launch and more than 1bn games. “We would like to exceed that level of PS4 when it comes to PS5,” a spokesperson said during a briefing following Sony’s Q3 earnings call. Microsoft does not offer any official figures, but analysts estimate that sales of Xbox One were half as high. Other console providers have followed a similar rising path.

The scale of the surge has caught the industry by surprise. In a year marked by lockdowns and working from home, the demand for gaming consoles became so high that some consumers might have to go without. Or at least for now. 

PlayStation 5 launched on November 12th and each release sold out the minute it reached the shelves, with each restock facing a similar outcome. Last Wednesday, Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki announced that they are unable to meet demand soon as the global shortage of semiconductors – used in AMD processing chips in the PS5 and Xbox X/S – will constitute their biggest impediment. “It is difficult for us to increase the production of the PS5 amid the shortage of semiconductors and other components. We have not been able to fully meet the high level of demand from customers [but] we continue to do everything in our power to ship as many units as possible to customers who are waiting for a PS5.” There have been speculations that these delays should be met by summer.

The new console’s entire design was sketched out by hand and it promises a touch sensation never experienced before. But the competition is high and the industry’s titans are trying to come with innovative ways to impress its customers. It appears that brand loyalty plays a decisive factor when choosing. Sony’s strategy is focusing on committed customers and exclusive games. Recently, Microsoft decided to do the opposite – offer hire-purchase deals for its new Xbox for $15 month. The deal called “Game Pass” gives access to an online library of hundreds of games and there is no need for a console. This would be available through a service called xCloud and it could be streamed to any smart screen. Sony also has its version called PSNow, though it is more limited in terms of the games available. 

Over the past decade, streaming has revolutionised music, television, and films. Names like Google, Facebook and Amazon are considering entering the gaming industry. Google launched “Stadia”, Amazon “Luna”, and Facebook “Facebook Gaming”. 

The shortage of PlayStation 5 consoles continues. According to a new update, in the UK, retailers (Game, Argos, Amazon, Smyths, Currys and Box) will be re-stocking in the coming days. Game announced on their website that money will start being taken starting today, February 11th. PS5 Instant Twitter account suggests that pre-orders will be available between 9 am and 12 pm GMT. As usual, monitoring social media channels is a good way to get to the front of the queue.

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On January 29^th, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was approved for use in the EU. The British-Swedish pharmaceutical manufacturer announced it would need to reduce deliveries to the EU by 60% to 31 million doses in the first quarter of the year – out of the 100 million promised by March as part of the 300 million doses signed for in August. The UK’s 100 million doses deal would not be affected as it was signed in May and approved on December 30^th. In response, the European Commission said it would introduce export controls on vaccines produced within the bloc: “The protection and safety of our citizens is a priority and the challenges we now face left us with no choice but to act.”

But this also included triggering Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol, which would prevent the exports of vaccines from the Republic to Northern Ireland. The mistake was quickly corrected, but the fallout was instant. Julian Smith, former Northern Ireland secretary said the EU had “pulled the emergency cord” without following procedures, adding “I’m very pleased that they changed their mind.”

The European Commission has since republished its vaccine distribution control measures without Article 16 but said it would not accept AstraZeneca’s argument for the delay of the vaccine on the first come, first served basis. Pascal Soriot, the British-Swedish company’s CEO said: “We are basically two months behind where we wanted to be. We’ve had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches.” One of the main issues that seem to play as a decisive factor in the delay of the vaccine to Europe and not the UK is that production problems are encountered in Europe and the sites in the UK should keep their promise to the UK.

As heavily mishandled and criticised the EU’s position might have been, the redacted AZ/EU contract states that the company had committed to deliver a set of Initial Europe Dozes in the first quarter of the year (Section 5.1) and that “AstraZeneca shall use its Best Reasonable Efforts to manufacture the Vaccine at manufacturing sites located within the EU(which, for the purpose of this Section 5.4 shall include the United Kingdom)…If AstraZeneca is unable to deliver on its intention to manufacture the Initial Europe Dozes and/or Optional Dozes under this agreement in the EU, the Commission or the Participating Member States may present to AstraZeneca, CMOs within the EU capable of manufacturing the Vaccine Dozes” and use it to increase the available manufacturing capacity (Section 5.4).

Furthermore, Section 13.e states that the initial dozes committed and paid for in advance by the EU are free from any other commitments “it is not under any obligation, contractual or otherwise, to any Person or third party in respect of the Initial Europe Doses or that conflicts with or is inconsistent in any material respect with the terms of this Agreement or that would impede the complete fulfilment of its obligations under this Agreement;” However, it seems that the UK is refusing to allow the export of vaccines produced here until the UK’s population is vaccinated, despite its early use of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

German MEP Peter Liese said: “For five weeks now the BioNTech vaccine that is only produced in Europe, that has been developed with the aid of the German state and European Union money, is shipped to the United Kingdom, so people in the United Kingdom are vaccinated with a very good vaccine that is produced in Europe, supported by European money. If there is anyone thinking that European citizens would accept that we give this high-quality vaccine to the UK and would accept to be treated as second class by UK based company. I think the only consequence can be to immediately stop the export of the BioNTech vaccine and then we are in the middle of a trade war. So, the company and the UK better think twice.”

The European Commission insists its controls are a temporary scheme, not an export ban and said it had reached an agreement with five pharmaceutical companies: AstraZeneca: 400 million doses; Sanofi-GSK: 300 million doses; Johnson & Johnson: 400 million doses; CureVac: 405 million doses; Moderna: 160 million doses. There have also been talks with Novavax, for up to 200 million doses. This could ensure almost two billion doses for European citizens. The UK and the EU face the same threats and their geographically proximate position implies that one is not safe without the other being safe.

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Last week was about challenging economic power. A war between amateur private investors and giant hedge funds emerged in the world of stock markets as a result of an online Reddit forum called r/wallstreetbets. The story had many twists and turns, and attracted the attention of the public, politicians, regulators, the media, and Wall Street titans all at once, but what had happened?

GameStop – an American video games retailer on the verge of crashing, saw an increase in its shares value from $20 on January 12th, to almost $400 on January 28th, transforming a company that was valued at less than $2bn at the start of the year into a $24bn fortune within days. This meteoric surge in value was seemingly created when r/wallstreetbets noticed that hedge funds had taken a short-selling position in GameStop. The online forum then decided to trap the Wall Street big boys at their own game and launched a co-ordinated buying spree which caused hedge fund titans to lose billions to Reddit traders.

Hedge funds business plan is essential to bet that a certain company will lose a lot of value and the way it does that is through something called shorting or short-selling. This is essentially when traders borrow shares in a company, sell them, and then buy them back at a lower price. They then return them to the owner and pocket of the profit. Late last year, a few hedge fund managers have betted against GameStop, hoping to drop its value in shares and then capitalise on the losses. But huge numbers of small investors from the wallstreetbets Reddit forum started buying the stock, raising its share price massively, and these hedge funds managers who had banked on its dropping in value had to buy their shares back.

Surprisingly, this has caused a lot of distress in the untouchable Wall Street world, and as a result, US regulators interfered and decided to review the activity. The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) warned market participants to be careful not to manipulate the share trading: “extreme stock price volatility has the potential to expose investors to rapid and severe losses and undermine market confidence. We will act to protect retail investors when the facts demonstrate abusive or manipulative trading activity that is prohibited by the federal securities laws.” This caused many companies to restrict stock sales, and the trading app Robinhood stopped users from trading GameStop stocks entirely, which infuriated customers and raised concerns about whom does the free market belong to.

In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said they are monitoring the situation and warned the British public to be cautious. “We’re warning the UK investors in certain US-listed shares which are being discussed online to use extreme caution. Volatile markets are unpredictable and mean you can quickly lose money. Losses are unlikely to be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme #wallstreetbets.”

Amateur traders were not the only ones outraged by the move to stop trades. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic congresswoman from New York called the restrictions “unacceptable”. Elon Musk tweeted: “u can’t sell houses u don’t own u can’t sell cars u don’t own but u *can* sell stock u don’t own!? this is bs – shorting is a scam legal only for vestigial reasons.” 

Doug Henwood, the host of Behind the News wrote: “The online pranksters behind the great GameStop bubble of 2021 are probably going to lose a lot of money. But they’ve done the world a service by reminding us of the utter uselessness of the stock market, an institution that serves no purpose besides making a small number of undeserving people rich.” According to him, IPOs – initial public offerings in the last 20 years have added to $657bn (£479bn), while the companies in S&P 500 stock index have spent $8.3tn (£6tn) buying their stock to increase its price. Many fear that the GameStop affair revealed the fragility of the financial market.

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