The Blackstone Group, one of the world’s largest investment managers with $545 billion under management last year, has paid $4.7 billion for the majority ownership of Ancestry.com, the website that enables people to trace their family trees. Ancestry.com also is the world’s leading provider of DNA test kits that allow people to screen for genetic...
Tag: aug 11 2020
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DISNEY REPORTS FIRST LOSS IN 19 YEARS
The Disney Co. lost $4.72 billion in the three months ending 27 June, its first losing quarter since 2001. Its theme parks were closed, movie releases delayed, and sporting events that dotted its television broadcast schedule were canceled. A year earlier, the company had posted $1.43 billion in profits. Revenues fell 42 percent to $11.8...
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TAILORED BRANDS GOES CASUAL
Tailored Brands, owner of Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Banks clothiers, is rebalancing its inventory from business attire to a new emphasis on casual chic as it works through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, filed on 2 August. The company’s revenues fell 5.6 percent over the last two years as business dress codes loosened, a trend institutionalized...
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NEW VIRUS VICTIM: HALLOWEEN
Already dressed up with masks for Halloween and everyday life looking like a trip to the Mad House, with Al Hallow’s Eve just nine weeks away, still fearful of the COVID Goblin, planned events are being canceled. Universal Studios Hollywood’s annual Halloween Horror Nights, which runs from mid-September past Halloween night, priced tickets last year...
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SLIDING VALUE OF OFFICE SPACE HITS URBAN CENTERS
It’s old news to Trends Journal subscribers. We had forecast this back in March. But now it’s big news in the business media. First hotels, then retail storefronts. Next, the value of office space, especially in urban centers, will shrink an average of 17.2 percent in 2020, says Moody’s Analytics REIS. The value of retail...
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GOVERNMENT’S LOCKDOWN LAWLESSNESS
In the U.S., a number of legal scholars, including Bradley Moss, a Washington, D.C. lawyer with particular expertise on security issues, said, “It is unclear, absent congressional approval or every state in the union collectively agreeing to it, how any president would have the authority to impose a federal or national quarantine.” Polly J. Price,...
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FLORIDA FREAK-OUT
Absent in the reporting of daily cases and the non-stop spreading of COVID Fear by the mainstream media, as we have been reporting for months, on a global scale, some 50 percent of all deaths from COVID-19 are in elder care facilities. Remember, when the virus first struck the U.S in March, the vast majority...
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LEBANON: FREE FALL INTO THE ABYSS
Last Tuesday, a massive explosion ripped through the heart of Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon, killing some 180 people and injuring an estimated 6,000. On top of the loss of life, estimated property damage hovers between $3-15 billion, and hundreds of thousands are now homeless due to the explosion’s widespread damage. The source of...
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AUTO LOANS RISK RISING DEFAULTS
Vehicle loans, which have almost doubled in number since 2010, face a rising likelihood of mass-scale defaults with millions unemployed, future federal unemployment bonuses in doubt, and banks less able, or less willing, to defer payments or negotiate lower balances. During the current crisis, auto lenders offered to defer payments for many borrowers for as...
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THREE FACTORS SHAPING THE JOBS MARKET
With new claims for unemployment benefits topping one million for 20 weeks in a row, whether job growth continues robustly, weakly, or at all depends on three factors, analysts say. First, 45 million working Americans have school-age children. If schools do not fully reopen, many parents will forego full-time work to remain at home to...