Highest earning dead celebrity
Forbes says Jackson has earned more than $1 billion pre-tax since his death, which is more than enough to pay off his personal debts. in 2105 the estate made $115 million, in part from the Vegas Cirque du Soleil show Michael Jackson One, the Mijac Music catalogue, recorded music sales and half of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which includes the rights to 250 Beatles songs.
Breaks ticket records
Fandango says Star Wars: The Force Awakens online ticket sales traffic surged to seven times its typical peak levels, a record-setting first day of pre-sales. The previous record holder was 2012’s The Hunger Games.
For Star Wars, we have already sold eight times as many tickets as we did on the first day of sales for the previous record holder. This is an extraordinary time for the industry, which experienced unprecedented ticketing demand last night. The enthusiasm for this year’s most anticipated movie is out of this world and we expect it to continue all the way to its debut on Dec. 18.
Ferguson’s wins £97m ferry contract
Ferguson’s wins a Scottish government contract to build two new ferries. The deal, which is worth about £97m, was confirmed at the SNP’s annual conference in Aberdeen by Transport Minister Derek McKay.
Files for IPO
An SEC filing (document) reveals the company is officially seeking an initial public offering, as well as financial information: In the first half of 2015 Square took losses of $77.5 million on revenue of $560.5 million. In 2014, the company reported gross payment volume of $23.78 billion. The filing reveals retail the biggest source of transactions for the company constituting 21 percent of its gross payments volume. Other sectors include services, food, beauty, contractor, and transit. The filing also says Dorsey’s role as the CEO of Twitter and Square is a risk factor:
Jack Dorsey, our co-founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, also serves as Chief Executive Officer of Twitter. This may at times adversely affect his ability to devote time, attention, and effort to Square.
Stock drops 10% on earnings drop
Walmart has its worst stock decline in more than 27 years after predicting a drop in annual profit. Earnings will decrease 6 percent to 12 percent in fiscal 2017, which ends in January of that year. Analysts had estimated a gain of 4 percent on average. Efforts to raise the minimum wage to a goal of $10/hr combined with an expanded training program, added about $1 billion in costs this year and $1.5 billion next year. Shares fell 10 percent to $60.03 in New York, the biggest drop since January 1988.
Shark Tank appearance
Foot Cardigan accepts an offer on Shark Tank from Cuban and Carter, who is appearing as a guest shark, to co-invest $250,000 for a 20% ownership stake in their $9-a-month sock subscription service. The company says it earned $1.36 million in the past three years ($900,000 in the past 12 months) and projects $1.5 million for 2015. It currently services 6,000 monthly customers with seasonal increases to approximately 12,000 subscribers.
Leaves Atom Factory, launches Friends At Work
Stiklorius leaves Atom Factory to start Friends At Work, her own own management company, where she will work with Lindsey Stirling and John Legend. Carter:
The only thing that I love as much as artists are entrepreneurs, and Ty has the makings of a great one. Although I’m sad to see her leave, I’m grateful for our time together and extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished over the last three years. She and John are going to build a great company that will help other artists and have an impact on the community. They’ll always be a part of our family here at Atom Factory.
Two million apply for 300 clerical jobs
Uttar Pradesh’s government is overwhelmed after receiving over two million applications for 368 low-level government jobs. Even though the prerequisites for the posts include having primary school qualifications and being able to ride a bicycle, 255 PhD holders and 152,000 graduates have applied. The successful candidates will receive a monthly salary of 16,000 rupees ($240).Official:
These candidates have to be interviewed but my estimate is that the entire process will take at least four years to complete even if there are ten boards interviewing 200 candidates a day, for 25 days a month.
Help Is Coming charity release
Crowded House re-releases Help Is Coming, introduced by Cumberbatch, to raise money for refugees fleeing to Europe to escape conflict. The fund-raising video features footage from refugee camps and shows people attempting to travel to a country of sanctuary. Crowded House’s Neil Finn and Capitol Records have agreed to donate all the royalties to Save The Children.
Buys NBC’s Miss Universe stake
Trump says he has bought NBC’s stake in Miss Universe and has settled all legal claims with them.
Just purchased NBC’s half of The Miss Universe Organization and settled all lawsuits against them. Now own 100% — stay tuned!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 11, 2015
Profits drop 84%
The company reports a decline in net income from $37.4m in 2014 to $5.8m in 2015, a 84% decrease. Revenue fell from $405m to $392m. Attendance dropped by more than 100,000 from 6.58 million to 6.48 million. CEO Manby:
We realize we have much work ahead of us to recover more of our attendance base, increase revenue and improve our performance as returning to historical performance levels will take time and investment. On the reputation side, early feedback on our campaign has been positive, however, we recognize that fully resolving our brand challenges in California will require sustained focus and commitment to correct misinformation…We will continue to fight with the facts, because the facts are on our side.
Logo redesign
Google makes subtle changes to its logo, including a multi-colored mic for voice commands and a four-color “G” logo which replaces the lowercase “g” logo.
Once upon a time, Google was one destination that you reached from one device: a desktop PC. These days, people interact with Google products across many different platforms, apps and devices—sometimes all in a single day.
$200 million investment
NBC Universal invests $200 million strategic investment in Vox Media, to form a partnership between the new and old media companies to collaborate on programming, advertising and technology.
Alphabet founded
Page and Brin found Alphabet to hold all Google-related businesses. Alphabet
habet Inc will replace Google as the publicly-traded entity. All shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet — with the same rights. Page:
Google will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet. Our two classes of shares will continue to trade on Nasdaq as GOOGL and GOOG.
All of the businesses that fall under Alphabet will have their own individual chief executives. Page says that with the new structure, the company is planning to implement segment reporting for its fourth quarter earnings results. As such, Google’s financials will be provided separately from other Alphabet’s businesses. Page:
We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity’s most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search! We also like that it means alpha-bet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark), which we strive for! I should add that we are not intending for this to be a big consumer brand with related products–the whole point is that Alphabet companies should have independence and develop their own brands.
Stock falls
Keurig shares fall about 30% in pre-market trading after announcing that sales are down and the company plans to cut its workforce by 5%. The stock is down 43% year-to-date. CEO Kelly:
While we are not pleased with our revenue growth, we delivered earnings at the high end of our previous guidance.
Shares fall
Twitter shares plunge on the New York Stock Exchange, dropping 5.6% to $29.27 which is the lowest level ever. The share price has fallen a total of 45% in four months. Co-founder Dorsey:
We haven’t done a great job at aligning the entire company around our total audience strategy.
Reduces flights to Perth
Qantas reduces flights to Perth. It removes one Airbus A330 flight per day from Melbourne to Perth. A return flight from Perth to Melbourne is discontinued. Most of the flights from Sydney to Perth will now use smaller Boeing 737 instead of the present Airbus A330.
These small changes to our east-west flying allow us to add wide body domestic services between Sydney and Brisbane and form part of our twice yearly schedule update. We are able to move our aircraft around to match market conditions and demand.
VW beats Toyota as largest automaker
Volkswagen has replaced Toyota as the world’s largest automaker by selling 5.04 million cars in the first half of 2015. Volkswagen:
We do not comment on the figures of other automakers. The goal of the Volkswagen Group is to focus on qualitative growth and not being No. 1 in sales.
All transgender modeling agency opens
Apple Model Management, a Bangkok-based agency, is opening a division in Los Angeles that will cater exclusively to transgender models. The agency’s L.A. director:
Our strong commitment to developing them as successful models is never about quantifying or qualifying their gender. It’s never a question of if they are women or men, it’s about their passion and commitment to being the best possible models they can be.
First-half losses grow
Air France-KLM promises further acceleration of cost-cutting as it reports widening of first-half losses to of 619 million euros. The company will add a further 300 million euros ($328.4 million) to a previously announced 1.5-billion-euro cost-cutting programme. Group chief executive Juniac:
The lack of results improvement leads us to implement immediate additional adaptation measures including, in particular, the closure of heavily loss-making routes, the downward revision in capacity for the forthcoming winter season, together with an acceleration and an increase in the magnitude of our cost-saving initiatives.