City watchers will remember that last year consumer goods giant Unilever found itself in a spat with its ice-cream brand Ben & Jerry’s when the latter tried to stop the sale of its products in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank.
The outcome of playing hardball with the Vermont-based firm – despite Unilever’s attempts to burnish its own ‘woke’ credentials – appears to have left its mark following the attack on Israel by terror group Hamas this month.
Despite previously claiming the sale of its ice-cream in the West Bank was ‘inconsistent’ with its values, Ben & Jerry’s has remained uncharacteristically quiet amid recent events, with no mention of the attack to be found on its website or social media channels.
Silence: Despite previously claiming the sale of its ice-cream in the West Bank was ‘inconsistent’ with its values, Ben & Jerry’s has remained quiet amid recent events
Emails to its press team have gone unanswered while Unilever has so far refused to comment.
Given the ice-cream brand and its 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, posted its results this week for the year to June with boss Mark Boggett remaining ‘confident’ in the outlook for the sector as well as his portfolio.
Investors seem less sure, with the stock going into a near 50 per cent freefall during the period.
Seraphim blamed this on ‘significant volatility’ in global markets, but, Houston, perhaps its shares have a problem.
Arm stock owners have little to show for their backing
The short history of Cambridge-based chipmaker Arm on US tech market Nasdaq has proved rocky for investors, to say the least.
It initially surged as much as 25 per cent above its listing price of $51 a share.
That rally has since fizzled out and is now changing hands at about $48, leaving those who stayed on board with little to show so far for their backing.
And the misery looks set to continue, according to analysts at Morningstar, who last week pegged the shares with a target of $34, a third less than their debut price.
The number crunchers said they would ‘struggle’ to justify the current market capitalisation and so described the shares as currently ‘overvalued.’
Maybe that US listing wasn’t better than London after all.
Chancellor hobnobs with IFS head
Spotted having breakfast last week were Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Paul Johnson, head of the UK’s foremost economics think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).
The Wednesday hobnobbing came a day after the IFS released a report saying the Government had no room for unfunded pre-election tax cuts and was in a ‘horrible fiscal bind’.
Whispers assumes that Hunt, who is busy preparing for his Autumn Statement on November 22, already had this rendezvous in the diary before the IFS’s latest release.
How Whispers would have loved to be a fly on that particular wall that morning.
