Watson’s Weekly 26-10-2018

This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week. 

THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily. *** NB there were only THREE editions of Watson’s Daily this week instead of the usual FIVE. It’ll be back to normal next week! ***

• …as the EU rejected Italy’s budget (Wednesday) which annoyed Italy (Thursday) and Eurozone growth fell to new lows (Thursday). Germany’s Chancellor Merkel is also facing serious potential problems (Thursday) in the upcoming Hesse regional election

• …what with Patisserie Valerie (Thursday), GBK (Thursday) and Debenhams (Thursday, Friday) all facing problems with a new investigation, a CVA, and the company’s biggest ever loss respectively.

• …as Tesla turned a profit (Thursday), China’s Geely announced a ride-sharing JV with Daimler (Thursday) and Ford signalled continued troubles (Thursday)

• WPP had a shocker (Friday) as it continues to ponder its survival in a world increasingly dominated by Google and Facebook.
• Also, Dyson created a stir by announcing a new electric car factory in Singapore (Wednesday), but given the massive tax incentive and proximity to the key Chinese market, you can’t blame Sir James for going abroad for this crucial venture. It is, however, somewhat ironic as he trumpeted the virtues of British manufacturing as a prominent Brexiteer.

The banter that I enjoyed the most this week was Hundreds of waiters try not to spill any drinks in street race (Metro, Jen Mills https://tinyurl.com/ycz2wny3), which is a sort of egg-and-spoon race for adults and then there was the video of a group of guys trying to recreate the Haribo TV advert in https://tinyurl.com/yazu2xla

I hope you have a great weekend!