Text Boyd Farrow
Image Rex Features
Our round-up of what’s happening in the business world across Europe
RADAR
Wild about luxury
The WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature) has criticised luxury brands for being “slow to recognise their responsibilities and opportunities” regarding global warming and ethical trade. WWF says its study of the 10 largest publicly traded luxury firms – based on the firms’ own submissions to the Ethical Investment Research Service and data collected by analyst Covalence – did not reflect “consumers’ concerns and aspirations for a better world.”
Ranking the companies A to F, the best score was a C+ by France’s L’Oréal, followed by Hermès and LVMH, both also scoring C+. Swiss conglomerate Richemont scored a D, while bottom of the chart was Italian leather goods giant Tod’s, with an F. Italy’s Bulgari also scored an F – although we do think the polar bear fur coat is so cute (just kidding).
The WWF also said celebrities who endorse products should pay greater attention to their green credentials. It cited Tod’s celebrity ambassador actress Sienna Miller, who (when not jetting around the world partying) campaigns against climate change. “Tod’s may represent a liability to Sienna Miller’s reputation,” sniffed the WWF. Yeah, right.
Why are we here?
In a German Winnebago
By investing €60m in 100 movies, the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF), encouraged almost €400m to be spent on film production in Germany in 2007. The incentive scheme was launched on 1 January 2007, with the DFFF reimbursing 20 cents of every Euro spent. The DFFF’s biggest investment (€9m) was in Speed Racer, directed by the Wachowski brothers, who made the Matrix trilogy. Thirty-four of the films were co-productions, five with Hollywood studios, including Speed Racer and Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise.
According to DFFF’s manager Christine Berg, the first year exceeded all expectations. Berg agreed that the increased number of large, international productions in Germany this year had put pressure on the number of available crew members and facilities, but argued: “Such a situation is 10 times more preferable for me than, say, four years ago when people in Hamburg and elsewhere were twiddling their thumbs. We showed this year that Germany as a production hub has crew and facilities of a very high standard.”
This month, the UK Film Council will meet with Berg and her colleagues at the Berlin film festival to assess the compatibility of the DFFF model with the new UK tax incentive.
BUZZING ABOUT…
Porsche power
Europe’s most profitable carmaker, Porsche, appears to have become more wary of launching petrol-electric vehicles, with executives murmuring that hybrids still don’t offer sufficient improvements in fuel economy, performance and reliability to justify their cost over regular petrol and diesel engines.
While sister brands VW and Audi are pushing ahead with a hybrid system co-developed between the three companies, Porsche will now hold back until at least 2010, a move which could impact on other manufacturers and consumers. “Although there is still no decision on the planned introduction date of the hybrid version of our Cayenne SUV, I’m sure we’ll only introduce the new system with the start of the next generation SUV in 2010,” a Porsche manager recently told specialist magazine Automobilwoche.
Significantly, Porsche’s upcoming Panamera family car, due in 2009, was also tipped to get a hybrid option, but this, too, has been delayed. “We want to have time to analyse the experience with the Cayenne and, depending on what we find, launch the Panamera with hybrid drive then or perhaps as late as 2013,” the company now says. Analysts are also saying that the hybrid market in the US is not as great as originally thought, the most optimistic forecast being a 5% share.”
Upgrade your trip
Designs on business
Two new ventures open under the Design Hotels banner this month in places where spring (not to mention cutting-edge design) cannot come quickly enough. Oslo’s five-star Grims Grenka claims to “provide the cosmopolitan experience of London and New York”, while the Palazzina Grassi is a modern alternative to the crumbling charms of Venice.
The Grims Grenka has 42 rooms and 24 suites, which offer wi-fi, flat-screen TVs, MP3/iPod docks and a cloyingly described “maxi bar with drink recipes” (how long do they think you’re planning to stay?). Obviously, this being Norway, it has an Asian fusion restaurant. It also has express check-in and check-out and valet parking.
The Palazzina Grassi, housed inside a 15th-century shell, has 32 guest rooms and a handful of suites with LCD screens and internet access. The Grassi Bar offers Italian food (What, no fusion?) on a floating terrace on the Grand Canal. For conferences, there is the “very elegant” 40m² Canaletto meeting room, which can impress 30 people with “the latest technologies.” According to the PR-speak: “Venice has never been seen through such a highly modern prism.”
www.designhotels.com
Not really… The late 80s
You might feel the urge to check the cover dates on your magazines this month. Louis Vuitton’s ad campaign for its spring-summer 2008 collection features six supermodels of the past 20 years, including Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, Stephanie Seymour and Eva Herzigova. Sadly, one model who won’t be appearing is Linda Evangelista, who famously said: “I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.” But this is probably not a cost issue. According to Journal du Dimanche, LVMH spent nearly €47m on ad campaigns in France in the first 10 months of the year, of which Vuitton accounted for more than €9m. A company spokeswoman declined to confirm the cost of the new campaign, and when Journal du Dimanche asked the question of Vuitton’s head of communications Antoine Arnault (coincidentally the 30-year-old son of LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault), he would only answer: “fairly expensive”.
DRAWING BOARD
Denis Simachev
Denis Simachev is a legend in free-spending Moscow. The Russian fashion designer’s eponymous boutique-restaurant-bar would merit a double-take in any city, but the building painted in psychedelic swirling red and yellow patterns looks even weirder hemmed in by the Hermès and Dior shops on posh Stoleshnikov Pereulok. Customers can try on wacky clothing and jewellery before heading downstairs to chow down pancakes in booths designed like toilet stalls. The evening bar scene is more plush and decadent.
Simachev’s appropriations of Russian personalities and styles have also made a splash on the worldwide stage and his creations are already available in some European boutiques. This year his empire is set to grow, first with ventures in Odessa, Ukraine, in Saint Petersburg, and then in Milan and London. According to Anna Dyulgerova, Simachev’s development director: “All of the shops will have the same concept: shop, bar, club. They will be located in central areas, on main shopping streets, always in an interesting building with an historical background.”
SHORT CUTS
Flights of imagination
Google not only knows where you live, it knows where you’re heading and when. The search engine’s latest tool might be a godsend for business travellers, particularly those with connecting flights to negotiate. For the latest information on a (currently only US) flight’s status, you can now simply type the airline and flight number into the Google “Find” panel and the first result will tell you whether your flight is on time or delayed as well as the estimated departure and arrival times. The only thing to beware of is actually missing your flight while trying to get a wi-fi connection.
GROWING GAINS
Talk is cheap …for now
Germany, Europe’s largest mobile phone market, has always been a fiercely competitive one. For years, Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile and the UK’s Vodafone battled for the lion’s share while scavengers like E-Plus, owned by the Netherlands’ KPN, fought for scraps.
But in 2005, KPN introduce BASE, a basic subsidiary service from Belgium, which enchanted customers who were confused by complicated tariffs or didn’t have landlines.
Instead of giving away phones like other carriers, BASE simply offered very cheap calls. For €75 a month, subscribers can make unlimited calls throughout Germany. Under another plan, all calls cost 10 cents per minute. BASE has been so successful that E-Plus’s subscriptions rose 16% to
€14.1m in 2007 and its profit (which soared 79% to €134m in the last quarter) accounted for 20% of KPN’s total profit. KPN now plans to export the BASE model to Spain and possibly France. Some analysts murmur about how long KPN’s no-frills service can survive as consumers increasingly hanker for handhelds to download music, surf the web or watch TV. But BASE may not only be saving people money, it may actually be the last face-saving way for technophobes to carry on communicating.
Traffic report
Taxing trips
Business travellers making only four overnight visits a month to the UK could be classed tax-resident under proposals from the British government. The UK’s residency test – which can make someone resident after spending as little as 90 days in Britain – will be one of the world’s strictest after planned changes, the Chartered Institute of Taxation has warned.
The new regime, introduced in April, will include arrival and departure dates as days in the UK. The Treasury wants to stop people working in Britain while living in tax havens such as Monaco and the Channel Islands. It expects some 17,000 non-residents to be brought into the tax net, raising €175m over the next three years.
But the Institute claims these measures would damage London’s standing as a business hub. Someone who goes to London for a meeting, stays overnight and leaves the next day will, under the new rules, have spent two days in the UK. “This allows business travellers only 45 visits to the UK a year, fewer than four a month, or even fewer if they have the odd holiday here as well,” a spokesman said.
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