Category: Business News

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British Airways has apologised for a “temporary” problem with its check-in systems at some UK airports.

Passengers at Heathrow, Gatwick and London City airports had to be checked in manually and faced long queues and delays.

BA said the fault was resolved at about 09:00 BST and its computerised system was now operating normally.

It comes after a power cut led to hundreds of flights being cancelled over the May bank holiday weekend.

A spokesman for BA said: “We are sorry for the temporary check-in problems which caused some delays for our customers first thing this morning.

“This issue is now resolved and our staff are working flat out to help customers get away on their holidays.”

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AFP

Regulators should not “water down” the rules to allow the world’s largest oil company to list in London, the Institute of Directors (IoD) has said.

It follows reports Saudi Aramco plans to list 5% of its shares in London or on another Western stock exchange.

UK rules state more than 25% of shares should be listed to stop a single shareholder having too much dominance.

But proposals by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) put forward in January could allow for exceptions.

The regulator proposed waiving a number of requirements for sovereign-owned companies, including the need to provide independent shareholders with their own separate vote on the appointment of independent directors.

‘Protections in place’

Steve Martin, director general of the IOD, questioned whether the FCA’s plans were being made for “short term gain”.

According to reports, Saudi Aramco could be valued at $2tn (£1.5tn) when it lists – a huge price tag that would also generate hundreds of millions of dollars in fees for investment bankers, lawyers and other professional firms involved in stock market flotations.

Mr Martin told Radio 4’s Today programme: “The UK has the highest standard of corporate governance and shareholders know that when they invest in a company, certain protections will be in place, especially to protect minority shareholders.

“We would not want to see those rules removed without good reason.”

He added: “It’s in the interest of companies like Saudi Aramco to adhere to our requirements because it demonstrates their commitment to good corporate governance.”

‘Highly inappropriate’

In January, the FCA said it wanted to create a new category of share listing, aimed at state-controlled companies such as Aramco.

It said these firms “tend to be different from private sector individuals or entities in both their motivations and their nature”.

In June, pension fund Royal London Asset Management also criticised the proposals, saying an Aramco listing should not go ahead if it weakened protections.

Ashley Hamilton Claxton, corporate governance manager at Royal London, said at the time: “It would be highly inappropriate for us to be bending listing rules and bending benchmark rules to accommodate this one large company.”

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More than a million women in their early 60s have become poorer as a result of delays to their state pensions, according to a new study.

Researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that, on average, women aged between 60 and 62 were now £32 a week worse off.

As a result poverty rates among that group have risen sharply, it said.

But the IFS also said the savings, and extra tax from working women, meant the state was £5.1bn a year better off.

Public sector debt is £1.75 trillion and the government borrowed £46.2bn in the past financial year.

The government said its pensions policy was “fair and sustainable” and matched continuing rises in life expectancy.

However, the campaign group WASPI (Women Against State Pension Age Inequality) said the research was shocking.

“Once again, this shows that the government has implemented state pension age (SPA) reforms without adequately considering the full impact of these changes on the women affected,” said WASPI director, Jane Cowley.

“Whether it is the 3.5 million WASPI women who were not given sufficient warning of rises to their state pension age, or the sharp rise in income poverty among 60 to 62-year-old women, the government needs to sit up and start realising that its changes have devastating consequences on the women affected.”

Working longer

The IFS study showed that many women in the age group already affected by the pension change have continued working.

But the effect of waiting longer for their state pension has, on average, outweighed the gains made by those who have continued to earn a salary.

Thus the female 60-62 age group as a whole was earning an extra £2.5bn a year, an average of £44 per week.

But the same group has also lost £4.2bn in pension and other benefits per year, or £74 per week.

Jonathan Cribb, of the IFS, said the new policy was clearly putting pressure on the budgets of some households.

“The increased state pension age is boosting employment – and therefore earnings – of affected women but this is only partially offsetting reduced incomes from state pensions and other benefits,” he said.

“Since both rich and poor women are losing out by, on average, roughly similar amounts the reform increases income poverty rates among households containing a woman who has reached age 60 but has not yet reached her state pension age.”

No material deprivation?

Looking at the worst affected individuals, the IFS calculated that absolute poverty rates – measured after housing costs – had increased from 15% of women aged between 60 and 62 to 21% of them.

It said there was no evidence that any of the women were in fact experiencing “material deprivation” -that is, people saying they cannot afford a range of important items.

Such families may have “smoothed” their spending over time, the researchers suggested.

Caroline Abrahams, at the charity Age UK, said the IFS figures were “extremely worrying”.

“While it may have encouraged a number to work longer, many women in their sixties were simply not aware of the rise in SPA and, as was predicted by experts, they have either had too little time to make adequate preparations or have been unable to continue working due to ill health, caring responsibilities or unemployment,” she said.

But the changes have boosted the government finances.

The IFS said that the savings to the public purse had been boosted by the extra income tax and national insurance payments from those women continuing to work, which meant the government’s total saving was now running at £5.1bn per year.

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The study said there was also an effect on single men in their early 60s, who used to be able to claim pension credit.

Under the rules, eligibility for pension credit is also being pushed back.

As a result, single men aged 60 to 62 are on average £21 a week worse off, the study suggests.

More to come

The long-standing policy of equalising women’s state pension age with that of men, and then raising it for both groups, has become increasingly controversial.

The decision to equalise the SPA was first made back in 1995.

Many women who are being affected say they were never made aware of the changes, which have now come as a shock to them.

The process kicked off in 2010, with the plan to raise the SPA steadily from age 60 to 65 by the year 2020.

But then in 2011 the government decided to accelerate the policy.

The SPA will thus be equalised at 65 two years earlier in 2018, and then rise by another year to 66, by 2020.

Further increases to 67 and even 68 are in the pipeline.

With the process still under way, women currently qualify for their state pension at nearly 64.

A spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions said: “More people are in work than ever before, including a record 9.9 million older workers.

“Women retiring today can still expect to receive the state pension for over 24.5 years on average – which is more than any generation before them and several years longer than men.”

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We all love Thai curries, Japanese noodles and Indian snacks, so why not Asian-inspired desserts? With the amount of ice cream sold dropping globally, manufacturers are starting to experiment with exotic flavours to whet flagging appetites.

In late 1944, Major Hunter Reinburg, commanding officer of 122 Squadron of the American Marine Corps, had a hankering for ice cream.

Not surprising perhaps, since he was posted to the sweltering, jungle-covered South Pacific island of Peleliu.

So Hunter set his resourceful team of aircraft engineers to work on Operation Freeze.

After some trial and error, they found that by mounting a large can filled with milk onto the underside of each wing tip of their fighter planes, attaching a stirring shaft to a wind-driven propeller, and then undertaking a training sortie at 30,000 feet, they could supply 100 servicemen with a helping of ice cream every day, whilst simultaneously provoking the Japanese to waste a few shells trying to bring them down.

Hunter was, however, missing a trick.

If, instead of flavouring his favourite treat with army-issue cocoa powder, he’d cast his eye around him to see what fruits and spices the South Pacific had to offer, then he really would have been ahead of his time.

He could have tried lychee, coconut, cardamom, nutmeg or ginger – flavours that ice cream makers are now starting to experiment with.

In the 70 years since Hunter went to such lengths to satisfy his passion for frozen dairy desserts, global ice cream brands have spread their reach to almost every corner of the planet. Even in Peleliu he could now probably pick up a Cornetto from his corner store.

But for many years, flavours from the big international brands remained stubbornly conservative, dominated by chocolate, strawberry and vanilla.

Now though, thanks to migration, long-haul travel, and the internet, consumers are becoming more adventurous and manufacturers are taking note.

Parlours have sprung up across the US offering Persian-style saffron, orange blossom, and rosewater ice cream, sprinkled with nuts and drizzled with honey; and Indian-inspired flavours such as masala chai, pineapple, and kulfi.

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Chinatown Ice cream factory

At Chinatown Ice Cream Factory in New York, where they’ve been offering exotic ice creams for 40 years, they’ve noticed an uptick in interest from customers.

Owner Christina Seid says there’s often a queue of 20 customers waiting to try her Chinese-inspired range, which includes red bean, toasted sesame, and taro (a kind of sweet potato) ice cream.

She thinks Americans are ready to embrace these flavours in a way they perhaps weren’t when her parents, Chinese immigrants, first set up the shop.

“My father was the pioneer of a lot of these flavours. Back then people didn’t even know what a mango or green tea was.

“Now, nothing is really weird.”

She thinks red bean flavour, common in China, will eventually become mainstream in the US.

In many of the world’s biggest ice cream markets appetites have been flagging for traditional take-home tubs. Consumers are worrying about the sugar content and there’s a lot of competition.

According to market research firm Mintel, global ice-cream sales fell from 15.6bn litres in 2015 to 13bn last year. As a result, firms are watching what happens in places like The Chinatown Ice Cream Factory carefully.

“Trends are born in the parlours where they can afford to take a gamble,” says Alex Beckett, global food and drink analyst at Mintel.

“They become fashionable. Then they travel from Brooklyn to LA and Chicago, then to Sydney, London, Berlin, and eventually they will be picked up by manufacturers who will start to set the market for these more ethnic styles”

Yee Kwan Chan, who is based in the UK city of Sheffield and whose family is also Chinese, travels to far flung parts of the world in search of inspiration for her Yee Kwan line of desserts.

“I just want to create authentic flavours you’d find in Asia,” she says.

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Yee Kwan

Her concoctions include chocolate miso, black sesame seed, and durian – the fruit with the pungent odour often likened to sewage or something rotting – which is surprisingly popular in Asia.

At Christmas she travelled to Hong Kong and is now producing egg custard tart ice cream, evoking the afternoon tea treat popular there.

“With the East Asian palate we’ve got sweet and we’ve got sour and then we have bitter: we use all our senses,” says Ms Chan.

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yee kwan

With foreign travel and Asian food so popular, she’s convinced that Asian-inspired flavours will be on the shop shelves in the US and Europe as a matter of course in a few years’ time.

But for that to happen at any scale, larger manufacturers will also need to get on board.

Unilever, the world’s largest producer, is open to the idea.

They already make a myriad of flavours to suit local palates, including red bean Cornettos in China, a liquorice recipe for Scandinavia, and they’ve just launched a “dung dung” ice cream – based on an “earthy” tasting fruit – in Indonesia.

Matt Close, Unilever’s executive vice president of global ice cream, says they’ve always got an eye out for new flavours that might “travel”.

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This year in India, the world’s fastest growing ice cream market, they launched a kulfi ice cream, made with condensed milk and flavoured with rose water so it tastes a little like Turkish Delight.

“I’m absolutely convinced kulfi would work in the UK,” says Mr Close.

“You’d start where there are big Indian communities, but there is no reason that wouldn’t stretch.”

While taro and red bean recipes might be harder to export, matcha (green tea) flavours seem likely to be at the forefront of any Asian invasion, he thinks.

“We’ve just launched a matcha ice cream in the Philippines. We’ll take it to other markets.

“I’d put money on the idea that there’d be green tea ice cream or green tea ice lollies in most markets in the not too distant future.”

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Three things to try

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Chinatown Ice Cream Factory

Booza – also known as Dondurma (in Turkey), this is made with ground powdered orchid root and mastic gum. These ice creams melt more slowly and have a thicker, chewier texture.

Thai rolled ice cream – the latest Asian ice cream trend involves pouring mixture onto a freezing slab of metal then rolling it up like a piece of paper

Durian ice cream – only the very adventurous are usually attracted by the the prickly Asian fruit that smells so bad it’s illegal to carry it on the subway in Singapore. An acquired taste.

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I get emails every week from mid-level and senior executives who want to join a growth company. You’re going to be spending 40-plus hours a week with your new colleagues, which is more time than most of us spend with our spouses. So, I put together some notes on how to perform due diligence on a management team, from the point of view of a prospective colleague. The whole process feels a lot like dating for marriage. This is the process I used when I recently joined HOF Capital.

Interview the team members (separately).

You should be interviewing your colleagues just like they’re interviewing you. Ask them for their full resumes. If they can’t provide them, that’s a red flag for how much they value you and how transparent they are willing to be. 

Related: This Is How You Manage Your Career Like a CEO

It’s critical to meet people one on one. In a group, the more extroverted personalities will dominate the conversation, but they’re not always the most insightful people. In addition, people in a group are more likely to speak the party line, because they’re self-monitoring to align with the views of their colleagues. One on one, they’re more likely to tell their true opinion. Lastly, you’re going to have to work with everyone — both the talkative and the laconic — so you need to evaluate fit with every one.

For ideas on what to ask, see “The Master List: Questions to Ask Potential Co-Founders” and “8 Issues You Need to Discuss with Your Startup Co-Founder.”

Think about cultural fit.

As a way of getting to know your colleagues, my coach Ben Dattner recommends that you write a “user’s manual” for your co-workers. I did that, shared it with my colleagues, and they in turn shared their user manuals with me. Looking for examples? Linkel Eakman, a prominent limited partner, published his guide: “A Human User Interface … with lots of quirks,” while Jeff Epstein, CEO of Ambassador, posted his. 

I also suggest it’s helpful to draw up a list of the areas in which you are most likely to have friction. When you understand the major risk factors you face in working together, you can then discuss how to mitigate them. By analogy, when I was in the process of dating my now-wife, we read Don’t You Dare Get Married Until You Read This!, which is a list of about 500 pre-marriage questions, including “How would you feel if my mother moved in with us?” and “What would you do if I gained 50 pounds?” Typical sources of friction you’ll want to discuss with your future colleagues: equity splits, working hours, number of hours worked and corporate strategy.

Related: Make Your Resignation Letter Polite, Even When You’re Not Feeling It

Identify management domains.

The paper org chart is always different than the shadow org chart of how things happen in an organization. Explicitly ask people: What is your area of responsibility?When you last made a major decision about hiring, firing, new product approvals, investing, etc., who was in the room where it happens? In theory, the CEO controls everything, but in practice that’s never the case (except with a true micro-manager, whom you don’t want to work for).

I think a great tool for understanding the shadow org chart is to review a group Asana, Trello or Basecamp account where all firm initiatives are listed and prioritized, along with who owns what. It’s also helpful to look at where standard processes are documented, in those platforms, or in a process automation/documentation tool like Process Street.

Another helpful way to do this: write jointly with your proposed teammates a culture guide to the firm. This could even be posted to the website in summary form. As some models, see Bridgewater’s Principles; Goldman Sachs business principles; Blue Future Partners philosophy; and Brad Feld on TAGFEE.

Related: 10 Tips for Finding a Job That Will Make You Happy

Dattner suggests asking, “What are some unique norms or cultural practices at the firm or on the management team that new team members sometimes find out the hard way, and can you please let me know what they are and how to avoid inadvertently violating them?”

He also adds, “What is the management team’s collective accountability and/or authority, if any?” to see if it really is a team, rather than just a collection of individual silos or tops of different functional pyramids.

Establish ethical boundaries.

It’s important to understand the parameters of whom you’d work with. For example, are you and your colleagues comfortable working with:

• Companies selling alcohol or cannabis, e.g. Privateer Holdings’ investments
• Companies likely to be a channel for NSFW content, e.g. Zivity
• Companies selling surveillance and monitoring technology to governments, e.g. NSO Group
• Companies selling weapons, e.g. Zore X (smart handguns)
• Companies that provide abortion services
• Nonprofits or political parties which advocate for political positions with which some of your team members (or you) may not agree
• Companies with leadership accused of unethical behavior, e.g. sexual harassment
• Companies with leadership who are prominent supporters of politicians you oppose

Even though most of the companies you’ll partner with or sell to are not doing anything controversial, you’ll inevitably have opportunities like the above over time, so it’s helpful to get a sense of your joint decision-making filter.

If all goes well, the next step is to make a smooth transition out of your prior firm, and stick the landing at your new home. 

For the current crop of startups, it’s not just about creating the next big thing: Making an impact on the world is just as critical.

Related: How You Can Identify and Optimize Nonprofit Partnerships

That’s why startup partnerships with nonprofit organizations are now more important than ever, and new opportunities are popping up every day. For instance, while malaria used to be the primary public health concern in Africa, GeekWire has reported that cancer may now be the continent’s biggest health threat, according to recent data.

To combat this, Seattle nonprofit BIO Ventures for Global Health partnered in June with the African Organisation for Research and Training in Cancer, to create the African Access Initiative. The Initiative will bring in pharmaceutical and biotech companies, such as Pfizer and Takeda, to aid in the fight against cancer.

In a perfect world, a union between a startup and a nonprofit will always make sense. Complementary resources and common goals will also surely help, while timing is just as big a factor.

Timing Is everything.

From the moment it opens its doors, a startup is running on borrowed time. Research by Statistic Brain has pointed to data showing that 25 percent of startups fail within the first year, 36 percent falter after two and 55 percent are dead by the end of year five.

Needless to say, then, every day counts for all young companies, including those that partner with nonprofits. The timing of any partnership must be strategic and help both sides get the most out of the union.

What do you see the fruits of your labor looking like a month from now? How about six months — or years– from now? Decide what success looks like now, and work toward creating the change your partnership hopes to see.

Through my company’s partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative and the China Association for Integrative Medicine, we’re providing monthly training sessions throughout China to teach locals how to tend to burn victims. The sessions provide immediate training and assistance in the communities that need it, while also building a long-term system of burn specialists who can service their chosen areas and serve as ambassadors for the company’s joint venture and its chosen charitable organization.

Deliberate timing is vital for both sides of a startup-nonprofit partnership. It ensures that each can pull its own weight and operate at a high frequency.

Related: How Your Business Can Build Lasting Partnerships With Startups

Taking the plunge With a nonprofit

Thirty percent of respondents in the Statistic Brain study cited “unbalanced experience or lack of managerial experience” as a reason for startup failure; and one of the subcategory reasons was too-rapid expansion, which occurs in a partnership when one or both partners are not ready. This is why it’s so important to evaluate your company’s financial and structural status to make sure your startup is healthy enough to join hands with a nonprofit.

Assuming you’ve found that perfect nonprofit, here are three questions to ask yourself to make sure the timing is right:

1. Where do we stand financially? Take the temperature of most failed startups, and you’ll find that finances played a hand in a good chunk of their respective downfalls. Forty-six percent of the Statistic Brain respondents listed “incompetence” as the reason for startup failures, with reasons such as “emotional pricing” and lack of knowledge in pricing and finances named as factors.

When entering any partnership — especially one involving a nonprofit — ensure that your finances can stand up. Determine whether you’re on solid enough ground to donate both time and your young company’s scant financial resources. The point of that donation: to help a nonprofit that may also be trying to make its mark but is not as focused as you are, on finances.

2. Are we structurally sound? Money is one factor, albeit an important one, for determining how ready your startup is for a nonprofit teammate. But what about the other aspects of your company’s health? In other words, do you have the personnel, work capacity and other support in place to make sure both parties benefit from this union?

Be strategic when entering a partnership, and make sure your company is equipped to handle the load. Strategic timing helps companies understand how a partnership could contribute to both organizations’ health, in terms of size and scalability. For example, a small startup collaborating with a large nonprofit could find itself disregarded by others in the space despite heavy contributions to the partnership. This is especially true if the nonprofit’s mission isn’t updated to reflect the partnership’s new objectives.

3. Do both brands look good to the public? Strategic timing is crucial, but don’t ignore circumstantial timing, which isn’t controlled by individuals and companies, but instead by public opinion. Ensure that your company and its potential nonprofit partner have solid public images so that a bad press story or a single indiscretion won’t cast a poor light on your brand or its efforts.

Once that’s determined, figure out where your respective brands complement each other. Brand alignment is key for building partnerships, so understand how your mission coincides with that of your potential nonprofit partner. To understand how you can help, understand the needs of your preferred nonprofits and identify gaps in their assistance.

Still unsure about the goal you want to focus on? Check the U.N.’s website and review its 17 sustainable development goals to see whether one fits with your company’s current mission statement. From there, perform an internal review to see how your partnership could take advantage of existing infrastructures. Pursuing relevant, timely causes will help ensure that your efforts go to those which need it most and that your startup makes the most of its limited time and resources.

Related: Even Social Entrepreneurs Need to Meet Their Goals

A startup/nonprofit partnership can be great for all parties involved, but it must be initiated at the right time. Ask the questions that get to the core of what your company — and its potential philanthropic partner — represent in order to determine whether now is the time to make things official.

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When there are debates about the world’s top performing education systems, the names that usually get mentioned are the Asian powerhouses such as Singapore and South Korea or the Nordic know-alls, such as Finland or Norway.

But with much less recognition, Canada has climbed into the top tier of international rankings.

In the most recent round of international Pisa tests, Canada was one of a handful of countries to appear in the top 10 for maths, science and reading.

The tests, run by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), are a major study of educational performance and show Canada’s teenagers as among the best educated in the world.

They are far ahead of geographical neighbours such as the US and European countries with strong cultural ties like the UK and France.

At university level, Canada has the world’s highest proportion of working-age adults who have been through higher education – 55% compared with an average in OECD countries of 35%.

Migrant students

Canada’s success in school tests is also very unusual compared with other international trends.

The top performers are often cohesive, compact societies and the current highest achiever, Singapore, has been seen as a model of systematic progress, with each part of the education system integrated into an overarching national strategy.

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Canada does not even really have a national education system, it is based on autonomous provinces and it is hard to think of a bigger contrast between a city state such as Singapore and a sprawling land mass such as Canada.

The OECD, trying to understand Canada’s success in education, described the role of the federal government as “limited and sometimes non-existent”.

Also not widely recognised is that Canada has a high level of migrants in its school population.

More than a third of young adults in Canada are from families where both parents are from another country.

But the children of newly-arrived, migrant families seem to integrate rapidly enough to perform at the same high level as their classmates.

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When the most recent Pisa rankings are looked at more closely, at regional rather than national level, the results for Canada are even more remarkable.

If Canadian provinces entered Pisa tests as separate countries, three of them, Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec, would be in the top five places for science in the world, alongside Singapore and Japan and above the likes of Finland and Hong Kong.

So how has Canada overtaken so many other countries in education?

Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s education director, says Canada’s “big uniting theme is equity”.

Despite the different policies in individual provinces, there is a common commitment to an equal chance in school.

He says there is a strong sense of fairness and equal access – and this is seen in the high academic performance of migrant children.

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Global education

Ideas for the Global education series? Get in touch.

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Within three years of arriving, the Pisa tests show the children of new migrants have scores as high as the rest of their schoolmates.

It makes Canada one of the few countries where migrant children achieve at a level similar to their non-migrant counterparts.

Another distinguishing feature is that Canada’s teachers are well paid by international standards – and entry into teaching is highly selective.

Equal chances

Prof John Jerrim, of the UCL Institute of Education in London, says that Canada’s high league table ranking reflects the narrow socio-economic gap in school results.

Rather than a country of extremes, Canada’s results show a very high average, with relatively little difference between advantaged and disadvantaged students.

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In the most recent Pisa results for science, the variation in scores in Canada caused by socio-economic differences was 9%, compared with 20% in France and 17% in Singapore.

The equitable outcome goes a long way to explaining why Canada is doing so well in international tests. It does not have a tail of underachievement, often related to poverty.

It is a remarkably consistent system. As well as little variation between rich and poor students, there is very little variation in results between schools, compared with the average for developed countries.

Rather than high levels of immigration being seen as a potential drag on results, Prof Jerrim says in Canada’s case, this is likely to be part of its success story.

Migrants coming to Canada, many from countries such as China, India and Pakistan, are often relatively well-educated and ambitious to see their children get into professional careers.

Prof Jerrim says these families have an immigrant “hunger” to succeed, and their high expectations are likely to boost school results for their children.

This has been a bumper year for education in Canada.

The universities are reaping the benefits of the Trump effect, with record levels of applications from overseas students seeing Canada as a North American alternative to the United States.

There has also been a Canadian winner of the Global Teacher Prize, with Maggie MacDonnell using the award to campaign for indigenous students.

As Canada marks its 150th anniversary, it can claim the status of an education superpower.