The Week in Business: Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off
Losing Reality
Say what you want about the Kardashians, but no one can dispute that they revolutionized the monetization of fame and personal branding. What started out in 2007 as a run-of-the-mill reality show about a wealthy, attractive family, “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” has now spawned multiple beauty and fashion empires and helped make one of its cast members into a billionaire (Kylie Jenner, who leveraged the platform into a top-selling cosmetics line), at least temporarily. This past week, Kim Kardashian announced to her 188 million Instagram followers that the series will end after its 20th season, in 2021. But the family’s presence in pop culture and social media is so ubiquitous that you may not even notice their show is gone.
What’s Next? (Sept. 13-19)
Left at the Altar
At first, it seemed like a fairy tale match in the world of finer things: Back in November, French conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton announced plans to buy Tiffany Company for more than $16 billion, a record in the luxury industry. Then the pandemic hit, the economy imploded and LVMH got cold feet. Tiffany won’t be jilted so easily, though, and is suing LVMH in an effort to force the deal. But it may have to settle for a much lower price — or risk putting itself back on the market.
A Crack in the Glass Ceiling
Citigroup made history when it announced that Jane Fraser would become its next chief executive and the first woman to lead a major financial institution in the United States when she takes over in February. Ms. Fraser joined the bank, the country’s third largest, in 2004 and now runs its global consumer banking business. While her promotion is certainly a step for women in finance, there’s a long way to go toward gender parity on Wall Street, where men still outnumber women by 2 to 1.
There Will Be Blood
Silicon Valley’s most scandalous court case just got even stranger. Elizabeth Holmes, the former chief executive of the failed blood-testing start-up Theranos, is exploring a “mental disease” defense for her criminal fraud trial. She is accused of lying that her company’s technology could perform blood tests from a tiny finger prick, and defrauding doctors and patients who trusted the results. On Wednesday, the judge overseeing the case ruled that government prosecutors can examine Ms. Holmes for evidence of “mental disease or defect” or other mental condition “bearing on the issue of guilt,” according to the court filing.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/13/business/the-week-in-business-stimulus-economy-tiffany.html