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BusinessWeek: January 10, 2000 |
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Up Front
Talk Show Return to top  Hand-Slapping across the Water The U.S. and Europe may be headed for more friction on trade issues after the mess in Seattle, a.k.a. the World Trade Organization talks. Despite sparring with the Third World over labor and environmental standards, Europe will not accept the American solution of imposing sanctions against those countries. Nor will there be any bilateral transatlantic deals, says European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, who added: "The time when the U.S. and EU could run the shop is over.... Developing countries are gaining weight." Another reason for the increasing U.S.-Europe strains may be that the transatlantic trading partners barely get along themselves, says Lamy. For example, while the WTO authorized American hormone-fed beef, Europe prefers to pay penalties rather than allow these imports. And a similar reception can be presumed for genetically altered U.S. produce, Lamy warned, noting, "Our public is too frightened." Lamy admits the WTO needs reform but blames President Clinton for Seattle's failure. The Democrats were nervous about upsetting labor/Green supporters, Lamy explained. So expect no new global trade round before the 2001 inauguration. Return to top In Frozen Finland, Money to Burn Pity about the poor Finns: Too many of them are getting rich--too many, at least, of those holding shares in high-flying mobile-phone company Nokia. When the Helsinki-based magazine Arvopaperi recently published a list of 9,000 Finnish Nokia millionaires, egalitarian-minded Finns recoiled in horror. Even those on the millionaire list, ranging from already-rich banker Karl Tallberg, with $50 million in shares, to firefighter Asko Autio, with $10 million, were upset. "Many of the people on the list called or wrote me to complain," reports Arvopaperi editor Eljas Repo. "We Finns are quite modest people." They'd best get over it. Not only have their riches come suddenly--Nokia's share price has nearly doubled, to about $167, since Oct. 1, and multiplied by 11 in the past two years--but those millionaires have lots of company. Turns out the magazine didn't count the options held by some 2,000 Nokia employees. CEO Jorma Ollila, for instance, owns about $100 million in options. Add in the fact that foreigners hold 80% of Nokia stock. As a spokesman says: "There must be a lot of American Nokia millionaires, too." Lucky they're not paying Finland's 60% personal tax rate. Return to top Granola Hits the Big Time In that Bellicose Market known as breakfast, Kellogg and General Mills are vying, oddly enough, for the laid-back natural-foods crowd. General Mills, which this fall nosed ahead of Kellogg for the first time--grabbing a 31.8% share of the domestic breakfast biz, vs. Kellogg's 31.3% --just signed a $100 million deal for Small Planet Foods, a manufacturer of 200 organic-food products, from salsa to sorbet. General Mills has also introduced health-conscious Sunrise cereal. Kellogg paid $307 million for Worthington Foods, which makes soy-based vegetarian items, and will debut its own soy cereal. So is this strategy, well, healthy? PaineWebber analyst John O'Neil says the natural/organic market is attractive because of its 20% to 25% annual growth rate, compared with 1% growth for the food industry overall. "They paid high prices for these companies because they have high hopes," O'Neil says. Jaine Mehring at Solomon Smith Barney agrees the two are "betting that natural is ultimately going mainstream" among aging baby boomers. The food giants had already sought this niche but, she says, neither "had a clue" until now about how to penetrate it. Return to top | |
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Table: CyberEurope The first European Net audience ratings--from Britain, France, and Germany--show that U.S.-originated sites hold the lion's share of places on these countries' lists of their top 10 most visited global domains. That's key: It's predicted that by 2003, Western Europe's online traffic will match the U.S.'s. BRITAIN YAHOO! 1 MSN 3 MICROSOFT 4 AOL 5 GEOCITIES 6 AMAZON 8 FRANCE YAHOO! 2 MICROSOFT 4 AOL 5 ALTAVISTA 8 MSN 9 GEOCITIES 10 GERMANY YAHOO! 2 AOL 3 MICROSOFT 4 LYCOS 5 NETSCAPE 6 MSN 8 October survey revealed 7.8 million online visitors in Britain, 2.3 million visitors in France, and 5.3 million users in Germany DATA: MEDIA MATRIX INC. (MMXI) EUROPE Return to top Musing over the Millennium The U.S. Census Bureau projects that there will be 275 million Americans when the national headcount is completed next year. Of course, until the census-takers are done, it's only a guess. But human enterprise demands a reasonable guess about the future. So here are some projections whose implications, perhaps, haven't crossed your mind: data about child-raising, land use, the labor force, and the economy. Will any of these forecasts pan out? Stick around and see. Return to top  Return to top  Return to top  Return to top  Return to top  Return to top  Return to top Footnotes The person 600 top CEOs say is their "greatest inspiration": Mom: 34%; Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone: 21% DATA: DOREMUS ADVERTISING Return to top |
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