UNILEVER PROFITS SOAR

Unilever, the British consumer goods company, has reported rising revenues after it increased prices by nearly 10%. This is despite consumers, affected by the cost of living crisis, bought fewer products.

The FTSE 100 company said its underlying sales rose by 9.1% in the first half of 2023 compared with a year earlier. Price rises accounted for the entirety of the growth, with the volume of goods sold dropping by 0.2%.

Rising corporate profits have proved controversial as inflation has caused a cost of living crisis in many parts of the world. The International Monetary Fund recently found that rising corporate profits accounted for almost half the increase in Europe’s inflation over the past two years.

BLUE BIRD IS NOW AN X-LOGO

Twitter has changed its brand and logo from its famous blue bird to “X”. The new white X on a black background has replaced the blue bird on the desktop version of the social network, with the mobile app version following on.

“Tweets” will also be replaced, according to Twitter’s owner Elon Musk, and posts will be called “Xs”. Mr Musk, who has changed the name of the business to X Corp, said the replacement “should have been done a long time ago,” though no-one knows why.

Platinum takes a look at the early, and so far brief, career of Botswana-born English entrepreneur, Steven Bartlett –the youngest-ever Dragon in the Den

By Alan Wares