Philippa Kaur

Budget airlines are rarely loved by passengers. Cutting costs to the bone and charging for every conceivable extra makes for cheap fares but often unpleasant journeys. Few will therefore have much sympathy for the tribulations of Spirit Airlines, perhaps America’s most despised low-cost carrier (lcc), which filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on November 18th. Yet its failure, which illustrates the parlous state of America’s budget airlines, should worry travellers. More

To which country does Shein belong? The online apparel giant, headquartered in Singapore, is expected to list its shares in London in the coming months. Earlier this year Donald Tang, its executive chairman, proclaimed it to be American, by virtue of its values and the fact that it makes most of its money there. Meanwhile, most of Shein’s employees are in China, where the company was founded in 2012. All this might suggest Shein is multinational, beholden to no single country. Unfortunately, the matter of nationality is not so straightforward for a firm that straddles China and the West. More

Corporate America has at least one big thing to celebrate about the presidential election: it has erased the possibility of a rise in the country’s corporate-tax rate, as had been proposed by Democrats. Weighed against the cost of tariffs—and more abstract concerns about the health of America’s institutions—the promise of lower taxes and deregulation warmed bosses to Donald Trump during the campaign. Shareholders, who stand to benefit directly, rejoiced at Mr Trump’s victory, sending the S&P 500 index of American stocks to a record high. More

Vimal Kapur, the boss of Honeywell, should have seen it coming. Industrial conglomerates like his have long been out of fashion. Between the beginning of June last year, when Mr Kapur took over at Honeywell, and November 11th the firm’s shares had risen by just 16%, compared with 46% for industrial companies in America’s S&P 500 index. On November 12th Elliott Management, a feared activist investor run by Paul Singer, announced it had taken a $5bn stake in the company, probably its largest ever such position, and called for Honeywell to break itself up. Investors seemed pleased with the idea, sending Honeywell’s shares up by 4% on the day of the announcement. More

Confidence is contagious. Someone declaring a position with ringing certainty is more likely to inspire than someone who hedges their bets. “We may fight them on the beaches; it depends a bit on the weather,” would have been a lot less persuasive. What is true of Churchill’s wartime oratory is true in less dramatic circumstances. A study by Matthias Brauer of the University of Mannheim and his co-authors analysed language used in letters from activist investors; it found that more confident letters were associated with more successful activist campaigns. More

The origin of On, a Swiss sportswear brand, is unusual. In 2010 Olivier Bernhard, a triathlete, stuck bits of garden hose to the bottom of his trainers for added cushioning. The idea worked so well that he and two friends decided to make a business out of it. Their shoes were a hit; last year the company made almost $2bn in sales. On November 12th it reported that its revenue in the quarter to September grew by 32%, year on year. On now has a market value of $17bn. More

TSMC is riding high. The Taiwanese chipmaker—sole supplier of artificial-intelligence (AI) chips to Nvidia, the world’s most valuable chip designer—has seen sales more than double since the start of 2020. While other semiconductor firms fret about cooling demand for gadgets and cars, TSMC believes demand for AI is just gearing up. Investors agree, propelling its market capitalisation towards $1trn and into the world’s ten most valuable firms. More

A spectre hangs over Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, where diplomats, scientists and activists are gathered for the UN’s annual climate-change summit. Last time he was in office Donald Trump, a fossil-fuel booster and climate-science denier, yanked America out of the UN’s Paris climate agreement (it later rejoined). The president-elect has vowed to do so again on his first day back in office. More