Planet Business

LAURA SLATTERYlooks back at the week in business

Shop Talk 

It was blessed with a restaurant, a spa and more Schiaparelli pink than all the girls’ aisles of regular toyshops added together, but Mattel’s flagship Barbie concept store in China has shut down after less than two years.

Based in central Shanghai – and not, as the analysts frowned, in its prime shopping malls – the retail haven for all-things-Barbie was part of toymaker Mattel’s grand push into Asia. As such, it was at all too safe a distance from the pester power of the multicareered doll’s western fanbase.

Outside China, however, the 52-year-old Barbie is showing little sign of middle-age spread, with €3 billion Barbie-branded products shifting each year.

Commodity Watch

Speculation or underlying economic demand? Who cares, when the rise in global commodity prices is the thing that’s made you a millionaire? Sorry, billionaire. The annual Forbes Slim-Gates-Buffett rich-off boasted a striking feature this year – a big increase in the number of billionaires in Russia, China and Brazil.

In the case of Russia (101 billionaires) and Brazil (a modest 30), the boom/bubble in billionaires has been attributed to the swell in commodities markets such as copper, gold, grain and oil. “There is a global commodities boom,” observed Forbes chief executive Steve Forbes. “But as we should have learned ... commodities can go up very sharply, they can go down very sharply.”

300,000- Number of households in Ireland in 2008 that did not have a bank account, according to a study by the Economic and Social Research Institute.

"The poisonous cocktail of austerity concocted by the witch doctors in Brussels and in Frankfurt because of the sickness of the financial system is to the continued to be force-fed to the people." – Joe Higgins TDcoins a new oxymoron. Coming to an empty bar near you: the Cocktail of Austerity.

STATUS UPDATE

3D-love: Sony has signed a deal with the All England Lawn Tennis Club to film the Wimbledon men's semi-finals and final and the women's final in 3D. Mind that backhand slice.

O verheated houses:With an estimated overvaluation of 56 per cent, Australia has been named the most overpriced property market by the Economist. Ireland took 10th position.

Luxury buys:Hot on the heels of its takeover of Italian jeweller Bulgari, LVMH is now in pursuit of its super-luxe rival Hermès, of Hermès scarf and Birkin handbag fame.

Is Subway really the biggest fast-food chain in the world?

Submarine sandwich group Subway has somehow overtaken McDonald’s as the world’s largest restaurant chain, it has announced. This is based on the number of outlets it boasts. Subway has a supersized, mouth-drying 33,749 sites globally at the end of the last year, compared to a paltry 32,737 outlets of McDonald’s. Hmm. So how has the Meatball Marinara and the, eh, Chicken Temptation achieved this global takeover? For many years the privately owned Subway concentrated on solidifying its business in the US. Then it spotted there was a whole world in which to sell calorie-dripping, foot-long lunches, and so its “great run” began. The chain has stressed its model of using small, low-cost franchised outlets in its international expansion – it’s easy to set one up, and you don’t need much space to do it. Indeed, many Subways are so cramped that they effectively serve as takeaways rather than fast-food restaurants. If floor area was taken into account, the comparison would likely be more flattering to McDonald’s. But while Subway may be the single brand with the greatest number of fast food outlets, it is not the most ubiquitous fast-food company. That honour goes to Yum! Brands, owner of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, with a combined store count of almost 38,000.