Planet Business

Compiled by LAURA SLATTERY

Image of the week: Mandela money

He is “an extraordinary human being”, says Gill Marcus, South Africa’s Reserve Bank governor, of Nelson Mandela, who has now been honoured with a new set of banknotes bearing his image.

The former president and anti-apartheid leader features on the front of banknotes that went into circulation this week, while pictures of the country’s Big Five wild animals (that’s the lion, the elephant, the buffalo, the leopard and not forgetting the rhinoceros) are on the reverse – something for everyone then.

The who-gets-to-go-on-banknotes debate often elicits interesting suggestions: the Bank of England last year published (but didn’t endorse) a list of public nominations that included Irish broadcasting legend Terry Wogan.

Photograph: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

In numbers

The "C" word

€603.50

The average sum that Irish people say they will spend on Christmas this year, according to a survey by KBC Bank. That’s a lot of novelty jumpers from the novelty jumper shop.

€675

Blame it on the Smyth’s catalogue, blame it on Claus-inflation, but the average projected outlay of parents is just that little bit higher.

10

The percentage of people who will use only their credit card to fund Christmas, claims KBC. Altogether now: “And on the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a 0 per cent balance transfer rate.”

Getting to know: Ingvar Kamprad

He is the “IK” in Ikea, drives a 1993 Volvo, flies economy class, likes public transport and furnishes his home with his chain’s cheap-as-meatballs, self-assembly furniture. Now 86-year-old Swedish entrepreneur Ingvar Kamprad has been listed as the world’s fifth richest man by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Bloomberg places his net worth at $41.5 billion, which, on top of being handy with an Allen key, makes him quite the catch. There is the whole Nazi-sympathiser past – which he regards as the “biggest mistake” of his life, his spokesman said last year – but then who hasn’t got a few skeletons in their flatpack closet?

The lexicon: Walmart moms

Forget “soccer moms” – “hockey moms” are so 2008. If you want to win an election in the US these days, the people you have to court are the so-called “Walmart moms”. Pollsters said all along that this group –- mothers on a low-budget – would be a key demographic in the Obama-Romney face-off.

In the end, Obama coasted it among the “Walmart moms” in swing states and single women everywhere, taking 55 per cent of the women’s vote. Shaking off concerns about your economic record is easy when the other crowd keep reminding everyone they want to seize control of women’s ovaries.