Planet Business

Image of the week: Absolutely pants

Do these pants say profits? US retailer Abercrombie & Fitch is still making money, but not as much as it used to, and not as much as it had forecast. The headline on BusinessInsider.com as it revealed its fourth-quarter earnings was blunt: “Abercrombie & Fitch is getting stomped.” The results, it said, were “ugly”, with a 10 per cent drop in sales in US stores and a 14 per cent decline overall. The problem is that logo-emblazoned clothing (like the rather sad underwear pictured in an Abercrombie & Fitch store in Pasadena, California) has gone out of fashion – or at least the Abercrombie logo has anyway. The biggest mystery here is why it was ever on trend in the first place.

In Numbers: Carry on roaming

3

Roaming charges in Europe will live on for at least this number of years after EU member states shelved plans drawn up by Commission lawmakers to banish the concept from the single market by the end of 2015.

55

Percentage cut introduced in July 2014 in the maximum price telecoms companies can charge roaming customers for data downloads, with the cap reduced from 45 cent per MB to 20 cent per MB.

90

Percentage decline in average roaming costs in Europe since the European Commission first started taking action eight years ago. It had approved "roam-like-at-home" rules that would have completely ended the charges, but then telco-favouring member states intervened. Thanks, member states!

The Lexicon: Lovemarks

Marketing as we know it is dead, superseded by "lovemarks" – or so says Kevin Roberts, the former chief executive and now the executive chairman of UK advertising company Saatchi & Saatchi. Business today is all about creating a movement of people with shared values, he told the Guardian in an interview published this week.

In fact, Roberts has been pushing “lovemarks thinking” for some years now. “Lovemarks are the future beyond brands because they inspire Loyalty Beyond Reason,” the Saatchi & Saatchi website claims – lovemarks “reach your heart as well as your mind, creating an intimate, emotional connection that you just can’t live without.” So far, however, lovemarks don’t appear to be catching, and it’s brands that have the better, er, brand.

Getting to know: Charlotte

"Charlotte", according to Aston Martin chief executive Andy Palmer, is "an attractive lady, cool, in her 30s". Is she his replacement? Was she one of the many models used to sex up shiny vehicles at this week's Geneva Motor Show? No, Charlotte is Aston Martin's dream new customer. "Aston Martin must be less dependent on a narrow portfolio and one type of customer," says Palmer.

It has enough – well, it has plenty – of those male middle-aged sportscar enthusiasts and wants more younger customers and more women. Dubbed “Charlotte” by the Aston Martin designers, their ideal female buyer is young, American and rich. Scarf-and-sunglasses are optional.

The list: New billionaires

In Forbes’ magazine’s annual list of whose wealth is estimated to be at least 10 figures, there was a record 290 “new entries”, or people who had crossed the line from mere multi-millionaire to billionaire. In no particular order, here are five who can afford to crack open the fizzy wine.

1 Michael Jordan "Arguably the greatest basketballer of all time," says Forbes, but more importantly, "indisputably the best-paid athlete of all time".

2 Elizabeth Holmes The 31-year-old founder of blood-testing technology company Theranos is worth $4.5 billion. She dropped out of a Stanford chemistry degree to pursue her business career.

3 Maria Franca Fissolo The widow of Nutella king Michele Ferrero, who died last month, shares a $23.4 billion fortune with her family.

4 Markus “Notch” Persson The Swedish creator of the video game Minecraft who recently treated himself to a $70 million home in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.

5 Kim Bum-Soo The co-founder of South Korea’s most popular mobile messaging service, KakaoTalk, is a billionaire who sometimes goes by the name “Brian”.