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Forget your $285 Nike Alphaflys and that $150 Salomon technical vest. The biggest flex is turning up to run club with a perfect recovery score on Oura or Whoop.

For the past four years, 31-year-old Sonam Shah has been part of an after-work running club in London, frequented by a mixture of city workers and creative types.

Shah was never one of the group’s “cool kids,” not seeing the appeal of buying $300 supershoes from Nike or Adidas or wearing a technical hydration vest for a casual 5k run around a park. But around a year ago, her cultural cachet took off when someone asked her what tech she uses to track her fitness.

The device — a wrist-strap sensor from Whoop, a Boston-based wearable tech company — did not even track how far or how fast she ran, but rather how deeply she’d slept the night before, her stress levels and her cardiovascular capacity, aggregating those and thousands of other data points into digestible “scores” that told her how prepared she was for certain activities.

“It was like a switch had flicked,” she said. “All of a sudden it didn’t matter that I didn’t run a 5K in under 30 minutes … now all anybody wanted to speak about was their recovery score and heart rate variability.”

Running was historically one of the most stripped-down sports there was. It required no field, no teammates and no special equipment beyond gym clothes and a basic pair of running shoes. (Even those are optional: Mexico’s Tarahumara still do their miles in sandals.)

But today, even casual runners routinely outfit themselves in the latest technical apparel, footwear designed in a high-tech lab and any number of gadgets to track their health. These wearables themselves have evolved from the Fitbits of the 2010s used for daily step counts to products like Whoop and the Oura ring as awareness grows that factors like sleep, hormonal cycles and stress can have as much impact on your performance as the gear you wear.

Among the growing hoards of everyday athletes who frequent popular run clubs, run marathons or take part in high-performance competitions like Hyrox, these products have quickly become status symbols.

Shah said while people still compare what shoes they’re buying for the next race and what times they expect to achieve, the emphasis has shifted to discussing the data gleaned from their wearable tech. Almost every person who shows up wears either a Whoop or an Oura ring.

“Health and wellness is 100 percent the new status symbol,” said 24-year-old former footballer and fitness enthusiast Elliot Johnson, who recently completed an internship at Nike and is now training for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in New Zealand later this year. Johnson, who is also big advocate for wearable tech, uses both a Garmin smartwatch and an Oura ring, which give him data about his performance, wellness and recovery far beyond the level he had access to even as a youth footballer.

An Aspirational Product

Companies like Oura and Whoop have savvily marketed their products as indispensable items to people like elite athletes, celebrities and CEOs, cementing them as part of the daily routines of high-performing figures. Oura’s rings, for instance, have been used by Real Madrid, the England national football team and organisations such as the NBA, NASCAR and UFC. They’re also worn by figures like Kim Kardashian and Prince Harry.

Whoop’s wrist strap was seen on several Olympic athletes, including gold medalist Sha’Carri Richardson, while the company has also raised investment from Cristiano Ronaldo, who’d been a regular customer of the business for around two years before they had a commercial relationship, said founder and chief executive Will Ahmed.

“If you go back 10 years, this sort of technology was only reserved for the elite, who’d have to go to a lab and strap into these clunky devices,” said Dorothy Kilroy, Oura’s chief commercial officer.

Now, regular consumers can have access to the same level of health tracking. Whoop’s monthly membership costs around $30, while the initial outlay for an Oura costs between $299 and $549, depending on the style you choose, plus the $5.99 monthly fee to access the app and your data.

The devices are also relatively unobtrusive — they don’t look or feel like “gadgets”. Oura is a simple metal ring, while Whoops is a tiny monitor with no buttons or display screen that can be worn on several areas of the body.

“A lot of these [newer] innovations that started off reserved just for athletes are now trickling down,” said Joe Holder, Nike’s global master trainer and a GQ wellness columnist. “I don’t think some people expected it to proliferate this fast.”

The Modern Wellness Consumer

There is a competitive element to these products’ appeal that reflects the shifting ways in which people measure — and show off — their fitness. It’s long been a common practice to post stats from jogs or workouts on social media, showing off metrics like distance, speed or the amount of calories burned. But now it’s just as common to see people posting their sleep or recovery scores before heading to their run club meet up, Johnson said.

For the past few years, Julius Juul, a wellness enthusiast, ultramarathon runner and co-founder of Danish ready-to-wear brand Heliot Emil, has been working on 444, a members-only wellness education platform which allows users to track qualitative data — such as feelings of anxiety and how motivated a user felt during their day — to complement the insights they receive from wearable fitness tech. Once accepted, users pay $500 for a 5-piece collection of fitness and movement clothing. Juul said the uptake took him off guard. He has so far onboarded 44 users, after opening the platform in late July, and has 2,220 more on the waiting list.

“There’s more of an understanding that it’s not just one thing that makes you fit and healthy,” Juul said. “More than ever before people want to learn about the connection between things like sleep, nutrition and physical exertion and what their means for their holistic wellness. This is where technology comes in.”

Wearables companies are receiving a boost from this wider adoption by the fitness community. Ahmed said Whoop has seen considerable growth over the past two years. The company has expanded into 20 new markets in 2024 and gone from being predominately a US business to an international brand.

The real expansion opportunity, however, is spreading the adoption of the technology among the rest of the general population — including those who don’t play sports or work out.

“I think that in the long run, most human beings are going to be wearing a sensor of some kind on their bodies that tells them everything about their health,” Ahmed said.

In an exclusive interview, CEO Daniel Ervér outlined his strategy to turn the Swedish fast-fashion giant’s greatest weakness — its positioning above Shein but below Zara in the category’s pricing hierarchy — into a strength. It all kicks off with a collection launching next month.

It’s become a truism in fashion that the middle-market brand — somewhere between Shein at the low end and Hermes at the top — is going extinct. H&M Group chief executive Daniel Ervér would beg to differ.

Six months after assuming the top job at the Swedish fast-fashion giant, where he has worked for nearly 20 years, the company is putting the finishing touches on a strategy meant to pull it out of a half-decade funk. At the heart of his plan is a full-court effort to convince shoppers that H&M’s clothing is worth paying for at any price, whether it’s a $15 knit top or a $200 suede skirt.

The retailer has refreshed its design criteria, Ervér said, granting its product team full creative control over its assortment, starting with a fall collection that includes leather pieces, long feminine dresses and a a faux fur long coat — “something for everyone to love,” the brand said.

To better showcase those clothes, the retailer plans to complete renovations on 250 of its 4,000-some stores this year. A series of pop-ups in major cities and a website redesign are also in the works.

The goal, ultimately, is for customers to rediscover H&M as a compelling fashion brand, rather than trying to win the race to the bottom on price (though there will still be plenty of affordable basics).

“There will be pure low-price price plays, there will be pure demand plays and there will be the luxury or innovation play,” Ervér told BoF. “At the end of the day, it comes down to having a really relevant, competitive product.”

Ervér is in a sense tackling the same existential threat H&M had a hand in creating for department stores and other traditional retailers 20-some years ago. Back then, H&M, alongside Zara and Forever 21, was the disruptor, effectively kicking off the hollowing out of fashion’s middle with ultra-affordable styles taken right off the runway.

In recent years, H&M has found itself on the other side of that dynamic as even cheaper and faster competitors such as Shein mutated the fast-fashion model. Around the same time, Zara positioned itself as the premium option in the category, using its elevated image to command higher prices.

H&M was caught between the two. Between 2019 and 2023, sales were virtually flat, at about $23 billion last year. In that same period, Inditex, which owns Zara, saw sales expand by 27 percent, to roughly $40 billion last year.

But under Ervér, H&M is doubling down on its orientation as being smack dab in the middle of the fast fashion landscape. Its fall collection, which hits stores Sept. 12, will feature a wider range of price points.

“There is a tremendous opportunity for growth,” he said. “And for profitability, which will allow us to invest in future transformation.

The decision now to embrace a middle-of-the-market value proposition is a risky one, analysts say. But there are potential upsides.

“From the customer perspective, what does the middle of the middle market mean to people?” said William Woods, an analyst at Bernstein. “It’s neither aspirational nor does it represent good value.”

But if executed well, with products that appeal to a wide swath of customers, a turnaround can take hold fairly quickly, he added.

“You just have to get heat around the brand,” Woods said.

Under Ervér and global creative director Jörgen Andersson, H&M has “re-energised” the design process, the executives said. The product development cycle hasn’t changed radically, but the company has eliminated some layers of management to yield faster decision making.

“The design team is working … with a [new sense] of ambition, passion and energy,” said Andersson. The company is “making sure that everyone gets their proper seat around the table,” he added.

H&M relies on a team of 500 designers to create each collection from the ground up, with the help of some insights from customer data, according to Ervér.

“We are able to let the creative teams make the decisions, but, of course, give them better information before making the decision,” he said.

The design team has also been equipped with supply chain improvements, including more options for product materials such as new trims and other components. The retailer has also increased local manufacturing capabilities to improve its ability to chase trends. Right now, H&M’s lead time can be as short as six weeks for some products — on par with that of Zara. But the bulk of its production is still in Asia, where products are shipped out via sea rather than air freight, said Woods. “The ability for them to be truly responsive [to trends] is still difficult,” he added.

The beauty retailer has been in China since 2005.

Sephora is cutting jobs in China, the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton-owned company confirmed Wednesday.

The beauty retailer, which has been in China since 2005, is trimming its workforce by 3 percent, the equivalent of around 120 jobs amid a slowdown in China.

“In response to the challenging market environment and to ensure our future growth in China, Sephora China is currently streamlining our organizational structure in our head office to ensure we have the right capabilities for long-term sustainable growth,” Sephora China said in a statement.

Speaking at a WWD Beauty Inc event in May, Alia Gogi, president, Asia Sephora, said that while the retailer’s sales were up in China last year, the country’s recovery is taking longer than expected.

“What it is forcing all brands to do, including Sephora, is to be very laser-focused on our strategies,” said Gogi at the time, explaining the retailer is doubling down on its “differentiated portfolio strategy.”

Curation is key to this. Over the past two years, Sephora has staged in China well-received launches for the likes of Anastasia Beverly Hills, Hourglass and Tatcha. The Drunk Elephant and Fenty introductions happened in May. “The Chinese consumer genuinely appreciates localizing,” Gogi said.

Addressing the beauty brand community at large at the conference, she counseled: “Be patient. One of the things about China is when it does come back, you will need to be agile — that becomes even more important — and it will come back very fast.”

Earlier in the week, the Estée Lauder Cos. said it expects further declines in prestige beauty in China next year, while North America is softening as well.

“We are cognizant that overall global prestige beauty growth has tempered in recent months as reflected in the current declines in mainland China and Asia travel retail, particularly Hainan,” said chief financial officer Tracey Travis during an earnings call.

Officials say the Neiman Marcus deal, new financing, expected fall upticks in business and future real estate sales will all help fulfill vendor obligations and normalize payment flow.

Saks’ parent HBC intends to close its $2.65 billion deal to buy the Neiman Marcus Group by the end of its fiscal year and says that will help expedite delayed payments to vendors.

Company executives on Wednesday also said new financing and equity infusions through the deal, future property sales and fall 2024 selling expected to kick in next month will improve liquidity, helping to catch up on outstanding payments to vendors, many months past the average 60-day period.

The news and commentary came during a rare conference call with Richard Baker, executive chairman and chief executive officer of HBC; Marc Metrick, CEO of Saks Global, and Jennifer Bewley, chief financial officer of HBC, providing updates to Saks and Saks Off 5th vendors. Saks Global is the combination of luxury-oriented retail and real estate assets, including Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off 5th, and will include Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, once the deal is closed. Baker is also executive chairman of Saks Global. Saks Global will generate $10 billion in sales, with Saks accounting for about $6 billion in sales and Neiman’s, $4 billion.

While apologetic for how vendors have been treated, the executives urged them to stick with Saks and Saks Off 5th, and expressed extreme confidence that the deal to buy the Neiman Marcus Group will soon close, ultimately benefiting — and not hurting — them. They also said they would be more transparent and communicative going forward.

They blamed the company’s inability to pay vendors mostly on the performance of Hudson’s Bay in Canada, and said the issue “had little to do” with Saks. They said Saks and Saks Off 5th are profitable on an EBITDA basis.

Still, vendors have been baffled by how HBC has been able to pursue its takeover of the Neiman Marcus Group at a time when many of them have been getting stiffed. But they were assured during Wednesday’s webcast that HBC is not diverting money owed them to fund the transaction.

On Tuesday, sources familiar with the situation told WWD that HBC cleared a regulatory hurdle, and that the Federal Trade Commission effectively greenlit HBC’s deal to purchase the Neiman Marcus Group by virtue of letting its review period expire without any objections to the deal emerging. On Wednesday, the WWD report was confirmed when HBC announced the expiration of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976. The expiration of the waiting period satisfies a closing condition for the transaction, HBC indicated.

The FTC, as well as the Department of Justice, would have been concerned about the potential for HBC to raise prices, close stores, lay off workers and increase pressure on vendors. Recent history shows that these federal agencies have challenged transactions involving well-known businesses in other industries, such as Microsoft, Meta, American Airlines and JetBlue, but also in fashion/retail, with the FTC blocking Tapestry Inc.’s $8.5 billion deal to buy Capri Holdings.

“We are very muted in our conversations and discussions about it because we have a lot of lawyers and and government kind of folks who put a lot of pressure on us to be very focused and careful with what we say,” Baker said. “But don’t mistake our excitement and the opportunity that exists, not only for us, but for all of our vendors going forward,” Baker said, referring to the Neiman’s deal. “This is something that Marc and I have been working on, dreaming about, and thinking about for over a decade, and here we are very close to the finish line.” In fact, on the very same day Baker disclosed in 2013 that HBC was buying Saks Fifth Avenue, he told WWD that his company would buy the Neiman Marcus Group.

On Wednesday, Baker said his company is in the process of selling certain non-core assets to create cash flow to help the operating businesses. “We expect to have some good news very shortly,” he said, adding that until recently the real estate market was frozen but has thawed with declining rates making financing easier. He said HBC owns and controls more than 30 million square feet of real estate in North America worth more than $6 billion. The portfolio of retail and real estate grows when Neiman’s is brought into the fold.

Metrick told vendors that the company intends to close the Neiman’s transaction by the end of HBC’s fiscal year, which ends in January. The closing, he said, “is just a few months away.”

“I want to remind everybody we plan to operate all of the businesses under their respective nameplates as we go forward, but the newly combined company will be de-leveraged from where this combined company sits today on a pro-forma basis. It’s going to be funded with a new term loan and a fresh revolving line of credit with significant levels of available liquidity.” He said the bigger company is projected to be immediately cash flow positive.

“I want everyone on the call today to think of the close of the transaction as the outside date when our businesses will return to normal operations,” Bewley said.

She disclosed that the company was able to lock into some interim financing on Tuesday. “This is not a silver bullet, but it is a significant amount, and we will have additional opportunities to add more financings.

“We are aware of the pressure that our actions have put you under,” Bewley said to vendors. “First, we apologize. We are very empathetic to the situation and recognize that we have not made it easy for anyone. Second, I want to thank you. Thank you to our vendors for your creativity, your partnership, your willingness to work with us through this down cycle and continuing to provide the merchandise that sets all of our businesses apart.

“The story is a frustrating one, as it has very little to do with Saks. Even though the Saks and Saks Off 5th business performance this year has declined as compared to last year, the U.S. stores are still EBITDA profitable.”

She also cited “significant investments” into Saks and Saks Off 5th dot-com businesses. “Both of the dot-com businesses are focused on profitability and are forecasting significant improvements in fiscal 2024 and even more in fiscal 2025.”

The CFO said Hudson’s Bay in Canada did not rebound after the pandemic the way U.S. retailers did. Heavy investments in digital capabilities and inventory in Canada did not pay off, and Hudson’s Bay had to clear merchandise more aggressively than it wanted, particularly when Nordstrom liquidated in Canada and Bed Bath & Beyond went bankrupt. The situation was further complicated when discretionary spending, even in the luxury sector, weakened, “triggering” slowed payments to Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off 5th vendors.

MSCI axes dozens more Chinese stocks from global indices

Move will increase the weighting of other emerging market countries such as India

MSCI has removed dozens of Chinese securities from its global benchmarks for the third consecutive quarter, in a move that will increase the weighting of India and other Asian markets in emerging markets indices.

The US index giant will remove 60 constituents from the flagship MSCI China index, which covers about 85 per cent of the entire global equities universe, including H shares, red chips and American depositary receipts, according to its latest quarterly review published this week.

This brings the number of Chinese stocks removed from the MSCI Global Standard indices to nearly 200 in 2024 alone, after MSCI culled 66 constituents in February and 56 companies in May.

Among the companies that will be scrapped from the index include investment holding firm First Capital, local brokerage GF Securities, listed online game company Kingnet Network and Xu Wenrong-founded conglomerate Hengdian Group.

Concurrently, it will be adding two new companies, hydropower developer Huaneng Lancang River Hydropower, one of the largest additions to the emerging markets index measured by full-company market capitalisation, and electronics manufacturer Victory Giant.

These changes will be made as of August 30 and will also be applied to the MSCI All Country World index and the provider’s emerging market index.

The move by MSCI could force index-tracking funds to sell their Chinese investments, heightening the exodus from the world’s second-largest market and shifting allocations towards other emerging markets such as India.

MSCI will also add seven new Indian companies to its indices, including telecommunications firm Vodafone India and electronics manufacturer Dixon Technologies. It will also remove Bandhan Bank from its indices.

In May, the index provider added 13 Indian securities to its indices and welcomed five new Indian firms to its benchmarks in February.

Meanwhile MSCI’s emerging market ex-China index, which was launched in 2017, has over the past three years gained prominence amid Beijing’s strict zero-Covid policies and weak economic recovery.

BlackRock‘s iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ex China ETF, which is benchmarked against the MSCI Emerging Markets ex-China Index, has seen its assets grow to $14.9bn as of August 12 from just $164mn as of end-2020, based on data from its official website and Bloomberg.

In contrast, the iShares MSCI China ETF has seen its market capitalisation decline to about $4.3bn as of August 12.

Companies need vast tracts of land and resources that industrial sites can provide

Booming demand for artificial intelligence is encouraging Big Tech companies and their suppliers to explore converting old power stations and industrial sites into data centres.

Microsoft, Google and Amazon are pouring billions of dollars into building data centres to power cloud computing and AI services, but it has become increasingly challenging to find suitable locations with sufficient power for the energy-hungry facilities.

Many data centre markets are “heavily constrained when it comes to land availability and power”, which in turn fuelled interest in smaller markets and “more complicated sites” such as old power stations, said Adam Cookson, head of land transactions for real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield’s EMEA data centre advisory group.

There are “increasing opportunities” for the owners of such assets, he added.

Daniel Thorpe, data centre research lead at real estate group JLL, said the developers of large data centre campuses were looking at locations including “infrastructure sites or power stations”.

“Usually, it’s a large ‘hyperscale’ facility that would be looking at a power station,” he added, referring to the largest cloud computing providers such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google.

Coal power stations are being decommissioned in parts of the US and Europe, but may have attributes that a data centre campus would need. Industrial sites will typically have been designed for high power usage, for example, and might come with power transmission infrastructure and be located close to a water source.

Microsoft intends to develop data centres on the sites of the old Eggborough and Skelton Grange power stations, near Leeds in northern England, with construction expected to start on the former in 2027. Amazon, meanwhile, is planning a campus on the site of the old Birchwood power station in the US state of Virginia.

At least one other similar power station deal in Europe is currently being brokered, according to one person familiar with the matter.

The tech industry has warned that electricity availability constraints threaten to hold back AI expansion, while other requirements, such as sufficient fibre connectivity, further shrinks the pool of potential spots for a new data centre.

That was encouraging an interest in less traditional options, analysts said. The different requirements of AI workloads present an opportunity to locate data centres in less central areas, further away from major computing hubs, because “latency”, or the time taken to send data and receive a response, is less important for training AI models.

Repurposing sites could also be an option. “We’re seeing an increased run of inbound activity” from the owners of industrial and power assets, such as private equity groups, who were interested in partnering to convert them into data centres, said Rahul Mewawalla, chief executive of Mawson Infrastructure Group.

Virtus Data Centres, in which Macquarie Asset Management holds a minority stake, recently acquired two sites in the German capital of Berlin, part of which was previously a solar farm, as well as an old war-era munitions factory in the UK. It plans to convert the sites into data centre campuses by 2026.

Thor Equities Group recently acquired a former manufacturing plant in the US state of Georgia that chair Joe Sitt said was “equipped with transformers, water, sewer, and natural gas infrastructure” and “well-suited for data centre development.”

The trend echoes moves by the power-intensive bitcoin mining industry, which has looked to repurpose disused industrial sites including old aluminium smelters.

Some cautioned that such conversions might be a lengthy, costly and bureaucratic process, and may not always be practical if a power plant had been disconnected from the grid and was not being factored in by the local operator.

“It may not be easy for the utility to flip the switch and turn it back on,” said Mark Dyson, managing director of the carbon-free electricity program at the think-tank Rocky Mountain Institute. “Those challenges have come up in our conversations with companies.”

Thorpe from real estate group JLL said: “A lot depends on the specifics of the site, how much it would cost for that adaptive reuse, land scarcity and land prices.”

Research by the RMI has suggested that renewable power could be located alongside existing fossil fuel generation, and routed to the grid via the plant’s existing connections when it is more economical to do so.

Any surplus generation — grid connection facilities have a limit on how much they can add to the system — could in theory be used to power an on-site facility such as a data centre.

The bid gives non-Redstone, nonvoting Paramount shareholders an option to sell shares at a premium

Edgar Bronfman Jr. has sweetened his offer for Shari Redstone’s media empire, a move that could scuttle her deal to sell to David Ellison’s Skydance Media.

Bronfman has submitted a revised bid of $6 billion for National Amusements and a minority stake in Paramount, according to people familiar with the matter. He formally entered the fray on Monday night with a $4.3 billion offer.

Bronfman’s new bid includes $1.7 billion for a tender offer that would give non-Redstone, nonvoting Paramount shareholders an option to cash out at a premium of $16 a share, the people said.

Skydance’s $8 billion offer involves buying National Amusements, merging Skydance into Paramount and giving those nonvoting shareholders a similar option to cash out at about $15 per share.

The Skydance deal, reached last month, is subject to a “go-shop period”—in which other potential buyers can make offers—that was due to expire Wednesday.

While Bronfman’s fresh proposal is more similar to Skydance’s offer, it couldn’t be learned if he has secured financing. In an accompanying letter to the special committee of directors at Paramount with his bid, Bronfman lists two and half pages of individuals and institutions including Roku and Len Blavatnik’s investment company, Access Industries, as “permitted equity financing sources.”

Roku hasn’t committed to financing the deal, according to a person familiar with the situation.