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* Adyen Downgraded at KBW as Investments Limit Near-Term Upside

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Macro :

- Xi and Putin to Attend G-20 Summit in Indonesia, Jokowi Says

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Keep an eye on :

- AC FP : Abu Dhabi Fund Seeks Buyer for Hotel at Record Price for Miami

- ALO FP : Alstom Gets EU590 Million SNCF Order for 15 High-Speed Trains

- BAVA DC : Monkeypox Shot Nears US Production Via Deal With Bavarian Nordic

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_ TKWY NA : *JUST EAT TAKEAWAY SELLS IFOOD STAKE TO PROSUS FOR UP TO EU1.8B

- MSHL LN : Marshalls Slips on 1H Profit Drop; Analysts Note Softening DIY

- NANOV NO : Nordic Nanovector Appoints Carnegie to Explore Strategic Options

- PRX NA : *JUST EAT TAKEAWAY SELLS IFOOD STAKE TO PROSUS FOR UP TO EU1.8B

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- SAP GY : Two SAP Staffers Say HR Mishandled Their Work-Event Rape Claims

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- SOON SW : Sonova to Buy China’s Hysound Group; No Purchase Price Disclosed

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- VIFN SW : Vifor, Cara Say Kapruvia Approved for Use in Switzerland

- VOD LN : Vodafone in Talks to Sell India Tower Unit Stake to CDPQ: ET

A new strain of avian flu is decimating wild birds. Humans should worry

In a pre-Covid 19 world, the deaths of 86mn birds would have been a global news story

The sound of a seabird colony is overwhelming. The air is thick with kittiwakes, ​​guillemots, razorbills and shags. Shrieks and calls ricochet down the cliffs and the rhythmic flap-flap of wings cuts the air like ­stadium applause. Birds ride the wind in spirals, dive to the waves, burrow into shelves in the cliff face or settle on rocky promontories.

The summer breeding season is coming to an end for many of the species at St Abb’s Head nature reserve in Scotland’s East Lothian, 50 miles east of Edinburgh. Adult guillemots and their chicks have already migrated to their wintering grounds. I’m sitting on a grassy verge at the cliff’s edge, overlooking the rocky bay that houses the colony, with Ciaran Hatsell, a National Trust of Scotland ranger. “I get empty nest syndrome at the end of the season,” Hatsell says, half smiling. “It’s like 60,000 of your kids leaving all at once.”

Hatsell knows about loss. On June 5, he discovered the first signs of avian influenza in one of the gannets. Since then it has wiped out thousands of birds on the reserve. The flu is a highly pathogenic strain of the H5N1 virus. Since its early detections in poultry and wild birds in the spring of 2021, this new strain has killed more than 86 million birds in the US and Europe alone, predominantly through poultry culling, the mass slaughter of birds at sites where cases have been found. The European Food Safety Authority said the 2021-2022 ­epidemic season was the largest ever recorded on the continent.

Hundreds of thousands of wild birds have been affected too, particularly seabirds that live in densely packed colonies — optimal conditions for the spread of disease. The level of transmission in wild bird species is unprecedented. Whereas previous strains have affected a handful of species before petering out by the end of the winter, the current one has infected hundreds of species and hung around in populations year-round.

In Rajasthan, India, locals looked on in alarm in November last year as Demoiselles cranes, elegant grey-blue birds with long black necks, began showing signs of lethargy and confusion. Three hundred of the three-foot-tall birds, which feature prominently in Indian poetry and mythology, are said to have died. The virus spread west, wiping out 8,000 common cranes in Israel, “the worst blow to wildlife in the country’s history”, according to the environment minister. At Greece’s Lake Mikri Prespa, home to the world’s largest Dalmatian pelican colony, more than half of the enormous, prehistoric-looking birds perished. An annual census of the species across the Balkans in May revealed a 40 per cent decline in the population compared to last year.

In Scotland, among the worst-hit countries because of the concentration of seabirds on its coasts, the virus has wiped out more than half of the great skua colonies in Orkney and St Kilda. Scotland is home to about 60 per cent of the world’s great skuas, a predatory bird known as the pirate of the seas. Conservationists warn that the scale of mortality could push the species into local extinction.

In a pre-Covid-19 world, all this might have been a major global news story. But with the pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a looming recession and another infectious disease that presents a greater risk to humans — monkeypox — dominating headlines, avian flu has barely made the agenda.

“I’ve worked in conservation for 30 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” says Susan Davies, chief executive of the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick. The centre has for years organised trips to the Bass Rock, home to the world’s largest gannet colony, now site of one of the most significant H5N1 outbreaks. Drone images comparing the Bass Rock this June with September 2020 reveal the extent of the devastation. The rock, usually gleaming white with gannets, is muddy brown, with large empty patches.

At St Abb’s, the virus spread through the colony at relentless speed. Of the 109 gannet nests Hatsell counted this breeding season, only one chick has survived. “This is a population level event, and it’s happening in our lifetimes,” he says as we walk along the cliff. “Species that we’ve been working [to conserve] are potentially going to be wiped out.”

It’s not just gannets. From where Hatsell and I are perched, we can see a group of dead kittiwakes lying on an outcrop below the lighthouse, near a roosting spot that Hatsell believes was a key point of transmission. The area around the bodies is empty, as though the other birds know to stay away.

Rangers like Hatsell have been the first and, often, the only responders in this outbreak. He and his colleagues at ecological sites around the UK, including his partner, who works on the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland, just over the border, have been donning PPE and clearing the infected carcasses in an attempt to contain the spread. “The jobs that they loved . . . have turned into a dystopian dream,” Hatsell says of his colleagues. “They are in full hazmat suits and respirator masks, putting birds in bin bags. It’s like something out of a film.”

There have only been two recorded cases of the new H5N1 strain in humans, but 456 people have died since 2003 after catching previous strains of the virus, according to the World Health Organization. Emerging infectious diseases are a growing threat to both humans and animals, as virologists have warned for decades, to little effect until Covid struck. The WHO reports that 75 per cent of new infectious diseases detected in the past three decades originated in animals. With mass urbanisation, industrial farming and the destruction of natural habitats, we are living in closer proximity to livestock, increasing the risk of mutations and spillover into other species. Meanwhile, a study published in Nature this month found that over half of the known human pathogenic diseases have been aggravated by climate change.

Hatsell hands me his binoculars so I can scan the cliff face for chicks. He explains how guillemots begin their migration before they have even learnt to fly. With their parents’ encouragement, they leave the nest for the first and last time with a leap from the high ledges down into the water, some as young as 15 days old. Many chicks don’t make it, dashed against the rocks. Nature is cruel, but the scale of the mortality rates among wild birds here and around the world seems far from natural.

Outbreaks of disease in domestic birds have been recorded since the late 1800s, with the term “fowl plague” in use until the mid-20th century, and local cullings taking place from time to time. But the H5N1 virus was a game-changer, becoming the first avian flu to cross the species barrier to humans. First detected in a farmed goose in southern China in 1996, the virus was then discovered in poultry facilities across China and Hong Kong. In 1997, 18 people in Hong Kong were found to be infected and one-third of them died. In a desperate move to contain the outbreak, the Hong Kong government killed all poultry in the territory within three days. This was later hailed as helping avert a possible pandemic.

The virus re-emerged in Asia in 2003, and from 2005 was spread by wild birds to poultry in Africa, the Middle East and Europe, including Britain, causing periodic outbreaks. From there it has moved back and forth between domestic and wild birds, evolving as it goes.

Seabirds are long-lived and loyal creatures. Some live up to 50 years and don’t start breeding until the age of five or six, meaning their birth rates are relatively low. Provided they breed successfully, most remain with their partner for life. “They have the kind of biology that doesn’t cope well with extraordinary additional mortality,” says Ruth Cromie, scientific lead of the UN-led Task Force on Avian Influenza and Wild Birds. It can take decades to build up a population after mass deaths.

The task force, convened by FAO, the UN’s food and agriculture agency, and CMS, its secretariat on migratory species, was launched in 2005, in large part to prevent counterproductive responses like attempts to kill wild birds, as well as misinformation about the role of wild birds in spreading the virus. Ducks and geese were increasingly being demonised in the media. In October 2005, The Sun newspaper ran the headline “Ducks of death” across a photomontage of a flock flying over London. The coverage made Cromie and her colleagues fear for wild bird conservation efforts almost more than the virus itself. “It’s like what Jaws did for shark conservation,” she says.

Marco Barbieri, scientific adviser at CMS, notes that the initial H5N1 outbreak gained global attention because it could infect humans. The current mutation of the virus does not have the same “zoonotic potential” he says, meaning the ability to jump from animals to humans. While there have been two cases in humans, that is low for an outbreak of this magnitude. This might explain the slower response by governments to the outbreaks in wild bird colonies. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has criticised the government for being “asleep at the wheel” during the recent emergency. It called for an immediate response plan in England, where tern colonies in Northumberland have been ravaged, and a plan for further possible outbreaks this winter.

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) told the FT it was developing an English seabird conservation strategy to be published in spring 2023, to assess the vulnerability of each species and propose actions to address them. But Cromie says that most government agencies have given little focus to wild birds in their response planning. “There’s always the sense that it’s wildlife, so we can’t do anything.”

It’s true that there is little that can be done to slow outbreaks in wild animals once they are infected. “Flu is endemic in wild birds, and we can’t vaccinate them or track them with any great detail,” says Paul Digard, chair of virology at the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh University’s animal science research centre. What can be done, however, is to improve biosecurity in commercial facilities to prevent the virus leaking in or out, and to limit human access to wild bird colonies that have been impacted by the virus, in case we unwittingly spread it to new environments. Governments, meanwhile, could ensure they are better prepared for future outbreaks by installing monitoring and reporting systems to understand the transmission of the virus in wild birds.

Many scientists believe that industrial poultry farming is the cause of the current, highly pathogenic strain. However, because of the difficulty of tracing the spread of the virus in wild birds, this is hard to prove. Digard says that while previous strains originated in chicken farms and can spread to wild species, there is as yet no evidence that this is the cause of the latest outbreak.

Barbieri and Cromie say one way to mitigate the long-term population losses of avian flu is by reducing the environmental pressures seabirds are already under and maintaining populations through conservation. “We need to recognise that all our healths are interconnected,” says Cromie. “It’s not as if nature is something over there.”

“Do you know how many gannets Ciaran has left?” asks Maggie Sheddan, as we speed out of the fishing port of Dunbar on a boat towards the Bass Rock. We skirt along the low, rugged coastline, past Tyninghame beach and the forests devastated by Storm Arwen last year. I tell her what Hatsell told me the day before: just the one chick. “Well, that’s something.” Sheddan squints, her pale blue eyes fixed on the horizon.

I follow her gaze. The sun has just hit the rock, which rises 350ft out of the sea, its steep cliffs shining. The wind has agitated the birds into orbit. They float in a halo of gold high above the island. Sheddan is smiling wide at the sight, gesturing with her hands as we draw in closer, and the magnitude of the colony becomes apparent. She has been leading landing tours on the island for 20 years. “You’d be forgiven for thinking there was nothing wrong here,” she says, laughing up at the sky, which teems with life.

The boat draws nearer and I get a better look at the gannets. With a wingspan of two metres, they are the largest seabirds in the Northern Atlantic. Their plumage is white with black-tipped wings, yellow heads and piercing blue eyes.

During a normal breeding season the rock is blanketed in birds, almost every inch of its surface occupied. But now the population looks drastically thinner, even from a distance, and large areas of rock are empty, with birds lying dead on the lower promontories. We see a chick, recognisable from its fluffier plumage, lifeless in the water.

When a visitor first spotted dead birds on the cameras at the North Berwick Seabird Centre at the start of June, Sheddan headed straight out to investigate. After her boat landed at the rock, she walked up the path and through the gate, as she has countless times, and was immediately met by a couple of gannets dying at the gateway. By the time she reached the main colony, she realised the extent of the devastation. “I was out late in May and it was absolutely fine,” she says, shaking her head. “The speed and ferocity of this when it hit was just unprecedented. It was just wiping them out.”

The symptoms are distressing to see. Lethargy, confusion, birds unable to lift their head and wings, shaking and nodding their head and, when in water, swimming in circles. Sheddan shows me a video of a bird in the final throes of the disease, convulsing and fitting. She says it takes between 24 to 72 hours for the bird to die once infected. “This ­fitting is horrendous to watch because this is a strong bird who has amazing control . . . ” She trails off. “And how long it takes . . . You just want death to come for them.”

We pull closer and watch the birds dive down to the cliff at intervals to reunite with their partners. They greet one another by bill fencing: stretching their necks high and tapping their bills back and forth, like a high-frequency double-cheek kiss. Sheddan says it strengthens the bond between partners. Each time she spots a pair reuniting she laughs with joy, pointing out that a pair means a new nest. “That’s life, that’s hope for the future.”

“I can’t imagine going out to Bass Rock right now. It had to have been heartbreaking,” says Bryan Richards, emerging disease co-ordinator at the US Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center. He talks to me via video link from his office in Wisconsin. A model duck and an impressive-looking pair of binoculars sit on a cabinet behind him.

“Over the last couple of years, the impacts on wild birds in Europe and Asia have been escalating, both geographically in the number of species, and the scale of individual morbidity and mortality,” he tells me. During the last outbreak of high pathogenic avian flu in North America that began in 2014, approximately 100 infections were documented in 20 species of wild bird. During the 2021-22 outbreak, 96 species, and approximately 2,500 wild birds have been confirmed to have contracted it in the US and Canada. “Obviously those are a small proportion of true mortality,” he says.

As with everyone with whom I have discussed the virus, one of Richards’ chief concerns is the scale of mortality and the longer-term effect on bird populations. He tells me about a few island colonies on Lake Michigan that are home to Caspian terns. On Gravel Island National Wildlife Refuge, there were 391 active Caspian tern nests in early June this year. Two weeks later, only one active nest remained.

Virologists spend a lot of time trying to predict which zoonotic disease will become the next pandemic in humans, but there seems to be far less concern about the spread across wild species. The new strain of H5N1 has not only affected wild birds. In the spring, Richard’s colleagues began to detect cases in scavenging mammals. It has since been confirmed in striped skunks, virginia possums, raccoons, bobcat, mink, coyote and, in Maine, seals. “This is a function of our changing globe,” Richards says. “We continue to put stresses on remaining habitats, remaining wildlife species and we crowd in all our pathogens together in the same time and space, more frequently than we ever have before.”

Human activity poses all kinds of threats to seabirds, as it does to many species. A 2018 study by the University of Aberdeen showed the global population of seabirds had declined 70 per cent since the 1950s as a result of environmental pressures like industrial fishing, pollution, predation by invasive species and climate change. As the sea has warmed and industrial fishing has proliferated, stocks of seabird prey such as sand eels have dropped dramatically, leaving the birds with less food. Seabirds routinely die caught in fishing nets or from ingesting plastic, while heatwaves and extreme weather events mean they are producing fewer chicks.

At the Seabird Centre in North Berwick, a low stone building with a copper roof curved like the tail of a bird, Maggie Sheddan shows me the screens carrying live footage of the gannets from cameras placed on the Bass Rock. I watch a gannet who appears to be showing symptoms of avian flu. The bird seems confused, but is not yet showing signs of lethargy and fitting that occur in the later stages of infection. Just behind it lies a dead bird.

Les nouveaux trains pourront circuler sous les différentes tensions des réseaux ferrés des pays voisins de la France.

La SNCF a passé commande à Alstom de 15 TGV de nouvelle génération supplémentaires, qui s'ajoutent aux 100 exemplaires déjà achetés il y a quatre ans, pour répondre à la croissance du trafic et lancer des trains à l'étranger. Le contrat d'un montant de près de 590 millions d'euros, annoncé par le constructeur ferroviaire jeudi, porte sur des TGV quadricourant ce qui, pointe Alstom, «correspond aux besoins de circulation européenne».

Ces nouveaux trains pourront en effet circuler sous les différentes tensions des réseaux ferrés en France et dans les pays voisins, permettant par exemple de rallier Paris à Berlin ou de s'aventurer en Italie. À condition que leurs motrices puissent lire les différentes signalisations. «Nous avons prévu que ce TGV puisse aller partout en Europe», avait indiqué l'an dernier Christophe Fanichet, le PDG de SNCF Voyageurs. La compagnie a confirmé la commande à l'AFP, prise selon elle «en anticipation de la demande clients qui est supérieure aux prévisions initiales».

«C'est une décision qui accompagne la volonté de Jean-Pierre Farandou (le PDG de la SNCF) de doubler la part du rail dans le transport de voyageurs pour la décennie 2030, afin de réussir la nécessaire transition climatique», a précisé un porte-parole. Le contrat complète une première commande de 100 rames destinées au marché français, passée en 2018 pour 2,7 milliards d'euros, dans le cadre d'un «partenariat d'innovation» conclu en 2016 entre la SNCF et Alstom pour concevoir le «TGV du futur». Celui-ci est depuis appelé «TGV M» par la compagnie ferroviaire et «Avelia Horizon» par le constructeur. Il revient 20% moins cher que la génération précédente, indiquent les deux parties. Le déploiement de «TGV M» s'échelonnera sur dix ans, à partir de 2024, selon SNCF Voyageurs. La date de livraison des 15 rames supplémentaires n'a pas été précisée.

Rebond de la fréquentation

«Cette solution répond aux enjeux technologiques, économiques et compétitifs de la SNCF, dans un environnement de forte demande des passagers pour des solutions de mobilité bas carbone», a commenté Jean-Baptiste Eyméoud, le président d'Alstom France, cité dans le communiqué. «Plus capacitaire, plus écologique et plus confortable, TGV M répond aux attentes des clients qui sont de plus en plus nombreux à choisir le train comme mode de transport», a renchéri SNCF Voyageurs.

De fait, les 360 TGV actuellement en service peinent à répondre à la demande cet été, le rebond spectaculaire de la fréquentation ayant vite fait oublier les rames circulant à vide pendant la pandémie. La SNCF a même été accusée d'avoir réformé trop vite ses vieilles rames ou d'en avoir expédié trop en Espagne, où elle a lancé l'an dernier son service low-cost Ouigo. Quatrième génération de trains à grande vitesse à la française en 40 ans - la première avait été mise en service en 1981 - le «TGV M» doit permettre de transporter 20% de passagers en plus que le matériel actuel. Il pourra accueillir 740 personnes par rame en configuration maximale.

Nouveauté majeure, la modularité : on pourra ajouter ou enlever des voitures pour avoir des rames plus ou moins longues, en fonction des besoins. SNCF Voyageurs pourra aussi changer la configuration des sièges pour transformer une voiture de première en seconde, et réciproquement Ce nouveau train doit consommer 20% d'énergie de moins que ses aînés grâce à un aérodynamisme et une motorisation plus efficients. Ses concepteurs affichent 37% d'émissions de CO2 en moins et 97% de matériaux recyclables.

Alstom promet également 30% d'économies sur la maintenance grâce notamment à des capteurs qui permettront de changer les pièces au bon moment. Son train est assemblé à La Rochelle, dix sites du constructeur étant associés au projet, dont Belfort pour la fabrication des motrices, Ornans (Doubs) pour les moteurs, Tarbes pour la chaîne de traction, le Creusot (Saône-et-Loire) pour les bogies et Villeurbanne (Métropole de Lyon) pour les systèmes informatiques embarqués.

One year into the Sephora at Kohl’s partnership, the retailers have announced the shops-in-shop will be rolling out to all Kohl’s locations nationwide.

Sephora will be expanding its presence to all of Kohl’s 1,100-plus nationwide locations.

The retailers have been expanding their partnership — where Sephora operates a shop-in-shop inside of Kohl’s locations — gradually. It started in 2021 with the opening of 200 shops-in-shop; the retailers added nearly 400 additional doors this summer; and now, the two plan to go even bigger, exceeding the initial goal of 850 doors by 2023.

“Sephora at Kohl’s provides our customers with easier access to prestige beauty, and the partnership has brought in new, younger and more diverse customers to Kohl’s,” said Michelle Gass, Kohl’s chief executive officer, in a statement. “We are incredibly proud of how our companies have come together so seamlessly to create a truly unprecedented and unique in-store experience.”

Kohl’s also said it has acquired more than 1 million new customers since launching the partnership in August 2021.

With more than 125 brands included in the partnership, top-selling players at Sephora at Kohl’s include Sephora Collection, Sol de Janeiro, Nars, Fenty Beauty, Olaplex, Too Faced and Charlotte Tilbury, the latter of which will expand its assortment in the coming weeks in light of its strong performance.

Six additional brands signed on in 2022, which were: Versace, Murad, Clarins, Living Proof, Jack Black and Voluspa.

“At Sephora, our mission continues to be welcoming more people into the prestige beauty community, and we are achieving exactly that,” said Jean-André Rougeot, president and chief executive officer, Sephora Americas, in a statement. “The reality is that one-year results are very encouraging, but this is just the beginning.”

Given the category’s momentum among Sephora at Kohl’s consumers, the partnership also plans to delve further into fragrance in the near term, and will amplify its men’s grooming offerings.

She was the first female Asian couturier to join the ranks of Paris Haute Couture in the 1970s and dressed prominent figures including the current Empress of Japan.

Japanese couturier Hanae Mori, who built a multimillion-dollar fashion business and was the first female Asian designer to join the ranks of haute couture in Paris, died at her home in Tokyo on Aug. 11 at age 96.

Her death was revealed on Thursday by Japanese broadcaster NHK. A funeral was held with close relatives, and a farewell party will be held in the coming days.

Mori founded her brand in 1951 in Tokyo and began showing couture in Paris two decades later, becoming the first female Asian designer to join the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture.

Her work became synonymous with upscale subtle designs that blended traditional Japanese fabrics with Western-style clothing, attracting a conservative client base spanning from ambassadors’ wives to Japan’s Empress Masako, then the crown princess, who wore a Hanae Mori gown for her 1993 wedding to then-Crown Prince Naruhito.

The butterfly became the symbol of the house, garnering her the nickname “Madame Butterfly” in Western media.

At its height the Hanae Mori brand spanned couture, with a studio in Paris; ready-to-wear for women, men and children; accessories; eyewear, and home furnishings.

She also launched a perfume line in the U.S. in 1996 through International Cosmetics & Perfumes Inc., which holds the worldwide license to her scents.

Widely remembered as a woman determined and able to make her mark in male-dominated post-war Japan, the designer also was a talented business person. In the late ’70s, the family signed a license with Fairchild to launch WWD Japan, which continues to publish.

After news of Mori’s death broke on Thursday, the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode paid homage to the late couturier on Instagram, lauding her emphasis on transmission of handcraft and handwork to younger generations, as well as her role as “a pioneer in the emancipation of women in her country.”

Former president Ralph Toledano described her as a “great lady,” and remembered being “tremendously impressed by her presence and influence” after visiting Japan.

“Ms. Hanae Mori was an incredible woman who will always be remembered for her contributions to the world of Paris couture fashion. We at International Cosmetics & Perfumes will forever be indebted to her trust in our company to launch her signature fragrance Butterfly over 25 years ago, which is still beloved to this day,” said Thomas Saujet, chief executive officer of International Cosmetics & Perfumes.

Mori remained a mainstay on the Paris couture calendar until 2004, when she retreated from the scene after staging a final show, with one of her granddaughters taking to the runway. Even after retiring she continued to design stage costumes, however.

Born Hanae Fujii in 1926 to an affluent family in southwest Japan, Mori studied literature at Tokyo Women’s University before veering toward dressmaking after her 1947 marriage to Ken Mori, a textile executive in Aishi who later became chairman of her eponymous fashion group.

She opened her first boutique in 1951 in Tokyo’s main shopping area Hiyoshiya, which rapidly became popular with Japanese women looking to dress up again after the end of World War II.

Japan’s film industry also was blossoming at that time, and Mori created costumes for hundreds of movies, including “Season of Violence” and “Crazed Fruit.” This work helped influence her haute couture designs and she launched her fashion business in 1963.

Two years later, the brand debuted in New York, where it immediately gained popularity among American department stores.

Before her New York show, WWD wrote that Japan was a “man’s country” and that Mori believed “women’s fashions, to be successful, must be designed not for the women who wear them, but for the men who behold them.”

Her goal was to bring “Miyahiyaka” to the U.S., a hard-to-translate Japanese word that references beauty, graciousness, elegance, orderliness and, mainly, femininity. It was the theme of Mori’s show, which took its inspiration from Japan’s Heian Era in the eighth to 12th centuries, one of the most peaceful in its early history.

“As a young girl, I was brought up during the turbulence and ugliness of the war and the post-war confusion,” she told WWD in June 1965. “I have always yearned for ‘Miyahiyaka.'”

She said then that her favorite designers were Chanel and Pierre Cardin; she had “huge respect” for Courreges even though is designs were only for the young, but that Balenciaga was number one and Norman Norell was “the American Balenciaga.”

Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus were reported by WWD as her best customers after her first show, with the likes of Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor and Bonwit Teller following soon after. Vogue described Mori’s success as “East Meets West.”

“Neiman Marcus has a storied history with the remarkable Hanae Mori,” said Geoffroy van Raemdonck, chief executive officer of Neiman Marcus Group. “Madame Mori leaves a lasting legacy in the world of luxury fashion as the first Asian woman with a prominent role in French haute couture. In the 1960s Stanley Marcus, president of Neiman Marcus, introduced the luxury house to the United States as the first multibrand retailer to sell her collections. As part of our longstanding relationship with Ms. Mori, she was the recipient of the Neiman Marcus Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion in 1973. Throughout the years, Ms. Mori’s silks and chiffons printed with butterflies and cherry blossoms were incredibly popular with our discerning customers.”

Japanese actress Tetsuko Kuroyanagi recalled in the book “Hanae Mori: Her Work and Life” that when Emperor Showa visited Washington, D.C., in 1975, many women who were invited to the party were wearing Mori’s dress, which made her “really proud of her work.”

Mori’s work was described as “styled in Western style, but it flattered as a kimono,” with the overall design representing the Japanese aesthetic and showing the world the beauty of its culture.

Her brand grew rapidly even before she launched couture and so did the pressures of running an international company. In September 1970, just before opening her first store in New York in the Waldorf Astoria, she joked to WWD that she wouldn’t mind retiring, but then added, “Oh, no, I can’t really retire…I haven’t finished my work.”

At that time her brand had about 30 boutiques in Japan, a wholesale line called Vivid was carried in 100 Japanese stores and she had Ban-Lon designs for Joseph Bancroft, towels and sheets with West Point-Pepperell and packaging for what was then Shiseido’s Hanae Mori fragrance line.

“My inspiration comes from everything,” she told WWD in that interview. “It can be beautiful food, people I see at such places as Byblos [Tokyo’s then-hot nightspot], movies…everything.”

Although she said during prior to her second American show that “the days of Paris [were] running out [as] the couture is getting smaller in numbers and too high priced,” with the success and marketing sense she gained in New York, she went to Paris and opened a maison on Avenue Montaigne in 1977. At the time the brand had global sales of $70 million.

“While working in New York with the department stores, the bespoke work she did there eventually convinced her that she needed to open her own couture house in Paris,” remembered Henry Berghauer, a former Pierre Cardin and Emmanuel Ungaro executive who became the first chief executive officer of her Paris-based business.

By that time her clients included Princess Grace of Monaco, Sophia Loren and former first lady Nancy Reagan.

Revealing her plans to open a maison in Paris, Mori told WWD, “Ready-to-wear is like bread and butter to a designer. But a designer is also an artist, and I would like to do more art.”

Berghauer said that Mori’s couture success hinged on her ability to give “a Japanese climate” to collections in step with their time, blending textiles and motifs from her homeland with Western silhouettes.

Pierre Cardin is said to have played a pivotal role in her induction into the Chambre Syndicale, according to filmmakers Todd Hughes and P. David Ebersole, who interviewed the Japanese designer for the 2019 “House of Cardin” documentary.

Cardin and Mori first met when the French designer visited Japan in 1957. “[She] introduced him to many aspects of Japanese culture and most importantly to Hiroko Matsumoto, the model who would become his muse and the face synonymous with his house. They remained friends for the rest of his life,” they said.

By 1986, the Hanae Mori International company’s sales were between $250 million and $300 million internationally, between its wholesale business and its network of 60 boutiques globally, according to a WWD feature.

It also spearheaded ambitious projects like a trinational joint venture, involving the Chinese government, the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the Tokyo-based Mori firm to produce cashmere knits and apparel, involving the construction of factories in Puerto Rico and China that could produce for the brand as well as other clients.

Although it did not come to fruition, the brand launched the Hanae Mori Soft Sports division, which offered a lineup of cashmere separates complemented with leather and silk, all manufactured in China.

There were times of struggle as well. In 2002, the rtw and licensing business was separated from the couture side. The collapse of the bubble economy in Japan hit the company hard, leading it to file for court protection under the Civil Rehabilitation Law. Today, the trademark of “Hanae Mori” is owned by Japan-based textile company MN Interfashion.

Subsequent attempts to revive the fashion brand were made, including the launch of a younger “Manuscrit” line, helmed by Tokyo-based designer Yu Amatsu, who had experience in New York working as a pattern maker for Marc Jacobs and Jen Kao before launching his own brand, and the 2018 appointment of 2014 Hyères Festival winner Kenta Matsushige, a Paris-based graduate of the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture school, as artistic director until 2020.

Upon meeting the couturier, then aged 93, Matsushige was “impressed by her sense of challenge and her sense of responsibility as a representative of Japan,” which came across in their conversation.

“She’s a great designer who doesn’t look for a way but creates a way,” he wrote in an email.

Besides creating new collections every season, her passion for design extended to various works, including designing uniforms for Japan Airlines crews, singers’ costumes, the official uniform for the Japanese Olympic team in Barcelona, opera, ballet, Noh, and even kabuki. In 1993, she designed the iconic robe décolleté dress for Princess Masako’s wedding.

Mori received numerous awards, including the Asahi Prize as Pioneer of Japanese Fashion in 1988 and the French Légion d’Honneur in 1989. She was also the subject of the 1989 “Hanae Mori: 35 Years in Fashion” exhibition which traveled from Tokyo to Monaco and Paris in 1990.

Her works were also central to the “Fashion in Japan 1945 –2020” exhibit held at The National Art Center, Tokyo, in 2021, the world’s first large-scale exhibition on the evolution of the Japanese fashion industry. Pieces from her haute couture collections and her cinema costume design were on display. The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City also holds several of her works.

In addition to design, Mori was also a keen writer who penned numerous contributions to fashion publications, especially advice columns for readers seeking to polish their style.

She was also the author of several books about fashion, as well as her own autobiography, “Goodbye Butterfly,” which was released in 2010.

Since 2012, Mori had served as the director of the Hakone Open-Air Museum outside of Tokyo, which is home to the country’s most famous sculpture garden featuring works from Joan Miró, Rodin and Picasso.

The Moris had two sons, Akira and Kei, who would join the family business and go on to lead the business in Tokyo and Paris respectively. The elder Ken Mori died in 1996, aged 84.

Mori said in the 1970 interview with WWD that her sons and family were her real joy, along with painting, especially in oils.

Once asked what continued to drive her during her 70-year career, Mori answered simply: “I wanted the world to know that Japan has a wonderful culture and aesthetic.”

Mori’s granddaughter, model Izumi Mori, posted a short video and message on Instagram, stating: “Thank you for all the amazing memories and experiences.”

Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities borrows $600mn as trading revenues surge

Lenders line up to provide financing after volatility spurs profit gains for US equities trading house

Citadel Securities borrowed $600mn on Thursday to bolster its balance sheet and trading business, capitalising on strong demand from lenders after volatile markets helped one of the biggest US equity trading houses make a banner start to 2022.

The company, which is majority owned by billionaire Ken Griffin, forms a critical part of the plumbing of US financial markets. It was thrown into the spotlight last year as millions of investors piled into stock and option markets for the first time.

The company told lenders, which include credit funds, that it planned to use the $600mn in part for additional trading capital. Citadel has sought to expand into markets outside the US and build its business with institutional traders in fixed income.

Documents circulated to lenders underscored Citadel Securities’ dominance in US financial markets. The company executes more than a fifth of equities trading volume in the US and handles more retail stock trades than any other market maker.

Net trading revenues surged 38 per cent in the second quarter from a year earlier to $1.9bn as financial markets whipsawed, according to people who saw the results and read them to the Financial Times.

The high volatility — which came as the S&P 500 fell into a bear market — benefited many players on Wall Street, and trading revenues at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase all rose considerably. Citadel’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation rose 53 per cent from the year prior to $1.1bn in the quarter.

For the first half of the year, net trading revenues rose 23 per cent from a year earlier to $4.2bn, and ebitda climbed 30 per cent to $2.6bn.

The company earlier this year was valued at $22bn when Griffin sold a $1.2bn stake in the business to venture capital groups Sequoia and Paradigm.

Its new backers are keen for Citadel to expand into cryptocurrency trading. The market-making business has been tapping credit markets for cash as it has grown, and the new borrowing will swell the size of an existing loan to more than $3.5bn.

The loan matures in February 2028 and was issued with an interest rate 3 percentage points above Sofr, the new floating interest rate that has been widely adopted to replace Libor. The large appetite to lend to Citadel allowed the Goldman Sachs bankers marketing the deal to tighten the terms — it had initially offered the loan with an interest rate a quarter-point higher — and increase its size by $200mn.

Analysts at credit rating agency Moody’s said Citadel Securities had a “strong capital base, profitable track record during periods of varying market volatility, and solid risk management capabilities”.