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Matchesfashion is making changes at the front and back ends of the business as it positions itself for commerce in a post-COVID-19 world.

LONDON — Matchesfashion is making changes at the front and back ends of the business as it positions itself for digital and physical commerce in the wake of COVID-19.

Matches’ new chief executive officer Paolo De Cesare hasn’t been wasting any time building his management team, naming Amazon and Farfetch veteran Dave Murray chief financial officer and Prenisha Harry, formerly of Pandora and Inditex, as human resources director.

After a two-year hiatus due to lockdown, the retailer is also resuming its partnership with Marie-Louise Sciò and taking Matches to Italy once again for a series of immersive consumer events.

Grand Tour Italy Part Two will see Matches host parties, dinners and pop-ups in Rome, Florence, Naples and Ischia, the sequel to an initiative that debuted in 2019.

Matches’ new CFO Murray hails from Farfetch where he was senior vice president of finance. He will start his new role in the autumn, succeeding Sean Glithero, who will be leaving to take a career break. Glithero had been with the business since September 2020.

Murray has 20 years of experience in the luxury and retail sectors, including three years at Farfetch, where he worked alongside the company’s CFO, with operational responsibility for all areas of finance.

Prior to Farfetch, he held senior finance positions at Amazon U.K., first as U.K. finance director for operations and then as Amazon Logistics European finance director.

De Cesare described Murray as “one of the luxury industry’s most respected finance professionals. He will provide us with invaluable e-commerce expertise.”

De Cesare said the next $100 billion of luxury market growth will come from further digital penetration, “and Dave’s vast experience in this area will be immensely valuable.”

In an interview this week, De Cesare said he’s been on a mission to attract top talent in digital, retail and fashion. The two new appointments are reflective of that.

De Cesare said Murray will be working on optimizing Matches’ supply chain, which accounts for one-third of the company’s costs in areas such as returns, duties and shipping.

De Cesare said supply chain is an area where there are “many opportunities and challenges,” and the aim is to figure out ways to serve the customer better, and save money.

Matches hired Harry, its new HR director, from Pandora. Harry has nearly 16 years of experience in HR roles at large retail companies, having started her career at Inditex, parent of brands including Zara and Massimo Dutti.

Asked why he made the HR hire, De Cesare said the market is a highly competitive one, and as Matches strives to become “the most aspirational multibrand fashion and luxury site” it needs to find, and retain new talent.

He also wants Harry to help “build a sense of belonging and mission” at the retailer.

As part of its growth ambitions, Matches is reprising the fizzy spring lifestyle event that it first launched in 2019. It will host the Grand Tour Italy Part Two in partnership with Sciò, the founder of Issimo and CEO and creative director of the Pellicano Hotels Group.

The three-part tour of Italy is meant to celebrate “the return of global travel,” and showcase Matches’ exclusive vacation capsules. The store will be hosting cocktails, dinners, private art tours, cultural experiences and pop-up shops on the peninsula.

The store said the journey will be captured in a “cinematic miniseries,” that will be shared with Matchesfashion on its media channels.

The retailer has collaborated with designers including Gabriela Hearst, Johanna Ortiz, Emilia Wickstead, Etro and Commas to launch more than 45 exclusive vacation capsules across womenswear, menswear and home.

The launch of Sciò’s and stylist Robert Rabensteiner’s vacation edits online, and at the Matches pop-up in Rome, will mark the first stop of the tour.

It will be followed by an event and installation at 5 Carlos Place in London before heading south to Florence and Naples.

The Matches pop-up in Rome will be on Piazza De’Ricci, near Piazza Navona. There will be a cocktail party and dinner at the well-known fish restaurant Pierluigi followed by a weekend of “shopping, eating and dancing” at La Posta Vecchia Hotel.

In Florence, Sciò and Rabensteiner will host a dinner at Palazzo Corsini, and there will be a series of cultural events for Matches VIP customers.

The last stop will be on the island of Ischia, off the coast of Naples, where Matches will host a four-day vacation residency at the Mezzatorre Hotel. Guests will travel by boat from Naples to Ischia for a weekend of shopping, eating and entertainment.

In 2019, the Il Pellicano x Matchesfashion.com Italian Grand Tour saw customers spend time holidaying on the Italian coast on a 1930s-era yacht that was transformed into a pop-up resortwear shop.

The boat sailed from Il Pellicano in Porto Ercole, Tuscany, to La Posta Vecchia, outside Rome, to Il Mezzatorre.

Elon Musk slammed Apple’s widely scrutinized practice of taking a 30% slice of revenue from transactions within its App Store on Monday – asserting that the fee was “definitely not ok.”

The Tesla CEO raised his concerns in response to detailing a complaint from European regulators who say Apple “abused” its leading market position to stifle competition for its mobile payments system, Apple Pay.

“Apple’s store is like having a 30% tax on the Internet,” Musk said.

Musk added that the App Store fee was “literally 10 times higher than it should be.”

Musk is the latest of several tech firms or leaders who have criticized Apple over the 30% fee – which applies to paid downloads and other purchases for developers earning $1 million or more in annual revenue through the store.

Apple representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bloomberg reported that PayPal, the payments platform that Musk co-founded and later sold, played a key role in the potential European regulatory crackdown over Apple Pay – grumbling to the European Commission about the iPhone maker’s business practices.

U.S. regulators are currently eyeing action against Apple and Google over their app store business practices. One piece of legislation, the Open App Markets Act, would block online marketplace operators from giving preferential treatment to their own app, among other measures meant to promote a level playing field.

Musk previously slammed Apple’s App Store fees during the company’s high-profile legal battle with “Fortnite” maker Epic Games. Apple booted the video game company from its App Store in 2020 after it introduced its own payments system.

“Apple app store fees are a de facto global tax on the Internet. Epic is right,” Musk tweeted during the trial.

During the trial, an Apple executive revealed the company made at least $100 million in fees from “Fortnite” commissions during the time the game was available in the App Store.

A federal judge later delivered a split verdict in the case — though the ruling was largely in Apple’s favor.

European aircraft maker shrugs off worries over war in Ukraine and supply chain strains

Airbus is pushing ahead with aggressive plans to increase production of its popular A320 family of jets as Europe’s plane maker shrugs off concerns over the war in Ukraine and strains in global supply chains.

Chief executive Guillaume Faury said the company would increase output of the narrow-body aircraft by 50 per cent to 75 a month in 2025 amid strong demand from airlines coming out of the pandemic. Airbus is already in the process of increasing production to 65 a month by the summer of 2023.

The move will cement Airbus’ dominance over US rival Boeing. The main driver of the recovery has been in the single-aisle or “middle market”, where Airbus already had a significant advantage before the crisis, as airlines have clamoured for the medium-sized jets for domestic routes as well as international travel.

Faury said the “long-term trends point towards a durable recovery . . . that is underpinned by strong customer demand”. This was despite geopolitical tensions and pressures on global supply chains and logistics, in particular from the Covid-19 pandemic in China,

Airbus plans to meet the higher output rates by increasing capacity at its existing industrial sites, including building a second final assembly line at its US operations in Mobile, Alabama.

Engine makers and aircraft leasing companies last year pushed back against the company’s more aggressive “scenarios”.

Executives said they feared the industry’s supply chain, already hard hit by the pandemic and facing rising raw material prices, would be unable to cope at this point in the recovery.

Airbus last week, however, agreed supply deals with engine makers Safran and MTU for delivery through 2024, signalling an easing of tensions between the companies.

Analysts at Berenberg, nevertheless, cautioned that the monthly target of 75 jets was an “ambitious target”, one which is “significantly above current and previously achieved rates . . .[and which] comes amid growing risks in the supply chain”.

Airbus also confirmed earlier reports that the launch of its new, long-range narrow-body, the A321XLR, had been postponed from late 2023 to “early 2024” in order to meet “certification requirements”. Faury declined to comment on the company’s talks with the EU Aviation Safety Agency.

His comments came as Airbus reported adjusted operating profit, a figure tracked by analysts, of €1.26bn in the first three months to the end of March, from €694mn a year earlier. The results were helped by a one-off gain of €400mn from a remeasuring of pension obligations.

Revenues for the period rose 15 per cent to €12bn.

The manufacturer reiterated its previous target of free cash flow of €3.5bn for 2022 before customer financing and mergers and acquisitions, and an increase in adjusted operating profit to €5.5bn, about equal to 2021.

Porsche has read the room.

With its first electric vehicle now outselling the quintessential 911 sports car, the German automaker is responding by upping its bet on EVs, in part via a hefty investment in lithium-silicon battery developer Group14 Technologies.

Porsche injected $100 million into Group14 as part of a larger $400 million Series C funding round. Other investors that chipped in include Canadian pension fund OMERS, Decarbonization Partners, private equity firm Riverstone, Vsquared Ventures and Moore Strategic Ventures.

Group14’s key technology is a silicon-carbon powder that can either replace or augment graphite anodes. Graphite is used in most of today’s lithium-ion batteries, and it’s a sensible anode because it’s stable and can store a reasonable amount of energy.

Yet as automakers push for higher energy densities, graphite is being pushed up against its limits. Silicon is an attractive alternative since it’s able to hold far more lithium — theoretically up to 10 times more. But that same benefit is also the silicon’s Achilles’ heel. Because silicon absorbs so much lithium, the molecular-scale expansion and contraction can degrade the anode’s structure, leading to premature failure.

Group14 is one of many startups racing to develop silicon-based anodes that can be repeatedly charged and discharged without breaking down. To do that, the company infuses a porous carbon scaffold with a silicon-containing gas. The end result is a carbon compound that’s peppered with nanoscale silicon particles. Those particles serve to grab hold of lithium ions while the carbon scaffold serves as a stable structure so the anode doesn’t decompose as it’s used.

Group14 says that its carbon-silicon material can be blended with graphite anodes, too, and that it can be dropped into an existing battery production line with few modifications.

The startup claims that its SCC55 material can store 50% more energy than traditional graphite anodes. It has one battery materials plant online currently and has two more in the works, one a joint venture with SK Group that’s coming online later this year and another that’ll start producing in 2023. Group14 appears to be targeting production for Porsche battery packs in 2024.

For an automaker like Porsche, which built its reputation on lightweight, high-performance sports cars, the prospect of a smaller and more powerful battery must be appealing.

Advancing battery tech is key to decarbonizing the auto industry, which accounted for 9% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2018, per Greenpeace. Yet, this potentially beneficial deal does little to wipe away the dirty track record of some of Group14’s investors, a few of whom are prolific fossil fuel backers.

Decarbonization Partners, for example, is a joint venture between BlackRock and Temasek. The pair has backed some intriguing, sustainability-focused firms such as mushroom leather startup MycoWorks, yet BlackRock also recently pledged to “continue to invest in and support fossil fuel companies.” The $97.3 billion investing giant has a tendency to talk out of both sides of its mouth. OMERS’ portfolio also includes several crude oil and gas ventures, though the pension fund has promised to reach net-zero emissions across its investments by the distant year of 2050.

For Group14, the new deal represents a big step up — by nearly a factor of 10. Prior to the raise, the Woodinville, Washington-based startup had reportedly secured a combined $41.5 million or so in venture dollars and government grants.

“Like a pressure cooker, COVID blew the lid off what was a simmering mental health crisis for over a decade,” VC Tim Schlidt told TechCrunch.

According to the World Health Organization, the global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by a massive 25% in the first year of the pandemic. And when available treatment options showed their limits, both the general public and regulators became more willing to look into alternatives – including psychedelics.

Previously relegated to underground communities and rave culture, drugs like ketamine, MDMA (commonly known as ecstasy) and psilocybin are now being studied to develop therapies to treat everything from PTSD to cluster headaches.

“Today, there are 400+ ketamine clinics in the U.S., and over $200m has been raised over the last two years to open even more,” Dina Burkitbayeva, founder of PsyMed Ventures, said. “Many of these clinics will be sites for MDMA- and psilocybin-assisted therapies, if they are approved, and treatments derived from other molecules as they become available.”

A more favorable regulatory and social landscape is helping psychedelic startups gain a foothold, but they still have to walk a tightrope that’s susceptible to the vagaries of market sentiment. “While there has been a lot of focus on mental health and the promise of psychedelics to be truly disruptive, not all the hype is warranted or justified. In fact, there are many investors who have been hurt by the early hype-driven public markets,” said Sa’ad Shah, managing partner of Noetic Fund.

Burkitbayeva, Shah, and Schlidt are three of the five investors we interviewed for this deep dive. Each of them has an investment thesis that strongly overlaps with applications of psychedelics.

Indeed, investor interest around psychedelic startups has mushroomed in recent years, attracting interest from generalist investors. But as public market sentiment fluctuates, specialized VCs seem more likely to stick around for the whole trip.

- We will not hesitate to go higher on rates if we have to; We could go higher than neutral if necessary

Traders are ‘very wary’ that lockdowns in China will crimp demand for crude

The European Commission on Wednesday proposed one of the most sweeping changes to global energy flows in history. But the oil price barely responded.

Brent, the international benchmark, rose 3.8 per cent to around $109 after the commission proposed a phased-in ban on all imports of Russian crude and refined products into the EU.

Traders and analysts said the muted price response reflected the long-build up to the announcement, the phased-in approach, suppressed oil demand in China due to a resurgence of coronavirus and the price-calming impact of petroleum releases by the US and its allies. Brent has hovered at $100-$115 a barrel since the start of April.

“It’s a very small move on a momentous decision,” said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at Swedish bank SEB. “If it hadn’t been for the Chinese lockdowns and the [strategic petroleum reserve] releases then the oil market reaction would have been much stronger.”

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, traders have been attempting to predict the extent of any long-term disruption to Russian energy flows and its impact on what was already a tight global oil market.

Immediately after the invasion, oil rallied to a 14-year-high of $139 a barrel as the US prepared its own ban on Russian imports. Prices then pulled back as Europe, particularly Germany, resisted EU-wide restrictions, even as many European companies began to shun Russian cargoes.

Concerns over a lockdown-induced drop in Chinese oil demand have had the biggest sway on crude prices since the start of April, said Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at consultancy Energy Aspects.

“On a normal trading day we would be up 10-15 per cent but right now the issue is that . . . the market is genuinely very wary of the demand situation in China.” The country is the world’s biggest importer of crude oil.

Standard Chartered estimates that Chinese oil consumption fell due to recent Covid restrictions by as much as 1.1mn barrels per day in April — representing approximately 1 per cent of global demand — but that it will recover by July.

Other traders are worried that Chinese demand could drop by as much as 3-4mn b/d, approximately the same as the expected loss of production from Russia due to sanctions, according to Sen.

“I have had so many traders say to me, ‘oh but Russia just cancels China out,’” she said. “That’s not our view, but that’s absolutely the view in the market right now.”

Energy Aspects expects the Chinese Covid curbs to be shortlived with Chinese oil demand picking up again in May and returning to year-on-year growth from July, at which point it expects oil prices to rise sharply.

“The catalyst has to come from demand, it has to come from China,” Sen said.

Prior to the war in Ukraine, Europe was the biggest recipient of oil from Russia — the world’s largest energy exporter — taking 2.2mn barrels a day of crude and 1.2mn b/d of refined products, according to the International Energy Agency.

However, European imports of Russian crude and refined products have already been falling due to self-imposed boycotts by companies and other consumers — another reason for the limited market response to the EU plans.

A previous round of EU sanctions is also due to come into force on May 15, which even without new measures from the bloc will stop European companies from buying crude and refined products from state-owned Russian companies, like Rosneft, unless “strictly necessarily”.

As a result, Vitol, the world’s biggest independent oil trader, expects its volumes of Russian oil to “diminish significantly” in the second quarter while rival Trafigura has said it will stop all purchases of crude oil from Rosneft by May 15 and “substantially reduce” the volume of refined products it buys.

“The bulk of the fall in Russian supply had already happened and been priced in,” said Paul Horsnell, head of commodities research at Standard Chartered. “Today’s announcement provides market clarity that the price isn’t coming back any time soon.”

The proposed sanctions are also phased. Crude imports are to cease within six months and refined products — like diesel — by the end of the year.

“The whole purpose of the unwinding of Russian oil is to try to avoid blowing up the oil price,” said SEB’s Schieldrop. “They have constructed it with that purpose.”

The measures also must win the backing of all 27 EU member states. According to the draft proposal, Hungary and Slovakia, which are particularly reliant on Russian oil, would have until the end of 2023 to comply with the ban. But there were already signs of discord. On Wednesday, Hungary’s government spokesman warned that Budapest had seen “no plan nor guarantees” on ways to manage the transition away from Russian oil.

Uncertainty over how much Russian oil might ultimately be exempt was also preventing a further price rally, traders said. Hungary and Slovakia are expected to eventually comply once a timeline and alternative sources of supply are agreed.

“They must be extremely worried about ending up on the wrong side of the new iron curtain,” said Schieldrop. “This is an extremely strong, specific decision by the EU that they are moving away from Russian fossil fuels and it is of course catastrophic for Russia in the medium term.”