April 24, 2024

You are here: Home / Archives for good time

Ingvar Kamprad to Leave Board of Inter Ikea Group

June 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment

STOCKHOLM — Ingvar Kamprad, creator of the Swedish furniture retailer Ikea, is taking another step back from his company, as the youngest of his three sons takes a key board role in a gradual handover of power.

Mr. Kamprad, 87, who founded the business in rural southern Sweden 70 years ago, stepped down in 1986 as chief executive of Ikea, which has become the world’s biggest furniture group, famous for its design and do-it-yourself assembly.

He will now leave the board of a key company within the business, Inter Ikea Group, and his youngest son, Mathias, will take over as its chairman.

“I see this as a good time for me to leave the board of Inter Ikea Group,” Mr. Kamprad said in a statement late Tuesday, referring to the company that owns the Ikea brand and which collects 3 percent of Ikea stores’ sales worldwide each year.

“By that we are also taking another step in the generation shift that has been ongoing for some years,” said Mr. Kamprad, a billionaire who has been resident in Switzerland since the 1970s.

The Kamprad family still controls the complex corporate structure that makes up the Ikea empire, and Mr. Kamprad himself keeps a tight grip behind the scenes.

Ingvar Kamprad chairs the Dutch-registered Stiching INGKA Foundation, which controls Ikea Group, the owner of 302 of the 343 IKEA stores worldwide. He is also on the board of family-controlled Interogo Foundation in Liechtenstein, which in turn owns Inter Ikea Group.

Mathias Kamprad is also an Interogo board member and has held various positions in the Kamprad-founded groups, but like all the Kamprads he has kept a low public profile.

Mathias’s two older brothers, Jonas and Peter, also have board roles within the groups.

Inter Ikea Group on Tuesday reported a 2012 net profit of 443 million euros, or $579 million, up sharply from 87 million euros a year earlier, mainly because of a one-time gain.

Soren Hansen, chief executive of Inter Ikea Group since September, said the business climate in Europe, where the bulk of Ikea stores are located, remained challenging, especially in southern Europe.

“What we feel happy about is that we can see that the Ikea concept has stood up relatively well,” he said. “We have in some markets become more relevant, meaning that in some markets we are gaining market share.”

Mr. Hansen said Inter Ikea Group’s other divisions, besides the franchise unit, improved results in 2012 although rapid expansion in the shopping mall and property development divisions still weighed on group results.

In China, which Ikea Group hopes will become one of its biggest markets, Inter Ikea Group is investing 1 billion euros in three shopping centers, the first of which is due to open early year.

Inter Ikea Group’s net revenue grew 7 percent to 2.6 billion euros in 2012, helped by new store openings and positive currency effects.

The one-time gain in the Inter Ikea Group results related to a 3.6 billion-euro capital injection from Interogo Foundation in connection with the transfer of the Ikea trademark from Interogo. Interogo also lent Inter Ikea Group 5.4 billion euros as part of the deal.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/business/global/ingvar-kamprad-to-leave-board-of-inter-ikea-group.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

A New Wildlife Magazine for Younger Children

December 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The National Wildlife Federation, the publisher of the Ranger Rick magazine, which is intended for children ages 7 to 12, is starting a counterpart for younger readers. The new magazine, called Ranger Rick Jr., will feature Ricky Raccoon, who will serve as a mascot for children ages 4 to 7.

As interest in ecology has grown, the editors at the wildlife federation said now was a good time to engage beginning readers who are curious about animals.

“We are reaching out to them with content they want to know,” said Lori Collins, the editor of Ranger Rick Jr. “It’s not like this is an easier version of the content. It’s totally different content.”

The magazine will feature age-appropriate facts and photography about wildlife around the world and include activities intended to inspire children to explore wildlife in their own neighborhoods.

Unlike Ranger Rick, who serves as an educator, Ricky is more eager and curious, Ms. Collins said. “Ricky is just as amazed and awed by these animals as our readers are,” she said.

The first issue of Ranger Rick Jr. came out Nov. 15. As with its sister publication, it will be published 10 times a year and will be free of advertising. Newsstand price is $3.99, and annual subscriptions are $19.95.

Circulation for Ranger Rick is about 400,000, said Mary Dalheim, editorial director for children’s publications at the National Wildlife Federation, and she expects a similar circulation for Ranger Rick Jr.

Of course, children have grown smarter about technology, and Ranger Rick has kept pace. His publication, already available in digital form, has been repurposed as an iPad magazine app that takes children on an interactive tour of his virtual treehouse.

“We tested this magazine with kids, and they loved the idea of exploring these rooms,” Ms. Dalheim said. “This delighted them to wonder what’s behind the doors and exploring new content.”

The magazine app will include stories, activities and videos curated by the magazine editors and produced by FableVision Studios. Starting with the first issue on Wednesday, it will be published five times a year for $4.99 each or $19.99 for an annual subscription.

Younger readers will get their own iPad app called Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures. To emphasize the difference, Ms. Collins said, Appventures will be a digital storybook that will focus on a single animal each time. The first one, which was released in November, visits lions in the grasslands of Africa. The app takes advantage of the iPad’s technology by using the internal gyroscope, for instance, to offer panoramic views of the African plains.

The app, which costs $4.99, was developed in partnership with Moonbot Studios, the studio behind the animated short “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore,” which won an Academy Award this year.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/business/media/ranger-rick-jr-magazine-to-be-aimed-at-younger-audience.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,

Abramson to Replace Keller as The Times’s Executive Editor

June 2, 2011 by Leave a Comment

As managing editor since 2003, Ms. Abramson has been one of Mr. Keller’s two top deputies overseeing the entire newsroom.  Her appointment was announced on Thursday by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the paper’s publisher and the chairman of The New York Times Company.

 Ms. Abramson, 57, said that as a born-and-raised New Yorker, she considered being named editor of The Times to be like “ascending to Valhalla.”

“In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion,” she said. “If The Times said it, it was the absolute truth.”

 The move was accompanied by another prominent management shift at The Times. Dean Baquet, the Washington bureau chief, will become the new managing editor, marking the first time in eight years that the paper’s top newsroom positions have turned over. He was previously the editor of The Los Angeles Times.

The appointments are effective Sept. 6. John M. Geddes, 59, will continue in his role as managing editor for news operations.

Mr. Keller, 62, who ran the newsroom during eight years of great journalistic distinction but also declining revenue and cutbacks throughout the industry, said that with a formidable combination in place to succeed him, he felt it was a good time to step aside.

“Jill and Dean together is a powerful team,” he said. “Jill’s been my partner in keeping The Times strong through years of tumult. At her right hand she will have someone who ran a great American newspaper, and ran it through tough times. That’s a valuable skill to have.”

Mr. Sulzberger said he accepted Mr. Keller’s resignation “with mixed emotions.”

“He’s been my partner for the last eight years,” Mr. Sulzberger said in an interview, adding that the decision to leave was entirely Mr. Keller’s. “He’s been an excellent partner. And we’ve grown together. If that’s where his heart is and his head is, then you have to embrace that.”

Ms. Abramson will be the first woman to be editor in the paper’s 160-year history. “It’s meaningful to me,” she said of that distinction, adding, “You stand on the shoulders of those who came before you, and I couldn’t be prouder to be standing on Bill’s shoulders.”

 Her selection is something of a departure for The Times, an institution that has historically chosen executive editors who have ascended the ranks through postings in overseas bureaus and managing desks like Foreign or Metropolitan.

 Ms. Abramson came to The Times in 1997 from The Wall Street Journal, where she was  a deputy bureau chief and an investigative reporter for nine years. She rose quickly at The Times, becoming Washington editor in 1999 and then bureau chief in 2000.

 “Without question, Jill is the best person to succeed Bill in the role of executive editor,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “An accomplished reporter and editor, Jill is the perfect choice to lead the next phase of The Times’s evolution into a multiplatform news organization deeply committed to journalistic excellence. She’s already proven her great instincts with her choice of Dean Baquet to serve as managing editor.”

 Mr. Keller asked her to be his managing editor in 2003
as he assembled a team he hoped would restore confidence in the paper after the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal. Ms. Abramson had been part of a group of editors who clashed with Howell Raines, the executive editor who was forced out after Mr. Blair’s fraud was revealed.

Ms. Abramson stepped aside temporarily from her day-to-day duties as managing editor last year to help run The Times’s online operations, a move she asked to make so she could develop fuller, firsthand experience with the integration of the digital and print staffs.

Mr. Baquet’s career has included reporting and editing jobs at some of the country’s largest newspapers, including The Chicago Tribune and The Times-Picayune in New Orleans. He was national editor for The New York Times before leaving to become managing editor of The Los Angeles Times in 2000. He became that paper’s editor in 2005’ but left in 2006 after his efforts to resist further cuts to the newsroom strained relations with the paper’s owners.

Soon after he left Los Angeles, The New York Times named him Washington bureau chief. In his new role, he said, he will work closely with the paper’s editors.

“The way I see the job is being chairman of the board for department heads, and working with them to shape the news,” Mr. Baquet said. “I plan to spend a lot of time on the newsroom floor.”

Mr. Baquet, 54, who was often perceived as Ms. Abramson’s top rival for the executive editor’s job, said he had a collaborative relationship with the new editor, not a competitive one.

  “Jill played a big role in bringing me back to the paper after I unceremoniously left the L.A. Times,” he said. “I always thought the competitive thing was too overblown. It was too easy a story line. For the last four years, she’s been my boss. And she’s my friend. Of course we can work together.”

As for Mr. Keller’s plans, he said he was still working out the details of a column he will write for the paper’s new Sunday opinion section, which will be introduced later this month. He did rule one project out. “I won’t be writing a book about The New York Times,” he said.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/business/media/03paper.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,