Revlon image makeover enlists Amazon
Revlon Inc., making its first major marketing push since it bought Elizabeth Arden Inc. last year, is tapping Amazon.com Inc. and Lady Gaga to reinvigorate sales and better reach millennials.
As part of a campaign called the Love Project, the cosmetics-maker will stamp its name on 10 million Amazon shipping boxes -- a bid to get out in front of more e-commerce shoppers. Revlon also is relying more on social media and other digital technology after years of losing ground to upstart brands.
"Digital is so important is to us as a company," said Eunice Byun, vice president of global digital marketing. "That's where the consumer is. That's where she is talking to her friends, learning about new trends."
Revlon Chief Executive Officer Fabian Garcia is aiming to generate $5 billion in annual sales within the next five years, up from about $3 billion now.
It's a tall order for a company digesting the unprofitable Elizabeth Arden business, which it acquired last year for about $800 million, including debt. Both companies have struggled to maintain market share in recent years -- a slide the marketing blitz is meant to reverse.
The Amazon partnership will put Revlon and the slogan #LoveIn3Words on small boxes during February and March. The company also appears in a video featuring the Lady Gaga song "Million Reasons" that was posted to her Instagram account.
-- Bloomberg News
Big names pilot drone-tech investment
SEATTLE -- The venture-capital arms of Microsoft, Airbus and Qualcomm have led a $26 million investment in AirMap, the builder of drone air traffic management software said.
The startup, which opened its first office in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2015, builds technology that tracks air traffic, weather and flight restrictions in real time to guide unmanned aerial vehicles. AirMap's software supports more than 100,000 flights a day, the company says.
Drones are among the hottest emerging technologies, with companies from Amazon to AT&T and a range of startups betting that the vehicles will play a greater role in the economy as their technology improves and regulations allow for increased use and, eventually, autonomous flight.
"Drones are proving their value today, but this is just the beginning," AirMap co-founders Ben Marcus and Gregory McNeal wrote in a blog post on the investment.
Other investors in the funding include Sony, Rakuten and Chinese drone builder Yuneec.
-- The Seattle Times
Investors criticize Uber over investigation
A pair of venture-capital investors in Uber Technologies Inc. criticized the company for tapping insiders to conduct an investigation into sexual-harassment and discrimination claims by a former employee.
Mitch and Freada Kapor, spouses and investing partners at Kapor Capital, said they have been unsuccessful in their attempts to persuade Uber behind the scenes to prioritize diversity issues. They said they've been Uber investors since 2010.
"We are speaking up now because we are disappointed and frustrated; we feel we have hit a dead end in trying to influence the company quietly from the inside," the Kapors wrote in a blog post. "
The comments were sparked by a blog post earlier this month by Susan Fowler, a former software developer at Uber. She alleged that her manager at the company propositioned her for sex and that the human resources department tried to protect him after she complained. Uber responded by opening a review of the situation, supervised by a group that includes board member Arianna Huffington and the former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
-- Bloomberg News
Shell looks at U.K. offshore wind farms
Royal Dutch Shell PLC may contract to build offshore wind farms in the U.K. and across Europe, after winning a bid to build one of the cheapest projects on record last year, Shell U.K. Chairman Sinead Lynch, said in an interview.
Europe's biggest oil supplier is exploring opportunities across Europe for offshore wind, Lynch said at a news event on Wednesday at a Shell service station outside London, where she was opening the company's first U.K. hydrogen refueling station.
Shell in December won a bid with Eneco Holding NV, Van Oord NV and a unit of Mitsubishi Corp. to build the Borssele III and IV wind farms with a combined capacity of 680 megawatts near the Dutch port city Zeeland. The power-purchase contracts to supply electricity at 5.7 cents a kilowatt-hour were the second-cheapest ever worldwide.
"We are looking long and hard at how we might build a business in offshore wind," she said.
Offshore wind meets Shell's criteria for new technology investments of having scale, and being an area where it can compete "and win," she said. Its experience in complex offshore project management naturally lends itself to the emerging renewable technology.
-- Bloomberg News
Satellite company to buy DigitalGlobe
MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates Ltd. agreed to acquire DigitalGlobe Inc. of the U.S. in a cash and stock deal worth $2.4 billion, expanding its satellite capabilities in the largest transaction yet for the Canadian space technology company.
Under the terms of the agreement, DigitalGlobe shareholders will receive $17.50 in cash and 0.3132 MacDonald Dettwiler shares representing a premium of about 18 percent of the company's closing share price on Feb. 16, according to a statement Friday. MacDonald Dettwiler will also assume about $1.2 billion of Westminster, Colo.-based DigitalGlobe's debt.
"This combination has the scale, resources and technology to serve the large and increasingly complex needs of government and commercial customers globally," Howard Lance, chief executive officer of Richmond, British Columbia-based MacDonald Dettwiler, said in the statement.
The combined company will bring together complementary space-related capabilities, allowing it to capture growth in Earth observation satellites, robotics, ground stations, electro-optical and radar imagery, and advanced data analytics, the companies said.
-- Bloomberg News
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