Campbell purchased noosa as part of the Sovos Brands, Inc. acquisition in March 2024.

When you look at fast growing private companies in the U.S., you need look no further than a small city next to Los Angeles International Airport.

Steve Julian: Business analyst Mark Lacter, tell us about the company that's based in El Segundo.

Mark Lacter: It's called Fuhu, Steve - that might ring a bell with some parents because Fuhu is the maker of the Nabi.  The Nabi is an Android tablet for kids, and it's a very cool device that mimics a lot of the capabilities of regular tablet, including the ability to play games and get onto the Web (with controls that parents are able to set up).  Last year, they sold 1.2 million Nabis, and that helped push the El Segundo company to the very top of Inc. magazine's list of fastest-growing businesses.  That's number one on a list of 5,000 companies, with a three-year growth rate of 42,148 percent.  Or, to put it another way, company revenue was $279,000 in 2009; it was almost $118 million in 2012.  Now, by the standards of an Apple or a Samsung, those are still not huge numbers -

Julian: - and maybe that explains why there's been relatively little media coverage of this company.

Lacter: It might also explain why local tech companies in general get short shrift.  Many of them are quite successful, but they're often on the small side, and they're also privately held as opposed to publicly-traded on a stock exchange.  That's one big difference from Silicon Valley, which has so many huge public corporations: Apple, Intel, HP.  L.A. County has only six Fortune 500 companies, and not a single one devoted solely to technology.  In Silicon Valley, there are 22 in the Fortune 500.

Julian: And yet, the L.A. economy has more than held its own without those large corporations.

Lacter: Matter of fact, the accounting firm PriceWaterhouse studied more than two dozen cities around the world to determine where it was easiest to do business (that's based on factors like access to labor), and what they found - somewhat surprisingly - was that L.A. ranked ahead of both San Francisco and Tokyo.  And, you can see evidence of that with the increase in venture capital money coming into all parts of L.A.  Now, it's important to keep an eye on all these up-and-coming companies because these businesses are helping generate higher-wage jobs.  And, for an area with a still-high unemployment rate - still over 10 percent in some places -- that's a big deal.

Julian: Speaking of companies, does anyone want to buy the L.A. Times?

Lacter: The answer is yes - most recently, the controlling owner of the Dodgers, Mark Walter, said he was interested in both the Times and the Chicago Tribune (though there's no way to know whether there are actual discussions taking place).  You also have several local groups, including one that involves billionaire Eli Broad, that have been interested to one degree or another.  But what was thought would be a fairly straightforward auction process has turned enormously complicated.  It's now to the point where the Tribune board has decided spin off the papers into a separate business, and that process will take until next year to complete and could preclude any sales for quite some time after that.

Julian: So, it's Limbo-land for the Times for who knows how long.

Lacter: Steve, it's not that Tribune really wants to keep the newspapers.  But, selling them off presents huge tax implications.  Also, there are assets that the potential buyers thought would be part of the package - assets that include real estate - that Tribune wants to hold onto.  So, what's left to sell are just the newspapers themselves, and frankly, they're among the least valuable properties.

Julian: Now, last week came word that the billionaire Koch brothers, who were believed to be interested in the Tribune properties, decided not to pursue a deal...

Lacter: ...that's right, they don't consider the Times or the other dailies to be economically viable.  You might recall a bit of an outcry over the prospect of having the Kochs, who are staunch conservatives, becoming the owners of these papers.  So, they're out of the picture.  But for the L.A. Times, it's really the worst of all worlds: no new owner and no vision for recasting the paper, at least in the near term.

Mark Lacter writes for Los Angeles Magazine and pens the business blog at LA Observed.com.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Express Oil discusses who the Braves are considering adding to the lineup for the upcoming season. They want to remind customers of the discounts they receive when the Braves play well.

Increasing the value of your home with a new garage door.

Atlanta tinting company, The Tint Guy, would like to discuss some of the benefits of getting your commercial tinting done in the off season.

Valmet has expanded its IQ Quality Control System by launching four new measurements for raw material components, colour, and ash content. These innovations help optimise resource usage, reduce carbon footprints, and improve product quality. The new measurements include IQ Transmission Spectrum, IQ Reflection Spectrum, IQ Color, and IQ Total X-ray.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one?if not the?key technology of our decade. Technological advances in this field are not only fundamentally changing our economies, industries and markets, but are also exerting enormous influence on traditional business practices, many of which will disappear, while others will be transformed or completely reinvented.

Chobani Australia is exporting yoghurt to Singapore less than 18 months after the American company set up in Victoria. Within 18 months, Chobani has grown production at its A$30 million yoghurt factory in Victoria from 25,000 cases a week to 25,000 cases a day, and become one of the biggest yoghurt manufacturers in Australia.

International consumer management company, Gigya, has opened an office in Melbourne as part of its expansion into the Asia-Pacific region. The move comes after strong growth in 2013 for the US-based company, during which it processed more than 800 million logins for clients in 46 countries, including Tommy Hilfiger, the Independent, the Globe and Mail, KLM, L'Occitane, Next Media, Japan Airlines and Canon.

New Zealand-based hydraulic equipment specialist, Transport Hydraulic Solutions (THS), has opened a large manufacturing facility in the Melbourne northern suburb of Campbellfield (26.5 km north of the city centre). “A growing number of Melbourne clients are located around this area, and for those who are based further away, our office is right near the freeway where the Western Ring Road and Hume Highway intersect,” said Managing Director of THS, Brenden Lyons.

Indian learning solutions company, Dexler, has opened its Australian headquarters in Melbourne. Dexler Education (Australia) is expected to create 25 new skilled jobs in Melbourne following its 2014 acquisition of Online Learning Australia which had clients including AMP, ANZ, BHP Billiton, Bluescope Steel, Coles, Myer, NAB, Target, Telstra and Westpac.

Indian company Ray Business Technologies (Raybiztech) has chosen Melbourne as its Australian headquarters. The company plans to create 30 new highly skilled local Information and Communications Technology (ICT) jobs over the next two years. Headquartered in Hyderabad, India, with offices in the USA and UK, Raybiztech delivers cloud, mobility, big data and social media solutions to its enterprise clients around the world, in the sectors of finance, healthcare, manufacturing, media, leisure and utilities.

Balluff Leuze has invested in a custom-built automation centre in Bayswater, located 40 minutes east of Melbourne’s city centre, as part of its continued Australian expansion plans. The German company, which specialises in technically innovative products for the Automation industry has been working in Australia for 15 years and is considered a leader in sensor technology. They also build a range of safety products that are used in the Victorian manufacturing sector.

The global mobile payments company, Square, will open its Australian headquarters in Melbourne, which will be its fourth global base after the United States, Canada and Japan.

Stockholders in financially troubled Spirit Airlines, the South Florida-based discount carrier, would see their shares canceled under a potential debt restructuring agreement that has been under negotiation between the airline and its bondholders, the company says.

One new company’s AI technology is making content go viral  Fast Company

Zomato chief executive officer Deepinder Goyal took to social media to congratulate rival food delivery platform Swiggy on its stock market debut on Wednesday. The Sriharsha Majety-led company listed on the bourses with an 8% premium over its IPO price.

The company’s 83-year-old chairman, John Malone, will be the interim CEO.

MicroStrategy Inc. (NASDAQ:MSTR) director Leslie J. Rechan has executed a significant sale of company shares, amounting to approximately $12 million, as per a recent SEC filing. The transactions were disclosed on Wednesday. Don't Miss: Over the last five years, the price of gold has increased by…

A moose wandered into a company's garage in Sweden and trampled all over three BMW cars, causing about $20,000 worth of damage before fleeing.

A source says over 1 300 customers have been lured away using data allegedly harvested by a franchise employee.

Nompumelo Nene is facing disciplinary proceedings and has launched several applications in an attempt to stop them.

[GroundUp] Nompumelo Nene is facing disciplinary proceedings and has launched several applications in an attempt to stop them

The training company is in discussions with a major computer manufacturing company to bring 10,000 employees onto the platform.

A Durham company progressing toward its first utility-scale clean power plant says the Trump agenda actually fits its business model.

1. Where Will the COP29 Money Come From? | Company Business News  Mint
2. 10 Most Climate-Vulnerable Countries Got Less Than $1 Year Climate Finance: Report  NDTV
3. Raise $1tr annually for developing nations to deliver on Paris pact goals: Report  Hindustan Times
4. Countries Are Pledging Money They Don’t Control at COP29  Bloomberg
5. COP29 Is About Money. Where Is It Going To Come From  OilPrice.com

1. Sri Lanka Leader Seeks to Bolster Power With Parliamentary Vote | Company Business News  Mint
2. Sri Lanka Heads For Snap Elections Today, Results Likely On Friday  NDTV
3. Sri Lanka votes today: President Dissanayake faces litmus test as NPP aims for majority control | All you need to know  Mint
4. Sri Lanka to hold key parliamentary vote on November 14  The Hindu
5. Snap Sri Lankan election poses test for new leader  BBC.com

Nobody cares what you want unless you speak up to tell them. That's how Tracy Panase became CEO of Just Between Friends.

R. G. Chandramogan, chairman of Hatsun Agro Product, hails from Chennai and was a college dropout who began by selling ice cream from pushcarts.

Argentine fintech company Ualá has announced the raise...

UPS today announced third-quarter 2024 consolidated revenues of $22.2 billion, a 5.6% increase from the third quarter of 2023.

1. Stocks Eye Fresh Peak as CPI Boosts Rate-Cut Bets: Markets Wrap | Company Business News  Mint
2. Stocks rise as traders assess state of postelection rally, new inflation data: Live updates  CNBC
3. Yields Sink as CPI Puts December Fed Cut in Play: Markets Wrap  Bloomberg
4. Stock market’s fierce post-election rally faces another CPI inflation test  MarketWatch

CES is one of the biggest tech events of the year. It’s when everyone convinces you that you need to buy a terrifying robot Einstein for some reason.

But Nick Offerman aka Ron Swanson and American Greetings — yeah, the greeting card company — trolled all of them.

Promising “a device like none other,” Offerman and America Greetings delivered just that. Offerman took to the stage to present… a regular greeting card that looks like:



via Mashable

Offerman, who was there to present the product had this to say:

"When I started dating my wife — her name is Megan Mullally, she's a very beautiful actress and singer and goddess — she and I loved giving each other cards," he told a crowd at the press event. "It's a very important part of our relationship, and so we've continued that practice.

"Even though there are times when it's more appropriate, of course, to send a text or an email ... when you really want to get a sentiment across, there's nothing like the artifact of the handwritten card." 

D'awwww... now go buy one for you mother or something.

H/T Mashable

WittyFeed, an Indore-based startup that has marked itself on the World Map with the loudest buzz.

Huang elaborated on his philosophy by expressing that he is not driven by traditional ambition. Instead of striving for more, he focuses on doing better with what he already has.

It has also settled Rs 3,872 crore guarantor obligations for its subsidiary Vidarbha Industries Power Ltd (VIPL).

The shares were sold between June 20, 2024, and November 11, 2024, at an average price of Rs 446.402 apiece through an open market sale.

Ashish Shah, Promoter & Director of Vertoz Limited said, “Despite macroeconomic headwinds across global economies, Vertoz has continued its growth trajectory”

More often than not in traditional management consulting engagements involving operations, there is usually room for setting up or revising goals, metrics & reporting, and service level agreements. Depending on the phase of development of a company (often couched as Stage 0 [Ad-Hoc], Stage 1 [Functional], Stage 2 [Intrabusiness Cross-Functional], etc. maturity levels by a consulting firm), the next higher-level of metrics and reporting may apply and be a goal for the client organization to strive for.

Where management has to be somewhat careful about applying metrics, however, is how people and company culture play a role in getting everything to work together right.

To put a finer point on things, one can put in place a perfectly appropriate set of metrics and reporting systems for a company yet miss the boat completely on a management-level as to how the results should be applied because of the culture.

As an example in sales operations, I have frequently seen a competitive environment laid out. People's individual performance levels are exposed, and poor performing people are weeded out. This environment can work out in some cases. On the other hand, in a collaborative engineering or product development environment, cooperation may be encouraged.

On a related topic, a friend of my wife and I, Dr. Uri Gneezy at the University of Chicago, has some great research on the relationship between competition and gender. From the research summary:

Gneezy suggests that CEOs creating incentives in their firms should be aware that making the internal environment more competitive might create a bias that helps men, while putting women at a relative disadvantage.

My take on applying this type of research would be to recognize and raise one's sense of awareness to the environment one is implementing metrics in. Although metrics may be encouraged to be tracked to an individual-level doesn't automatically equate to that the environment has to be a competitive one. Choosing a collaborative versus dictatorial management style that is compatible with the desired company culture is a separate choice from metric implementation.

Steve Shu Managing Director S4 Management Group Email: sshu@s4management.com Web: http://www.s4management.com

Acousia Therapeutics GmbH, a Tübingen-based clinical stage biotech company focused on the enhancement and preservation of natural hearing, just announced the randomization of the first patient for the PROHEAR-Study. The PROHEAR-Study is a placebo-controlled, Phase 2a study with split-body design, which investigates the otoprotective efficacy of ACOU085 in patients with testicular cancer undergoing high-dose cisplatin-based chemotherapy regimens (cis-Pt ≥300 mg/m2).

Sunknowledge elaborates on the remarkable achievements made through a fruitful partnership with a leading DME company, emphasizing the significant improvements in prior authorization processes and other areas of medical billing, and showcasing the overall increase in operational excellence and customer satisfaction.

The new indoor basketball set has adjustable rim and backboard to enable the most creative trick shots.

Are franchises small, independent businesses or should they be considered part of a much larger company?

The question is at the heart of two upcoming legal cases. The outcomes could affect profits and change how franchisees hire, fire, manage and pay workers.

complete article

More mature companies are expected to benefit, while smaller companies--in particular startups, which typically seek far less money--may not see as many gains, because they usually do not need to raise $20 million.

complete article

Intrepid entrepreneurs find a way to make their own success before they have the money. One way they do this is by acting as if they already have it, or the success that comes with it. While this idea sounds like fake it till you make it, it is actually rooted in fundamental concepts about consumption, perception, and scaling.

Here are some ways you can appear stronger, more successful and better funded than you might actually be.

complete article