
Tomorrow's Business Today
Small reasons to be cheerful
Important stuff from the Lufkin Daily News: nuclear bunker sales are booming, as Americans prepare for the apocalypse.
They cost you between $20,000 and $1 million, depending on how fancy you want to be while you shelter from global thermonuclear war.
Out in the City last night, the financiers didn’t seem quite so desperate, but there was definitely an air of gloom.
The London Stock Exchange is heading for its worst year since 2009 as big companies head to the US and no smaller ones emerge.
Someone said that the stock market value of Apple is about the same as the whole of the UK stock market – we are small time, and getting smaller.
And who are UK PR firms going to work for if their clients have gone to New York.
The PR industry does seem to be in the middle of both a boom and a drought.
Big mergers keep cropping up. Most recently Omnicom and Interpublic finally got it together, ten years after Omnicom’s bid for France’s Publicis collapsed in acrimony.
That is now the biggest advertising and PR company in the world, though how advertisers and PR people can work together is beyond me. Aren’t they stealing each other’s budgets?
The uncertainty those deals create also leaves holes for entrepreneurial types to exploit.
Maybe that will be the story of next year – medium sized firms rising up to challenge the biggest players like never before.
That sounds like it would be good for everyone.
There are reasons to be cheerful. You just have to look quite closely.
Have a very good Christmas. TB will be back on January 6.
Please send candidates for press release of the day to: Simon.english@roxhillmedia.com

Press release of the day
There’s division at the Bank of England on how much further rates should be cut says the EY Item Club.
They were held today at 4.75% but the future is far less clear.
Matt Swannell says:
“Since the November MPC meeting, the growth-inflation trade-off has worsened, which appears to have prompted the split on the Committee. The majority of MPC members continue to favour a gradual approach to reducing Bank Rate to ward off sticky inflation.”
