Tag: Luxury

  • Estée Lauder to buy designer brand Tom Ford for Rs625 billion

    Estée Lauder to buy designer brand Tom Ford for Rs625 billion

    Estée Lauder, a luxury cosmetics brand, has announced that it will pay $2.8 billion to acquire Tom Ford, a luxury clothing brand.

    This will be the US cosmetics company’s largest acquisition to date.

    Estée Lauder won the contract over Gucci’s owner Kering SA by outbidding them. The company already licences Tom Ford cosmetics and fragrances.

    The deal will “open new prospects,” according to Estée Lauder.

    Tom Ford said in a joint statement with Estée Lauder: “I could not be happier with this acquisition.”

    He said the Estée Lauder companies had been “an extraordinary partner from the first day of my creation of the company and I am thrilled to see them become the luxury stewards in this next chapter of the Tom Ford brand.”

    The Council of Fashion Designers of America is currently led by Tom Ford, who first established his company in 2005. In the 1990s and early 2000s, he served as the creative director at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent.

    The companies declared that Tom Ford will continue serving as creative director for at least until 2023.

    According to analysts, the luxury goods market is poised for global expansion at this moment, and China is gradually removing its coronavirus import limitations, allowing the high-demand consumers in this market to gradually resume their pre-pandemic spending habits.

  • Bentley Mulsanne stolen from London, recovered in DHA Karachi with a Sindh license plate

    Bentley Mulsanne stolen from London, recovered in DHA Karachi with a Sindh license plate

    A Bentley Mulsanne that was stolen from London, United Kingdom (UK), has been recovered by the Collectorate of Customs Enforcement (CCE) in Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Karachi.

    According to Geo, the British intelligence agency reportedly informed the CCE, Karachi, through reliable sources that a grey Bentley Mulsanne, V8 Automatic, with the VIN numbers SCBBA63Y7FC001375 and CKB304693, which was stolen from London, was parked in DHA, Karachi.

    The conduct of the nation’s various agencies has been under intense scrutiny following an extraordinary incident in which a stolen car from London was found in Karachi thanks to information provided by the UK intelligence agency.

    To check the accuracy of the report, the CCE team has mounted strict monitoring at the mentioned place. The car that was discovered parked within the house’s car porch was found during a physical search by the department.

    When the light grey fabric was removed, a grey Bentley Mulsanne with the Pakistani registration number BRS-279(2020 Sindh) was discovered at the back of the vehicle, and a white handcrafted number plate with the letters BRS-279 was discovered at the front.

    The vehicle’s chassis number, however, matched the information provided about the stolen car. As a result, the department has detained the owner and the car for additional inquiry.

    The vehicle’s owner revealed during the opening stages of the investigation that another person had sold the vehicle to him and had taken full responsibility for obtaining the necessary clearances from the relevant authorities.

    On the basis of his information, the department also detained the individual who identified himself as a broker and revealed the identity of the primary offender, who is still at large.

    The registration of such a pricey vehicle required NOC from Pakistan Customs, receipt of duty and tax payments, and selling approval from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to sources in the customs department.

    Surprisingly, the Sindh Excise and Taxation department registered this stolen car without following all the legal procedures, proving that Sindh Excise officers were involved in these illegal acts.

    The case has been filed, and further investigation is being conducted to bring the guilty parties to justice.

  • Bugatti delivers last unit of 1600 HP Chiron Super Sport 300+ unit for Rs82 crore

    Bugatti delivers last unit of 1600 HP Chiron Super Sport 300+ unit for Rs82 crore

    The last Chiron Super Sport 300+ has been delivered by Bugatti, bringing an end to the first production road car to reach 483 km/h.

    The Molsheim factory of Bugatti only produced 30 of the 300+ vehicles, and each one cost its owner nearly Rs82 crore ($3.6 million) to own.

    At Volkswagen’s Ehra-Lessien testing facility, Andy Wallace, the official nutjob of Bugatti and a former McLaren Le Mans driver, smashed the speed record for the Super Sport 300+ in late 2019.

    In order to achieve that, Bugatti’s engineers modified the gearing, increased the horsepower of the 8.0-liter W16 from 1480 to 1579, and created new longtail bodywork that stretched the Chiron by 9.8 inches (250 mm), lowering the aerodynamic stall by 40 per cent.

    The stock Chiron’s top speed without those upgrades is 420 km/h, but only after you’ve used the second ‘speed key’ to disable the 236 mph (380 km/h) electronic limiter.

  • Pakistan and Afghanistan to launch luxury bus service in August

    Pakistan and Afghanistan to launch luxury bus service in August

    Pakistan and Afghanistan will launch a luxury bus service between Peshawar and Jalalabad, as well as Quetta and Kandahar, by the end of August.

    During the visit of Pakistan’s official delegation to Kabul, the two nations have also agreed to boost bilateral trade by allowing unrestricted travel for trucks and other goods-carrying vehicles. Meetings were held between the delegation and other top Afghan officials, including the temporary ministers of foreign and commerce.

    In a joint statement released at the conclusion of three days of talks between Pakistani and Afghan officials (July 18–20), both sides committed to continuing their efforts to remove obstacles through mutual cooperation and coordination.

    The delegation from Pakistan was led by Commerce Secretary Muhammad Sualeh Ahmad Faruqui and included businessmen as well as senior members of various ministries. The delegation from Afghanistan was led by Nooruddin Azizi, the minister of trade and industry, and Amir Khan Muttaqi, the acting foreign minister.

    In order to ensure prompt clearance of trade and transit traffic and to address bottlenecks and obstacles on a priority basis, the official also agreed to make border crossing points more efficient.

    In an effort to further boost trade between the two nations, the two sides approved the implementation of the Temporary Admission Document (TAD), which permits free movement of vehicles engaged in bilateral trade but prohibits the loading and unloading of cargo at border crossing points.

    Additionally, all crossing points, particularly Torkham, Kharlachi, Ghulam Khan, and Chaman-Spin Boldak, will have longer operating hours, according to the authorities.

    The bilateral discussions were still centred on trade. Both parties concentrated on enhancing bilateral trade, transit, and accessibility as well as taking the necessary actions to facilitate trade and address issues faced by importers, exporters, traders, and business owners in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

    In parallel, a delegation from the Afghan business community headed by Khan Jan Alokozai, co-chairman of the Pak-Afghan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PAJJCCI), arrived in Pakistan on Thursday to take part in a roundtable of Pak-Afghan trade stakeholders. Members of the PAJCCI as well as senior business figures from the Kunar and Nangarhar Chambers of Commerce and Industry make up the delegation.

    Zubair Motiwala, chairman of the PAJCCI, lauded the efforts of the commerce chamber in setting up visits to Chaman, Torkham, and Swat for joint discussions on bilateral and transit trade, exploring new trade avenues, removing trade barriers, and aiding governments in formulating policy.

  • Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk to join Twitter board after investing $2.9 billion in the platform

    Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk to join Twitter board after investing $2.9 billion in the platform

    Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been chosen for Twitter’s board of directors, just one day after it was confirmed that he is the social media platform’s largest shareholder, holding a 9.2 per cent stake.

    On April 5, Twitter’s CEO Parag Agrawal said he was excited to announce Musk’s membership to the company’s board of directors. 

    Tesla’s CEO, whose personal wealth is assessed to be $289 billion, about $100 billion greater than the second richest person on the planet, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has a history of publishing controversial tweets.

    Musk was a “passionate believer and intense critic” of the platform, according to Agrawal, and it was exactly what Twitter needed to render it stronger in the long run.

    Surprisingly, Musk has a Twitter following of more than 80 million, and he was already looking forward to collaborating with the company “to make big improvements” to the social media platform in the near future.

    Twitter on Tuesday stated that Musk had agreed to serve as a class two director with a term terminating at the company’s annual meeting of shareholders in 2024.

    Musk bought a nearly $3 billion (£2.3 billion) share in Twitter on Monday, which is more than four times the 2.25 per cent share held by the platform’s co-founder, Jack Dorsey.

    However, Musk would not be able to own more than 14.9 per cent of Twitter’s outstanding shares, either alone or as part of a group, for as long as he was a board member and for 90 days later, according to the firm.

    The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who ranks among the Top 10 most popular users on Twitter with 80.4 million followers, paid $2.89 billion for the stake on Friday at Twitter’s closing share price.

    Twitter shares rose another 5 per cent Tuesday morning after soaring more than 27 per cent on Monday after reports of Musk’s stock purchase.