GSK’s chief executive, Emma Walmsley, has come under pressure from a second activist hedge fund, Bluebell Capital Partners, which has taken a stake in the drugmaker to push for change at the top, including demanding that she reapply for her job. The London-based Bluebell Capital Partners has joined the US hedge fund Elliott Management on the pharmaceutical giant’s shareholder roster, with a stake reported to be worth £10m. With £100m assets under management, Bluebell is a much smaller firm than Elliott, which snapped up an undisclosed stake in April. But the two-year-old UK firm has already made waves by unseating the chief executive of the French consumer goods group Danone earlier this year. – Guardian
Airline ads that encourage taking too many flights and carmakers that show SUVs tearing up the countryside are set to fall foul of a crackdown on marketing that encourages environmentally irresponsible behaviour. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is to launch a series of inquiries into the environmental advertising claims and practices across a range of sectors – starting with energy, heating and transport – in a drive to support global efforts to reduce carbon emissions and battle the climate crisis. – Guardian
British start-up has claimed a breakthrough in the development of quantum computers, creating a way for software to work across the next generation machines in a step towards making them more useful. A consortium led by Cambridge-based Riverlane has developed a system that allows one piece of code to operate on different types of quantum computers, seen as a step towards building an “operating system for quantum computing”. – Telegraph
Several American pension funds are threatening to sell their stakes in Unilever because of the decision of its Ben & Jerry’s brand to stop selling ice cream in Israeli-occupied territories. Unilever has owned Ben & Jerry’s since 2000. The brand, which has become known for its corporate activism, including marketing campaigns on criminal justice reform and the Black Lives Matter movement, said in July that it would end its licence in the Israel-occupied West Bank. The brand said then that “we believe it is inconsistent with our values for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to be sold in the occupied Palestinian territory”. – The Times
LVMH plans to recruit 25,000 people under the age of 30 by the end of 2022. The world’s biggest luxury goods group said that it would look to hire 5,000 people through internships or apprenticeships, as well as 2,500 through permanent employment contracts in France. LVMH is run by Bernard Arnault, one of the world’s richest men. Its brands include Moët, Tiffany & Co, Louis Vuitton, Dom Perignon, Glenmorangie, Christian Dior, Celine and Tag Heuer. – The Times
