FTI Consulting News Bytes – 24th June

This week’s news

Meta and other tech giants form metaverse standards body, without Apple

Big tech names such as Meta, Microsoft, Qualcomm Inc, Nvidia, Google and other tech firms have teamed up to launch the Metaverse Standards Forum. One of the main objectives of this group is to help foster the development of industry standards so that the companies’ potential digital worlds would be compatible with each other. Silicon Angle reports that other responsibilities of the forum will be to establish consistent terminology for metaverse concepts. Neil Trevett, President of Khronos Group and Nvidia’s vice president of developer actions, said in a statement to Reuters that the “Forum provides a vital and unique open avenue for the industry to work together to accelerate the availability of interoperability standards that will enable diverse metaverse experiences.” The Metaverse Standard Forum does hope to onboard more members and is not limited to tech firms, however notably absent from the association is Apple.

TikTok offers new child ad protection commitments

TikTok has offered a series of commitments to better protect its young users following a series of complaints about child safety and consumer protection. Some of the changes TikTok has implemented include testing different digital labels to increase the visibility of paid ads and allowing users to easily report ads that could potentially encourage children to buy goods or services. City A.M. attributed these changes to The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) filing a complaint to the European Commission in 2021. While the commission’s investigation has closed, a spokesperson from TikTok told City A.M. they would “continue to look for how we can improve in order to provide the best possible TikTok experience for our community.”

Telegram announces encryption subscription

Messaging app, Telegram, which was widely used by a range of Russian and Ukrainian officials during the war for its end-to-end encryption capabilities, has announced a new premium subscription tier. Founder Pavel Durov said this week that it would only need a small number of paid subscribers to cover its costs and that the paid subscription remains a focus for the app to ensure that the app remains funded by users rather than advertisers. Additionally, Durov is offering Telegram’s premium users a higher limit for chats, media and file uploads. According to Reuters, Telegram and Signal have increased in popularity and users due to privacy concerns with larger rival WhatsApp owned by Meta Platforms. Telegram recently surpassed 700 million monthly active users and is one of the 10 most downloaded apps in the world.

Telecom chiefs summoned to Downing Street to discuss the cost of living crisis

Sky News reported on Tuesday that senior telecom executives have been summoned to Downing Street by Nadine Dorries the UK Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports. Companies such as BT Group, Virgin Media O2, Three, TalkTalk, Sky and Vodafone will be asked to support customers through the global rise in the cost of living crisis. The meeting is due to take place next Monday where Dorries will be taking suggestions on how to help struggling customers. Similar meetings with other industries are expected to happen in the following weeks as part of the Cabinet Offices business-led initiative.

Euromoney all cash takeover bid from private equity firms

According to reports by the Financial Times, the board of Euromoney confirmed on Monday that they had been approached with a possible all-cash £1.6billion takeover offer from private equity firms; Astorg Asset Management S.ar.l and Epiris LLP. This offer marks the fifth time Euromoney has been approached by the two private equity firms, the private equity firms have until 18 July 2022 to announce their concrete intention to make the offer for Euromoney or walk away. Euromoney stated the proposal was subject to completion of confirmatory due diligence but would not be adjusted for the payment of the interim dividend of 6.1p a share.

Top Tweets of the Week

• Bloomberg tweets: “Tesla is cutting its salaried workforce by about 10% over the next three months, resulting in a reduction of as much as about 3.5% in total headcount, CEO Elon Musk says”
• City A.M. analyses the impact of Brexit saying that it has “damaged UK’s competitiveness, reduced productivity and lowered Brits’ real wages in the years ahead, a new bombshell study out this morning claims Britain has experienced a decline of 8% in trade openness”
• ClimateTechEU reports that as global temperatures rise, ratings firm S&P Global says 4% of global GDP could be lost by 2050 due to climate impacts

Number of the Week

£2,000 – The amount of money Rolls-Royce is offering workers to help ease the cost of living crisis

What’s happening next week?

• 27 June: Nike Q4 results
• 27 June: Wimbledon Tennis Championships open
• 27 June – 1 July: U.N. Ocean Conference
• 28 – 30 June: NATO Summit opens
• 29 June: Climate Change Committee publishes annual update
• 30 June: Xbox TV app launches
• 1 July: Amazon Prime Day

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