Shares of Prada (HKG:1913) moved to the highest levels observed since 2015 as the company said it expects to return to being profitable despite plunging sales in the first half of the year. Fundamental analysis: Strong recovery in H2 Prada, an Italian luxury fashion house, announced yesterday it has managed to return to profitability near the end of the last year. This is despite suffering immensely in the first half of the year amid the pandemic. In a trading update, Prada said sales recovered fully to pre-pandemic levels. Earlier, Prada announced that its revenues plunged by 40%, resulting in a 196 million euros operating loss The full-year results are due in March. “Despite being impacted by ongoing store closures averaging 9% of the network, [Prada] saw a progressive recovery in sales, culminating for the retail sales in a full recovery to 2019 levels in the month of December,” the company said in the statement. The Italy-based company witnessed a strong recovery in one of its key markets in China, where sales rose 52%. Japan and Europe struggled to sustain its recovery while the U.S. and the Middle East also recorded strong sales. “I am very satisfied with how we
Shannon Hennig.
Shannon HennigShannon Hennig is a small business owner and health and wellness marketing expert.
Over the summer, she began experiencing serious fatigue, stiffness in her feet and legs, and chest pain and difficulty breathing. She tested negative for COVID-19, and was turned away at the ER after being told she had a chest cold.
In September, the 34-year-old was hospitalized for six days and given a diagnosis of congenital heart failure, a condition that primarily affects people ages 50 and up.
Hennig realized that being preoccupied with work, family, and worry over COVID-19, she'd overlooked her own physical wellness and pushed her symptoms aside as nothing serious.
Now, Hennig is working to improve her health, and cautions other working moms to check in with themselves more often to avoid making the same mistake.
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In the beginning of 2020, I was a busy 34-year-old entrepreneur and working mom, living with my husband and son in Calgary, Canada. I'd spent the last five years growing a consulting side gig into a thriving full time business, working with practitioners in the health and wellness industries on their branding and marketing.
I had a lot to be proud of. In my first year bringing in over six figures in revenue, and I was easily on track to do the same in 2020. I had big plans to scale, build a more effective sales funnel and hire a team to support me.
My goal was to increase revenue through building a signature program for private clients while also expanding my outreach to small business owners through an online teaching and coaching program. I hoped to begin working with hundreds of new clients.
One day in early September, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. with a distinctive gurgle in my chest.
It sounded and felt like the kind of thing you get when you're fighting a bad chest cold.
All summer long I'd been feeling more run down, and more tired than ever before. I'd had cold and flu-like symptoms since July and had gained 12 pounds over the previous two weeks. My legs and feet were constantly puffy and stiff, and I had a noticeable shortness of breath when I'd climb my stairs.
I described the level of fatigue to my husband as almost being "at a cellular level", and no amount of napping or taking it easy seemed to alleviate my exhaustion.
None of these symptoms made sense to me as I was active, eating a healthy diet and had lost 55 pounds over the previous year. During quarantine due to COVID-19, I'd prioritized my health the best I could and thought I was managing well.
Read more: I'm a 3-time CMO and 5-time ironman triathlete, but having a child is the hardest thing I've ever done
I was doing my best to navigate the realities of the pandemic and what it meant for my business, along with the challenge of my husband and I homeschooling our 6-year-old.
My busy daily routine began impacting my business in big ways. I no longer had the time to devote to client work and was struggling with deadlines that under normal circumstances had never been a problem. I also had no idea where I was going to find the time to teach my son.
In talking to peers and clients, it seemed like everyone was suffering from the same low level anxiety and exhaustion that I had. It wasn't as if I was alone and unique in the physical and mental toll of juggling all the balls, so I pushed my health to the side.
My time was being poured into creating the business of my dreams, but I didn't yet realize my lack of work-life balance was unsustainable.
Fast forward to that morning in September, and I knew that I needed to get help. I'd already been tested for COVID-19 and the results were negative, despite my symptoms matching those widely associated with the virus. I'd even been to the emergency department 10 days earlier complaining of the same issues, along with coughing up small amounts of blood, but was sent home and told that I had a chest cold.
In the emergency department, as I watched my blood pressure rise to deadly levels and my ability to breathe become less and less, I was given my diagnosis.
The doctor told me I had pulmonary edema, a condition where your lungs fill with fluid, and that I was in congestive heart failure.
There I was. A 34-year-old woman, sitting alone in the emergency department because COVID-19 visiting restrictions wouldn't allow my husband to be with me, being told that right now, right in this moment, my heart was failing and I was dying.
What followed next was a whirlwind of emergency treatment to open my blood vessels, slow my heart and get oxygen into my body. An IV flow of heparin, a blood thinner, and nitroglycerin (a medication that helps relax blood vessels and allow blood to flow more easily to the heart) stabilized me before I was moved to the cardiac intensive care unit.
I was hospitalized for six days, where I learned that my heart was pumping at less than half the volume that it should. Further diagnostics showed that the primary cause was high blood pressure that had been uncontrolled for too long.
As I came to terms with my diagnosis, I immediately turned to Google to find out more about what I was up against, and I was stunned to see that the symptoms of heart failure mimic many of those of COVID-19 including shortness of breath and difficulty breathing, fatigue and weakness, and persistent cough and chest pain. I went on to learn that congestive heart failure also can cause rapid weight gain from fluid retention, coughing up blood, and swelling in your legs, ankles, and feet.
Read more: Working moms are disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Here are 3 ways leaders can foster a supportive culture for working parents, according to a LinkedIn VP
I'd had symptoms of heart failure through the summer, but I was too busy with my business and worrying about COVID-19 to think of anything else.
After a round of tests including an Echocardiogram and a cardiac MRI I was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, which is a weakening or thickening of the heart muscle to the point where it can't pump blood properly.
When it's not being treated through medication, stress management, nutrition, and exercise, it can progress to advanced heart failure.
According to the Centres for Disease Control (CDC), cardiomyopathy often goes undiagnosed, but as many as 1 in 500 adults in the United States may be living with the condition. When it's not being treated through medication, stress management, nutrition, and exercise, it can progress to advanced heart failure.
I knew that I had to completely reevaluate all aspects of my life if I was going to move forward.
Hennig on the day before hospital admission and six days later after being discharged. In two weeks after being hospitalized, she lost 27 pounds of water and fluid build-up.
Shannon Hennig
The stress of business ownership, motherhood, and COVID-19 had pushed me to the verge of utter collapse. I had many of the risk factors for cardiomyopathy but had no idea that this disease could affect someone my age with such deadly consequences.
Since my diagnosis, I've made changes to better balance my work and family obligations and be more in tune with what my body is trying to tell me. To other busy working parents during this time, I encourage you to check in with your own physical and mental health just as you do with your loved ones, so you don't miss a life-threatening diagnosis like I almost did.
Shannon Hennig is a freelance writer and health and wellness marketing professional. She is the president of OpenInk Solutions, of company that helps health and wellness professionals to build their personal brands and become thought thought leaders in industries. Follow her on Twitter.
d3sign/Getty ImagesPocketmath, an adtech company that helped advertisers buy programmatic ads on publisher sites, shut down after facing lawsuits over unpaid bills.
Cofounder and executive chairman Eric Tucker said that Pocketmath had tried to get acquired but declined to discuss what happened to the company.
Adtech firms including Mediavine were alerted that Pocketmath may seek "clawbacks," or ask publishers to return money that they've already been paid.
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Pocketmath, a small adtech firm with offices in Singapore and San Francisco, has shut down after facing allegations of unpaid bills and unsuccessful attempts to sell.
The 10-year-old firm sold technology that advertisers use to buy mobile ads programatically and competes with bigger firms like The Trade Desk, Google, MediaMath, Xandr, and Zeta Global.
Pocketmath raised $20 million from investors including Rakuten and InnoVen Capital. LinkedIn data shows that the firm had 21 employees.
It's unclear if consolidation contributed to Pocketmath's challenges, but it's grown significantly harder for small adtech companies to compete with giants like The Trade Desk and Google that dominate the programmatic ad business. Adtech firms with tech similar to Pocketmath including IgnitionOne and Sizmek have been sold for parts in recent years.
Read more: Digital ad firms are finding themselves pinched between publishers and advertisers, and industry insiders say some could go under
Pocketmath cofounder and executive chairman Eric Tucker confirmed the company was ceasing operations after trying to sell. He declined to say what happened to the company and what will happen to its clients.
"Our team has worked hard. This is not the failure of a team; they're good people, and they've tried their best," he said.
The firm is facing two lawsuits alleging it owes money to adtech companies that publishers use to sell ads.
Adtech firm Smaato filed a civil complaint in California's Santa Clara County Superior Court in November alleging that it's owed $264,577. A second civil complaint filed by healthcare adtech firm Pulsepoint in October in California's San Mateo County Superior Court alleges that it's owed $155,532.
Representatives and lawyers for Smaato and Pulsepoint either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment. Tucker declined to comment on the lawsuits.
Eric Hochberger, CEO and cofounder of Mediavine, which handles programmatic advertising for small media companies, said that Pocketmath differentiated itself with lower spend requirements and fees. But he said the company was behind on payments to supply-side companies since September and unresponsive to them.
Hochberger compared the Pocketmath situation to Sizmek, which owed millions to adtech firms like Index Exchange, PubMatic, OpenX, and AppNexus at the time of its collapse.
Read more: The cautionary tale of IgnitionOne, a onetime digital marketing pioneer that ended up selling in a fire sale
A supply-side ad tech company, OpenX, said that they cut off Pocketmath's access to its ad inventory in March 2020 when OpenX started having problems getting paid.
Hochberger said one supply-side company told him that Pocketmath intends to ask for "clawbacks," where adtech companies ask publishers to return money that they've already been paid.
Adtech companies often have such agreements in place through clauses in contracts called sequential liability.
Tucker did not comment about nonpayment claims.
If you have more information about Pocketmath, contact me at LJohnson@insider.com or laurenkjohnson@protonmail.com.
