THE DAILY BRIEFING
■ HOTEL VOICE A version of Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant aimed at hotels has been unveiled.
Alexa for hospitality can provide guests with information, such as check-out time, and will be used at a number of hotel groups including Marriott hotels and st Regis hotels & Resorts from this summer. a t
TECH REPRIEVE REPRIE Donald trump has told Apple it will not be hit by trade sanctions set to be levelled on China, according to reports.
China is a big market for Apple and the company assembles iPhones in the country. s
■ SCANDAL HITS HIT the chairman of JP Morgan’s Australian arm has stood down from two high-profile jobs amid a market-fixing scandal.
Robert Priestley quit the boards of the Australian security Exchange and the nation’s sovereign wealth fund, although he will stay on at JP Morgan.
it comes two weeks before a cartel case involving Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and AnZ Bank goes before a criminal court.
neither JP Morgan nor Priestley have been charged but he said his presence on the two boards could become a distraction.
■ TOWER DEAL A City skyscraper has been bought by singaporean buyers for £650m. Ropemaker Place, a 21-storey building which houses investment banks, was bought by a subsidiary of ho Bee Land.
■ SHELVES SLASHED the Uk’s biggest supermarkets are slashing the number of product ranges they stock by 10pc in a fight back against discounter rivals Aldi and Lidl, according to supply chain and logistics consultancy scala.
■ BOSS NETTED Luxury fashion brand Victoria Beckham, owned by the former spice girl, has named Paolo Riva, the ex-boss of Diane Von Furstenberg, as chief executive.
■ DADS DELIVER sales at Waitrose slowed by 0.1pc last week despite shoppers snapping up presents for Father’s Day. in contrast, purchases at John Lewis jumped 5.7pc, boosted by menswear sales which grew 19.7pc. socks were the most popular gift for Father’s Day – up 34pc.
■ HIVED OFF hedge fund Winton is splitting off its data analysis division as demand surges for high-tech number crunching. the hivemind unit will be 25pc owned by staff, with Winton holding the rest of the stock initially.