一句话导视：
软银季度利润创纪录；Uber亏损改善；Ocado显示线上购物火爆；啤酒产业低迷；Vale同意赔偿70亿；英国脱欧影响企业调运。
原文来自：
The Economist, FEBRUARY 13TH-19TH 2021
SoftBank’s Vision Fund reported a record quarterly profit, as the value of its investments in tech firms such as Uber was lifted by rising stockmarkets. Despite booking losses from its colossal trades in derivatives, which eventually led to it being dubbed the “Nasdaq whale”, the Japanese conglomerate made an overall quarterly net profit of ¥1.17trn ($11.1bn).
软银（SoftBank）的愿景基金公布了创纪录的季度利润，因为其对科技公司(如优步)的投资价值受到了股市上涨的提振。尽管衍生品的巨额交易造成了账面亏损(最终导致该公司被称为“纳斯达克鲸”)，但这家日本企业集团的总体季度净利润为1.17万亿日元(合111亿美元)。
A big jump in sales from Uber’s food-delivery business was not enough to offset a sharp drop in revenues from its ridehailing service last year, driving it to an annual loss of $6.8bn. Still, that was an improvement on the $8.5bn it lost in 2019.
优步(Uber)送餐业务销售额的大幅跃升，不足以抵消去年叫车服务收入的大幅下滑，导致该公司年度亏损68亿美元。尽管如此，与2019年的85亿美元亏损相比，还算是有所改善。
Ocado’s annual earnings shone a little more light on consumer behaviour during the pandemic. Based in Britain, Ocado provides a logistics platform for online supermarket sales. Revenues rose by 35% for the year ending November 29th. Because of capacity constraints, Ocado’s number of customers actually fell, but this was offset by an increase in the average size of an order from £106 to £137 ($147 to $190). The company believes that the pandemic has shifted consumers towards more online shopping “for good”.
Ocado的年度盈利让人们对疫情期间消费者行为的了解开了一扇窗。Ocado总部位于英国，为网上超市销售提供物流平台。截止到11月29日，公司收入增长了35%。由于容量限制，Ocado的客户数量实际上下降了，但这被平均订单金额的增加（从106英镑增加到137英镑，折合147美元到190美元)所抵消。该公司认为，疫情已经使消费者“长期”选择更多地在线购物。
Heineken decided to shed 8,000 jobs, or nearly 10% of its workforce, as lockdowns cut into sales, pushing the Dutch brewer to an annual loss. In Britain beer sales drooped by 56% last year, according to the industry’s association. It urged the government to remove restrictions on what and when pubs and bars can serve customers when the current lockdown eases, or else thousands of pubs will be forced to close.
Heineken决定裁员8000人，约占员工总数的10%。因为封锁影响了销售，导致这家荷兰啤酒制造商每年亏损。根据行业协会的数据，去年英国的啤酒销量下降了56%。它敦促政府在当前的封锁放松后，取消对酒馆和酒吧可以向顾客提供何种何时服务的限制，否则数千家酒馆将被迫关闭。
Vale agreed to pay $7bn to the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais in compensation for the collapse of the Brumadinho dam two years ago, which killed at least 270 people. The dam had held iron-ore waste from one of the Brazilian company’s mines. The reparations settlement was described as the biggest ever in Latin America.
Vale同意向巴西米纳斯吉拉斯州支付70亿美元，作为两年前布鲁马迪尼奥(Brumadinho)大坝倒塌的赔偿。那场事故造成至少270人死亡。这座大坝储存了这家巴西公司一家矿山的铁矿石废料。这次赔偿结算被认为是拉丁美洲有史以来最大的一次。
So how's it going? 所以进展如何?
JD Sports, a British retailer, plans to open a new distribution centre in the European Union, because of what its chairman described as worse-than-expected Brexit red tape that is causing delays to European shipments. Britain’s Brexit negotiator, David Frost, said that the new relationship was more “bumpy” than he had hoped, but blamed the EU for “niggling border issues”. Meanwhile, Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, lambasted the EU’s inflexible attitude over post-Brexit arrangements for Britain’s financial services, saying this was “unrealistic, dangerous and inconsistent with practice”. Negotiations with Brussels are continuing.
英国零售商京东体育(JD Sports)计划在欧盟(EU)开设一个新的配送中心，其董事长表示，原因是英国退欧过程中出现了比预期多得多的繁文缛节过程，导致欧洲发货延迟。英国脱欧谈判代表大卫·弗罗斯特(David Frost)表示，新的关系比他希望的更加“坎坷”，但他指责欧盟存在“琐碎的边境问题”。与此同时，英国央行(Bank of England)行长安德鲁•贝利(Andrew Bailey)抨击了欧盟在英国退欧后金融服务安排问题上的僵化态度，称这是“不现实、危险且与实践不符的”。现在，与布鲁塞尔的谈判仍在继续。
