Planet Business

The week's business in brief.

The numbers

$20 million– the estimated value of the "spectacular" 507 carat diamond found by mining group Petra Diamonds at the Cullinan mine in South Africa.

$7 billion- reduction in the wealth of Bill Gates over the past year, according to Forbes magazine. But don't worry, he's still got $50 billion.

$10 million– the loss "suffered" by US investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett, who must now make do with wealth of $40 billion, says Forbes.

Quotes of the week 1

"Get out of the university, thief IMF."– A shoe-throwing protester objects to IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn's visit to a Turkish university.

Quotes of the week 2

"One thing I learned, Turkish students are polite. They waited until the end to complain."– Strauss-Kahn gives his post-throw verdict to reporters.

GOOD WEEK

British Airways

Amid being welcomed by cheerleaders on the launch of the airline’s new all-business class service from London City Airport to JFK, BA chief executive Willie Walsh found time to declare he was confident that the service would succeed where the likes of Silverjet, Maxjet and Eos have failed and be profitable in its first year of operation. It was way back in February 2008 that BA first announced the business class route, which has to stopover for fuel in Shannon due to London City’s short runway, but despite the recession it has decided that it’s full steam ahead.

Marks & Spencer

The retailer had hundreds of jobseekers queuing on Dublin’s Findlater Place round the bend on to O’Connell Street yesterday morning as they applied for 588 part-time Christmas shopping season positions across its 20 Irish stores, while earlier in the week the company announced that its sales trends had improved following the successful launch of its new womenswear range Indigo and the various “dine in” offers in its foodhalls.

BAD WEEK

Ken Lewis

The Bank of America chief executive, who briefly considered buying Lehman Brothers (before one look at its balance sheets convinced him otherwise) and eventually took over Merrill Lynch instead, is now on his way out of the company.

The biggest bank in America required two US government bailouts under his watch, while intense scrutiny in recent months from federal regulators about the acquisition of Merrill is also thought to have made retirement seem like an appealing choice.

Television

Internet advertising spending has overtaken spending on television advertising in the UK for the first time, according to a new report, which found that internet ads account for 23.5 per cent of ad spending, while recession-struck television accounts for 21.9 per cent. About 60 per cent of online marketing budgets is spent on search engine marketing (sponsored links), followed by classified ads, display ads and email campaigns. So that’s shorter ad breaks in which to make coffee during CSI: Miami and more “skip this ad” shenanigans.