BOSTON — McCormick & Co., Inc. is preparing for its next chapter — one that includes the recently acquired Unilever Foods and a refined growth agenda.

In a presentation at the Barclays Global Consumer Conference in Boston on Sept. 9, Brendan Foley, president and chief executive officer of the Hunt Valley, Md.-based company, highlighted five key priorities behind McCormick’s strategy to deliver growth synergies.

First, the company intends to win where it leads by strengthening commercial execution and accelerating growth in key countries, including Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States, Foley said.

“We’ve assessed the key markets, the key categories and brands with the greatest opportunity and this is important for near-term revenue growth,” he said.

A second priority for McCormick is to bring the company’s brands to more homes globally by using the combined footprint and routes to market of McCormick and Unilever Foods to expand high-growth potential brands such as Maille and Cholula.

“There is significant white space for these brands, and we intend to pursue it,” Foley said.

He said a third priority will be pairing the flavor expertise, consumer insights, R&D and digital capabilities of McCormick and Unilever Foods with a goal of driving scalable innovation across the portfolio.

McCormick hopes to bring the company’s brands to more homes globally by using the combined footprint and routes to market of McCormick and Unilever Foods.

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| Photo: ©JAMMER GENE – STOCK.ADOBE.COM

Fourth, the company will seek to capture the global foodservice opportunity presented through the combination of McCormick and Unilever Foods’ complementary capabilities and networks. Foley said foodservice represents one of the biggest opportunities within the acquisition of Unilever, calling the geographic unlock “significant.”

“Unilever Food Solutions is already established in 75 countries where McCormick has limited or no foodservice presence in 51 of them,” he explained. “That gives us an immediate path to bring McCormick’s flavor capabilities into attractive new markets.”

The fifth and final priority for McCormick moving forward is to “strengthen our flavor capabilities and customer co-innovation to become an even stronger partner to leading and emerging food brands,” Foley said.

Foley said the combined capabilities will help McCormick capture the trends that support long-term growth. The opportunity is expected to develop in phases, he said.

“Year 1 will focus on strengthening, integrating and prioritizing the highest value opportunities,” he said. “Year 2, on scaling early wins and accelerating innovation. And Year 3, on delivering sustainably higher growth from a stronger combined platform and then continuing to build on this improved growth.” 

For decades, Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, over Taiwan, and along the disputed India-China frontier were treated by most Southeast Asian executives as a distant security matter, relevant to diplomats and defence ministries but not to quarterly planning.

That assumption is eroding. As shipping routes tighten, insurance premiums shift, and supply chains reroute around flashpoints, what was once background geopolitics is now showing up directly in cost structures for firms trading through the region, including many with operations tied to Thailand’s trade and export sector.

The claims reshaping regional risk maps

China’s most consequential claim for Southeast Asian business is the so-called nine-dash line, which asserts sweeping jurisdiction over most of the South China Sea, overlapping with waters claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei. A 2016 international arbitration ruling rejected the legal basis for this claim, but Beijing has not recognised the decision, and Chinese coast guard and maritime militia activity in contested waters has continued. For Thailand, which does not have a direct claim in these waters, the practical exposure is indirect: roughly a third of global maritime trade transits the South China Sea, and any disruption there raises freight costs and delivery risk for Thai exporters and importers alike, a concern increasingly reflected in coverage of trade between Thailand and its major partners.

Taiwan represents a different order of risk. Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve unification. Taiwan is also the world’s dominant producer of advanced semiconductors, meaning any serious escalation would hit the same chip supply chains that Thailand has been positioning itself to benefit from as data-centre and electronics investment shifts toward the kingdom. A disruption to Taiwanese fabrication capacity would ripple through every economy, including Thailand, that is betting on Asia’s tech and AI-driven growth as a growth pillar.

A third front, less visible to Southeast Asian firms but strategically linked, is the disputed Line of Actual Control between China and India, where a 2020 clash in the Galwan Valley marked the most serious military confrontation between the two countries in decades. This dispute shapes New Delhi’s broader posture toward Beijing, including its participation in groupings like the Quad, which in turn affects the wider balance of power that Thai policymakers must navigate.

How Thailand’s posture differs from claimant states

Unlike the Philippines or Vietnam, Thailand has no live territorial dispute with China. This gives Bangkok more room to pursue what officials and analysts describe as a strategic tightrope between Beijing and Washington: maintaining deep economic ties with Beijing, including significant Chinese investment in Thai manufacturing and infrastructure, while preserving security and trade relationships with the United States, Japan, and other partners. This is a materially different calculation from claimant states, which must weigh direct sovereignty costs against economic dependency in a way Thailand does not.

That flexibility is an asset, but it is not unlimited. Thai firms with regional supply chains, particularly those routing goods through Vietnamese or Philippine ports, or relying on Taiwanese components, inherit exposure to disputes Thailand itself is not party to. Executives increasingly ask not whether Thailand has a dispute with China, but whether their supply chain does.

What this means for planning, not just policy

For businesses operating in or through Thailand, three practical implications follow. First, shipping and insurance costs tied to South China Sea transit should be treated as a variable input rather than a fixed assumption, particularly for firms with just-in-time logistics models. Second, semiconductor and electronics-dependent businesses should stress-test supplier concentration in Taiwan against a range of scenarios, not just worst-case conflict but also softer disruptions like export controls or shipping insurance spikes. Third, firms benefiting from Chinese investment inflows into Thai manufacturing should track how Bangkok’s multi-alignment balancing act evolves, since shifts in that posture, whether toward Washington or Beijing, tend to precede changes in the regulatory and investment environment.

None of this requires Thai businesses to take a position on the underlying territorial questions, which remain contested between the claimant governments themselves. But treating these disputes as purely diplomatic matters, rather than as inputs into cost and risk planning, is increasingly a blind spot rather than a neutral stance.

Part of the soundtrack to a day in southern California is the drone of petrol-powered gardening equipment.

Noise is one of the main reasons that cities around the US, external are banning petrol landscaping tools or encouraging electric alternatives.

These alternatives have the additional benefits of reducing carbon emissions, vibrations and the exposure of landscapers to pollution.

In addition they can mean longer working hours, as they can be used at times when residents demand quiet.

Today, I’m taking part in training run by the American Green Zone Alliance (AGZA), an organisation supporting the transition towards electric landscaping equipment.

To my surprise, the electric backpack leaf blower I strap on is not much heavier than my normal rucksack. Using the blower to herd balls around the park feels fairly intuitive, though naturally I’m much clumsier and slower than the pro landscapers.

As for noise, there’s still a buzz, but the sound is higher-pitched and not quite so loud as the familiar petrol-powered machines.

The move to electric power is attracting new companies to the market for gardening kit.

US aerospace start-up Whisper Aero is one of those firms. Its main business is electric propulsion systems for aircraft.

But in 2022, after the Covid-19 pandemic made many people more sensitive to noise, and following a couple of years of research and development, the company realised that its aerospace-grade fans would work well in leaf blowers.

“Our technology is cleaner, quieter and more efficient than other air-moving technologies that exist today,” according to Andrew Terajewicz, Whisper Aero’s director of air management. “And the leaf blower is the perfect mix of this.”

The battery on Whisper Aero’s blower lasts up to 15 minutes at full power.

The company has had to scale up its manufacturing volume in its expansion to consumer technology.

Online pre-orders of Whisper Aero’s handheld leaf blower started this year. It’s priced at the high-end of electric leaf blowers, which are often more expensive than traditional petrol versions.

But for that you get a machine which is less likely to disturb the peace.

“It is so ultra quiet yet powerful, that the brain has a hard time understanding what’s happening,” says Dan Mabe, the former landscaper who founded AGZA.

Whisper Aero aims to further develop its products, including a backpack leaf blower that would be better suited to professional landscapers.

WASHINGTON — A 22-year-old Singaporean man pleaded guilty Tuesday to a racketeering conspiracy charge tied to one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in U.S. history, admitting to helping steal more than $245 million in bitcoin before spending the proceeds on a fleet of luxury sports cars, private security, and lavish nightclub outings.

Malone Lam, an eighth-grade dropout who moved to the United States from Singapore in 2023, entered his guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington. Judge Kollar-Kotelly did not immediately schedule a sentencing hearing, and Lam now faces a maximum prison term of 20 years.

According to federal prosecutors, Lam served as the organizer of a network of young men who carried out a string of cryptocurrency scams beginning as early as October 2023 and continuing through May 2025, with co-conspirators operating across multiple U.S. states, including California, Connecticut, New York and Florida, as well as internationally, primarily connecting through online gaming platforms.

Court documents identify Lam as having used various online aliases, including “Anne Hathaway,” “$$$,” and “King Greavy,” while playing a central role coordinating the group’s activities, identifying potential victims and directing the responsibilities of his co-conspirators.

The scheme’s most significant confirmed theft occurred on Aug. 18, 2024, when Lam and his associates used what prosecutors described as “social engineering” techniques to defraud a Washington, D.C., resident out of more than 4,100 bitcoin, then valued at over $245 million. According to the Justice Department, two of Lam’s co-conspirators posed as representatives of Google and the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange to trick the victim into granting access to his Google Drive account and revealing security codes, which Lam and his associates then used to drain the victim’s bitcoin wallet.

The stolen cryptocurrency was subsequently laundered through a combination of cryptocurrency mixing services, exchanges, so-called “peel chains,” intermediary digital wallets and virtual private networks designed to obscure both the flow of funds and the true identities of those involved, according to the Justice Department.

Federal prosecutors say the stolen funds were quickly converted into an extraordinarily lavish lifestyle. According to court records, Lam and his associates spent as much as $500,000 in a single night at nightclubs, with one particularly striking instance involving a $569,528.39 bill run up during one evening at a Los Angeles club. Lam personally purchased more than 30 high-end vehicles, including customized Porsches, Ferraris, Lamborghinis and a $3.8 million Pagani Huayra, along with a watch valued at up to $2 million and tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of designer clothing and jewelry.

Prosecutors said Lam also purchased Hermès Birkin bags with the stolen proceeds, at one point throwing one of the luxury handbags into a crowd during a nightclub party. Lam and members of his network rented luxury properties in Los Angeles, Miami and the Hamptons, traveled by private jet, and employed a team of private security personnel throughout the roughly month-long spending spree that followed the August 2024 theft.

U.S. Attorney’s Office officials in Washington confirmed Lam’s arrest, alongside a co-conspirator, in September 2024, effectively dismantling the criminal network less than a month after the theft occurred. During an earlier court hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge Alicia Valle compared Lam’s spending habits to the title character of the 1986 film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” while addressing the extravagant lifestyle the stolen funds had financed.

U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson Jeanine Pirro, addressing the case, emphasized the Justice Department’s commitment to pursuing similar cybercrime networks going forward.

“If you build a cyber crime empire, we will hunt you down and dismantle your organization to hold you accountable,” Pirro said.

Pirro further characterized Lam’s specific conduct in the case.

“Through deception, he targeted victims, violated their privacy, and led an international network that stole hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency,” Pirro said.

According to investigators, Lam told U.S. authorities he had dropped out of secondary school in Singapore at age 14. He traveled to the United States in October 2023 and remained in the country even after his visa expired the following January, according to court records.

Lam is one of 18 defendants charged in connection with the broader case, and his guilty plea marks the 11th such plea secured by prosecutors as part of the ongoing investigation. Among his co-defendants, Evan Tanzeman was previously sentenced in April to 70 months in prison on charges related to laundering the stolen cryptocurrency proceeds. According to the Justice Department, Tanzeman attempted to destroy evidence following Lam’s arrest, conduct the court characterized as demonstrating an awareness of his own criminal culpability in the scheme.

A separate co-defendant, 19-year-old Veer Chetal, previously a student at Rutgers University, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy charges tied to fraud and money laundering connected to the same theft and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors, testifying against Lam and other co-defendants as part of his own plea agreement. Chetal now faces up to 24 years in prison and has separately been linked by prosecutors to roughly 50 additional cryptocurrency thefts totaling approximately $3 million between November 2023 and September 2024. In a related and disturbing development, Chetal’s parents were targeted in a botched kidnapping-for-ransom plot in Connecticut carried out by six men who reportedly believed Chetal still controlled substantial cryptocurrency holdings; the attack failed with the help of witnesses and an off-duty FBI agent who happened to be nearby at the time.

With Lam’s guilty plea now secured, the case stands as one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts targeting a private individual in U.S. history, according to the Justice Department’s own characterization of the scheme. Prosecutors are expected to continue pursuing the remaining defendants charged in connection with the broader criminal network as Lam awaits formal sentencing in Washington.

IRS crackdown

No easy exit

It’s complicated

High fees

Experience Nakhon Phanom’s Lai Reua Fai, an illuminated boat procession marking Buddhist Lent’s end. Explore its spiritual roots, riverside landmarks, unique Isan cuisine, and cross-border ties with Laos.

Experience the Illuminated Boat Procession

Immerse yourself in the enchanting experience of Nakhon Phanom’s Illuminated Boat Procession, locally known as Lai Reua Fai. This mesmerizing event occurs at the conclusion of the Buddhist Lent, when glowing vessels gracefully drift along the tranquil waters of the Mekong River. The dazzling display not only offers a visual feast but also connects deeply with the spiritual traditions of the region, making it a must-see spectacle for both locals and visitors.

Discover Spiritual Roots and Riverside Landmarks

Delve into the rich spiritual roots of this tradition and explore the historical landmarks that line the riverbanks. Nakhon Phanom, a province in northeastern Thailand, is a treasure trove of cultural and spiritual heritage. Visitors can explore ancient temples and riverside landmarks that narrate the tale of this region’s vibrant past. These sites offer a glimpse into the spiritual essence that underpins the festival’s significance, enhancing the overall experience.

Relish the Distinctive Isan Cuisine

While you’re in Nakhon Phanom, don’t miss sampling the distinctive Isan cuisine, known for its bold flavors and unique ingredients. The province offers a culinary journey that perfectly complements the visual feast of the boat procession. Additionally, the cross-border connections with neighboring Laos make the region an intriguing gateway year-round, where diverse cultures and cuisines blend seamlessly. Whether for its cultural richness, dynamic festivities, or gastronomic delights, Nakhon Phanom promises an unforgettable experience.

Source : River of Fire

Gate greetings return

Privatization attempt

Evolving threats