The Weekly: Shopped at ASOS? Your data could be out there & Victoria’s Secret’s comeback

0:01Coming up in today's episode, we speak about cybersecurity, which before you fall asleep, is a problem that you need to be aware of. ASOS was hacked a few weeks ago. A week ago, we found out there was a sort of a hole in the internet, like 70 % of websites were compromised. What does this mean for you, for businesses, for governments? It's a huge story and it's actually quite fascinating.

0:24Soph: And we'll also be talking about Victoria's Secret. Now, I am sure that, like me, your social media feed has been absolutely awash in images and videos from their latest catwalk. But we want to go into the business story behind the brand's pretty stark, pretty impressive revival after years in pretty steep decline. This is The Curve Weekly, where we read the finance news that you don't have to. I'm Sophie Hallwright, ex-television and radio producer who is sick and tired of not understanding how to invest, how to understand the economy or grow my wealth, so we started this podcast. And my name is Emma-Louise Boynton.

0:59Soph: I am a writer, broadcaster and newly published author focused on opening up conversations about the topics we are typically taught not to discuss. But first, we have a word from today's sponsor. If KiwiSaver has been on your I should probably sort that out list for years, this is your sign. Book a no-cost KiwiSaver advice session with a Generate advisor by using the link in our show notes. And thank you so much to Generate for sponsoring this episode of The Curve Weekly. I need to start this episode by saying that I am having the most wild dreams this week. And I don't know, there must be something in retrograde because like I am having everything from like kind of sexy 15-year-old like low-key nearly getting to like...

1:47Do I say wet dream? Like it's not a wet dream. But I'm having kind of sexy dreams. But then last night I was so in the red in my dream because I was full noise on wedding planning. I, in the weekend, did the first ever, like I actually need to do something about this and like do a little bit of admin around this because I've done none. And then last night all I did was dream about all the expensive things. It is so scary how much money goes into it. And I've talked about this as a third person completely uninvolved in the wedding industry up until now.

2:21Soph: And now you're like, and that's actually me. Now I'm getting some serious anxiety about it. Oh, my God. I can totally imagine. So what happens in the dream? You're just spending the money. So the dream is me going through every line item. And I'm having. That's so intense. It's so intense. At like three in the morning, you're there with your highlighter. It's like I'm having a foreign conversation in my head as well. Like it's almost like I'm having a meeting with myself on the budget all night long. Oh, wow. It's awful. And then you wake up exhausted because you haven't properly slept. Yeah. Because it feels like you've been doing, you know, your brain like kind of hurts in your sleep because you're like really thinking.

2:57Soph: I find that, I get that a little. I almost feel like my best thinking happens in my sleep. And then I wake up and can't remember any of the key thoughts I had except for the fact it was stressful. So I mentioned before a couple of weeks ago I'm doing The Artist's Way at the moment. and one of the things that she says to do so it's written by Julia Cameron um I actually should go back and do this it's such a brilliant it's honestly it's so fabulous I'm loving doing it I'm really behind but whatever let's get over that but one of the things she says to do is before you go to bed each night write down a few of the questions that you have that you really want answered and then in the morning and when you do your morning pages you will have answers to those questions and just write right what comes out it's a great idea just look and I sort of think it's true like if I have a serious burning like work question life question whatever it tends to come off my dream and listen I don't think dreaming me is always like the total smartest most strategic version but sometimes I'm like wow okay so I am super excited to talk about this hacking cyber security story it doesn't sound exciting it really is fascinating it doesn't but it is because also when you begin to dive into it which we will do you realize how vulnerable we all are and i have started to realize recently that i am getting so much more spam email um text messages across all digital communication channels i am noticing an uptick in the amount of spam i get now and i feel like this is presumably related to what about honestly i was saying like even last week i was getting these calls there was probably and i'm not exaggerating about 15 missed calls from random numbers and i was like no one calls me anymore i know all my friends everyone at work it's whatsapp you know so i knew that it was spam and finally i picked up and i was like hello and this lovely poor woman was like hi it's um it's sandra here from sweet peas flowers um a friend sent you some and i was like i am so sorry for my like absolutely horrendous comms but like i'm getting spammed on all fronts on the spam front you what my phone now does is because you know it does the transcription of voicemail messages it's transcription service is so bad So whenever I go into the transcription thing of like people who've, and often it's like delivery drivers or someone who's outside.

5:02Soph: And it leaves like really dramatic messages. Once my mum had called me and she'd like have the radio on the background and it was the news. And it was talking about a war of something was going. And so I just got this message from mum being like, you know, so-and-so killed, stabbed. And I was like, oh my God, what is going on? I called my mum and was like, what's, and then was like, ah, this is. So the whole, and I get a lot of those from spam numbers where they call and the message is just like really, feels like very cryptic. kind of spooky? You know, it used to be really obvious and easy to spot a spam email, a spam message.

5:34It was a dodgy looking email address. There was spelling mistakes. But now it's so sophisticated to the point where I was even speaking to someone in the weekend who works in privacy. They got basically spammed out of their home deposit and they got it back through insurance, but he works in the industry. There was one letter that was different in the email. everything was accurate and correct like so basically the point is here is that cyber security and hacking you may think that this is not something that impacts you it's impacting it's everyone's problem at this point and what used to be this conversation like oh my poor granny is going to get spanned it's like no actually all of us i mean i'm so for sure going to fall for this but today what i'm sorry by the sounds of it you're being quite rude to the

6:19Soph: potentials. I think you won't fool. Just be rude to everyone. I think just be rude to be just generally quite universally cynical and then I think. But I'm very gullible and you know the the complexity and the sophistication with which a lot of these hackers are getting into our email systems, our WhatsApp, getting our numbers, getting all sorts of information that you assume people could only get if they were legit. That's the main problem here. So basically a few weeks ago did you get the notification via the ASOS app? About the hack I didn't get it via the app. I got an email from ASOS saying that they'd been hacked.

6:56Soph: Right. And I then saw the news stories around. And so I felt very aware of the ASOS hacking story. I was like, okay, this is something. And felt then really annoyed at ASOS. I was like, you have all my card details. You being hacked actually, like, isn't a joke because you've got everything. And basically they initially said, oh, don't worry. Like, the hackers only have really basic information. And then they leaked a bunch of information to the BBC, which was way more detailed, you know, like birth dates, credit card details. So anyway, this was several weeks ago. At the time, I remember thinking, gosh, this is really odd that this is happening to such a massive, reputable brand.

7:33And what I realized is that all of these hacks, so a lot of this happens and has up until now happened behind closed doors. So basically what hackers do is they get inside a business, the back end, they get access to all of this customer data and then they threaten the business with the whole point. It's almost like a digital ransom, you know, in the same way people might have, I don't know, abducted someone and then they call and they're like, transfer me a million dollars or you're never going to see your niece again. The whole concept of cyber hacks is that they're extortionists and they're getting money out of businesses behind closed doors.

8:07And they have no option really but to pay out because they're so scared about the overarching damage and what it could do. So anyway, this was something that happened publicly. I was in Spain and Luke's sister had it. And then so we went down a rabbit hole of like, what is going on here? How crazy that this is public. The whole point was is they went public on purpose. It was like a deliberate move because they weren't getting what they wanted.

8:31Soph: So the hackers went public basically to hold ASOS to ransom saying, we're actually going to embarrass you by revealing how much information that we have to force ASOS's hand. Yeah. So they basically contacted, they put in a push notification through the platform, which basically had like a thing that came up and spooked all of the customers. And at first, yeah, ASOS basically wasn't playing ball. And so that's where they went public and direct. But it's just crazy. See, I didn't realize this happens all the time. The recognizability of a brand like ASOS and just that it suddenly feels very close to home when it's like that.

9:04Soph: Suddenly something so innocuous, aka shopping for your holiday shorts, suddenly feels risky. It's like, oh, actually, just in purchasing this outfit or that outfit and having all my information stored on this site that I use regularly because I have the premium thing, next day delivery, woohoo. Actually, that becomes like dangerous. Kind of creepy and scary. Really creepy and scary. Just to pare it back on a basic level. I have an ASOS account. I have all my credit cards uploaded onto ASOS. I have automatic pay. My address is on ASOS. What should I be doing as a customer to protect myself in this scenario?

9:37So definitely change your password. That's what everyone said. Go and change your password.

9:41Soph: I didn't remember the first one to begin with. I don't remember any of them ever. I am every cyber security's like perfect target. What the hell are we supposed to remember the 150 passwords? Unless I get it tattooed on my forearm. But also all of which need to be so complex. now which I'm just like the hackers have gone past passwords surely like oh yeah even like when I was speaking to this guy yesterday the one who works in privacy is saying you know even QR codes if you scan a QR code they instantly can get access to everything like they're in your phone they can get into your emails they get into your bank like it's crazy so there's apparently some hackers that are putting little stickers and things over the top of other QR codes isn't that terrifying okay so sorry yes what do I do so I change my password change your password you should be changing all my cards I mean like I actually don't know if that's like extreme or not but I would just say take it off like why not they've been hacked you may as well get rid of your details I also think regularly again this is not official advice so take this to the pinch of salt but I do think it's quite good to regularly say to your bank that you've lost your card and get a new one so you cancel it just because the regularity think of how many platforms you're putting your card details into regularly so how many probably kind of insecure platforms you're putting the details into it so i just think getting an updated card every now and again there is actually plans for disposable cards to come in so that smart so that you've used it once it's almost like a kleenex we've used it throw it in the bin which makes a lot of sense cannot begin to compute the level of password memory so surely you run out of numbers right if you think everyone and you every the transaction but it makes sense because the thing is it's like this is happening in real time.

11:20So you've got all these hackers trying to get in. You've got all of this AI with like kind of the good guys and they're trying to do their best to patch up all of the things to stop bad stuff from happening. So you've got AI on both sides doing like more work than what anyone could ever do before because you've got these agents on absolute crack that can work day and night. So it's great because you've got both sides that have the power of AI to kind of go against each other, but it's just wild. It's wild. So when I was looking into this, I was thinking surely like most companies don't actually pay the ransoms because also what proof do you

11:54Soph: have that they've actually gotten rid of your data yeah like not so apparently 80 percent of ransom scenarios like victims hand over the money um so of all of the small and medium-sized businesses there was around 5 700 that were surveyed 27 of them had been targeted by ransom So like this is happening literally everywhere. I'm just imagining if a hacker tried to ransom me with sex talks and I'd be like, what do you want to take? You're like. That's actually a good point because the biggest and most dangerous like businesses that are like really going to fall victim to this like healthcare. Can you imagine the amount they have to pay in insurance to protect their consumer data?

12:36Soph: Oh, I mean the NHS mask is also is going to be so scary. And finances. So like banks, you know, like digital banks, all of that. But only 60 % of businesses who paid, like paid their rents in, get all their data back. What does it mean to get your data back? Well, I guess it's access on everything again. Like really knowing that you've got everything back and it's safe. You know when people have the, they used to like send a little USB of like, I know you cheated on your wife. Here are your images and photos. It's like. How do you not know that you've copied this? Millions of copies. Oh my, this is very like movie.

13:09Soph: I feel like Hollywood predicted this a long time ago. It's so interesting. And what we'll get to in a second is a much bigger story around a huge cybersecurity hole in the internet that basically like 70 % of websites are run on. And there was this huge scandal that happened last week. We'll explain what happened. But, yeah, essentially, hackers can do anything. Like, I don't know if you saw, but the UK government came out saying, like, have five days' supply of water and food because we're going to see these hacks happen more and more and more. And you have no idea what they could do. They could disable all payment systems so no one could pay for anything.

13:44Power could go down.

13:45Soph: The expense sector has just said, we've got to prepare for war in a thousand days. Well, the idea is that it's like the war on data. You know, if you think back to like 30 years ago, for example, the bank, there was actually security guards standing at the door that were stopping robbers going in and getting access to the money. Now that everything is online and digital, AI has been this incredible resource to grow and scale and be way more productive. So there's all this positivity that's coming out of AI. But then you think about the people that have always been hackers, that have always been on the internet.

14:18They're just this scary guy in a little coding room. They now have the power of AI. So they can swarm websites. They can swarm businesses. And what used to be they would just target big banks or like the big massive institutions, now they can do medium and small-sized businesses. So everyone is at risk of kind of having data stolen or basically dodgy people being on the inside of their business.

14:43Soph: In the UK, we're talking about this like increasing risk of these sort of data breaches alongside actual physical war with Russia. But if you think of it, this is also a weapon of war. Exactly. So these sorts of hacking, if you can infiltrate our energy systems, if you can infiltrate electricity, like governments. But also basic security, they were saying the other day, like so many people's like house security, like cars and everything is now done kind of digitally. I always thought that was crazy. I think just use a key, like for me, keys. So we've got apparently a thousand days until we're potentially at war with Russia.

15:12Soph: Bizarre. If you think that there's going to be a hybrid warfare where, yes, we've already seen there's like boots on the ground with Ukraine and Russia. But if you think of it, it's going to be both like drone, actual, like physical warfare, whatever that looks like today, alongside these like cyber threats. It's just the mind boggles. It's crazy. Yeah, you're right. It's like it's this new world where businesses have to protect themselves from people who have really bad intentions. Like you think about whether it's Russia, North Korea, there's all these people that are trying to get access to information in different countries because it gives them, you know, like that film, The Imitation Game.

15:50and they're trying to basically infiltrate and find and decode the messages so that they can know one step ahead of what the opposition or the enemy is going to be doing. It's kind of the same premise. If you can get access to someone's data or what they're talking about or anything that is not meant to be public knowledge and secret information, you have an upper hand. So it's a risk to governments. It's a risk to us as individuals. It's massively for companies. So there's so much to this that I just really didn't realize how much of a big deal it was. But for anyone that missed it, all over the news in the last week, and I must say I absolutely skipped over this story because I didn't really understand what was going on until I looked into it.

16:32Basically, there's a business called PHP that has been around forever, like 70 % of global websites. It's basically, without going into detail, it's like the infrastructure that websites are kind of built on. So it's not something that you'd see, but if you've like booked something online, paid for something online, you've used these technologies essentially. So there was a cybersecurity floor found where there was almost like a hole in the technology, the business, that was like a huge cyber risk. So if hackers were able to find this and get through it, the access they would have had, you can't even, yeah, you cannot even imagine how dangerous this would have been.

17:11It was like the biggest risk within a decade, the worst case of like, this could have been a total disaster. So there was a whole lot of people freaking out last week, whereby basically there was this hole on the internet. So say you were in a house and there was a leak in a pipe. You may never, ever, ever find that because in the house, you're kind of like just using it. Running around, things are kind of seemingly working. The taps are working. But with AI and the amount of agents that are so, so clever, they almost wouldn't have even found this hole if they didn't have AI because it was so deep in the tech, if that makes sense.

17:45Yeah. And so there's this thing called tech debt, which is basically where people build stuff and it's like they may know that there's a bit of a flaw or like a weak link, but they build on top of it because it's kind of like whatever. Yeah. So they keep building. And the more that you build and make these programs bigger and bigger, you're like, I was trying to think about an analogy. It would almost be like if you're building a house and the foundations were a bit shaky, but you built on top of it and you didn't really know about it there is a risk that something could go wrong but it's it's so forgotten about and underneath all of the layers that it kind of but because of ai they found this whole are the people who found it was the good guys and when we

18:27Soph: say good do we mean they're working for government they're working they were basically they were doing it to protect businesses so it was it wasn't it wasn't like the security side of thing because i I very in the background was kind of engaged with the stories I think there's a podcast about it and the thing that struck me was that there had been some sort of leak the fact of this hole in the plumbing had been shared publicly had it not been shared publicly they could have fixed it without this thing in a shoe exactly but because it had been revealed publicly that was what it meant like everyone was kind of rushing to get to the well because they knew that all the hackers were doing their best to get through the hole basically honestly this is the scariest thing ever dystopian I'm so freaky This is so weird.

19:08Soph: We have just absolutely marched into the weirdest, wackiest future. I know. And I honestly, does it not make you sort of want to go and just like use your hands and start like chopping wood in a forest and be done with tech? It actually makes me fascinated by it. I hate to say it, but I'm finding it fascinating. I know it's genuinely dangerous. But they're basically saying this is just going to be so regular now. There's going to be so many massive like scares like this. that you've got all these these businesses and tech products that are being built that are leveraging ai and moving in this direction and it will just be really interesting to see like what do we trust and and what because of course like you think about asos and like customer trust is now down the toilet because of that and like their share price dropped quite a bit initially and then it's sort of leveled back out again but i'd actually push back on that so i don't know how many people would be that hot on this do you think i would be really curious actually know for everyone listening let us know like is this on your radar because i think actually we're in such a information glut era that like you can hear a story of like asos hat nhs you kind of hear these hacking stories and they can become a little bit part of the background noise so that the actual as a consumer you don't necessarily know the like extent of the risk that this potentially entails that's why talking about it is so interesting because the main issue that hasn't been resolved is who pays for the insurance when this goes wrong.

20:33You know, like think about driverless cars. They still don't even really know who pays. If those crash, is it the person that owns the car, the person that invented the technology? Like whose responsibility is it? And it's the same with these hacks. Like, you know, if someone's using one of these products and they get hacked and all their money's taken, who is responsible and who has to claim insurance?

20:53Soph: Yeah, because it's like as a consumer, do you need like personal, like is it business insurance that you have? is it the company that you're the platform that you're using or is it your fault for putting your details in how but then i don't think i think if you're using a platform like you're trusting that the platform is secure so i a slightly tangential um like parallel example but one that feels resonant to this is you know lime bikes we all use lime bikes if you crash into someone on a lime bike lime is not responsible so there have been a few cases recently in the papers which i think are fascinating because it kind of speaks to this like where does like plus like is it the user or the business issue yeah so it's so and i think i think it should be lime i think it's crazy that you have these like high powered like bikes that anyone can get on the street so there have been a few cases recently where people have been crashed into so there were two pieces i think i read two pieces in the times about this and the person the victim who was crashed into has had life-changing injuries so and they have not been able to do anything because they can't sue lime because lime is like we're not liable so the only thing they have to do is to then sue the individual who is like riding irresponsibly and in both cases that i read about recently the the victims were like they were kids right i'm not going to sue a child and that's where i think it's a really interesting because again it's like tech these tech platforms not really taking responsibility for like what they're creating and the way it's impacting people yeah so there's been some really interesting kind of pushback then also kind of like local government level of like who should be responsible for this like who should have to step in i guess it kind of this is the same example where does the buck stop in terms of obviously as consumers we need to be safe so when you ride a line bike you need to like obey the laws you need to like ride safely when you're using this new technology you need to like be mindful that you're changing your passwords you're like you know trying to be as safe as possible but i don't know i think that the platforms that that we are entrusting with that information have the ultimate responsibility to keep us safe.

22:48It's super interesting because it's almost like this line on the balance sheet or your P &L that has not been factored in until now because this hasn't been a risk. Yeah, there was a crazy story about Jaguar Land Rover where it was reportedly finalizing its cyber insurance policy when it was attacked last year. They had like 200 million of lost production because of what happened. Oh my God, I remember that. And it was something crazy. Like the cost of the cover versus like the excess they had to pay was like$10 million. You know, it was just like insane. If you think about businesses and what they have to pay for as, you know, production costs of a product, all of those things.

23:26Also global businesses. You just think the size. Like security for cyber has now become this enormous cost that has to be factored in in terms of insurance. But also like, yeah, so it's crazy. It's not just us as individuals, but it's businesses that now have to fork up a lot of money to protect themselves. And it's, yeah. Anyway, it's so fascinating.

23:52Soph: With an investor hat on, should we, like whose share price is basically benefiting from this? Are there businesses that I should maybe be having a look at to invest in? Obviously, this is not advice. So please do your own research. Don't just go and invest in these. I'm just using these as examples to show how much this industry is benefiting off the back of what is hugely scary. There's a lot of businesses that work in the space of trying to protect and stop this kind of thing from happening. So one of the biggest cybersecurity companies, it's in the NASDAQ, so the U.S. stock exchange that's often for tech businesses.

24:27The ticker is PANW. It's called Paolo Alto Networks, and they're basically trying to protect company networks from being attacked. They're up 64 % this year and 31 % over the last five years. So obviously people are like, we need you help. There's another one on the NASDAQ, which protects laptops and phones and servers from attack. And it's up 82 % this year and 224 % over five years. And that one is called CrowdStrike. The ticker is CRWD. So these are just some examples of some stocks individually that are doing really, really well because they're being used. but also all of a sudden so many more people need cybersecurity within businesses.

25:08And then we spoke about insurance. Like cyber insurance is a huge growth market. Like in the UK alone, it was worth$521 million in 2024. And that's forecast to be$2.4 billion by 2033. So it's booming. And there's quite a few examples of businesses that are doing crazily well. Yeah, so it's a huge industry. But I think the main thing that I wanted to bring up because investing in individual stocks is way, way, way riskier than doing indexes or investing in funds. If you are in like a global index, you invest in like all the companies that are public. You'll already – like if you're in a global tracker, you probably have like a little bit of a lot of these companies already because they're really doing so well.

25:54But I just think it's an interesting thing to think about. Like cybersecurity we've talked about for a long time. And for me, I felt super disconnected from the whole industry. I'm like, yeah, cybersecurity, whatever. It's basically just security. You know, it's like security for businesses. It's so broad now. It's booming, as you can see with those share prices.

26:15Soph: But it feels like we're at this real intensifying point because of the rapidity with which AI is becoming so ubiquitous, in which we're all using in our day-to-day lives. Just the amount of information that we are so readily handing over to these AI bots and businesses. Businesses have to adapt to protect and think about how are they going to move with the fact that this is an amazing resource to fast track so much productivity and output. And it's so positive in so many ways. Last week, Claude was my best friend. I rebuilt my personal website, rebuilt my business website, rebuilt my just did unbelievable amounts of output with co-work on AI.

26:58Soph: In a weird sense, I actually think it's never been a better time to be a solo entrepreneur, building a small business and being able to utilize these tools to basically have a kind of mini team. The platform that I've built for the curve, and when I say I, like Luke has a business called Outsource, which actually there's a few people who contacted us wanting to work with him because he's created a platform for the curve that we would have paid no joke upwards of like 700 grand to get built before AI made this accessible. Like there's no way we could have built the infrastructure that we now have.

27:29But also like the pro of being a small business now is that, you know, that example I was saying about how you can build on tech and it can almost be like you can build on like faulty foundations kind of. And then you spend all this money building on top of it. If you are a huge business and then you're trying to implement AI, what you have to unravel is just so much more intense. Whereas if you're a small team, you can implement stuff so much faster. Yeah.

27:55Soph: The rapidity with which this is all happening is just... It's so fast. It's just so fast. But then in the background, we're like, existential. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. Also, if we're at war in a thousand days, is where streeting is warning us. Okay, that is fascinating. I have so much... I'm going to go home and change all my passwords to ones I won't remember. So I'll have to change it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe cancel some cards that might have been affected. You never know. Shall we move on to our second story, sir? Yes. let's give a little tease and then come back after the break what are we talking about perfect so after the break we're gonna be diving into victoria's secret so i'm sure like me your social media feed has been absolutely covered wall to wall in coverage of their very glitzy glam recent fashion show which culminated in none other than kylie jenner walking down the runway in a 50 million dollar bra as partner timothée timothée timothy charlamé and chris jenna applauded from the front row in a post me too era some are saying that the show is kind of a relic from the past while others are celebrating what feels like a pretty nostalgic cultural comeback for a very noughties coded brand of course we're interested in the business story so we'll be deep diving into what this very opulent recent show reveals about the brand's turnaround after a period of pretty bad decline.

29:15I'm actually so excited but first we do have a quick word from today's sponsor. Okay the stat is absolutely wild. Consumer New Zealand rated Generates KiwiSaver Scheme number one for customer service with 90 % satisfaction. In second place I will just say only got 75 % so it's not even close. Honestly in a world of AI chatbots sometimes it's really nice to speak to a real person so if you would like to book a no-cost KiwiSaver advice session with a Generate advisor. You can see a link in the show notes and just a quick thank you to Generate for making this episode of The Curve Weekly possible.

29:52Soph: Okay, first of all, surely your social media has been just Victoria's Secret everywhere. Yes, it was. And I really felt it was such a throwback. I thought I kind of almost forgot that it was a thing. And I also didn't realize how enormous the break had been between shows. Did I care that much? was I so invested I think probably no way near as much as I had been when I was you know like five eight years ago I feel a little bit like it didn't touch the sides in terms of zooming in and feeling embarrassed or like you know judging myself and my body on what I saw like I felt same I felt less less um I felt more detached from the whole thing same isn't that interesting I guess maybe it's like our age and maturity and just how wonderfully wise and brilliant we now are yeah our mid-30s because same I looked at them and I was like I don't care yeah I honestly it felt very nostalgic that early noughties period that felt so reminiscent of that time where the angels were just such kind of big cultural figures and it was such an accolade to be appointed to an angel whereas now I was like doesn't seem that cool I was about to say I almost felt like it's kind of I think it's a bit embarrassing to be an angel now I don't know why I felt that I've designed So on a basic level, the brand, like, also in my mind's eye, Victoria's Secret as a brand just is quite tacky.

31:18Soph: And like, there's stuff. I used to think it was cool, though. Yeah, so that I was younger. When I was younger, but not now. Like, now it just doesn't feel chic, doesn't feel luxury because it's had so much. And we'll go into it. But just bad press has surrounded the brand for a hot minute. So maybe let's just take a step back. Because you mentioned just there that you didn't realize the gap that has existed in terms of when the last show was. So when was it? So I was under the impression that this was the first show after a pretty significant hiatus. Is that what you thought? Oh, totally. Yeah.

31:49Soph: Okay. It's not. So it actually relaunched in 2024. This is the third of like its recent relaunch shows. No way. I was totally oblivious to the previous two years of shows. Who were the angels? Couldn't tell you. Wow. I mean, I could in my notes, but I couldn't know all the details here. But it's so strange to me. So I went into my research being like, you know, my first hook was like, Victoria's Secret show is back and then obviously went into the research and I was like hang on a second no so it relaunched back in 2024 well they obviously had a terrible PR team because like I didn't see a thing okay so can we rewind for a moment the company was doing badly the last I remember was that they got enormously cancelled something to do with Epstein something to do with like just being a bad place and it was no longer you you would have had to pay or like you probably couldn't have even paid anyone to walk on the show.

32:39That's how bad the brand damage had been. Oh, that is interesting that that is your impression of it. Because I can't even really remember what the decline came from. Like I can't remember, but my overarching feeling was I thought this had been cancelled forever and it wasn't coming back. Okay, fascinating. So yes and no.

32:57Soph: So to give you a bit of context, the show broadcast to nearly 10 million viewers in 2013 so that's a kind of period that we're you know back in kind of more notice period it was at its height so 10 million viewers tuned in and there was a kind of cultural celebration of the angels and we watched it live didn't we well i feel like the telly it was on the telly box it was pre-netflix it was pre-netflix we tuned in to watch it by 2018 that figure had dropped to a record low of 3.3 million viewers. That still seems like a pretty high number. Surely it was like 90 % million though at that point. Yeah, I mean, the viewers at that point may not be their target audience.

33:37Soph: And All White cost a fortune, as you can imagine, for the brand to produce around$20 million by 2060. Just for the show. For the show. God, that's a lot of money. Which is a huge amount of money. And it really did little to boost, by then, lagging retail sales or reverse a drop in market share. And I think that reflected the brand's declining cultural relevance. So in 2019, the show was put on a hiatus and then returned, as I said before, in 2024. Essentially what happened is the ROI was too poor. And a lot of things happened in that period. So let's talk about the brand's decline, which as you've kind of alluded to in terms of your outside impression, which really mirror mine, it just felt like it sort of, it just didn't keep up with changing.

34:17Soph: It was a bit lame. It was a bit lame. I mean, it also, you know, Post Me Too, it felt very male gaze. And that shouldn't be surprising because it was really run by men. It was a kind of the embodiment of how men view women's sexuality. And while in the kind of toxicity of the early noughties that was celebrated, then a Post Me Too era, it suddenly felt like that just didn't really sit right with consumers in the same way. So, yes, it kind of fell out of favor in that people in the Post Me Too era, the world was moving on. It had such narrow representations of bodies of catwalk. Oh, God, that's right.

34:50Soph: And then the then chief marketing officer, Ed Razek, made some comments in Vogue in an interview dismissing plus size and trans models. That's right. And that really kind of cemented this. What an actual idiot. Like, sorry, but who did not give that guy any kind of media training? Even if you didn't, even if you believed that, surely you knew that that was going to absolutely bury your brand. How are you? Arrogance. Didn't care. He was so insulated from shifting cultural norms, and I would say basic human morality, that he had the arrogance to say that there was no place for trans and plus size models.

35:29Soph: So when he made those comments, it just really solidified that the brand sort of just feeling a bit passe. So the company also relied really heavily on traditional bricks and mortar stores, all while consumers were increasingly obviously shopping online. Again, the brand just felt like it didn't keep up with shifting consumer patterns. So they'd relied so heavily on that kind of shopping experience and their consumer was now shopping online. Its main strategy to compete with other retailers began to be sweeping promotional deals, which immediately kind of lower the perceived value of the product.

36:00Soph: So they just relied on discounting products very heavily, which obviously hurt profit margins. It also makes it look tacky. Well, why would I ever buy something full price if I know in two months it's most likely going to be 49 % off? Well, it gives the sense of failure. Like if a shop is always heavily discounting, those pieces are not premium. So you can see now that basically the brand was not... It's suffering enormously. It's suffering enormously. It was not keeping up with changing patterns. And then the cherry on top of the cake. A little bit of extreme misogyny. So to cut things off, the company's owner, Les Wexner, faced intense public scrutiny and reputational damage because of his long-term financial ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

36:41Soph: Yes. He is mentioned multiple times in the Epstein files. So he's not been convicted of anything to do with Epstein, so I should say that from a legal perspective. But his name comes up a hell of a lot in the Epstein files. Let's just say, would we want someone like that designing female, like, lingerie and clothing or anywhere near anything that's speaking to Epstein? Probably not. And so just for a bit of background, Les Wexner isn't the founder of Victoria's Secret. He actually headed up a company called L Brands. And L Brands took over Victoria's Secret in 1982. So he bought it from the founder, Roy Raymond, for one million because the company at the time wasn't doing that well.

37:16Soph: So Les, he wasn't the founder, but he did take over the company. And then, yes, so when he was implicated heavily in the Epstein files and just he had a quite close personal relationship with Epstein, which didn't really go down that well from a kind of public perception. perception. Am I right in thinking like around 2020 that it's sold and I don't know if it's sold the whole thing but it's sold to a private equity company basically someone saw it as an opportunity and thought let's buy it we can turn this around. Yes and then COVID. So in 2020 Victoria Secret's parent company Elle Brands that's the one that Les Wexner was head of they agreed to sell a 55 % controlling stake in the lingerie brand to private equity firm Sycamore Partners in a deal that valued the brand at$1.1 billion.

38:00Soph: Then COVID hit. Sycamore tried to pull out. They were basically saying, this is very store heavy. This is a retail store business. Oh, and everyone is going to be stuck at home. And then people aren't going to be at home, so people aren't going to be buying stuff. So the deal was terminated in May 2020. Victoria's Secret was instead spun off as its own listed company in 2021. And Les Wexner then stepped down from his leadership roles during the corporate restructuring. Can I just say, what a terrible time. Just a shit show. At that point, would you not just be like, okay, wow. The fact that from a reputation standpoint that they were able to get anyone cool to walk in these shows in the last few years is fascinating to me.

38:41Soph: It's also interesting because when I read that$1.1 billion valuation, I mean, I see billion and I'm like, whoa, that's a ton. but actually even though that sounds like a lot just five years prior so five years prior to this almost private equity deal happening l brand's total market capitalization peaked at around 29 billion and so victoria sequence was part of that it was an unseparated subsidiary of the public company but it was a massive driver of revenue for that big company so it's fair to say a billion selling for a billion is like was was that yeah the business was annually driving sales of$7.7 billion.

39:18Soph: And that accounted for roughly 63 % of LRAN's overall revenue at the time. This is at the peak, right? Yeah, that was at the peak. So by the time it's 2020, it's kind of what it was being valued at actually had taken quite a significant amount. I really would love to know at that point in time as well if anyone's even buying it. I can't imagine anyone sitting at home during COVID 2021 too thinking, what am I going to do? I'm going to go buy Victoria's Secret. I mean, at that point, that was when Savage Fenty and like the Rihanna label came around and there was all these really cool, actually diverse in terms of the types of people that they were built for, the way that they were marketed.

39:56There was just so many cool lingerie brands. The last one I would have bought from would have been Victoria's Secret.

40:00Soph: And also I'm like, I want to buy female founded. Actually, it's interesting you mentioned Fenty Savage, Rihanna's lingerie brand because it's actually two people plucked from that company that got brought on by Victoria's Secret that have totally turned the company around. Oh, clever. So clever. I mean, that makes, I was about to say, can we please get to the point in which it's obviously started to make a comeback? Because how the actual, how did they do that? Yeah. Taking people from that brand makes a lot of sense to me. Exactly. Also, before we get into this, because it wasn't bought by private equity, it's still a public company, right?

40:31Like it's listed. If it had been bought by private equity and was private, it'd be really interesting to see what was happening now because they've actually had to adjust and reinvent themselves in the public eye and with the scrutiny of everyone looking at what they're doing. It's honestly kind of amazing that they have managed to do anything. Totally.

40:48Soph: So let me tell you the figures of this turnaround, which are quite amazing. At its lowest point, the stock fell to around 13 to 14 a share, dragging its market value down to nearly$1 billion. Today, the stock trades at roughly$88, bringing the company's total market value to about$7.05 billion. Wow, that's amazing it's gone up that much. So it's a pretty big turnaround. It's now actually listed on the stock exchange as VSXY, so VSEXY. It's quite a urge. Previously VSCO, which I quite like that exchange. And that was one small kind of, I think, quite funny change by their now new CEO, Hilary Super, who took over in autumn 2024 after leading Anthropologie and Savage X Fenty.

41:37Soph: So she basically came in with a brand new strategy around kind of reclaiming leadership in the bra category, expanding into beauty and modernizing how the company markets its products. They also hired a man called Adam Selman as the chief creative officer who previously was also working at Rihanna Savage X Fenty. So you have these two kind of powerhouse leaders who'd been huge, working with Rihanna previously, who were then brought on by Victoria's Secret, who came in with a new kind of strategic vision for how the company was going to work. I quite like that they didn't just bring, you know, a female CEO in.

42:10You know, there's so many stories about the female CEO being brought in when it's doing shit. And, like, what I actually would love to know is the fact they've brought the show back. And I know you're saying it's been now three years. They did 24, 5, and 6. Yeah. How did they justify the return on investment of a$20 million show? I'm just surprised that that made the comeback in general.

42:29Soph: So I don't know how much they spent on it, But I was actually really surprised at the ROI of the show. I would have just thought that it's like the days of that is not worth it. You're not going to get. I wouldn't see the Victoria's Secret show and then think I'm going to go buy some product. You know, I actually don't know if I agree with that because I think now we're seeing it clipped up on social media. And we're seeing the celebrities associated with the show. I mean, they had big celebrities this year. The fact that Kylie Jenner closed the show in the$50 million bracket. Like that image of her, that was reported in every publication.

43:00Soph: it meant you had timothy chalamet was there chris jenner bringing in the jenner like from a social media imprint perspective it was huge but last year's show so this is seconds which i'm still not convinced i couldn't have told you who was in that but it drove a reported 60 plus year-over-year traffic lift to its websites and more than 15 increase in new customer conversions on show day so it does have an impact like a kind of quite direct measurable impact so the recent one we do have figures on this just in terms of viewership but apparently oh yeah so audience because at its high you said it was 10 million yeah so 10 so it's high was 10 million and remember they cancelled it when it reached a low in 2018 of 3 million it was 3.64 million viewers this time this time around in 2026 so it remains lower than in the linear television broadcast days which you know frequently at least surpassed 9 to 12 million viewers on CBS.

43:56Soph: But I guess by virtue of it being a very kind of social media first show and how much it was clipped up, it was still able to have a decent ROI. Also, the viewership, I'm not sure if you were just saying that that 3 million is across. That's live streaming. Yeah, because you think about the IVs. Because think of the social infrastructure. Exactly. It's like you wouldn't have actually had anywhere near that reach in the height of it. Like the 10 million views would have been almost purely from people watching it. Whereas the sort of like trailing content that comes from that, the eyeballs would surely have gone over 10 million.

44:28Soph: And one more thing they did, which I think is super smart, is, and again, I have not seen this because such is the saturation of the digital world, you just miss everything. But the sellman who I mentioned, he'd been at Savage X Fenty previously. So he created a new social first reality show for the brand called Angels Among Us, which premiered on YouTube on the 27th of September. Now, the premise of the show was a kind of old school trying to find a model to walk in the film. And they had thousands of applicants, more than 100 ,000 people applied to be an angel. And the first episode, which launched…

45:03Soph: I can't do anything worse, by the way. Sorry. You actually couldn't pay me to walk in that show. You could pay me to walk in the show. Do you think? I don't think you… I actually don't think I would do it. I would. Right now… For millions. If they said to me, here's five million and you have to walk on the show. and I know that everyone would clip up me looking kind of naked and it would be, I would not, I don't think I would do it. No. The fact they had so many people apply again shows the efficacy with which in the past few years they've made the brand feel relevant again. To a younger audience.

45:33Soph: So the woman who won the competition and she walked in the show, she's 21, Cameroon born and living in Maine and her prize includes an exclusive IMG models contract. So this is kind of the making of someone. I mean it's clever, right? Because you're also doing it. It's like it's old school like scouting for talent, which I quite like. Just the fact that the bra that Kylie was in was 50 million. The fact that they had Barbara, I cannot remember her last name, who was walking the runway six weeks. Sorry, six weeks or six months after she - Barbara Palvin, six weeks postpartum. In general, there's no way if that company was being led by Lenny or Lex, whatever his name was, that they would have evolved the brand and the business in this way.

46:12And so I think whether you like the brand, whether you agree with who walked the runway, They've done a pretty amazing job at reviving something that I thought was completely dead.

46:21Soph: They have managed to come back feeling like a brand that has maintained relevancy. I will say I'm not quite there yet. I have not forgotten. I'm still not 100 % convinced that I like it at all. I mean, I actively don't like it as a brand. But I just, I still, for me, I haven't forgotten. Yeah. And I think that it will take a while to move really, really past that. But they've done an amazing job at getting it to this point. And I think actually what they want is the Gen Z shoppers. And I think for a young audience who don't have that same historical context that we have and also the nostalgia of being connected to that like very toxic early noughties period.

46:59Soph: I actually think for Fresh Eyes, this new iteration of the brand might feel quite exciting and glossy. What we then want to look at long term, is it able to maintain its economic growth? Is it able to maintain its share price? Remains to be seen. Quite fascinating though. I would love to know if there's anyone listening who was pre, maybe is actually Gen Z, do you see straight through this or do you actually look at it and have friends that are buying the brand into it think that it's cool? If you're listening, I would love to see like a comment online because like just, yeah, I'm really curious to know because even if I just compare it to like the Nike saga when they had all the like absolute blowout with all the sweatshops and like, I mean, I still remember that and it was so long ago.

47:45I just don't know if one generation down is enough space, but it'll be interesting to see.

47:49Soph: I think in today's world, I think our memories are short. We're so overstimulated. I think my guess is people are quick to forget. Can we do a quick round robin? Would you, Kate, would you buy Victoria's Secret? Not really. Not really. I'm wearing their bra. Oh, my God. Lucy just said I'm wearing their bra right now. Oh, wait, can you come here? Okay, we just stopped. That's so funny. Okay, wait. Lucy, we need to talk. We need to talk. So Lucy's wearing a bra. Talk to us about this. When did you buy it? Why did you buy the bra? It's just a really good bra to wear under your T-shirts and stuff, and they're very comfortable, and you can get two for 50 pounds.

48:30Now, I apologize if that was not the most amazing audio quality. Poor Lucy has been sick and probably leaning far away from the microphone. But yes. They also have really good seamless. Okay. Okay, update.

48:43Soph: Listen, brand revival, be real. Okay, right. Well, let's say. Well, let us know. Anyone listening, tell us your thoughts because obviously there's been a lot of discourse online from a feminist perspective that the show is not relevant because it still does promote a kind of singular body image. So I'd love to know if you're listening. I'd love to know too. What do you think? Has the brand successfully revived itself? Is it culturally relevant? Does it feel like a relative in the past that we no longer want? Yeah, I would love to know. So let us know. And for anyone that is interested in the property podcast, on Friday we have an episode with Hannah Hart coming out.

49:16And it was all about buying at auction. All of the tips and tricks that you should know if you're planning on buying a property in an auction. It was so fascinating because I learned a few tips and tricks when I bought property at auction and she shared some of hers. So that's coming out on Friday. But have a great week, everyone. And thank you so much, Emma.

49:32Soph: Thank you so much for having me. This was a joyous episode. It was a really fun one. So interesting. Lots to think about. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Curve. Feel free to leave a comment to let us know what you thought. We always love hearing your feedback. New episodes are out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So make sure you're subscribed to be notified whenever a new episode drops. In the meantime, we're around on social so you can find all the links in the show notes. Hope you have a great week and we will see you for the next episode. Okay, quickly, the Curve was created to empower and educate you about investing, but we are not financial advisors.

50:02Our platform exists for educational purposes only,

50:04Soph: and it doesn't provide personalized investing advice for your individual needs and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. And always remember to do your own research before making any investment or financial decision. We're here for any knowledge and support you need, but the final call is always yours. And thanks for being here. You got this. Yeah, we know you got this.