carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." samsungs's success. oliver: a mysterious hijacking of a $100 million tanker. all that ahead right here on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

carol: we are here with the editor in chief. in the business section you take a look at a chinese company that makes puffy coats. megan: down feather clothing, this is the largest manufacturer in china. what is interesting about this is that epitomizes so much of china's struggles in the industry in general. this is a brand they really want to take this print global. they were hitting on a way. that coats are very popular. we have seen that with people seizing on this. this is a brand that had what you think would be in place to take it global apparel. a hot item, fashion forward, access to cheap manufacturing. it has struggled to capitalize that in globalizing its business. what it epitomizes is the struggle that chinese counties have where they had cheaper

costs and access to markets in both asia and the u.s. and europe but still does not have the cachet of some western brands and can't get over the line. oliver: let's talk about another asian company, one a little further south, or further east. samsung. the south korean company. the things that should attended hindered this company but continues to go forward and continues to be a good brand and make money. megan: we have wanted to tell the story for a long time. we look at the trials and tribulations they have gone through, from exploding phones to a corruption trial involving their founders. really facing protests in south korea. you have to understand what a fundamental shift that is. samsung has always been central to the south korean economy. central to what is good for samsung is what is good for country it is sort of wedded in

the way america sees walmart or mcdonald's. really mapping the trajectory of a company that's phased haslievable -- -- that faced unbelievable -- a phone literally caught on fire and banned on airplanes. your own founder seen in handcuffs going to trial every day, and still record profits. it is an unbelievable story by the genius that is brad stone. carol: we have more on the highs and lows from brad who travel to south korea for this story. samsung has been around a long time but it's going to trying times. set the backdrop for us. brad: some trying times but also good times. financially and economically they have never been doing better. it is poised to be the most profitable company in the world, to overtake intel as the largest maker of semiconductors. and yet, at the same time, it is really enveloped in political and legal drama in its from -- home country, south korea. a little background about what samsung is.

we attribute the technology in its strength in consumer electronics but the samsung group is an informal association of 60 or so companies. there is a founding family the , lee family. the nominal head of the group is lee and is the grandson of the founder. right now he is in prison in south korea and on trial for allegedly corruption and embezzlement related to a scandal that led to the ouster of the president of south korea. every day over the course of the summer he has been in the courtroom in seoul listening to testimony about these allegations and what it reflects is any sort of ambivalence or at least a change in sentiment around the very large companies in south korea. they were really affiliated with the company's enormous successful economic growth over the last 50 years. now they are viewed a little bit more dimly.

and the samsung being the most visible and largest company in south korea is right in the middle of that. carol: what is interesting is the success of samsung has been important to south korea, correct? brad: not just samsung. samsung over the last 20 years has emerged as the largest company in south korea. there is a lot of pride as there should be in the success of this company that emerged -- samsung electronics was associated with appliances in our homes. some kind of low quality phones in the early 1990's. now it is next to apple as the world's largest maker of smartphones and always connected devices in our lives. that is the visible part. the invisible part is the enormously successful semiconductor business. we visited a new plant south of seoul. you can't imagine the scale of

which samsung operates. they have broken ground and gotten to operational in the facility in the span of two years. it takes companies like intel three to five years or longer to get a semiconductor fabrication plant up and running. but samsung the expertise, the , almost militaristic efficiency in deploying construction and getting the automation and the machinery up and running is unrivaled. they have managed to go time the displays to coincide with upswings in the technology sector. there is one major reason why some site has been so quietly successful over the last 10 years. -- samsung has been so quietly successful over the last 10 years. carol: i love that he started off saying good and bad times for samsung. financially they are firing on all cylinders. you mentioned the grandson that is in jail. talk to us about that. that is the bad times. brad: that is not a good look. what is interesting is not only that he is on trial -- his

father also went through some of these experiences. many of the leaders often end up periodically in prison in south korea for whatever reason. it is just reflective of this conflicted relationship that the country and the government have these large companies. what feels different this time is the country and even the media were so pro-samsung in the past. they are now celebrating the idea of this luminary being grounded. you see in the newspapers every in handcuffsof lee being led into the -- they are exulting in his humiliation. we can get into the particulars of the case which is monstrously complicated, but basically he is accused of engineering and merger between two samsung companies to strengthen his hold on the larger samsung route, and

-- group and particular the crown jewel, samsung electronics. whether he did it or not is kind of the size of the there is point. -- beside the point. there is always been an unspoken agreement between big companies and the government to facilitate their success. now suddenly that contract within the government and the companies is under siege. carol: what is interesting is it has been several generations running this company. you talk about the lee family. is it possibly time for someone else to the running samsung? that the culture needs to change? brad: that is a good question. you know if you talk to , shareholder activists might be elliott management group out of new york which is lobbied for changes at samsung over the years, they would say yes. it's an archaic management structure that other investors in samsung companies have to have their rights reduced because of the power of the lee family. it is not a modern structure.

but at the same time you have to look at the success of the company and the investments. they really are only possible because of this unorthodox and somewhat inaccurate stick -- inactive worsted management style. you have a founding family that has historically felt secure in their ownership and is able to make these long-term capital intensive bets. you look at the japanese semiconductor companies. they have faded into the dustbin of history. they were not able to succeed like samsung because they were not able to make a long, bold, long-term bets in the future of technology. you have to give the lee family and is found the link family management structure some credit. carol: turning samsung's success into a cover image was the role of rob vargas. oliver: prop, the cover story is cool, that's rob, the cover

story is cool samsung has been , able to survive. how did you go about this? rob: it's amazing how much they have been through. its this wide range of things from government corruption to phones exploding. that was a little hard to portray in a literal sense so we went for a metaphorical sense like it's being tortured in all of these various physical ways. carol: samsung is a huge company, it has been around for a couple of generations, a family-owned company. you did hone in on the phone specifically. brock: it introduces somebody types of technology but the phone is the most iconic thing. when people associate problems with samsung, they associated the exploding phone. oliver: the exploding phone. it does look like my phone. was this fun to brainstorm how many different ways you can show this? rob: our photo director was on set. at the studio he became excited once we started lighting it on fire. anytime you like something on fire, you might as well do it. oliver: this is literally

getting lit on fire. rob: a blowtorch. and dateu have a time up there? anything significant? rob: we definitely one of the fun to be on the show you it is still actually functioning. oliver: i guess that is the take away. carol: up next, how turkey and germany reached a breaking point in the relationship? oliver: president trump has been accuse reneging on promises to the ethanol industry. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." oliver: you can also find us online at this this week.com. carol: and our cap. -- and our app.

in the politics section once , friends but now frenemies, the complicated relationship with turkey and germany. oliver: here is editor jillian goodman. carol: turkey and germany have had long and deep ties. how long and how deep? jillian: trade between the two is upwards of $36 billion a year. this relationship goes way back to the 1960's when a lot of turks moved to germany to fulfill worker shortages. now there have been tensions for about a year and a half that in the last week sort of spilled over, over human rights mostly. carol: let's talk about the relationship. i had no idea how deep this was. a lot of german companies operating in turkey, a lot of workers, there is flow back and forth between the countries? jillian: correct. deutsche bank, some of the biggest companies in the world have huge presences. german companies have a huge presence in turkey. germans, for a long time made up , the biggest tourist block in turkey. turks are one of germany's

biggest ethnic minorities. the ties are complex and really deep and very substantial. carol: we know they have a great relationship or they have had a great relationship. it has become strained. what has happened? jillian: last week turkey detained a few human rights workers, including a german national. angela merkel, the german chancellor uncharacteristically , denounced this. for the last year and a half she has been treading lightly on turkey's detention of journalists and whatnot because of this deal she brokered or helped broker in march of last year in which turkey agreed to accept a lot of refugees coming out of syria. tot has caused her to want not offend, let's say, turkey who she relies on to keep the

, refugees out of germany. oliver: donald trump as a candidate spent a lot of time currently the favor of the ethanol industry. carol: that has changed since he entered the white house. oliver: you are looking at the state of renewable fuels and alternatives to some of the more traditional types of energy. tell us where some of these people in the midwestern and certain areas of the u.s. are thinking about their future right now and what it means. mario: it's a mixed bag right now. the future looked a lot brighter for them about 12 years ago when the renewable fuel standard was instituted under president george w. bush. now under the trump administration it appears to be a mixed bag. we had our first referendum on where he may stand and how he may kind of administer the program earlier this month when he proposed volume targets that

refiners have to use next year. carol: take a step back. the renewable feel standard put into effect 12 years ago by president george w. bush, what did it require? mario: it's required escalating amounts of biofuels to be mixed into the u.s. fuel supply. we are talking ethanol, biodiesel, etc. the objective of the program at the time was to reduce dependence on foreign sources of oil and also to address climate and environmental issues. oliver: there are a lot of countries where ethanol is a big export and comes from corn. in the u.s. there are certain areas were a lot of that corn farming is done and ethanol gets made. this gets to the crux of the story. tell us about who those people are and where they are in the u.s. mario: in the u.s., the industry

is extremely concentrated in the midwest. we are talking about iowa, illinois, indiana, nebraska, etc. of course when we mention iowa that is that aground and ground zero for presidential aspirations. carol: ip next, was behind wall street's worsening diversity problem? oliver: the perks bankers enjoyed even when the broker is a robot. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ oliver: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." carol: you can listen to us on radio on sirius xm 119, 1330 and 106.1 fm in boston, am 960 in the bay area.

oliver: and in london and in asia on the bloomberg radio plus app. and the finance section wall , street's top bosses have been pledging to bring diversity to the workplace. carol: the opposite is happening. here are reporters max and jordan. max, jordan, tell me in terms of diversity on wall street, what is at the backdrop here? some firms have been working to have a more diverse workforce. men, women, minorities. what is going on? max: a really simple way to describe what we found is things are not looking good at some of the biggest banks in the u.s. when it comes to black diversity. i tried to write about this a couple of years ago. i might have even talked to you about it. our editor and i have this idea about writing a feature story about black diversity racial , diversity on wall street, or the lack of it. but we never really ended up , finding the perfect story. i ended up with five main characters.

it is really hard to tell such a complicated narrative through one person. we put it on hold for a while. a couple of weeks ago robert said, can you go update those racial diversity numbers that you collected a while back? i did. i was honestly surprised when i took a look at the most recent numbers, which from is on the banks is 2016. the numbers for black diversity, which were not great to begin with, were down at a couple of the biggest banks in the u.s. carol: what we are talking about big banks, what are we talking about. jpmorgan? jordyn: jpmorgan, wells fargo, bank of america. >> all of the big banks. i'm thinking these banks have come out publicly and said we want to have more diverse workforce. what has happened? jordyn: all have made public pledges. they all have diversity pages on their websites touting the idea they are looking for a diverse and inclusive workforce.

like the data shows, those numbers are not always living up to the u.s. workforce aggregate. it is not on par with her -- with their industry at times. and it is also lagging the u.s. workforce. max: america by and large is getting better at some of these problems. not everyone is. something we have been talking about, including today, is the media is pretty white. we have a line in the story about how what is called the information industry that includes silicon valley, parts of the media, parts of hollywood. those numbers are not great. but what is so interesting and what i think is eye-opening for me is black diversity in corporate america is going up. if you look at most of the country, companies with at least 100 employees basically, not only is black diversity going up among the whole u.s. workforce, which we are talking about here.

we are talking about the workforce of the six biggest banks in the u.s. black diversity is going down at some of the banks while it is going up in corporate america. both of the executive suite and at large. carol: what is going on? how do people explain why it's going down? jordyn: we do not have one explaination. from bankers and academics we talked to, they operate multiple -- and they offered what or reasons why these numbers are not working out in the way we expect them to be rising. some of them stated a lack of creativity in bringing in young black hires. some talked about maybe it's not caring enough. maybe some of the focus goes to gender diversity or other efforts to boost minority numbers. just not enough effort is being put there. carol: any of the firms that were maybe doing better than the rest? jordyn: wells fargo stuck out

when we looked at in their executive suite and the total workforce. their numbers for that universe at least for rising like 2%, 4%, 6%. i think it went up to 12% for the workforce, african-americans. those numbers really stood out because it was incremental at the other banks, either coming up or down. those were clear percentages. carol: investors are increasingly shifting to online advice. oliver: fund providers are paying for big perks like fancy junkets in hawaii. let's start told about role boy advisors. -- robo advisors. remind everybody for those who might not know what robo advisors are. hugh: they are almost a decade old. back in 2008 it started as the first robo-advisor taking in funds, using algorithms to figure out the user's risk

tolerance and putting them in appropriate bucket of investments. oliver: taking inputs on what an investor is comfortable with, what kind of return they want, and essentially going and picking mutual funds or the indexes or allocating across asset classes? hugh: age, how much money they make. all the things you want to know to figure out how much risk is appropriate for you. oliver: we are talking about people who either want to build out of their retirement. these are average people in many senses as well as sort of casual investors looking for some kind of return as well. hugh: people who can't afford a full price financial advisor. carol: a cheaper way of investing your money. hugh: much cheaper. oliver: then it brings us to the topic of who is in charge of the robos. who offers those as products. right now, where are the big shots? where other places people go to get this?

hugh: there are a pair of innovators in the field. what has happened since then is schwab and vanguard have taken advantage. vanguard manufactures these products, putting together the algorithm and a channel to sell it made sense. they became huge and are the biggest players at what you would call robo or hybrid robo. what brings us to the idea of the big banks, and brokerages like morgan stanley in merrill lynch, wells fargo, they are recognizing they need to have this channel. ultimately all the people with the money will die out. there kids get the money. a lot of these kids are more used to direct additional channels than dealing with people at the table. they know they need to create this channel. that is what the are doing, making their own robo-advisors. oliver: what is behind the

world's best performing stock? carol: and a covering the truth of -- and uncovering the truth the mysterious hijacking of a $100 million oil tanker. ♪

oliver: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." carol: the hygiene cake -- of the oil tanker. carol: the showdown of five-star mega-hotels in london. oliver: all of that up ahead in "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ oliver: we're back with "bloomberg businessweek" editor in chief megan murphy to talk about more must reads in the magazine. let's go to the finance section,

tell us about this hungarian company. megan: it is a big one. best performing stuck in the world. it only has sales of $900,000. what this story talks about is how this stock has rocketed based on its owner's association with mr. or born, does victor or born, -- victor orborne, hungary's prime minister, who has been incredibly controversial in what he has done. everybody knows that hungary developed quite rapidly after the fall of the berlin wall along with so many other eastern european economies but since the president has been in power, he really has centralized authority, bolstered the resiliency in terms of lack of reliance on imf and funding, but he has also attracted controversy for centralizing control. he is suspected of enriching his friends close to him, and one of those people close to him is the owner. oliver: an incredible story in

the features section that we want to talk about, the hijacking. carol: it is a movie, almost. oliver: you cannot read it without thinking about the movie. even if you have not seen it, the narrative is incredible. the writing is awesome. what do you think is most moving about this story? megan: what is so fascinating about this is that it should say -- sheds a light on two things, piracy and the lack of transparency in this market. this was a hijacking with a $100 million payout from insuring that ship, debt ensuring this ship -- and murky connections between what we see all the treacherous high seas and what can be connected to somebody making a mark on a fountain pen in london to ensure a wide chain of where that money goes, who it connects to. i think when we told this story, we got to the heart of how

callous people can be in talking about human lives on the ship and putting them at risk. it is an immense story. carol: we talked to our reporter, matt campbell, with more from london. tell us about the supertanker and what happened to it a few years ago. matt: it was a very large tanker carrying about 140,000 tons of fuel oil worth somewhere in the ballpark of $100 million on a fairly routine journey from the ukraine to china. this was in july 2011. it then ran into some quite catastrophic trouble in the gulf of aden. it was attacked by men carrying kalashnikov assault rifles. it was hijacked by these men. the crew lost control. in the course of the attack, there was a fire that was never explained, a severe fire that

crippled the ship and caused the crew to abandon it. we have in the middle of the night, in one of the most dangerous waterways, certainly it would fit what people think of as piracy. the crew evacuated. they relate to go during the fire, the attackers flee. the crew were able to get off, they are rescued by the u.s. navy. then some very strange things start happening. carol: this does remind me of the tom hanks movie, cannot remember the title. oliver: "captain phillips." i think that became such a cultural pivot point, that movie. these are very dangerous waters. these are places where captains know what they are getting into. if you could set the scene a little bit, was this a typical was that at the tanker going on, was it a typical time of day?

what was the situation that led to this happening? matt: the tanker made arrangements through its owner, a greek gentleman, to bring on board a security team for the transit through the gulf of aden, this dangerous area. that is not unusual. a lot of vessels -- more a few years ago than now, will travel through particularly risky areas with an embarked security team. what was more in usual is the manner in which it occurred. they made an arrangement to pick them up some part into the gulf of aden rather than the start of the dangerous area and drift overnight, cut engines overnight and sit overnight while it waited for the team to turn up. now, the biggest thing that all of these anti-piracy handbooks say is the biggest ally of a large vessel is to keep moving and out run anything that comes at you. the idea of having a very large

ship floating immobile was pretty unusual. carol: that was one of many unusual things connected with this accident or this apparent hijacking. what were some of the others? matt: the u.s. navy began asking questions about this. as you probably know, there is a significant european union and and u.s. operation to police these waters. they are very interested in piracy, especially if it leads to the destruction of a vessel. some things did not make sense to them. pirates are generally somali in that part of the world. these men were reported by the captain to have instructed them to go to somalia except they spoke arabic. somalians speak somali, not arabic. they seemed to have tan skin, more associated with the eastern -- arab world and not west

africa. there were questions about what circumstances would lead a pirate to burn a ship? if you are in the piracy business, getting on the ship is the whole point. you do not abandon the ship and you do not damage it. the ship is valuable to you, your goal is to hold the crew for ransom. right from early doors, they test the people brought in -- the people brought in thought it was a very, very atypical pirate attack. carol: speaking of crimes, in the economic section, how stealing fuel became a $1 billion a year business in mexico. oliver: we got the investigative story from reporter amy stillman. carol: tell us about the black gasoline market in mexico. amy: so mexico has had a problem with field theft for a long -- fuel theft for a long time. this is an issue that has been going on for about three decades.

but in the past six years or so, what we have seen is that the problem has multiplied. how it works is that fuel fees, or people involved in this trade essentially dig up pipelines owned by the state oil company. they tap them, siphon out the fuel and then they sell it, sometimes by the side of the road to truckers or even within markets where cars can actually come through in what is effectively a drive-through and be attended by these black marketeers. the problem has existed for a very long time but it has become more of an issue in the past six years as it has been a very profitable business for many people in mexico. oliver: why is the profitability, why do the margins make the most sense now? why is the proliferation coming to a peak, where, you guys have the story, we have looked at

this topic before. why is is coming to something of a climax? amy: yes. one of the issues that is becoming increasingly of concern is that you are seeing organized crime groups get involved in fuel theft. it started off 30 years ago with some workers that were doing it on the side and using stolen fuels for their particular transport businesses. since then the practice has grown and basically fuel theft, thieves have found it easy to do. it has gotten bigger and bigger. now, people are more aware of it so people will go and actively seek out stolen fuel. also, it is important to remember that it is cheaper. it is 20% cheaper than what you would get at a gas station so it makes a lot of sense.

oliver: up next, the newest star in sports news and how it plans to knock out the competition. carol: nasa says that it has a secret to quiet supersonic plane. oliver: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

oliver: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i am oliver renick. carol: i am carol massar. you can find us online on businessweek.com. oliver: and on our mobile app. a new sports site is gaining traction. carol: its ability to cover sports without covering itself in ads. here is reporter joshua bruce the. oliver: you are writing about an interesting form of new sports media. tell us about the athletic. josh: the athletic is a subscription-based website for local sports. they operate right now in four cities. basically, their idea is that we do not need to give everyone, we

can get about 8000 people to 12,000 people per city and make a business that does not have to rely on ads and the economic problems that come with it. carol: help me out because right off the top of your story, espn, fox sports, sports illustrated, yahoo! sports these guys have , been cutting back on sports staff. what has the athletic got, what is the approach that makes sense for them to be a new entrant into this market? josh: the big companies have been reshuffling their efforts a little bit. they have put all this talent into the market. basically the athletic which is , small and nimble, it has 25 people right now, saw a chance to raise money and hire what it would see as a lot of new staffers, and expand. it has low costs. they get $40 per subscriber per year and that gives them a different model than having to rely on getting as much advertising revenue per article

or per video. carol: also in the technology section, nasa and lockheed martin have been vying for his -- have designs for a supersonic aircraft quieter than the inside of a mercedes. oliver: here is jeff muskets. something i never thought we would be discussing, sonic booms. talk about what this means for travel. jeff: the effective speed limit on most overland flights in the u.s. and around the world for 45 years has been 660 miles per hour. traveling at about 30,000 feet, that is about the speed limit for most commercial planes because any faster than that and the planes are going to break the sound barrier, creating a 30 mile wide continuous sonic boom that is going to shatter any windows below and spook farm animals. oliver: 30 mile wide. wow. carol: we have been here before and i think about the concorde of the 1970's. they were around for a while and then they went away. jeff: because of this problem.

there have been hurdles that supersonic transports need to cross, notably carbon emissions. and airport engine noise. the sonic boom has been the biggest problem by far, contributing to the concorde and and keeping interested parties and the startup and bigger and will spend world from getting too far from of those projects. oliver: there has been technology advancing us to a point where potentially we were -- we would not have to worry about a sonic boom. tell us where this is coming from. jeff: nasa. researchers determined that according to their calculations there is going to be a huge surge in long distance travel specifically and air traffic in general over the next decade. in an effort to address that, they developed a design with lockheed martin that they say can, thanks to fluid dynamics and powerful computers can

disperse the sonic boom across the fuselage of the plan so that the resulting loud, overhead -- loud hum overhead you hear is not louder than a mercedes on the highway or the din in a restaurant. carol: so many industries have been disruptive whether it is technology and health care, not a ton has changed in the aerospace industry beyond designs a place to make them more efficient. but this could be a big change because you write in this story that this advancement could make a flight going used to west coast, cut it in half. jeff: the nasa researcher leading the project on there and told our reporter, thomas black, that effectively it would have the time spent to going from new york to l.a. cut in carol: new half. york to london, i felt like this was a very expensive, elite group but this would be something that would be used much more widely.

jeff: exactly, and dissipating the sonic boom is the key to that. the reason the concorde could only fly between jfk to europe, you could not open it up to the sonic boom level speed over u.s. soil. carol: up next, one of the only places on earth were you can ethically interact with elephants in the wild. oliver: london gets another set of crown jewels. we will tell you about the new five-star hotels. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i am carol massar. oliver: i am oliver renick. you can catch us on the radio on sirius fm, new york, boston, and am 960 in the bay area.

carol: in london and on asia in the bloomberg radio plus app. in the remarks section, senator peter coy writes about what the u.s. could learn from the french. peter coy, i think the idea of the french vacation keeps popping up. the friend to do it right. -- of the french do it right. they take a month off. peter: they do, and they enjoy it. i talked to a woman who runs a b&b in provence. actually a place we stayed. she said, look, it is almost a right, as if it is handed down from the french revolution of 1789, we take our vacation, nobody gets in the way. oliver: the europeans may be due do vacations may right. america does top rated gdp in the world, maybe unwilling to sacrifice my vacation to stay on

top of the food chain. peter: some of the people that i talked to acknowledge that america has a pretty high standard of living measured in gdp per capita. the question is, what are you willing to sacrifice for that? or do you need to sacrifice anything? for example, americans work fairly long hours. germans work for fewer hours per year than americans do, and yet they have an enviable lifestyle. not only is the gdp per capita quite strong, but they go home, pet the dog, go for jogs. tuneup their porsche in the driveway. oliver: now we know what peter coy does. carol: it is interesting that you bring this up because there has certainly been this debate with our own u.s. congress about, they get this nice little august recess. maybe they should be working longer to get things done. acid they work through some of -- as they work through some of

president trump's agenda. peter: the funny thing is, the recess, the formal idea of an august recess for congress, goes back only to 1971. before then, in the early years of congress, they just finished their work in the spring and went home. starting in the 1960's, it became more of a year-round job and they were sweating through washington august which is not a pleasant place to be. carol: right. peter: tempers were raised, nerves were frazzled. they said, this is crazy. we should take a break, regather ourselves, rejuvenate, talk to constituents. so they put this in. from the beginning of august through labor day, they are off. you always get some puritans saying, no, we have the people's work to do. oliver: speaking of vacations, in the pursuit section, a five star resort in thailand. carol: it is a must visit for

elephant lovers. emma: a lot has been in the news recently about elephant tourism. being not a good thing to do. you spend your money on, to go to places where you can ride elephants because elephants are not treated well in a lot of these resorts. in africa, there is a lot of poaching. in asia, where this resort is, it is called golden triangle there are a lot of elephants , held in captivity, and they are becoming street performers, it is just mistreated. anyway, this place, as you said, does not do that. it was created about 15 years ago with that in mind, as a sanctuary for mistreated elephants. and then the elephants there are rehabilitated. you can interact with them in a way that is not cruel. carol: so have breakfast and elephant comes up to you. emma: and eats with you. carol: i love it. emma: our travel writer, she is

obsessed with elephants so this is a bucket list item and she was so excited to go. she said it was kind of like changing to be so close to these humongous animals that are so intelligent also and to see how they interact with each other and how they interact with humans. and it is really an amazing place to go if you can, it is in thailand. carol: i wrote in my notes, plum assignment. cool for her. emma: i love the phrase of her story, responsible wildlife tourism. >> that is a big trend right now and travel in general. we mentioned in africa, a lot of safari resorts are on the forefront of animal conservation. this is one that is in southeast asia and that is what they're trying to do which is to create spaces for these animals that are safe and they are protected and you can also go and it is funded by the people that go, that is how they make their money and create these refuges, basically.

carol: also in pursuits since we are on this five-star theme. oliver: our digital editor for thethe is a look of new hotels that are all the talk of the city of london. >> the city of london is viewed as a place to get your business done and leave at the end of the day. it makes sense. it is where the banks are. lately, it is becoming a little bit cooler and these two do -- hotels wanted to capitalize 2 on that. maybe at the end of the day you will want to be here. oliver: it seems like a distinction between the greater london area and a specific part. what is the specific area? >> what the city of london is a district in london. it is on the thames and that is where the banks are. it is the oldest part of the city. when we refer to the city, we referred to banking and finance. carol: let's talk about two new crown jewels in london. one of them is a four seasons. >> the four seasons opened this year. it is a classic four seasons, a is very chic and posh. -- it is very chic and posh.

but it also has a private club aspect. there are people who live in the city can go and hang out too. it is trying to make a nod to the way the contemporary business travelers want to use a hotel. it has a cool lounge aspect to it and the spa stays open until 9:00 p.m. sometimes, you know, you're working during the day and not doing a spa appointment in the middle of the day. this hotel recognizes the people want to use hotels. carol: does it feel like london in the four seasons? what is the decor? >> it is a four poster bed type of thing. it is fancy. it feels posh. but it is cool. carol: talk to us about the ned. >> it is something people have been waiting for, for a long time. it is almost an entire city block. is a huge thing. almost 240 rooms. found by one of the founders of the soho and founded by the group that does the nomad hotel in new york and the lion in l.a., very cool, very trendy

hotel. carol: bloomberg businessweek is available on newsstands now. bloombergd online at businessweek as well as through our mobile app. a lot of cool stories. carol: i like what we just heard from emaar rosenbloom about the wildlife tourism, the elephant resort. it is rescuing elephants from bad situations. oliver: so cool. carol: letting them interact with tourists. a is a five-star resort and looks gorgeous and the pictures are amazing. but to doing things in the right way. oliver: it really is cool. carol: got to say, if you're investigating a robo advisor, this is a story you want to read. you think they are completely objective but maybe not. how about you? oliver: i really liked the story about samsung. my number one goes to the freighter, the tanker. $100 million at stake. an incredible hijackings. we do not know what happened, lives at stake, money at stake. a reporter in mexico looking at oil feeds and the black market. incredible and a dangerous

investigative report. it gladly ended up with a great story. carol: and credible reporting. oliver: more bloomberg television starts right now. ♪

♪ emily: i am emily chang and this the "best of bloomberg technology." where we bring you all of our top stories from the week in technology. coming up, amazon's revenue. what the second quarter means for the online retailers online -- online and founder -- bottome line and founder jeff bezos. will we see a preview of a bigger move? samsung is unscathed despite the crises within the first half of the year. business is