JAMIE CARR: Dry as you like it

Diamond: Kimberly-Clark

When Shakespeare produced his seven ages of man routine, he kicked off with the infant mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms, then tracked life’s progress all the way to “second childishness and mere oblivion;/Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”.

Not much has changed in the 425 years since he wrote it, but a modern update might suggest the twilight years now include incontinence pants produced by Kimberly-Clark.

The paper-based consumer staples giant is known for such brands as Andrex toilet paper, Kleenex tissues and Huggies nappies, but with birth rates declining and customers trading down to supermarket brands, there’s not much fizz in the junior end of the market.

In stark contrast, the more mature end of the market for what it describes as bladder-leakage products is absolutely flying thanks to an ageing population, and Kimberly-Clark brands such as Depend and Plenitud have soaked up more than 50% of the market in the US.

Back in Shakespeare’s day there wasn’t much an apothecary could do for an elderly patient apart from sticking on a few leeches, but now the wonders of modern medicine are keeping us in the departure lounge way past the threescore years and 10 that used to be regarded as a decent innings.

Kimberly-Clark has announced plans to focus on its faster-growing and more lucrative businesses, and adult nappies are right in the sweet spot, with the market expected to grow to $20bn by 2029.

PRINT HEAD: Breaking the spell

Dog: Builder.ai

With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it may seem a little rash to have invested heavily in a company run by someone who insisted on being addressed by the title “chief wizard”. Yet somehow Sachin Dev Duggal, the founder and chief wizard of Builder.ai, managed to raise more than $500m from the likes of Microsoft and the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar on the promise that he could use AI to allow customers to create apps as easily as ordering pizza.

Sadly much of the revenue that the company had previously reported appears to have been generated more by a few waves of the wizard’s magic wand than by anything approaching reality, and it was forced to revise its estimate for 2024 revenues down from $220m to about $55m, and its 2023 sales numbers down from $180m to $45m.

Its lenders have decided that enough is enough, and stepped in to put the company into insolvency proceedings amid a slew of allegations about the legitimacy of its revenue recognition.

Duggal stepped down as CEO in February, and has subsequently moved to the UAE, where he is rumoured to be in talks with investors about buying the company out of liquidation.

It would certainly be a remarkable feat of wizardry if he can persuade anyone to back him at this stage.

Builder.ai has said that it is “focused on the orderly wind down and preserving value for employees”, but it will take a lot of hard work to regain any semblance of credibility after such a comprehensive and well-publicised fall from grace.