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You probably got one or two for Christmas — but even if you didn’t, chances are very good that you know someone who did.
Those Starbucks gift cards have become big business for the ubiquitous coffee company, hauling in more than $25 billion since the cards debuted 10-1/2 years ago.
Of that amount, about $5 billion was bought in the fiscal year that ended in October. So it doesn’t even include this holiday season, in which Starbucks expects Christmas Eve alone will exceed last year’s Dec. 24 record of 2.5 million cards sold in the U.S. and Canada.
That’s a lotta latte.
Oprah’s celebrity is pretty weighty
Ever wonder how Oprah Winfrey got so rich?
Just go online to watch her compelling new ad for Weight Watchers, released just in time to reach those feeling guilty about overindulging during the holidays.
Few can resist Oprah’s powers of persuasion, and that includes cold-blooded investors: Shares in the company soared 26.6 percent during the last trading week.
But there’s more. When investors learned in October that Oprah spent $43.2 million to buy a 10 percent stake in the company, they boosted the share price by 105 percent — an immediate $70 million paper gain for Oprah, according to USA Today.
Since then the stock has increased in value more than threefold, and Bloomberg News estimates Oprah’s stake in Weight Watchers is now worth about $150 million.