Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Wednesday, October 22nd, and this is your

FT News briefing. Netflix earnings fell short of expectations, and Unilever has a big old

ice cream headache. Plus, South Africa's black economic empowerment policy had good intentions,

but critics say it's falling short.

So all you've pretty much done is you've traded a class of wealthy white oligarchs, I suppose,

for black oligarchs. I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to start your day.

Not even K-pop demon hunters were enough to save Netflix last quarter. The U.S. Media Group reported earnings yesterday.

It said its operating margin was 28%.

That fell short of what it told investors to expect, which was 31.5%. The disappointing numbers were because of costs related to an ongoing dispute with Brazilian tax authorities.

Netflix said without that, its operating margins would have been ahead of its forecast.

It wasn't all bad news, though.

The company's revenue grew more than 17% last quarter, thanks in part to Netflix's most successful movie ever, K-pop demon hunters. There was also growing membership, higher prices, and more advertising revenue. But investors overall were not happy with the results. Netflix shares fell as much as 6% and after-hours trading.

The UK's Unilever is delaying the spinoff of its ice cream division because of the U.S. government shutdown.

The Magnum Ice Cream Company was supposed to go public in a few weeks, but now those plans are

on ice. Here to tell us more as the FTs Madeline Speed. Hey, Madeline. Hi, Mark. So Madeline,

just tell me a little bit more about what Unilever said yesterday. How has the government shut down in the

US impacted Unilever's spinoff plans? Yeah, so basically the company said yesterday morning that the

Securities and Exchange Commission was unable to register the shares in its new business, the

Magnum Ice Cream Company, to trade on the New York Stock Exchange because of this government

shutdown. This is because the SEC has furloughed most of its staff, which basically

means they haven't got anybody there to carry out basic operations, including, for example,

the review and approval of IPOs. So this isn't just affecting Unilever, but all companies who

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