Why do some big successful brands go bust?

Toast is back for a new series, taking a look at the decisions that often left investors burnt.

I'm Sean Farrington, a BBC business journalist. I'll be hearing about the hype.

They're going to do the deal that makes them the most money at that point of time.

And I'm picking what went wrong, talking to owners and employees to ask, what can we learn?

It was being undercut by similar rivals. It just couldn't survive.

Toast. Listen first on BBC Sounds.

Welcome to More or Less, the show that takes a closer look at the numbers in the news and in the world around us.

I'm Kate Lamble.

Sunday the 18th of March was election day in Russia, where Vladimir Putin was running for his fourth term as president.

With a limited field opposing him, it seemed almost impossible that Putin would be beaten.

The real question was how many people would turn up to cast their vote.

As the day went on across the huge country in 11 different time zones,

millions of citizens headed to the polls.

And so did the journalists, people like Maria Svetkova, who works for Reuters.

I was a part of the team of 17 Reuters reporters who went to five Russian regions,

well, four Russian regions and Crimea, the annexed peninsula.

From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Maria and her colleagues watched 12 different polling stations

recording everyone who voted.

We were counting voters at the moment when they cast their ballots.

We had mechanical hand counters.

Sometimes crews use it in planes to count passengers.

...