GOLDMAN’S KAFKA OFF TO GREENER PASTURES
IT’S out of the revolving door for one of Goldman’s chief spinmeisters, Paul Kafka, who’s off to pastures new at rival UBS.
I hear Kafka is now on gardening leave after almost four years as Goldman’s European head of corporate comms. He’ll be stepping up to the plate at UBS later in the year, as head of marketing and communications for the investment bank – a neat little state of affairs, as it means he won’t be stepping on any toes, notably those of the group media relations chief Dominik von Arx.
Kafka, who’s never knowingly short of an opinion, joined Goldman in 2006 from the London Stock Exchange, where he looked after public policy and corporate comms. It’s been a rough ride since, what with all the hoo-hah over bonuses, bankers’ divine rights and pesky fraud allegations.
Good job UBS last month finally achieved closure on its long-running tax-dodging spat with the US government, otherwise Kafka would have been jumping out of the frying pan right into the fire.
RIOTOUS AFFAIR
The British Bankers’ Association annual conference yesterday had some of the country’s biggest bank bosses, a smattering of regulatory chiefs, plenty of schmoozing opportunities and a number of overly drawn out speeches, but it wouldn’t have been complete in this day and age without a good ol’ protest march going on outside.
I say a march, though the demonstration was really more of a farce. No hordes of furious rioters outside the Merchant Taylors’ Hall; no swearing or policemen or tear gas or water cannons. Nothing, in fact, but a bedraggled group of about six protesters dressed up in what looked like neon clubwear, attempting to hand out campaign newspapers to the arriving delegates.
Fitting, then, that the demonstrators got tired of their lack of success long before the beginning of the conference and resorted to pretending that their papers were official merchandise.
“British Bankers’ Association newspaper, madam?” one of them asked The Capitalist, minding his Ps and Qs…
PASS THE BATON
Lord Turner of Ecchinswell made his appearance at the BBA conference looking as jovial as ever, so perhaps noone had told him of the more hostile reception he received earlier in the day.
First BBA chief executive Angela Knight, making her opening remarks, insisted that “the blame game has gone on long enough… banking is socially useful”, making reference to Turner’s broadside at the banks earlier in the year.
Later, new Treasury Select Committee chairman Andrew Tyrie picked up the baton.
“In my view, [the socially useless comment] did not take the public debate on banking any further, even if it meant something, which I’m not sure he did,” Tyrie huffed.
“It is not the regulator’s job to moralise; it is the regulator’s job to set the rules and ensure they’re followed.”
SUN SEEKER
Whispers ricocheted around the conference room as RBS chief Stephen Hester stepped up to the lectern to deliver his eagerly-awaited speech looking bronzed and healthy.
It transpires the hard-working bank boss managed to snatch a few days of summer holiday in the South of France at the weekend before having to hotfoot it back to London and the daily grind.
“That’s why my face is this burnt orange colour,” Hester chortled.
SNOW SHOW
Scottish Conservative peer Lord Forsyth is up to his old tricks again and planning a fundraising trip at Christmas to climb Mount Vinson, the highest mountain in Antarctica.
Forsyth is no stranger to gruelling ascents, having already scaled Argentina’s Mount Aconcagua and Kenya’s Mount Kilimanjaro some years back.
“I am well into my nine month training programme and will be setting off for Mount Vinson on Boxing Day and returning in the second half of January, assuming I am not trapped by bad weather,” says Forsyth, who is aiming to raise £250,000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care and Indian children’s charity CINI UK.
That time of year may be summer in Antarctica, but temperatures of -30°C are not uncommon, so he’d be well advised to wrap up warm.
HAIR RAISING
An invitation pops into The Capitalist’s inbox, trouncing the competition for the title of the most bizarre summons to arrive all year.
The event is an exhibition of a painting by artist Teri Scoble, who has completed a portrait of business secretary Vince Cable (left).
Nothing strange about that, you might think, apart from the fact that the Lib Dem minister has agreed to provide Scoble with tufts of his own hair to paint into his hairline and eyebrows, and threads of fabric from his home to decorate the curtains in the picture.
Now how much dosh would that little collector’s gem raise at an auction at Christies, I wonder?