Campari’s chief is taking a breather before returning to the M&A trail October 25, 2009 Having forked out a cool $2bn (£1.2bn) on 16 separate acquisitions over the past 15 years, it is no wonder that Campari – the world’s sixth largest drinks firm – is now calling for a temporary halt to the spending. Its chief executive, Bob Kunze-Concewitz, recently struck a cautious note due to the downturn that [...]
Back in the real world: how the rest of the country is coping a year on September 14, 2009 LET ME tell you about two pieces of writing. The first, a sign in an independent wine shop in an expensive part of London which I regularly cycle past on my way to work. It reads: “Just because we’re in recession doesn’t mean we have to drink bad wine.” The second is a piece of [...]
Back in the real world: how the rest of the country is coping a year on September 14, 2009 LET ME tell you about two pieces of writing. The first, a sign in an independent wine shop in an expensive part of London which I regularly cycle past on my way to work. It reads: “Just because we’re in recession doesn’t mean we have to drink bad wine.” The second is a piece of [...]
BARCLAYS HIRES CLINTON SPINNER PENN FOR POST-CRUNCH COUNSEL August 5, 2009 BARCLAYS has brought in the big guns. Actually, it’s just the one gun, but they don’t come much bigger – Mark Penn, the American political pollster-cum-public relations guru who numbers both the Clintons, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Microsoft boss Bill Gates among his powerful clients. Penn is the worldwide chief executive of [...]
Six myths about the financial crisis September 6, 2009 A comfortable, corporatist consensus is building up about how to deal with the financial crisis. Led by Alistair Darling and his French and German counterparts at the G20 finance ministers’ summit on the weekend, this consensus is essentially that the financial crisis “proves” that global free market capitalism has “failed” and that everything is the [...]
Six myths about the financial crisis September 6, 2009 A comfortable, corporatist consensus is building up about how to deal with the financial crisis. Led by Alistair Darling and his French and German counterparts at the G20 finance ministers’ summit on the weekend, this consensus is essentially that the financial crisis “proves” that global free market capitalism has “failed” and that everything is the [...]
Sir Alan gives bluster boy Ben his marching orders May 20, 2009 IF there’s one place you really don’t want to see Sir Alan Sugar (other than in the role of London mayor), it’s a maternity ward – he’s not famed for his bedside manner. But for this week’s task, he called the teams to University College Hospital to discuss babies, or how to flog stuff to [...]
A Barclays sell-off would be a mistake May 14, 2009 IF Barclays does end up selling its Barclays Global Investors division to a rival such as BlackRock, it will be faced with two major problems. The first would be one of credibility: how can Barclays continue to operate as a universal bank if it lacks an asset manager? Selling iShares makes some sense; the business was [...]
Southwest is best for the ultimate seaside bolthole June 18, 2009 EARLIER this week, a beach in Cornwall came up for sale. On 13 July, the 76 acres of Gwithian beach will be sold by property consultant Colliers CRE in its Portman Square auction house, with the price expected to be in the region of £50,000. A bunch of dunes might not be your idea of [...]
City’s most successful accountant still has plenty of fire in his belly July 20, 2009 IT IS EASY to tell when you are nearing , Deloitte boss John Connolly’s office because an awful lot of people you bump into in the firm’s corridors begin to ask about his welfare. “Is John in?” asks one, a tad nervously. “What mood is he in today?” asks another. There is a feeling of [...]