How AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes shrugged off the global recession September 5, 2010 IF Tony Fernandes, the chief executive of pioneering low-cost carrier AirAsia, ever suffered from shyness as child, he is certainly cured of it now. The UK-educated Malaysian entrepreneur, who founded the short haul airline in 2001 and its longhaul sister AirAsia X six years later, dominates the meeting room of his West End PR agency [...]
BP remains under pressure months after plugging Gulf of Mexico leak August 30, 2010 THINGS can’t get much worse for Carl-Henric Svanberg, chairman of BP. After receiving a drubbing for his handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, he is also nursing a £2m paper loss on shares he bought just before and just after the 20 April explosion. The beleaguered oil giant’s share price staged a mini [...]
One in ten adults say they won’t retire August 24, 2010 ONE?in ten adults don’t expect to retire, according to a survey, while almost half say they don’t know when they will be able to give up work. According to the survey from Baring Asset Management, 10 per cent of the working population – equivalent to some 3.5m people – don’t plan to stop working at [...]
The car insurance boss who wants to motor into new foreign markets August 22, 2010 It is a case of ‘Recession? What recession?’ for motor insurance firm Admiral, which is in the middle of taking on 750 staff in the UK alone this year. And that means an awful lot of meetings for the Cardiff-based firm’s 53-year-old chief executive Henry Engelhardt. The Chicago-born boss meets every one of his new [...]
It’s time to reject the Van Gogh fallacy August 18, 2010 HOW far should your boss mess with your mind? Or to put it another way, is your mental health your employer’s business? First up, let’s have some numbers. Estimates of how many of the British workforce suffer mental health problems a year vary from one in three to one in six – probably it depends [...]
The late-night bank manager is planning a High Street revolution August 8, 2010 THE revolution in High Street banking has begun. That’s the bold claim of Craig Donaldson, chief executive of Metro Bank, the first addition to Britain’s retail banking scene in 100 years. And ground zero is the corner of High Holborn and Southampton Row, where its inaugural branch opened a couple of weeks ago. “The revolution has [...]
Why I’m bearish about house prices August 5, 2010 ONE of the big lessons of the recession – and of several previous downturns, including Britain’s crisis in the early 1990s and the secondary banking crisis of the 1970s – is just how important property is to modern economies. Bubbles in housing or commercial property are invariably devastating; they almost always take the economy down [...]
Expat Expert: the power of local knowledge July 22, 2010 THANKS to globalisation and modernisation, individuals now have unparalleled levels of choice when it comes to relocation overseas. And London remains an extremely popular destination for individuals looking to experience life in another country – not only is it a hub for transport into mainland Europe and across the Atlantic, it has also retained its [...]
Keep your pension in funds July 15, 2010 THE government this week announced that it will abolish compulsory annuitisation, giving millions of pensioners more flexibility in how they generate their income. Annuitisation by age 75 has technically not been compulsory since 2006, but the only other permissable option, an Alternatively Secured Pension, was so highly taxed upon death as to mean only 4,000 [...]
Mortgage overhaul hurts entrepreneurs July 15, 2010 NEWS that the Financial Services Authority (FSA) plans to overhaul the mortgage market may have left some entrepreneurs a little uneasy. From now on, to get a mortgage you need to pass an “affordability” check and self-certified mortgages will be banned. Business groups were quick to state the drawbacks of these plans: “Business owners who [...]