Lurking behind the financial crisis: the Fed puppeteer and the trader September 27, 2010 I WANTED it to be like that Quentin Tarantino movie: every person should come away with a different picture. I wanted to almost do it with no judgment.” Andrew Ross Sorkin is in London for the Samuel L Johnson literary awards after Too Big To Fail, his best-selling account of the financial crisis, was short-listed [...]
The housebuilding chief executive who can see clear blue skies ahead September 26, 2010 FOR A MAN who took over a housebuilder in the middle of a devastating financial and property crisis, David Ritchie, the chief executive of Bovis Homes, looks remarkably relaxed. But it is certainly fair to say the pain has eased in recent months for the firm, even though Ritchie remains in the middle of turning [...]
The airline boss with a hit list of 12 bid targets in his desk drawer September 13, 2010 It is clear that British Airways (BA) chief executive Willie Walsh always likes to keep his foot hard on the pedal. The Dublin-born airline boss is in the middle of a bitter 18-month dispute with his cabin crew, and only a few weeks ago received US and European regulatory clearance to pursue a transatlantic tie-up [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING September 6, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES HIRING RATES ARE FLAT IN THE UK Employers expect a “static” rate of recruitment for the remainder of this year, according to new research, underlining concerns about the momentum of economic recovery. The survey of 2,100 employers by Manpower, the recruitment company, is likely to intensify debate on whether the private sector can [...]
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 [...]