Unless you’re a shareholder, point your gun elsewhere
During the last few days many of the large Investment Banks have announced staff bonuses. And in many cases these have been at, or near, record levels. This has led to public outcrys.
As a response, some governments have announced special taxes on these bonuses. And the triumverate of governments, central banks, and financial services industry regulators have all railed against the bonuses.
But why are the bonuses so high? Who should be the real target of the outrage? Read more
Taking your watch and telling you the time
Just a bloglet today – a more substantial post will be arriving soon.
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I subscribe to Get Abstract (registration required) which provides 5-page abstracts of business books, allowing me to keep up with trends without spending my entire life reading books. Usually I find it very useful. But today I received an abstract that included the most banal statement ever. Read more
A cheaper car than the Tata Nano
Renault has announced that it will produce a cheaper vehicle than the Tata Nano, which is currently the world’s cheapest car.
This story from Autonews (registration required) reports that the CEO of Renault and Nissan, Carlos Ghosn, states that an agreement has been signed with Bajaj Auto whereby Read more
To whom are the ratings agencies legally accountable?
So McClatchy Newspapers has discovered that in late 2007 some analysts at Moody’s Investors Service were “downsized” for expressing concerns about the accuracy of the ratings being applied to some of the CDOs (collateralised debt obligations), especially those comprising MBSes (mortgage backed securities).
The news group alleges that Read more
What about tobacco?
Recently I was re-reading Theodore Levitt’s epochal Marketing Myopia and considering the basic premise that companies are not defining their markets correctly (by being product-orientated or service-oriented rather than customer-oriented) and therefore not following the market as it migrates to an alternative product or service to fulfil the same underlying desire.
Then it struck me that maybe there is an exception for which a replacement has not been produced, and maybe cannot be produced … Read more
Why should mergers or carve-outs differ from other change programs?
Every report on the state of mergers and acquisitions points out that a proportion of mergers fail to deliver the intended benefits. Similarly, reports on the success of projects convey a similar message – some projects fail. Mergers are amongst the largest and most complex projects that companies must implement, and are not ‘run of the mill’ for most companies, so shouldn’t we expect mergers to fail – at least until we can implement projects successfully? Read more
“Transferring GM’s jewels to Russia via Opel”
The media report that General Motors was loathe to sell (a full or partial stake in) its European Opel operations to the Magna consortium because it is concerned that this will provide a conduit via which GM’s intellectual property (“IP”) might end up in the hands of GAZ, a competitor to the Chevrolet brand in Russia. Today the media report that GM has agreed to sell to the Magna-led consortium, but that there are conditions attached to the sale. I find this approach somewhat strange, and wonder whether it is a smokescreen. Read more
“First car for the second world family, second car for the first world family”
The Tata Nano is likely to change the lives of an immense number of families in the developing world, with the possibility that the Indian car market will increase by 65%, according to Standard and Poor’s Indian arm, CRISIL (source India Times). And much has been written about Ratan Tata’s dream of migrating Indian families from two wheels to four.
But how about the developed world? I believe that it will be disruptive here too – by fundamentally altering the tax applied to private vehicles. Read more
