All Posts / Bank of England / Banking / FSA / Financial Services / Regulation —
23
Aug 10
Banking tales from Colorado
As I cast my line into the deep pool, amid the blazing sunshine in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the gillie reassured this amateur fisherwoman that the trout were “stupid” at this time of year due to the spawning season. Rather like rutting deer in the fall, he added. Or like board members who allow themselves to be distracted by new mistresses in the midst of company crises.
Choosing the right person for the job is crucial.
With key FSA powers now being incorporated into the Bank of England, questions are being raised about the stance of the ever more powerful Mervyn King, an academic economist. The Governor of the Bank of England does not believe it is a good thing to have multibillion dollar banks headquartered in the UK due to the bail-out cost in troubled times. Continue reading...
All Posts / Banking / FSA / Financial Services / Governance / Non-executive / Regulation —
13
Jul 10
Regulatory overkill in banking
Soberbia can best be translated as a mixture of arrogance and pride. It is one of the seven deadly sins and prevalent in Spain (and in half Spaniards like me). Yet in the World Cup final, the Spanish team won on the back of humility.
It is admittedly natural to be humble when failure stares you in the face every four years – a football-mad nation that consistently lost on the international scene, bar the 2008 European Championship – but it is rather more difficult for those who are champions in their fields. Continue reading...
Economic Stimulus / Financial Services / Governance / Non-executive —
20
May 10
Investing in vice
Late one night, over a cigar and a 1958 Armagnac in the craftily hidden Garden Bar of the Lanesborough Hotel, I was told of a great investment opportunity. The Vice Fund, a mutual fund that had outperformed its benchmarks by “an order of magnitude.”
As a rule, investment tips exchanged in bars where billionaires lurk darkly should be ignored. But the appeal of a fund that invests in industries that are automatically excluded from corporate responsibility indices, ones that appeal to self-destruction and the destruction of others (smoking and arms manufacturers), as well as addiction (gaming and alcohol), tickled my fancy. Philip Morris is its biggest holding, along with Lockheed Martin and Carlsberg, among others. Continue reading...
All Posts / Economic Stimulus / Financial Stimulus / Governance / Non-executive / Regulation —
22
Mar 10
Corporate governance: a Lent tale
Giving up chocolate for Lent proved impossible so I decided to do something more proactive, namely trying to be more patient. Note my realism: trying rather than being, else it would have been as impossible. I presume Prime Minister Gordon Brown is on a similar quest, following recent allegations of phones being flung amid volcanic rages.
Patience is all the more apropos, I realised, when a wise chairman told me it was one of the attributes I would need to make a success of my new career, as I cosseted prospective non-executive directors through the process of board level headhunting. Continue reading...
