Some institutional shareholders are complaining about Dell’s proposed buy-out, which would see the computer giant disappear from the public equity market behind a $24.4 billion pile of cash. But T. Rowe Price, Southern Asset Management and others think the cash pile isn’t big enough, and they are pressing CEO Michael Dell and his private equity […]
Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins announced his plan to transform the troubled UK bank. He gets high marks for communication, but the substance was a little thin.
Most banks work hard to say they’re different from the competition. But Barclays chief Antony Jenkins wants us to know his bank just like every other. It’s a clever communication strategy for deflecting attention from the bank’s woes. But what does he do after that?
Secretary of State Hilary Clinton lashed out at a Republican Congressman during testimony about the attack on the U.S. mission in Bengazhi, Libya. She flashed her temper, produced a memorable sound bite for the media and won the day. Anger doesn’t always succeed as a communication tactic. But here are four rules for making it […]
The sinners continue to repent in the great Investment Banking Reformation. The latest penitent is Andrea Orcel, the head of investment banking at UBS, who appeared before Britain’s Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards and promised to ‘put integrity before profit.’ But it is brutal economics, not soul cleansing, that is changing UBS and other institutions.
Poor AIG. It was just starting to get its mojo back, launching a new ad campaign to thank taxpayers for rescuing the firm in the darkest days of the financial crisis. Then came the awkward news that it might sue taxpayers for driving too hard a bargain. Now the ad campaign seems dishonest and AIG […]
Mahony Partners will soon adjourn to celebrate Christmas, and by tradition we will read from A Christmas Carol, the classic story of the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge, a pitiless banker. One small character in that great story has always been my favorite: Mr. Fezziwig, the merchant to whom the young Ebenezer is apprenticed. Fezziwig not […]
Private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management recently announced it would sell Freedom Group, the maker of Bushmaster rifles, the weapon used in the Newtown killings. Thanks to some deft PR work, the news coverage was brief, limiting the damage to Cerberus’s reputation from its association with the tragedy. But the episode raises questions about the […]
We suffering taxpayers were treated to some rare good news this week, when the U.S. Treasury sold the last of its holdings in AIG, earning a cool $23 billion profit. Not bad for a risky corporate turnaround. But there to rain on the parade was Hank Greenberg, the former CEO of the insurance giant, who […]
The cross-channel brawl that has broken out between London mayor Boris Johnson and a French central bank official has everything a British tabloid editor loves: colorful protagonists, money, national pride and a favorite adversary – the French. While it’s tempting to read the story as a blunder by the French, it’s a calculated move, and […]