meek-investor

Will they , or won’t they ? Get married that is. The very public match making process between K and C is as riveting as any soap on TV. Readers of this blog would know that I’ve taken a fancy to mush in my old age. Especially since A Journey called Life and The Thoughtful Train have suggested that I better wear black than pink. This is another mushy post to prove that “macho men” can also mush ! K and C had gone out on a date about three weeks ago. K tried to hold C’s hand, but C pulled it back ; you see C is a “decent” girl and doesn’t hold hands on the first date. K , being an American, then wrote a long flowery love letter and then published it for the world to read. K said he was prepared to marry C and if C agreed and would pay C’s parents $16 bn as dowry. C was angered by the public announcement after just the first date. C promptly said NO and that she was prepared to die a spinster and would not marry K, especially with such a piddly dowry. Despite C’s brave words that she wa...

Gender or race discrimination at the workplace has received a lot of attention and any organisation that overtly does this is in for serious trouble. But a different form of discrimination has become widely prevalent in the last ten years. Age discrimination. The corporate world favours youth and tough luck if you are an older person. The problem with this is that everybody has to get “older” sometime or the other. The dice is loaded against you if you are considered too old. The inflexion point comes suddenly on you in the early forties. If, by then, you haven’t “made it” you are on a slippery slope. You get passed over on the grounds of being “too old” and that a younger person is a better future bet. And then by 50 you are a prime candidate for being laid off. Therein lies a profound sociological problem. By the grace of God, on an average we’ll live longer. Perhaps for 75 years or so. So if you lose your job, or leave when you are 50, you have another 25 years to go. In countries ...

There’s a spat going on between the US and China that is threatening to become a trade battle, if not a war. The US imposed tariffs of 35% on Chinese automobile tyres on the grounds that imports were surging and that the domestic industry had to be protected “temporarily”. China immediately appealed to the WTO and there the matter stands now. But China is a prickly nation. It is quick to take offence. It announced last week that its launching an investigation in American “chicken parts” being dumped in China and putting Chinese poultry farmers out of business. Of course, this was entirely unrelated to America’s action on its tyres. Reading this made me sit up. Is America capable of exporting something that undercuts China ?? How on earth was that possible ? But it indeed does seem to be the case. The “chicken parts” in question are wings and legs. Apparently these have no use in the US – they are virtually worthless and go for 2 cents a pound. But these are delicacies in China – one of...

Financial Times recently published its list of the top 50 women in world business . The usual toppers were all there – Indra Nooyi (Pepsico), Andrea Jung (Avon), Irene Rosenfeld ( Kraft), the highly controversial Ho Ching (Temasek – as our Singaporean friends will know). At No 14 stood Brenda Barnes, Chairman and CEO of Sara Lee, the makers of Kiwi shoe care, Douwe Egberts & Senseo coffee, Hillshire Farm meat, Good Knight mosquito coils and a whole host of famous brands. She’s a lady with a difference. And her story merits telling. In 1997, she was president of Pepsico North America. One of the top jobs in Pepsi. A glittering career. She would have surely risen even higher. But then she turned her back on the job and walked out. To spend time with her family – her three kids - and be a fulltime mom. Seven years later she came back. Sara Lee hired her. A year later she was Chairman and CEO. Consider this for a moment – the upper echelons of corporate America is a dog eat dog world. ...

Tags are a wonderful and frustrating thing at the same time. They seem to spring up from nowhere and have a life of their own. They go all over the place. Usually it’s a girl who starts it, with such gems as “What are you wearing ?”. I’ve now been tagged by Athivas . A wonderful blogger who writes lovely verses. She’s so very friendly and writes such superb comments to make any blogger’s day. So when she tagged me with one of the girliest of all tags, I had to discard all semblance of business, dress up in a “pink dress” , imagine myself as one of the Mills & Boon girls and write this :) Be warned – all answers are of the “pink pink variety”. Athivas is the most sporting of bloggers – so I know she won’t mind me having a little bit of fun at whoever originated this tag. 1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4? “She looked into his eyes longingly and her heart fluttered wildly. He held her hand and they gazed into the sunset” 2. Stretch your left arm out a...

The push for government support for newspaper continues and this week publishers and their supporters—including the Newspaper Association of America—went before the House Joint Economic Committee detailing how the current economic climate has harmed their finances and arguing for preferential changes to tax and pension laws. They asked to be allowed to extend application of the net operating loss provisions from 2 years to 5 years and for changes in laws to allow them to underfund pension funds for a greater period of time. Both would improve their operating performance and balance sheets. This is a case of the newspaper industry seeking long-term business benefits to solve a short-term crisis caused by poor management decisions and the recession. The leading newspaper firms and their representatives are making concerted efforts to dupe legislators and the public into believing their troubles are part of the general trends in the industry, rather than the result of management decisions...

These days many companies are global. Does it matter where they are based ? Or where their top executives live ? I believe it does. This post is prompted by the news that HSBC’s Chief Executive, Michael Geoghegan, will relocate from London to Hong Kong . This is a consequence of the fact that the future of the bank will more and more be in China. In most companies, there is a corporate headquarters. Usually this is a historic accident – the headquarters are where the company originated from , even though its current business may be in completely different places. The CEO and most of the senior management reside in HQ. Sure they travel a lot. But they live in the base. In the past, this made sense. The top team had to be physically together. Meet often. It doesn’t make sense today. It is much more practical to meet personally at regular intervals , but meet often virtually. That’s the way most companies are run anyway. Its important for the top team to understand the countries which ar...

In China the number 8 is considered very auspicious. That’s why the Beijing Olympics commenced at 8.00 PM on 8.8.08. When my dear blogger friend, Preeti , tags me with the “Eight tag”, I just had to pick it up. Everybody in the blogging world knows Preeti. I can fill a post with her credits, but let me just say, if you haven’t read 34 Bubblegums and Candies , do get hold of a copy; it’s a lovely read. With a little journalistic licence, I’ll twist the tag to fit into a business blog and hand the post over to my good friend Abracadabra Technology Ltd. It’s a small company. It’s a legal person (companies are). But nobody lets a company talk. So here’s the opportunity. 8 “TV shows” I like to watch in my office I don’t watch TV but see plenty of interesting stuff that goes on in the office. 1.The “boss” is flirting with his secy. Now what on earth is that ugly, bald, fat, oldie thinking ? 2. Those two maamis are at the coffee machine for the last 1 hour chatting away when they should be...

There is gathering momentum for product labels to be required to state their “carbon footprint”. So that consumers can feel guilty about contributing to climate change and perhaps do something about it. Nothing illustrates how difficult it is to calculate the environmental impact of daily life , than the attempt to label a milk carton with its carbon footprint. When it comes to environment impact, nothing is what it seems. Now, what can be the carbon footprint of a carton of milk. After all its as natural a product as can be. On first thought nothing at all. A little later it strikes us – yes the act of transporting it and packaging it surely has a carbon impact. And what about refrigeration – another significant carbon impact. Slowly milk is starting to look a little less saintly. But wait a minute. Maybe we should revert to the old Indian habit of getting fresh milk from a cow or buffalo milked in front of your house. Then no transportation, refrigeration and all that carbon spewin...

Sure public memory is short; but that short ? Especially when it comes to your hard(ly) earned money ? Twitter is raising funding at a valuation of $ 1bn . That’s right; ONE BILLION. How do you ascribe that sort of valuation to a company that hasn’t made a cent and that has no idea how to make a cent ? This is exactly what happened during the dot com craze. Get the eyeballs. To hell with revenues, let alone profits. Mad valuations. And when an occasional guy like Warren Buffet said the emperor is wearing no clothes, he was written off as an old geezer who “doesn’t get it “. Now has all this been forgotten ? One billion for Twitter. Did somebody say we are in the midst of a financial crisis ? I am gobsmacked. Forget learning any economics or going to business school. Just stand on a street corner and punt like crazy. I am an old geezer and I “don’t get it”. For, you see, I don't tweet.

A lot has been, and will be said about the social responsibility of businesses. But what about the social responsibility of consumers ? This article set me thinking Each one of us, as consumers, have the power to make or break businesses – every time we buy, or not buy, something, we hold in our hand the fate of every business in the supply chain of that product. Should we not exercise this power in a “responsible” way. Most of our purchasing decisions are purely dictated by what is good for us – cheapest price, the best quality, whatever. Nothing wrong with that. But its worth a thought if some other criteria might also come into the equation. The area where consumers are beginning to act is climate change. Like buying locally made goods. Shunning products that are harmful to the environment (like gas guzzling vehicles). Carbon offsets in flying. And so on. A few companies have tried to compete on a social theme. Companies like The Body Shop, Ben & Jerry ice cream, etc. But in the...

President Sarkozy of France has proposed “Gross National Happiness” as an alternate measure to GDP in measuring progress of a nation. He was releasing the report of a study he had commissioned by two Nobel Laureates – Jospeh Stiglitz and Amartya Sen - on this subject. Now even for the flamboyant Sarkozy this is something. Presumably it is an attempt to push the French higher up on the world rankings as 35 hour week, August month long holidays, fine wine and such other niceties contribute to happiness, but perhaps not to GDP. This is not a new concept. The world leader in this is Bhutan – its former King was the originator of the idea and Bhutan has been adopting this for many years now. Click here for the Bhutanese logic of this – it makes an impressive read. The trouble is 99% of the world population cannot point to Bhutan on a map. Therefore it remained as an isolated concept which the irrepressible Sarkozy has caught on to. Of course there are many problems with GDP. A common crit...

Norman Borlaug , one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century died on Saturday in the US. He was 95. He was the inventor of the high yielding, disease resistant, varieties of wheat which enabled the Green revolution of the 1960s. While his work benefitted the world – three countries gained the most from his work – Mexico, India and Pakistan. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. India awarded him its second highest civilian honour, Padma Vibushan. Its quite likely, that unless you are an agricultural scientist yourself, you have never heard of the man. But he would rank right up there with the greatest scientists of the 20th century. It would be hard to find another scientist, even Einstein, whose work directly improved the lives of so many millions of people. For he helped purge the scourge of famine from India and Pakistan. He started his work in Mexico in the early 60s. Between 1965 and 70, his work was mainly in India and Pakistan. During this period wheat yields dou...

This is senti Sunday time. Off day from business, and so a different post. Every blogger’s lifeline is that wonderful person who takes the trouble to read and comment. And I have been blessed by your kindness – by your warm words, by your sharing of an incisive thought, by your encouragement and by the many “aaawww” moments when your lovely comment touches me. So want to say Thank You. Xie Xie. In an amateurish, but heartfelt way. A wonderful couple these two are Pip pip toodle oo; oh very British From her, of blogging, I became aware Thank you Preeti and Satish A big fella, he sure is All bravado, but in fact a softie Those expert comments are all his Thank you, the bloke called kiwi From far away in the US of A Months ago, he b’came my first “follower” For all his wonderful words I say Thank you le embrouille blogueur A fellow business blogger is he Extolling the virtues of Not Being Sarkari A more helpul blogger, there cannot be Thank you Sidhus, Adesh & Zoobie Among a billio...

If you would like to comment on some blogs (not mine), or do various other things on the internet, you are required to prove that you are a human being. How do you do that ? By looking at a mangled word and typing the text into a box. Since humans are better at pattern recognition than machines, it is then presumed that you are a human. Though judging by the number of times I get it wrong, I must be at least half machine. Apparently this sort of stuff is called CAPTCHA – Completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart). Trust somebody to come up with an abbreviation like that. As a digression, you may want to read an old rant of mine against meaningless jargon like this here . Now this set me thinking on various other strange stuff we have to prove in daily life. • I am always amazed at the need for a birth certificate to prove that you have been born. • Ditto death certificate to prove that you are dead. • One of the companies I know requires pensioners to ...

This is the title of a very interesting article written by Prof Prabhudev Konana of the University of Texas at Austin. Click here to read his article. He compares two massive streams of innovations in the last two decades – the internet and the financial sector. The Internet has revolutionalised our way of life, created jobs and wealth for a lot of people and , in general, has created unprecedented social good. Financial innovation has created lots of wealth and done good, but it has done bad as well. Prof Konana wonders whether the rewards for financial innovation have been disproportionate and whether our systems for rewarding innovation are appropriate. Thought provoking article ( the Professor has written it for the average reader and not a scholar – so its refreshingly devoid of 25 letter words that business professors often inflict on us, mortals). It nicely captures one of the dilemmas I have been musing on – is the reward system for the financial sector “right” ? On the one ...

Thus screamed the headlines from a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in the UK. In their report , they made fantastic allegations – Women earn 80% less performance pay than men in the financial services industry in the UK. There was also a 30% gap in basic pay between women and men. Every newspaper in the UK carried this story of how women are discriminated against. This is precisely the sort of research and conclusions that we can do without. I have some experience of this sector and this country to know that this large a discrimination does not exist. So I read deeper. What has this worthy Commission done ? They’ve simply added up the salaries of women they surveyed and compared with the men they surveyed. And found this difference. So what does this say ? It does not say discrimination. It just says women are doing less senior jobs than the men. Or a greater proportion of women are doing lesser paying jobs than men. The right comparison , in case there was gender d...

On 17th October 1988, late in the day, Monday, Philip Morris announced an unsolicited bid to acquire Kraft. It set off a soap opera , the likes of which have not been seen since. October 1988 was an unbelievable month in business history. Two weeks earlier, on October 3, Grand Metropolitan (now Diageo) launched a hostile bid for Pillsbury. But then on October 20th, the atom bomb fell. The management of RJR Nabisco announced a bid to take the company private. That set off a bidding war with KKR, a private equity firm, who ultimately acquired RJR Nabisco for a staggering $25 bn. For 10 years that was the largest acquisition in the world by far. Between October and December of 2008, for the first time, the front pages in newspapers around the world were filled with business news. With three large hostile bids going on simultaneously, daily gossip, who did what, who was seen with who, became staple news. News helicopters hovered above company headquarters taking pictures. The soap opera wa...

Yes that’s right. Lehman brothers. The same company that went bankrupt. You could have made a profit of 600% in a couple of months. Welcome to the insanity that sometimes grips markets. And trust the finance world to dignify the madness with a high sounding name. Its called the “lottery ticket rally” . Lehman Brothers shares were languishing at 5 cents for most of the year. Last week, they touched 32 cents. If you bought at 5 and sold at 32 , you could have multiplied your money 6 times. They ended the week at 14 cents. Even if you missed the 32 and sold at 14, you multiplied your money a respectful 3 times. Never mind the underlying economics. Big parts of Lehman’s erstwhile businesses have been bought by Barclays and Nomura. What’s left is all sorts of losses being unwound. Most certainly the rump left has negative net worth. By all laws of economics their shares must be worth nothing. And there’s nothing secretive about this – the travails of Lehman have been well documented. And y...

One of the undisputed pleasures in life is when you enter an aircraft and turn left instead of right. For all of us not privileged to be in that position, we can console ourselves that only an idiot would fly first class these days. Its obscenely expensive. HORRENDOUSLY so. And what do you get for it ? - A flat bed, which is now pretty much standard in business - The oldest stew in the crew on the grounds that the seniormost serves First Class. The prettiest ones can meanwhile be found in business. - Some unpronounceable wine. Alright that might be a real goodie. I don't know. Le embrouille blogueur might ! - Same average food - served on nice cutlery. - A nightsuit that you can change into to sleep,that looks a bit like the stuff you buy at the end of Commercial Street / Ranganathan Street / Shangxiajie lu - A toileteries kit that's no different from business and increasingly looking like the stuff the state barber uses on the roadside. Thats it. For this privilege you pay so...

Fundamental market changes are pushing radio stations towards an uncertain future and managers and owners need to begin developing strategic responses to developments in their industry. The challenges are being caused by declining demand for radio offerings due to lifestyle changes, the wide availability of substitutable audio platforms, and the primary content currently being offered. Audience behavior toward radio is changing and many U.S. stations now only make money for 4 to 6 hours each day. Overall, audiences are spending less time with radio and exhibiting less station loyalty than they did in the past, and young audiences are particularly difficult to attract and serve. A major impetus of change is that audiences for music worldwide are progressively replacing radio listening with personalized playlists they have created on their computers, MP3 players, and mobile phones and by CDs on which they burned those favorites. They select music that suits their individual tastes and ma...

What's the most precious thing in the world ? Depending on the context and the person, you can get hundreds of answers. If I ask the question in the context of Corporate Social Responsibility - What is the most precious thing a company can give to the community?, an expected answer would be money. It would not be mine. Mine would be time. My eyes were opened on how organised volunteering has become in some parts of the world from Chris Jarvis' excellent blog - Realizing Your Worth . Chris is a practitioner; that's his business and you can see from his posts, how much can, and ought to, be done. What social organisations often lack are some specific skills and numbers of committed workers. They have passion in plenty. They are committed to causes in ways I can only marvel. They usually feel they are short of just money. No; they are often short of organisational and management skills and of specific technical skills. Very often such organisations have grown from a small grou...