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The defence industry: Guns and sugar

May 23rd, 2013
in
IMAGINE that Apple could sell iPhones in Brazil only if it ploughed 20% of its projected revenues there into local technology firms. That may sound absurd, but this is what happens when governments buy arms from foreign contractors.

Activist investors: Let’s do it my way

May 23rd, 2013
in
EVEN those in charge of listed corporations have bosses, however much they dislike thinking of their shareholders that way. So most chief executives hope to avoid the attention of “activist” investors—mostly hedge funds that specialise in shaking up listed companies in the hope of a share-price jolt. Sadly for those who dwell in corner offices, activists are getting brasher.

JPMorgan Chase: Unbreakable Dimon

May 23rd, 2013
in
ON THE face of it, the question seemed a simple one of corporate governance: should JPMorgan Chase, America’s biggest bank, split the roles of chief executive and chairman?

Chasing debtors: Cash-strapped Khashoggi?

May 23rd, 2013
in
Belt tightening REMEMBER Adnan Khashoggi, who amassed a fortune in the 1970s and 1980s brokering arms sales to his fellow Saudis? He was never quite the world’s richest man but he may have been its biggest spender, splashing out $250,000 a day to maintain his lifestyle. At one point his many residences included 16 flats knocked into one in New York.

Greek banks redux: System reboot

May 23rd, 2013
in
FOR the past three years, foreign money has been flooding out of Greece. But the tide may be turning. This week senior managers from Alpha, the country’s third-largest bank, were in London and New York to raise private capital for a rights issue. Their roadshow is part of a much grander enterprise: the recapitalisation of an entire banking system.That became necessary once European rescuers decided in late 2011 that a second bail-out of Greece would require a big write-down of its public debt. The write-down brought the Greek banks low, because they held much of the debt.

Buttonwood: Apocalypse, not yet

May 23rd, 2013
in
IS THERE a bond bubble and is it going to burst soon? The Spectator, a British political weekly, ran a cover story citing the existence of a bubble back in September 2011. Yields are even lower now than they were then.Calling the top of an asset bubble is extremely hard, as sceptics of the dotcom boom in the late 1990s will recall.

Companies and tax: Cook lightly grilled

May 23rd, 2013
in
No cooking the books at Apple, its boss insists APPLE pays “all the taxes we owe—every single dollar,” its boss, Tim Cook, told the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations on May 21st.

Free exchange: Making pay work

May 23rd, 2013
in
OF ALL a firm’s inputs, its workers’ effort is perhaps the oddest. It is as vital as land, factories or machines, but much harder to control. It is often impossible even to measure. A manager can gauge the firm’s output, but not the effort people put in, beyond crude gauges such as the time they spend on the job.

Awards

May 23rd, 2013
in
Zanny Minton Beddoes, our economics editor, is the Harold Wincott journalist of the year for 2012. Alexandra Suich, our media editor, is the Harold Wincott young journalist of the year.

Remittances: Channelling cash

May 23rd, 2013
in
THE world economy may be struggling, but foreign remittances continue to grow. In all, 250m migrant workers will send home $500 billion this year—up from $410 billion in 2012, according to a new report by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), an agency of the United Nations.

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