I hazarded here in February that it would probably be a good idea if the world’s largest bank were to be run, every now and again, by a banker. At last the board of Citigroup has come round to my point of view, though it might have saved shareholders a few billion dollars by doing
Writing in the midst of turmoil, one is always at risk of being overtaken by events, but I have found myself vaguely approving of the recent market panic. The American housing slump has made fools only of those who thought house prices could go on rising steeply for ever; the resultant sub-prime lending crisis reminds
Call me a sentimentalist, but when Rupert Murdoch gave a speech here last week telling News Corporation to go carbon-neutral, and to inspire its many millions of viewers and readers to do likewise, I couldn’t help thinking that he must have been affected by the spectacle of human frailty revealed to him in his current
When Charles Prince, the chief executive of Citigroup, announced two weeks ago that he was getting rid of his bank’s rather likeable corporate logo, a red umbrella, I feared that he might be tempting the household gods. And the gods have duly stirred. The Financial Times has reported grumblings from some big shareholders that the
Larry Silverstein, the 75-year-old property developer who bought a lease on the twin towers of the World Trade Center six weeks before they collapsed, has been a lonely defender these past five years of his right to build the office space of his choosing on what to others is sacred ground. But he has played
The markets are jumpy, the dollar is tired, and Alan Greenspan has sunk below the horizon. Now more than ever the dollar needs a top-class spokesman, and in Hank the Tank it may have found one. Henry Paulson, boss of Goldman Sachs, lion of Wall Street, took some persuading to jump ship and serve as