Will frustrated shareholders let Cable & Wireless Worldwide (C&WW) off the hook for poor communications?
Let’s start at the beginning. The global telecoms company had a tally of three chief execs last year.
In July 2011, after three profit warnings, former boss Jim Marsh was ousted by non-executive directors.
It wasn’t all bad, he was sent packing with £650,000 in his pocket.
Next (Xetra: 779551 - news) , John Pluthero was called up.
He didn’t fancy the chairman role so settled for a chief executive salary of £675,000 and the promise it could triple if his performance was outstanding.
John didn’t hang around long enough to be outstanding. Six (SNP: ^SIXY - news) months later he stepped down and Gavin Darby was installed.
By this point the C&WW share price had fallen 81.5pc from highs of 76.90p on February 2 to 14.20p on November (Stuttgart: A0Z24E - news) 23.
It closed yesterday at 20.89p.
But the plummeting share price wasn’t the only irritant for investors.
Gav took a vow of silence in November refusing to comment on plans until May 2012.
Under pressure he relented and set an earlier date.
On February 16 Gav will present to shareholders the plan to transform C&WW, alongside the third quarter results.
Finally some transparency or maybe not.
Media (Frankfurt: 725292 - news) are strictly not invited.
= A lot of interest in dinner with Boris =
Despite recent accusations that the UK Government is anti-business, the City turned out in force for the Conservative’s Black and White fundraising ball.
Among the executives at Monday’s bash, held at Battersea Park’s Evolution, was Peter Cruddas, founder of CMC (BSE: CMC.BO - news) .
The financial derivatives dealer and Tory treasurer filled three tables (rumour has it at £1000 a head). ICAP’s Michael Spencer and Arbuthnot’s Henry Angest were also spotted, as well as top dogs from Shore Capital.
Less visible were the silent bidders. The auction hosted by Sotheby’s raised £330,000.
One anonymous Tory blew £120,000 for an Anthony Dufort portrait of Baroness Thatcher.
Another spanked £55,000 on dinner at private dining club Mosimann’s with Boris Johnson.
I thought the days of being ashamed to be Tory were long gone.
= What will you make of Glenstrata deal? =
Miner Xstrata and trading house Glencore are on the verge of a $90bn (£56.9bn) merger.
Surely the mega-deal is a cause for celebration?
Not Xactly.
The miner’s shareholders have complained Xstrata (Dusseldorf: XTR.DU - news) earnings are higher quality and will be diluted by Glencore’s.
Sounds serious - best that I keep clear then.
Instead of focusing on money let’s look at the moniker.
Merge the names Xstrata and Glencore and you come up with some suitable suggestions.
There’s “A Strangle Cortex” or “Catalog Next Errs”.
Or my favourite, given analyst warnings, “Rats’ Long Excreta”.
= Slip-sliding away for BAA chief's holiday =
You couldn’t make it up (well you could but it's frowned upon).
On Sunday morning, UK airports ground to a halt due to snow and ice.
Service is now up and running again.
Just in time for BAA’s captain of spin Simon Baugh to fly off on his skiing holiday until Feb 20th.
= Morrisons bags an unwelcome celeb =
Does supermarket Morrisons have a new celebrity endorsing its brand?
Not likely.
The shopper in question is Abu Qatada.
The radical Islamic preacher described as Osama’s “right-hand man in Europe” has been granted bail from his prison in Worcestershire.
Prior to his incarceration the cleric was pictured laden with Morrisons shopping bags.
So is the grocer worried he’ll revisit the store on his first day out of the clink?
A spokesman for the supermarket said:
“If the courts say someone is free to walk the streets then who are we to argue? But we’d urge him to recycle those plastic bags.”
= Rat race was nothing so novel to Dickens =
The world celebrated Dickens’ 200th birthday yesterday.
Maybe the industrial revolution (1750 1850) wasn’t that different to corporate life today.
Here’s Charlie’s take on the rat race.
“[Coketown] contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next…”
Hard times.
There are no comments yet