CITY WHISPERS: Blundering Bosses Told – Improve Your Performance
Only a fortnight into 2024 and it’s already been an impressively terrible year for corporate blunders.
Bosses or former bosses in the spotlight include Paula Vennells of the Post Office, Sebastien de Montessus of Endeavor Mining and NatWest chairman Howard Davies.
The AGM season is still a long way away, but proxy advisor Pirc already has a number of executives in its sights.
It is considering whether to support the re-election of the bosses of Airbnb, Alphabet, BNP Paribas, British American Tobacco (after a fine in Nigeria), Meta and Boeing.
Pirc is known for taking a harder line with its recommendations to investors than fellow advisors Glass Lewis and ISS.
Corporate blunders: AGM season is still far away, but proxy advisor Pirc already has a number of executives in its sights
But perhaps more attention should be paid to Pirc.
As recently noted, in 2020 it raised ‘serious concerns’ about Vennells’ suitability to serve as a director at Dunelm in light of the Post Office scandal, adding: ‘It is worrying that the results of the 2020 AGM suggest that only a small minority of shareholders felt this way. at.’
Change of fortune for the Yorkshire mine?
Things could be going well for Anglo American’s potash mine in Yorkshire.
Since purchasing Sirius Minerals in 2020, it has poured £2 billion into the project.
Further afield, Israeli group ICL’s Boulby mine switched to digging the same kind of potash that Anglo will produce.
Accounts at Companies House show turnover in 2022 was £193 million.
It even made a profit, turning a £31m loss into a £26m profit in 2021.
Revolut is still putting the cart before the horse
You’d expect Revolut to have encountered the danger of putting the cart before the horse when it bragged about the fact that it was about to get a UK banking license that, er, still hasn’t arrived.
Nearly a year later, Revolut’s deputy CEO Andrius Biceika was let go in an interview with technology website Wired.
In it, he said the development of artificial intelligence bankers, with whom gamblers could talk about finances, was “inevitable”.
But in addition to AI, he says Revolut has already opened five personal points of sale in Europe and will “launch branches in every country in Europe and eventually in every country in the world,” adding: “The sky is the limit.”
Promises, promises.
TDR Capital is trying to reassure MPs
It was a squeaky-clean time last week for Asda co-owner TDR Capital.
The private equity firm’s boss, Gary Lindsay, sought to reassure MPs about the £6.8bn deal, backed by brothers Issa, Mohsin and Zuber, which saddled Asda with huge debts.
Lindsay said Mohsin was “not happy and not proud” for failing to answer MPs’ basic questions.
The buying baron then promised to make Asda’s numerous accounts, filed in Jersey, more transparent.
But he forgot to tell MPs that he and fellow TDR director Manjit Dale had left three Asda units before Christmas. So much for full disclosure’.
Employee: Patrick Tooher