Today we look at Barclays, EasyJet, ITV, Weir Group and people with “balls of steel.”
The Daily Telegraph reports on how the former CEO of Barclays and three other executives are to stand trial in January 2019 over the emergency fund raising by the group ten years previously. The obvious thing to say here in a day of instance global electronic communication is that a system which takes that long to even set up a trial is not a valid one for the 21st century. This point would be underlined if the Barclays Four, were actually found to be not guilty in two years time.
The Times writes on how troubled outsourcer Carillion received some happier news yesterday as it was revealed that it won a couple of HS2 contracts, and appointed new City advisers to help it cut costs and improve cash flow. The point which was not raised after the PR offensive is whether after the events of this month Carillion has proved itself to be reliable enough to carry out such contracts? This is especially so as the future of the company is so uncertain.
The Times also reports yesterday’s news that Centrica is to form joint venture with Bayerngas Norge to spin off its oil and gas production business. The goal is to IPO this over the next two to five years. Presumably, not many of those who were looking for M&A activity in Centrica recently can wait that long.
According to the Financial Times it could very well be the case that the glory of Dame Carolyn McCall joining the broadcasting group could set it back as much as £2.5m in compensation for lost share options and bonuses. Given that this is approximately 6 months salary for the average FTSE 100 CEO one could say that this is small beer in the scheme of things. The Financial Times reminds us that Dame Carolyn’s successor at EasyJet will have to steer the company through Brexit, which of course may be one of the reasons why she left for ITV.
According to the Daily Mail Glasgow’s finest, engineering group Weir, appears to be one of the big winners as far as the US fracking boom is concerned, something which caused the stock to gap higher very strongly yesterday. This may be worth watching over the next few days as the technical set up in the stock recently of the 50 day moving average crossing down through a rising 200 day line is one of the strongest in the book.
In these days of LGBT pride and gender neutral diversity we should embrace people like Dame Karren Brady when they say they have “balls of steel.” The good Dame will probably need to rely on this alleged attribute given the announcement of her appointment as Chair of Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia retailing empire. The report of her teaming up with Sir Philip is in the Financial Times.
