Sandy turns thriving New York community into blackened wasteland. The Times prints cut-out Jimmy Savile Halloween mask. Kate Moss had nervous breakdown. Disney acquires Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises for $4bn. Acer signs up Megan Fox in move to 'premium' positioning. Motorola is to axe one third of its UK-based marketing department, amid a wider restructure led by its owner, Google. Merlin Entertainments has appointed Nicky Marsh as the marketing director of its "midway" division to lead its short-stay attractions, including waxworks Madame Tussauds. HDFC BANK LTD The second-largest private sector bank in India made the following appointments at its investment banking division: Ajay Gupta was hired to lead infrastructure finance, Akshay Dixit financial services and Dr Abhishek Sharma healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Gupta joins the team from GE Capital while Dixit and Sharma come from MAPE Advisory Group. ARTIO GLOBAL INVESTORS INC The investment adviser named President and COO Tony Williams as chief executive officer. Williams succeeds Richard Pell. INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION The trade…
Read More
Super storm Sandy hits US east coast causing flooding and power cuts. British bankers on alert as UBS is set to axe 10,000 workers. Branston Pickle to be sold to Japanese firm for £90m. EE launches UK's first 4G mobile network, in 11 cities. India's first Starbucks branches draw long queues. RFU considers selling naming rights to Twickenham. Random House and Penguin merge to form publishing powerhouse. Tesco has axed New Covent Garden Soup Co from its shelves, 12 months after the supermarket launched its own chilled soup. Apple is parting company with retail boss John Browett only seven months after awarding him a £36m "golden hello" package, while iOS software chief Scott Forstall is leaving for reportedly not signing an apology letter over the Maps fiasco. David Emin, advertising chief at Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), has been promoted to managing director Trinity Mirror National sales, as part of the next tier of structural changes implemented by Simon Fox, chief executive. East Coast Mainline, the…
Read More
Kun je je nog herinneren dat Levi’s een cool merk was? Dat is het nu niet meer, en dat is omdat merken en hun perceptie door de klant met de tijd veranderen. CoolBrands volgt deze veranderingen en roept elk jaar Engeland’s coolste merken en bedrijven uit. Dit jaar (de elfde keer), publiceert de ‘Centre for Brand Analysis’ haar laatste vindingen en vertelt ons welke merken er in geslaagd zijn om met hun PR en reclame ons in 2012 te charmeren. De jaarlijkse top 20 CoolBrands lijst toont ons welke merken het meest stylish en origineel zijn. Wat alle bedrijven in ieder geval gemeen hebben, is dat ze populair willen zijn. Dit jaar zijn er vrij veel nieuwe binnenkomers; maar liefst 15 van de top 20. Youtube is nummer twee, Twitter staat op vier, Virgin Atlantic staat op 8 en Nikon beklimt de 20e plek. Exclusieve top-merken, zoals Dom Perignon, Rolex en Vivienne Westwood zijn allemaal niet meer in de lijst te vinden. Superster Maserati stond…
Read More
60 million bunker down as superstorm looms over US. BlowUp Media managing director Dominic Gesua exits. Starcom MediaVest Group has poached Pippa Glucklich, the chief operating officer at Arena Media, to become the managing director of its Starcom unit. ROBERT W. BAIRD & CO Karen Heintz joined Baird from the St. Paul branch of UBS , where she supervised 24 financial advisers who managed $3.1 billion in client assets. CITIGROUP INC The bank appointed Samuel Itzcovitz as global head of clearing and financial institutions payments for Citi transaction services. U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION A subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp made a series of appointments: The commercial bank appointed Ed Cowling as director of the specialty asset management division. He joins from Bank of America where he was the national manager of real estate for Bank of America's wealth management business. U.S. Bank National appointed Mary Welk as managing director of client advisory and Lance Losey as managing director of wealth strategy for ascent private capital management…
Read More
Debenhams to launch first Christmas TV campaign in six years. Did Queen Mum guess Blunt was a communist? Penguin and Random House in merger talks. I never believed my father, a lollipop man, was stealing from work. But all the signs were there. Starcom MediaVest Group has poached Pippa Glucklich, the chief operating officer at Arena Media, to become the managing director of its Starcom unit. WELLS FARGO & CO The bank named Paul Cummings as northeast regional managing director for the company's Abbot Downing business. Cummings is the former managing director of Bank of America Merrill Lynch . PERELLA WEINBERG PARTNERS Perella Weinberg Partners named Joseph Gatto as a partner in the firm's advisory business, focussing on the consumer and the industrial sectors. He has held senior management positions at Barclays and Lehman before. HSH Nordbank Ailing German public-sector lender HSH Nordbank has named a former top manager of peer BayernLB as chief financial officer. Last week, HSH had fired Chief Executive Paul Lerbinger…
Read More
Can you remember when Levi's was a cool brand? Well it isn't now, and that's because brands and perceptions of them change over time. CoolBrands tracks these changes and each year it announces the UK's most successful brands and companies. This year (the 11th), the Centre for Brand Analysis, publishes its latest findings and tells us which brands have succeeded in their PR and advertising efforts to charm us in 2012. The annual Top 20 CoolBrands list shows us which brands are the most stylish and maybe original, and the one thing they all all have in common, is they want to sizzle. This year there are quite a few new entries; in fact 15 of the top 20. It may be due to the prevailing financial climate, but technology and affordable, but luxury brands are the new cuckoos in the nest. YouTube is at number two, Twitter appears in fourth, Virgin Atlantic is eight and Nikon is 20, whereas, top-end luxury brands, like Dom…
Read More
It might sound tedious for some, that now there seems to be an eternal list of micro products and microinsurance is one of them. However, we should remember that the more micro the products, the closer we get to serving those with the fewest resources. Of course, whether these products are needed or wanted is another topic, but I believe there is no harm in giving access to these products to see if the target audience will actually benefit from them or not. Last Wednesday I attended a talk on microinsurance, arranged by Microfinance Without Borders with the Microfinance UK Club at Allen & Overy. This presentation was an insightful introduction to microinsurance, especially because of the contribution given by experts in the audience; from research institutions, microfinance institutions (MFIs) and public entities. Firstly, it helped identify the different agents involved in microinsurance, which Dr.Santamaria laid out to be the regulators, financial analysts, insurers, academics, donors, MFIs and the poor people. Every one of these…
Read More
Argos to shut 50 stores while catalogue takes a back seat. Ford set to close Transit plant and axe 500 jobs in Southampton. Kimberly Clark is dropping its nappy brand Huggies from the UK and Europe, threatening up to 1,500 jobs in a major strategic rethink by the FMCG company. Steve Parish, the chief executive of production company Tag, is to step down before the end of the year. VISA INC Visa Inc said Charles Scharf, a former head of JPMorgan Chase & Co retail financial services division, will succeed Joseph Saunders as chief executive officer. Scharf is currently managing director at One Equity Partners, which manages $10 billion of investments and commitments for JPMorgan Chase. BARCLAYS PLC The financial services company hired Adeline Chien as the managing director of the Hong Kong team. Chien joins Barclays from EFG Bank in Hong Kong. OCBC Bank The bank appointed Dennis Tan as the head of Consumer Financial Services Singapore and Group Premier Banking. He joined the…
Read More
The assassination of President John F Kennedy: the finger points to the KGB. Clark Kent to quit job at Daily Planet over the state of journalism. UK support for US drones in Pakistan may be war crime, court is told. Bauer Media has joined forces with O2 to create GoThinkBig, a £5m online initiative that aims to create 30,000 work experience placements for 14- to 25-year-olds across the UK over the next three years. Vevo hires former C4 digital chief Errol Baran as commercial director. MORGAN STANLEY Palmer Murray, a veteran Morgan Stanley broker and former Los Angeles-based executive director of private wealth management, has left the firm to join an independent advisory firm in Beverly Hills-based Lourd Capital Management. ADVENT INTERNATIONAL The private equity firm said it appointed Mauricio Salgar as a managing director and head of its office in Bogotá, Colombia. Prior to joining Advent, Salgar was a vice president and member of the executive committee at Sanford, a privately held investment firm.…
Read More
ECB commercial chief attacks football deals as English cricket seeks sponsor. Lucozade is calling time on its 20-year sponsorship of the Premier League, as the energy and sports-drink brand looks to shift its strategic focus toward research into nutrition-enhancing products. Rory McIlroy could soon join Tiger Woods in the Nike stable in a deal thought to be worth £156m over 10 years. Chinese car brand Qoros is planning to tackle the UK market in 2016 as part of a global launch programme that will begin next year. Heinz innovation unit appoints former Muller man Lee Rolston. Programme director Jeff Ford steps down from Channel 5. MERRILL LYNCH The company which is owned by Bank of America Corp said on Monday it hired veteran adviser Rebecca Rothstein and her 11-member team from rival brokerage Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. She joins Merrill Lynch's private banking and investments group, which caters to ultra-wealthy clients. MOELIS & CO The investment bank hired Paul Inouye, a Silicon Valley veteran, as…
Read More
