Archive for the ‘Business’ Category
November 20, 2012
Over the last 15 years or so I have often found myself advising employment seekers – from young graduates to potential Managing Directors – about how to write and structure their CVs. It has often occurred to me that in the heat of trying to write down everything that might conceivably be of some interest to somebody, the purpose and objectives of the CV are sometimes forgotten by the authors. Many CV writing guides are often focused on format. Some may even include something about content but most usually take the “purpose” for granted. In the overwhelming majority of cases the objectives of submission of a CV is to be first selected for an employment interview and then to form the basis or the starting point for the interview itself.
(Scroll to bottom of post for “Writing your CV” pdf)
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Tags:Business and Economy, Curriculum vitae, CV, Employment, Interview, Job interview, Management, Writing your CV
Posted in Behaviour, Business, Management | 1 Comment »
October 17, 2012
Over the last 30+ years of doing business around the world the one certain indicator for me that corruption is rife and that a bribe is being solicited is when unforeseen delays occur in a permitting or licencing process and/or when an “approval” is conditional or restricted. Politicians and bureaucrats everywhere use the bidding, procurement and regulatory machinery as their opportunity to line their pockets. And the appearance of sand in bureaucratic machinery is a sure sign that a politician or a bureaucrat is available to remove the sand or to oil the machinery – for a consideration.
The EU is probably the most sophisticated and successful corruptocracy in the world.
Yahoo (Reuters) reports on the latest case of EU corruption to come to light:
The European Union’s top health official resigned on Tuesday after an anti-fraud investigation connected him to an attempt to influence EU tobacco legislation, the European Commission said.
The EU’s anti-fraud office OLAF found that a Maltese businessman had tried to use his contacts withCommissioner John Dalli, who is Maltese, for financial gain by offering to influence future EU legislation on tobacco products.
“The OLAF report did not find any conclusive evidence of the direct participation of Mr Dalli but did consider that he was aware of these events,” the Commission said in a statement, saying that Dalli had resigned with immediate effect.
Dalli has rejected the OLAF’s findings, the statement said.
The statement said it was up to Maltese judicial authorities to decide if they wanted to pursue the case.
The OLAF investigation followed a complaint by snuff-and- cigar-maker Swedish Match in May 2012, saying that the businessman – who was not named – sought financial advantages in return for influencing Commission proposals, particularly on the EU’s current export ban on snus, a Swedish-style moist snuff.
“It’s unpleasant that these things happen. We can only hope that the process going forward to create a new directive is transparent and honest,” Swedish Match spokesman Fredrik Peyron said.
“We don’t know all the details that have emerged in this report. But if he has been involved in this it is reasonable (that Dalli resign).”
Snus, which is Swedish Match’s main cash cow, is banned in the EU for health reasons, except in Sweden which negotiated a permanent exemption in its EU accession talks in the 1990s.
Swedish Match hopes the European Commission will lift its ban on snus, which is put under the lip, mostly in pouches. The Swedish government has been pushing for a lifting of the ban, saying the health risks are not proportionate to the ban.
Tags:corruption, Corruptocracy, European Anti-fraud Office, European Union, John Dalli, OLAF, Snuff
Posted in Business, Corruption, European Union | Comments Off on Snuff case is just the tip of the EU corruption iceberg
October 7, 2012
The care of the elderly passing from family members to institutions is one of the apparently irreversible developments in all cultures today. It is not just a phenomenon of “Western” civilization but is a trend across the globe. As “joint families” have given way to nuclear families and as couples have both gone out “to work” and as the elderly desire greater independence and as people live longer, the responsibility for the care of the elderly has passed to institutions from ever-more burdened children or relations.
But a model for institutional care – whether by private players or the State – which works without the degradation of the elderly has yet to be found. I suppose the fundamental reasons are that
- to die quietly and with some dignity and with as little discomfort as possible is only of value to the dying,
- those who are “in care” have limited opportunities to make themselves heard, let alone to complain,
- those “in care” are no longer worth very much to the society they live in and are only seen as a cost,
- even for the relatives and children of those in institutional care, the elderly are seen primarily as “duties” and they would rather not complain if the only solution is a responsibility devolving upon themselves, and
- for institutions providing care there is always a financial benefit to not providing care and they get no “extra bonus” when they do provide care.
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Tags:Ageing, degradations of ageing, Elderly care, institutional care, longevity, Sweden, UK
Posted in Behaviour, Business, Ethics | Comments Off on The price of longevity is degradation of the elderly
October 3, 2012
Large public contracts in India are often plagued by claims of favouritism, rigged specifications to suit a particular bidder, rigged evaluations, bid cancellations, vicious publicity campaigns by the protagonists and innumerable rebids. It is not uncommon for high profile complaints by a bidder after losing a bid to lead to a reversal of an award decision. The more high profile the complaint is and the closer in time a complaint is to an election, the more likely it is that a reversal of a decision can be achieved. The sales process in India does not end when a contract is awarded and any self-respecting sales manager does not stop until he has tried all available avenues to reverse an award decision which has gone against his bid. The primary avenues available are through approaches to politicians and the bureaucrats involved in the evaluation and award (and these approaches are not always without the appropriate lubricating flows of money). For politicians, the bureaucrats are both the potential scapegoats and the potential justification for reversals of decisions. For good and bad, the Indian Civil Service is modeled on the British Civil Service and the interactions between politicians and bureaucrats in India today have their roots in the methods of the British Raj. Bidding flaws and reversals of contract awards are usually a good indicator for the presence of corruption.
Phases of approval reversals
This story in the UK where high profile complaints from Richard Branson and Virgin Rail has led to the reversal of a decision to award a contract to a competitor could be a story lifted directly from an Indian newspaper. I note that in this case the politicians who have reversed their decision are using bureaucrats as their scapegoat. Who else? And when they make a new award they will surely justify their new decision on the pronouncements of other, more senior bureaucrats. It would seem that the methods of UK politicians and bureaucrats even today are not so different from those of their Indian counterparts. In India though, the opportunities afforded to bureaucrats and politicians by the bidding process have been raised to a much higher level.
The Telegraph:
Government cancels West Coast Mainline contract due to ‘flaws’ in bidding process
FirstGroup’s contract to run the West Coast Mainline has been cancelled by the Government due to “significant technical flaws” in the bidding process, which will be re-run. Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said that the flaws “stem from the way the level of risk in the bids was evaluated”.
Tags:bidding process, Civil service, contract reversal, FirstGroup, India, Richard Branson, UK, Virgin Trains, West Coast Main Line
Posted in Business, Corruption, India, Politics, UK | Comments Off on UK cancellation of rail contract is in the style of Indian contracts
September 27, 2012
I have used Ryanair from time to time – but only when I have had no other reasonable options. They are not customer friendly at all and not my airline of choice. Siemens has decided to boycott Ryanair. Clearly Ryanair is not pleased but I think Siemens are perfectly within their rights, are quite justified in their actions and even ought to be commended. Cutting costs while adventuring safety must – even for Ryanair – be unacceptable.
It occurs to me that since Ryanair seems to thrive on negative publicity perhaps they secretly welcome this?
Strangely this story is not widely reported in the MSM.
(UPDATE! Airliners.net had something on this story but the page seems to have been deleted. Perhaps legal action is being threatened.
UPDATE 2! Airliners.net has a new forum page where Ryanair is considered in a rather favourable light by commenters. The original page remains deleted. In my suspicious mind I suspect there has been some pressure from Ryanair on the website.)
The Swedish Svenska Dagbladet reports:
The German industrial group Siemens, with 400,000 employees worldwide, has decided for a global boycott of Ryanair. But Ryanair has threatened legal action.
Siemens Group Management took the decision after Ryanair suffered a number of accidents and incidents in recent times and is a signal to the entire aviation industry.
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Tags:airline safety, Ryanair, Ryanair boycott, Siemens
Posted in Aviation, Behaviour, Business | Comments Off on Siemens boycotts Ryanair
September 25, 2012
Facebook shares took a beating yesterday after Barron’s report valued them at $15 per share (compared to the current $20.8 and the IPO valuation of $38 in May). But I suspect that even this valuation is too high. Any share today which trades at more than 20 times earnings is not sustainable. Unless there is a very clear and well grounded prospect of improved earnings, even a 20 times valuation only creates a bubble – which will burst. I use 20 times as my “rule-of-thumb” for the long-term prospects of any technology company and the point at which I can always find a better investment.
The problem with future projections of Facebook earnings is that they have yet to establish a model for mobile earnings and their current pc base for earnings is declining. Not that I have much to invest, but without a clear way of improving earnings I do not think any price of more than $8 dollars per share is worth investing in. An added worry would be the Facebook propensity to hand out large amounts of restricted stock to its employees which only dilutes the value (itself doubtful) for other shareholders.
A personal opinion I have is that as ads get more intrusive they destroy the user-experience and will become counter-productive. Already there are sites that I avoid as a reaction to the ads which are so large, take up so much band-width and slow-down my access. And when a revenue model is dependent on increasing the irritation level with users, the model is flawed. I think the never-ending increase of ad revenues by increasing the number of users while increasing the intrusiveness of the ads can not happen. In fact I suspect that some advertisers are now losing sales because their ads – which may be brilliant in themselves – are now driving visitors away from the sites they are carried on.
So Barron’s valuation of $15 which would be 35 times earnings is certainly no level for me to enter – especially when the future earnings are still so much in doubt. At half that value at around $8 per share (around 18 times earnings) I could be persuaded to enter the Facebook market – though still with the risk that they may not succeed in finding the right earnings model.
Barron’s article ends with :
Stay away from the stock. It could be heading to the mid-teens.
To that I would add “and I won’t buy until it gets well into single figures”
Barron’s Magazine:
Facebook‘s 40% plunge from its initial-public-offering price of $38 in May has millions of investors asking a single question: Is the stock a buy? The short answer is “No.” After a recent rally, to $23 from a low of $17.55, the stock trades at high multiples of both sales and earnings, even as uncertainty about the outlook for its business grows.
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Tags:Barron's Magazine, Facebook, Facebook shares, Mark Zuckerberg, Restricted stock
Posted in Business, Media | Comments Off on Why Barron’s Facebook valuation of $15 per share may be too high
August 24, 2012
It is electricity price – rather than energy price – which is I think the more telling parameter for growth and investment. And it is electricity price which matters fundamentally. Winning “brownie points” for being virtuous and politically correct is irrelevant and often counter-productive.
Historically, a low (unsubsidised) electricity price has nearly always given high growth, increased exports to regions with higher electricity prices and an attractive climate to invest in. This simple observation will now lead to my shifting my (small) investments away from Australia for some time – at least as long they continue with their virtuous but meaningless carbon tax. On the other hand, the relatively low electricity prices resulting from the advent of shale gas in the US augur well for the US economy and for US exporters – irrespective of which party the President comes from.
In my own field of power generation I expect a gas turbine combined cycle boom in the US in 2014/15 (which will also be a boom for steam turbine manufacturers). So my message for the next 5 or 6 years is to shift your investments away from Australia (and other virtuous but economically silly countries) and into countries promoting low energy prices (US and other countries where the environmental regulations and tax regimes allow production of electricity at the lowest possible cost).
Sydney Morning Herald:
BHP Billiton head Marius Kloppers has told European investors that Australia’s carbon and mining taxes have helped to render the nation’s coal industry unworthy of further investment at this time. …….
In comments that appeared to be more pointed than those given in his Australian media conference, Mr Kloppers put some of the blame on the federal government’s two controversial new taxes.
”What I am seeing on the eastern seaboard in Australia is that the coal industry has been very heavily impacted by lower prices, higher operating costs, carbon taxes and increased royalties,” he said.
Royalties were increased by the New South Wales government as it sought to exploit a loophole in the federal government’s new mining tax, and a similar tactic is now being considered by the Queensland government. ….
Financial Times:
….. Today, few realise that the US stands on the cusp of significant economic gains stimulated by low energy costs. High quality global journalism requires investment. …..
The consensus view discounts the economic boost from natural gas, arguing that the energy sector cannot generate so many jobs. The doubters wear blinkers; they see nothing but the energy market. They commit the mistake made by forecasters in 1991. They miss the tectonic shifts in trade, ….
(The shale gas) advantage gives manufacturing plants in the US a 60 per cent, 70 per cent or even 80 per cent cost advantage over those operating in China, Japan, South Korea or European countries.
Read more: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/09fbb2ac-87b8-11e1-ade2-00144feab49a.html#axzz24QutnD2A
Tags:Australia, Carbon tax, electricity price and growth, investment, Shale gas, US
Posted in Australia, Business, Energy, US | Comments Off on Long term investment: Avoid the carbon taxers (Australia) and follow the shale gas (US)
July 13, 2012
Yet another unwanted consequence of having subsidies in the first place.
First the Spanish Government encouraged a “renewables boom” by providing feed-in tariffs which were obscenely generous (about 4 times higher than the going rate) and irresistible to developers. This was only one of the many acts of profligacy which has led to the current crisis.
And now the Spanish Government is to try and redress the balance by imposing “a levy to spread the expense of closing a gap between costs and revenue in the country’s electricity business, which has racked up debts of 25 billion euros” . Since the largest gap between true cost and revenue is of course with solar and wind plants they will be hardest hit by the levy.
Bloomberg:
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Tags:energy tax, Renewable energy, subsidies
Posted in Business, Energy, Renewable Energy | Comments Off on Spain to tax renewable energy
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