Tony Hayward’s appointment as interim chairman of Glencore Xstrata last week marked his rehabilitation, three years after he told reporters “I’d like my life back”, following the fatal Deepwater Horizon explosion. Read more
Page proves himself the right chief for Google
As Larry Page, Google’s chief executive, launches a new music subscription service and the company’s share price continues to climb, it’s worth nothing what a success he has so far been in the role – despite the doubters, including myself. Read more
In the three decades since Michael Bloomberg launched his electronic terminal to supply financial information and analytics, his company has been called many things: ambitious, competitive, brilliant, fearsome, relentless and totalitarian. Until now, it wasn’t known as stupid. Read more
The consumer as founder
L’exception culturelle: just when you thought it was safe…
Seen from outside France, the country’s “cultural exception” – which protects its art, music and movie industries in trade negotiations – is like a long-running film franchise.
In the new sequel – Exception Culturelle 3D, if you will – Pierre Lescure, author of a government-commissioned report, has given the story a great new twist by suggesting a tax on smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles and e-readers to fund French cultural output. Read more
In 2010, seven managers from PSA Peugeot Citroën and five from Chang’an Automobile met in Shenzhen, southern China, to lay the groundwork for a new car factory. Three years later, Capsa, a 50-50 joint venture between the French and Chinese companies, is in the final stages of preparing a 1m square metre plant for the September launch of Chinese-made premium cars under the DS brand. “Because we were beginning from a blank sheet, people wanted to make it as perfect as possible,” says Gilles Boussac, Capsa’s president, between meetings with his team of mostly Chinese managers. “So often in China, if you’re trying to rework or improve something, it takes years to achieve.” Read more
Dimon should lose his chairmanship, not his job
My views on Jamie Dimon’s dual roles as chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase have not changed since a year ago, when I called for him to give up the chairmanship, but the stakes are much higher.
Mr Dimon faces a shareholder vote at the bank’s annual meeting next week to enforce a split of the two roles in the company bylaws. According to the Wall Street Journal, he has hinted that he might give up both jobs and leave if that passes. Read more
In the browser wars that began in the 1990s, it took more than a decade for regulators to stop Microsoft exploiting its dominance with users of Windows software. In today’s mobile battles, customers have done so themselves in six months. Microsoft’s rapid retreat over Windows 8 – the latest, mobile-inspired, version of its operating software – shows wise flexibility rather than its traditional obstinacy. But it also demonstrates that Steve Ballmer, the company’s chief executive, has lost the power to “embrace and extend” the Windows hegemony into new fields. Read more
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John Gapper is an associate editor and the chief business commentator of the FT.
He has worked for the FT since 1987, covering labour relations, banking and the media. He is co-author, with Nicholas Denton, of 'All That Glitters', an account of the collapse of Barings in 1995.
Andrew Hill is an associate editor and the management editor of the FT. He is a former City editor, financial editor, comment and analysis editor, New York bureau chief, foreign news editor and correspondent in Brussels and Milan.
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