Mike Milken wants Americans to get in shape
There aren’t too many fat attendees of the the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, where I am spending a few days this week. They are mostly high achievers who are lean and mean.
Two-thirds of US adults and one in five children are overweight or obese
That is probably just as well, given what Michael Milken, the pioneer of the US high yield bond market, whose eponymous foundation runs the event, thinks about the estimated $1,000bn added annually to US healthcare costs by obesity.
Murdoch: “wilful blindness” is the crucial charge
Rupert Murdoch
It will be a shame if bitter and partisan debate over whether Rupert Murdoch is “a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company” obscures the more important conclusion of the UK parliament’s culture, media and sport committee on phone-hacking: that he and his son James were wilfully blind to what was going on.
Whether BSkyB, controlled by the Murdoch-owned News Corp, is a “fit and proper” owner of a broadcasting licence is a question for Ofcom, the regulator, which has now entered an “evidence-gathering” phase of its probe.
But as even the dissenting members of the committee said on Tuesday, if the “fit person” line had been omitted from the report, they would have voted unanimously to back it, including the charge that the Murdochs oversaw a culture of wilful blindness.
Are Occupy’s echoes reaching the boardroom?
There’s a famous scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep, as the terrifying editor of a Vogue-like fashion magazine, lectures dowdily dressed Anne Hathaway on the way her “lumpy blue sweater” is, in fact, distantly influenced by the catwalk collections of Oscar de la Renta and Yves St Laurent.
In the same way, are the recent votes of institutional shareholders against executive pay somehow an echo of the Occupy movement’s vocal, if ill-focused, protests, from Wall Street to the City of London?
I think they are. But it suits both sides to disagree, even if the most productive changes in the way capitalism has historically functioned might be achieved by greater engagement.
Lord Leveson’s inquiry into the British press on Wednesday tackled one of the most pressing mysteries facing government and the media: how on earth does Rupert Murdoch ever get anything done?
The sort of favours that James Murdoch expects
James Murdoch faces tough questioning at the Leveson Inquiry. Getty Images
The Leveson inquiry has finally arrived at the heart of an issue that has long bedevilled the UK media and political establishment – do newspaper proprietors get favourable treatment in business in return for supporting politicians?
James Murdoch, now the deputy chief operating officer of News Corporation, insisted angrily that he expected no more from politicians reviewing News Corp’s bid for the rest of the equity in British Sky Broadcasting in 2010 than to play it straight down the line:
In response to a suggestion from Robert Jay, counsel to the inquiry, that News Corp had courted Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, to get the bid through, he replied:
“That is absolutely not the case. Any question of support from a newspaper for one individual politician or another would never be linked to a commercial transaction… I simply wouldn’t do business in that way.”
Vodafone/Cable & Wireless: Mr Angry on the line
In the 1980s, British radio presenter Steve Wright used to stage phone-ins to his show from a ranting imaginary listener, “Mr Angry from Purley”.
Well, the phone lines from Purley are burning up, judging from some of the reactions to Vodafone’s agreed £1bn cash takeover of Cable & Wireless Worldwide, which was created by the demerger from Cable & Wireless in 2010. It’s rare to find a deal that has got up so many people’s noses.
Underwater: C&W - privatisation to demerger*
Investors may be happy with a 38p-a-share bid, compared with the 19.8p at which CW&W stock languished in February before an approach was made. But they are angry about the drop in CW&W’s share price since demerger, and those who enjoyed the growth spurt of the late 1990s are even angrier about the overall decline of the once-mighty Cable & Wireless group, a descendant of the Victorian consortium that laid the first submarine cable across the Atlantic . One City fund manager told the FT recently that Cable & Wireless Group was “the worst stock he ever bought“.
The reverse network effect on internet valuations
Fred Wilson, the venture capitalist who is a mainstay of New York internet start-ups, has some provocative thoughts on the lifecycle of web and mobile apps – that their lifecycles are similar to those of hit television shows:
“This round trip from nothing to everything to nothing again is also true at some level with many tech companies. Digtal Equipment Corporation was founded in 1957 and shuttered in 1998. RIM was founded in 1984 and in all liklihood will be gone before the end of this decade. Same with Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, and many more iconic tech companies.”
As he says, the networks effects that work in favour of social networks on the way up can also turn against them:
“Network effects are powerful in both directions. They can help you grow exponentially. But when they are going against you, they work just as fast. Myspace’s decline was mind-blowingly quick. RIM’s has been as well. Who is next?”
Sometimes the most obvious and tempting strategy is the stupidest. That applies to Argentina’s decision to seize a majority share in YPF, its biggest oil company, from Repsol, the Spanish energy group.
| About this blog | Blog guide |
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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