Management & Leadership

JPMorgan gives Dimon freedom to outstay welcome

29 Jan 2018

The $400 bln lender’s CEO and his directors have agreed he’ll stay on till 2023, which would mark a 17-year tenure. Given Dimon’s track record, it’s understandable: JPMorgan is stronger and more stable than most. What he gives up is the chance to leave on an unambiguous high.

Australia’s CBA makes a brazen CEO choice

29 Jan 2018

The country’s top lender picked retail head Matt Comyn as chief, despite a money-laundering scandal in his unit. Investors seem sanguine and CBA’s board argues the bank would be hard for an outsider to master quickly. Even so, the lack of accountability is disappointing.

Xi Jinping wannabes flub their lines at Davos

25 Jan 2018

Leaders including Emmanuel Macron of France and Germany’s Angela Merkel predictably spoke up for global cooperation ahead of Donald Trump’s finale. Unlike the Chinese president last year, however, their rhetoric fell flat. Competition for investment further muddles the message.

Fiat Chrysler powers ahead in carmaker wacky races

25 Jan 2018

Its shares are the industry's best performer of the past year, and its multiple leaves sleeker rivals for dust. Yet earnings are only so-so. Investors may be expecting a sale, or only clocking short-term results. It's a tricky lead for CEO Sergio Marchionne's successor to defend.

United puts airlines’ stability into tailspin

25 Jan 2018

CEO Oscar Munoz plans to put more planes in the skies, sparking fears of a price war and wiping billions off United’s and rivals’ market values. Industry profitability has already lost some altitude. A return to rampant competition will make that worse – especially for Munoz.

Activists beat bearable retreat in Clariant feud

25 Jan 2018

White Tale has surprisingly sold its stake in the Swiss chemical maker to SABIC. That may be a recognition its bid to shake up the group would fail. Exiting now may leave some money on the table, but the hedge fund consortium has probably made a decent return.

Romer exit flags World Bank’s human capital limits

25 Jan 2018

The academic known for his work on economic growth is leaving the bank after just 15 months. The attempt to shake up a staid institution fits his theories’ emphasis on new ideas. But his brash manner shows how organisations can be less than the sum of their inputs.

Tesla board drives CEO pay into electric dreamland

23 Jan 2018

Elon Musk will make nearly $60 bln if he hits new targets by 2028, on top of the $100 bln-plus value boost for his existing stake. Musk is critical to Tesla, and he blew through his last goals years early. The new ones are even more ambitious. But incentives can lose meaning.

The Twitter egg is not a management strategy

23 Jan 2018

The $17 bln social network is splitting its chief operating officer role among other managers, after Anthony Noto took flight to run lender SoFi. With revenue falling and government scrutiny intensifying, moonlighting boss Jack Dorsey needs a solid executive, not a blank avatar.

Davos gathering gets #MeToo balance mostly right

22 Jan 2018

This year’s summit in the Swiss ski resort is chaired entirely by women, with gender a big theme at panels and parties. But the summit's low female attendance reflects the global imbalance of power. Tighter quotas would make Davos more politically correct but less formidable.

The Exchange: Trian’s Nelson Peltz

22 Jan 2018

Fresh from successfully gaining a seat on the board of Procter & Gamble, the biggest proxy fight in corporate American history, the founder and CEO of Trian Fund Management sat down for a discussion at Times Square on how investors can better engage with, and improve, the companies they own.

Icahn risks printer error on Xerox fight

22 Jan 2018

The activist wants to put the $8 bln copier company on the block. That makes sense, but torpedoing the CEO and directors during a sale does not. Icahn is also teaming up with pseudo-insider and fellow disgruntled shareholder Darwin Deason. That adds heft, but also controversy.

UBS’s show of strength is mostly convincing

22 Jan 2018

The Swiss bank plans a 2 bln Swiss franc share buyback, its first since the financial crisis, after a jump in annual pre-tax profits. UBS missed consensus forecasts. But regulatory sign-off means shareholders have greater clarity around its capital returns versus rivals.

Nestlé fashions a more activist-friendly board

19 Jan 2018

The CEOs of Zara-owner Inditex and Adidas are among the Swiss giant’s proposed new heavyweight non-executives. Their e-commerce expertise will help steer efforts to sell more directly to consumers. They also pre-empt any move by activist Dan Loeb to install his own candidates.

Carrefour’s bad news will come in threes

17 Jan 2018

Europe’s biggest retailer issued a second profit warning in five months on weaker sales. New CEO Alexandre Bompard will unveil his turnaround plan next week. With a need to ramp up online investment and cut back on hypermarket stores, notably in France, greater pain is to come.

Pearson investors need their homework checking

17 Jan 2018

The $8 bln education publisher’s revenue has stopped cratering after it stemmed a decline in sales of U.S. textbooks. The relief may be temporary. Colleges are shifting to cheaper course materials and a price war is looming. That is hard to square with a rich valuation.

Disney’s future turns board geeks to possible rats

16 Jan 2018

Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey are leaving the entertainment giant’s board. Convergence with technology – in virtual reality, say – makes conflicts of interest likelier. That can dent directors’ effectiveness. Put less blandly, it can make them dangerous.

BlackRock’s social activism stick is big and pointy

16 Jan 2018

Larry Fink’s investment firm is demanding companies make a positive contribution to society for the long term. Having $4.1 trln of passively managed assets gives a big bully pulpit. BlackRock may have self-interest at heart, but if the private sector bucks up, that’s just fine.

Mizuho’s CEO choice may be lost in translation

16 Jan 2018

The Tokyo bank's next boss comes from the securities division. That's less telling than, say, if Deutsche Bank puts a credit trader in charge. Japanese executives tend to move around more. Given Mizuho's challenges, though, Tatsufumi Sakai's expertise should prove helpful.

Facebook discovers cost of factory-farming users

12 Jan 2018

The $550 bln social network’s success harvesting ad dollars from mass-appeal content made it very profitable. The snag is that users are increasingly unhappy. Mark Zuckerberg’s return to focusing more on their welfare may limit short-run profits but should improve sustainability.