By Nick Lambe – Managing Director, Links International
Over the past week there has been a plethora of news and interesting stories. Here are my top picks:
FTSE 100 Boards take a significant step towards diversity…
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has appointed Emma Walmsley as its new CEO, which is great news for the diversity of the Boards in the FTSE 100. Before this appointment, there were only six other female CEOs in the FTSE 100. But what is most significant is that GSK is the UK’s 4th most valuable company, so Emma Walmsley (a mother of 4) has effectively become the most high-power female executive in the UK. Her predecessor was paid £6.6m last year, so it will be interesting to see how much scrutiny the gender pay gap gets with her appointment…. watch this space!
Is there actually any policy in US politics?
I don’t know about you, but I’m pulling my hair out (not that I have much!) having to read about the US elections, as absolutely nothing I read has anything to do with politics at all. The last battle with respect to Clinton and Trump’s health has dominated the newspapers along with whether or not Trump accused President Obama of being born outside of the USA. The mind boggles!! The sooner the election is over the better!
Banks in trouble yet again…
Deutsche bank is under pressure to settle an investigation into mortgage-backed securities to the tune of $14bn…which is no insignificant amount. JP Morgan, Citi and Goldmans have all settled cases in the last three years to the tune of $13bn, $7bn and $5.1bn respectively, so it is looking a fairly safe bet that Deutsche will be writing a cheque for something in the region of $7-10bln after the negotiations. Surely this will continue to severely affect the banking sector and have a detrimental effect on lending and thus restricting global growth? Bigger concerns however are the fact that China’s credit-to-GDP gap hit 30.1 in the first quarter of 2016, according to the secretive Central Bank’s banker, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). The BIS considers a credit-to-GDP gap of 10 to be a danger sign so 30.1… WOW!
Disclaimer: This column is designed to be a light-hearted weekly update on the global business news that I enjoyed reading. We would welcome your thoughts, comments and suggestions.
More next week…
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