The dastardly Mr Deedes
Devilish ryanair supremo Michael O’Leary weighs in on Apple’s £11bn eU tax bill, suggesting the Irish government ‘should just write a letter to europe and tell them politely to **** off.’ he also calls on all three London airports to build new runways and ‘upset all the Nimbys at one go’. As for Brexit, which he opposed, he shrugs: ‘The UK is going to end up looking pretty stupid.’ Safe to say £1.5m-a-year O’Loudmouth, 55, is back from the summer break and firing on all cylinders.
Swiss banking giant UBS has recruited psychologists to help its analysts think differently about investment ideas. The bank took a hefty £13bn bath in the 2008 US subprime mortgage crisis. Rueful investors might be forgiven for wishing they’d brought the men in white coats in a little sooner.
Glamorous ex-Thomas Cook chief executive harriet Green, now a big wheel at IBM, says of her high- flying career: ‘There has been plenty of discomfort along the way. But we cannot expect comfort along this journey.’ everything’s about the journey now, isn’t it? Doubtless it’s an Americanism. I recently noted New York- based hattie, 54, has also acquired a peculiar- sounding mid-Atlantic accent.
McDonald’s boss Steve Easterbrook is the subject of an adulatory profile in US magazine Fortune. Since taking up the £5.5m -a-year post last year, the British-born ex-grammar school boy has not only turned around the firm’s fortunes, but delighted ecologists by banning antibiotics in its chicken and converting to cage-free eggs. The sport-obsessed father of three, 49, holds a science degree and is an avid supporter of Watford FC. Hardly the most likely saviour of the All-Amercian fast food chain.
PricewaterhouseCoopers is fined £2.3m by the accountancy watchdog the Financial reporting Council (FRC) over its auditing of sub-prime lender Cattles. The work was carried out by the firm’s Leeds office. The FRC is currently probing the same office for signing off BHS as a ‘going concern’ days before Sir Philip Green sold it to ludicrous Dominic Chappell for £1. I suspect bonuses for PWC bean counters oop North might be a little thin on t’ground this Christmas.