At the start of the last season, viewers of Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football programme were treated to a nice bit of knockabout between pundits Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville.
As Carragher discussed the attributes of Liverpool No 2 Glen Johnson, he speculated that as a kid the player would have dreamed of becoming a flying winger rather than a dreary fullback. “No one wants to grow up and be a Gary Neville,” he said.
Similarly, in the City, execs want to lead thrusting, fast-growing, rival-acquiring firms, but it doesn’t always pan out like that, as a mooted corporate double act may illustrate this week.
We have numbers from Vodafone – which, following sector consolidation, is suddenly facing relegation to the bottom of the mobile-network league in its home market. And there are results from Sky - which last week announced its own mobile service.
There will be the inevitable queries about how these two will protect themselves against a consolidating sector and a thrusting BT, which is encroaching into both of their markets. And yet both firms have supporters just as they are.
A media sector note from Barclays last week trumpeted Sky (even if it loses a chunk of Premier League rights) as its “defensive pick”, which just goes to show: sometimes you do covet being the Gary Neville.
Another burst of MPC inactivity
There are plenty of City types who revel in those tabloid tales of folk claiming state funds while loafing around doing sweet Fanny Adams. If that’s the type of story that gets you going, then you’re in for a treat this week, with the case of the middle-aged men and women claiming thousands for almost six years of inactivity. Yes, it’s that time of the month when the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee gathers for a two-day summit where it will deliberate, cogitate and digest the current economic data – and then come to the startling conclusion that it doesn’t need to do anything.
Having briefly flirted with the vague notion of action, the MPC took a step back from raising rates last month: its two dissenters capitulated and sided with the majority backing the status quo of maintaining ultra-low rates.
They look unlikely to switch sides again, as this time the concerns are more likely to centre on deflation – rather than inflation – following the governor’s admission that falling prices are a possibility and his letter to the chancellor explaining why inflation is so low. More of the same next month too (probably).
BP execs out of pocket
We were reminded last week about the effects of the falling oil price on those that get the stuff out of the ground.
Shell said it was to make $15bn (£10bn) of spending cuts as it warned George Osborne that North Sea operations were in the firing line unless the chancellor could offer tax cuts.
BP, which will report a fourth-quarter profit drop of about 45% this week, said in December that it would make hundreds of job cuts over the next year in response to the continued slump in global oil prices.
But will the oil price fall also force others to spend more?
For example, BP’s remuneration policy requires its executives to build up shareholdings worth five times their salary. In its last annual report, chief exec Bob Dudley was 61% towards that target, but following the oil price slump – and the resultant knock-on effect on the BP share price – he’s now back down at about 52%.
That leaves the American theoretically needing to spend $4.3m to get to his target holding – so if prices stay this low, will he be forced to stick his hand in his pocket?
The company does not say, but adds the target only has to be achieved “within a reasonable period of time from appointment”. NB: Dudley joined the board in 2009.
