Summit Notebook
Exclusive outtakes from industry leaders
Does Germany need Europe?
Jim O’Neill, the new Goldman Sachs Asset Management chairman who is famous for coining the term BRICs for the world’s new emerging economic giants, reckons he knows why Germany might not be rushing to bail out all the euro zone debt that is under pressure. Europe is not as important to Berlin as it was.
Speaking at the Reuters 2011 Investment Outlook Summit being held in London and New York, O’Neill pointed out that in the not very distant future Germany will have more trade with China than it does with France.
“It’s a different global environment. That’s why maybe Germany (ties) itself to a rules-based game with the rest of Europe because economically it doesn’t mean so much to them now. What goes on in China is more important than what goes on in France and that’s puts a different economic (spin) on the situation for the Germans.”
O’ Neill also drew parallels between the current situation which sees Germany being asked to stump up for ill-disciplined southern euro zone economies and the problems faced in 1990 when West Germany had to do something similar for East Germany.
Gregg sees Republican victory in November as keeping Obama in check
If Republicans are able to capture either chamber of the U.S. Congress in the November election, they will use that power to try to block any further expansion of the federal government by the Obama administration, Republican Senator Judd Gregg said on Wednesday.
“I think clearly going into the next Congress, if you have one or the other houses controlled by the Republican party, you’re going to have much more financial discipline, there’s no question of that,” Gregg, who is from New Hampshire and is retiring after the election, told the Reuters Washington Summit.
The secret lives of auto executives
Ed Whitacre sneaks off to breakfast at a Detroit greasy spoon. Sergio Marchionne’s attention to detail extends to the condition of his factories’ bathrooms. And Bill Ford helped save his great-grandfather’s company by hocking the blue oval.
These are just a few of the glimmers of top Detroit auto executives’ lives that you get when you sit down with Ron Gettelfinger, head of the United Auto Workers union.
from John Irish:
Mid-East business leaders to discuss economic recovery
Starting Monday, Reuters is inviting business leaders from various sectors in Dubai, Riyadh and Cairo to discuss key challenges facing them in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and the lessons they have learnt.
Is the downturn o
ver or are we set for a double-dip? Will buyers flock back to Dubai's property bonanza or will they stay away for the foreseeable future? Will the oil-reliant economies of the Gulf manage to diversify as they had hoped at the start of the boom in 2002 or will they continue to rest on their barrels of crude? Read this for a preview.
Tinkering whilst debt burns
What have Liverpool Football Club, French building materials firm Materis and German forklift truck maker Kion got in common?
They have all been beneficiaries of European banks’ preference to tinker with company balance sheets rather than fundamentally restructure indebted businesses, one speaker said at this week’s restructuring summit.
Debt collecting gets…er, sexy?
Bank employees working in call centers and reminding clients of their overdue loans used to be as far to the bottom of the banking food chain as you could be. Not any more.
Raiffeisen International, the second-biggest lender in eastern Europe, has ramped up staff in its collections and risk management departments.
