Simon English



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Full name: Simon English

Area of interest: Business

Journals: The Independent

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 * Telling the truth won't get you a chief executive's job in this broken system - Outlook: Here is what the boss of one of Marks & Spencer's chief rivals thinks candidates to be that company's chief executive should have said to the headhunters and then the board when the job came up in 2010 - 30th May 2013
 * M&S glory days in the past? Bolland has little time to prove otherwise - Outlook: How long has Marc Bolland got? About a year, seems the consensus, so that he can at least give undeniable evidence that his Marks & Spencer turnaround is actually turning - 22nd May 2013
 * Who was to blame for the horrendous mismatch of Co-op and Britannia? - Outlook The press release was effusive. Britannia and Co-op Financial Services "unveil plans for super-mutual". The merger was to create "a unique" (that's always a worrying word), "ethical" (ditto), alternative to the nasty big banks - 16th May 2013
 * Why RSA's chief could have a rebellious time -Outlook: Just how much trouble is Simon Lee of RSA in? Perhaps the answer is this: more than he seems to realise - 3rd May 2013
 * Tesco pays the price of Sir Terry's over-ambition - Outlook: Should Tesco investors sue Sir Terry Leahy? - 18th April 2013
 * New boss of the bankers is as funny as the last one - Outlook: Angela Knight joined the British Bankers' Association on April Fool's Day 2007. She was a near-constant source of fun from then onwards, though not on purpose - 3rd April 2013
 * Tidjane Thiam is a naughty boy and the Pru's not the Messiah - The £30m fine whacked on to the insurer, and his censure by the watchdog yesterday, are unusual in lots of ways and a clear indication of just how angry the FSA was and is with Mr Thiam - 28th March 2013
 * Outlawing property trading is pointless, and will take all the fun out of banking - Outlook: "Call for UK proprietary trading crackdown", sang the FT headline a few days ago. In its wisdom, the Banking Standards Commission, a parliamentary watchdog set up to investigate what's wrong with those fellows in the City, said it was high time to "bear down" on so-called proprietary trading - 21st March 2013
 * Is Ladbrokes chief on a loser as he makes a deal to woo internet punters? - Outlook: Last week Ralph Topping raised a few eyebrows among gamblers in the City and elsewhere when he predicted that William Hill could be worth £5bn before too long - 12th March 2013
 * Behind the fruity language, traders are actually the most honest types in the City - Everyone – including teetotal nursery schoolteachers – is out for themselves - 7th February 2013
 * Memo to Goldman Sachs: This is (partly) why people hate you - The great vampire squid’s move to even consider delaying bonus payments to some of its staff just to save them a few quid in tax indicates that it continues to live in a separate world to the rest of us - 15th January 2013
 * Vampire pubs cross as little man wins rare victory - Midweek View: Lives were ruined. In the worst cases, publicans ended up sick with worry and later destitute - 9th january 2013
 * Calamity that proved Tesco wasn't led by retail geniuses after all - Outlook It's easy and far from appealing to be wise after the event, but in the case of Tesco's belated admission that its American adventure is a failure, hindsight wasn't really needed - 6th December 2012
 * Sir Mervyn may seem like yesterday's man but we should heed his advice - Outlook: It's understandable that some folk lately see Sir Mervyn King as part of the problem - 30th November 2012
 * Sainsbury's may be victim of its success if it starts looking like the local bully - Outlook; There's not much doubt in Justin King's mind that he is a brilliant retailer and, to give credit where it is due, there's quite a lot of evidence for the case - 15th November 2012
 * Rather than dealing in sub-prime sludge, banks should back Arthur Daley - Outlook: The present trend is for banks to be – or at least to say they are – boring - 9th November 2012
 * Mark Twain was right - take the US off your worry list - Outlook: Mark Twain said: "Those of you inclined to worry have the widest selection in history." Another one for your list: the US "fiscal cliff" - 8th November 2012
 * An apology to John Terry - actually, you're nothing like as bad as Barclays - Outlook: By writing a little while ago that Barclays was the John Terry of banks, I was clearly being inflammatory - 2nd November 2012
 * So the NYSE closed. The world carried on. There's a lesson there - Outlook: The boss' demands were blunt and direct, as usual. "When the bell rings I want you standing next to it. Inside it if possible. When that market starts trading again it's the free world saying to the terrorists, you can't beat us, you won't win. I want to feel the excitement." - 1st November 2012
 * Number crunchers' 1% isn't too obvious down in Dagenham - Outlook: The double-dip is over, so the number-crunchers tell us. Over in Dagenham – a part of the world perhaps not regularly frequented by David Cameron unless there's a photo-op involved – there weren't too many champagne corks popping yesterday - 26th October 2012
 * Argos catalogue will one day be history as nice guy Duddy sees the future - As a comedian, Michael McIntyre sucks. But perhaps he'd make a half-decent retail analyst.One of his rare good jokes: "Argos is the store that said 'all shops should be like us' and all the other shops said 'no'." - 25th October 2012
 * What next for the Wizard of Oz who might struggle to learn new tricks? - Outlook: Greg Coffey was the Wizard of Oz, a magician who had an extraordinary way with money, making astonishing amounts of it for clients and barely less amazing amounts for himself - 19th October 2012
 * Patience would be a virtue in timing the sale of state's stake in recovering RBS - Outlook: We take out insurance for things we hope will never happen - 18th October 2012
 * Kate Swann's off after a job well done – for herself and Smith's - Outlook: Is Kate Swann a retail genius? It is possible to think so, and plainly she has assets. Announcing a decision to quit as chief executive of WH Smith yesterday looks typically savvy - 12th October 2012
 * City to celebrate with cheap champagne as 'worst deal ever' dies - Outlook: The City fund manager – head honcho at one of our biggest institutional investors no less – broke into a huge grin - 11th October 2012
 * 'Draghi Put' is keeping the real pain in Spain at bay - Outlook: The "Greenspan Put" was the assumption rife among Wall Street traders that should shares fall to a certain level, Alan Greenspan, the former head of the US Federal Reserve, would intervene by slashing interest rates so much that bonds were no longer worth buying - 5th October 2012
 * Tesco's not in crisis after profits slip but it must abandon American adventure - Outlook: How much trouble is Tesco in? It's traditional to report each wobble at the "retail behemoth" (other clichés are available) as though it were some sort of national crisis. Profits down. Send for the Army - 4th October 2012
 * Even the Ministry of Truth would struggle to portray this as 'Orwellian' - Outlook: Would George Orwell have approved of Peter Cummings? The former HBOS banker to the stars clearly thinks so - 14th September 2012
 * A total shambles? Or maybe the master trader using chaos to get what he wanted - Outlook: He was entirely comfortable with engineering a huge fallout with Mick Davis - 11th September 2012
 * Barclays' new boss could mean business as usual - Outlook: That rumbling sound you may be able to hear is this: traders at Barclays jumping up and down on their desks while they rip off their shirtsleeves in frenzied excitement about the money they are about to make - 31st August 2012
 * Sorry Saga people, you're not only ones suffering - Outlook: Note to old people moaning about the effect quantitative easing has had on their pensions: put a sock in it - 24th August 2012
 * It doesn't really have to be the end of the world - Outlook: From Reuters: "Germany easily sold €4bn of new, interest-free, two-year bonds on Wednesday, with investors edgy about European Central Bank plans to curb the debt crisis... Germany sold bonds with a zero coupon – meaning it pays no interest to the holder – for the second time this year, reflecting a fall in its borrowing costs to historic lows..." - 23rd August 2012
 * Is football finance bubble about to go pop after all? - Outlook: Cassandras have been warning for years that football was a bubble zone - 17th August 2012
 * If Man United shares get any lower, expect Glazers to grab first chance of an exit - Outlook: How low do Manchester United shares have to go before someone comes in with another takeover bid that the much (and fairly) maligned Glazer family decide offers a good chance to take the money and run? - 14th August 2012
 * Is there any way back for the banks after this blow to moral authority? - Outlook: It is easy to be holier than thou when writing about banks. Not to mention fun - 9th August 2012
 * Is it really all Going South? Please try to cheer up a bit, chaps - Outlook: Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson are good blokes and terrific journalists. Their latest joint venture, Going South, is as punchy and readable as close watchers of their efforts have come to expect
 * Boom time it's not, but Wolfson may be right with recession denial - Outlook: Recession? What recession? That's a tabloid paraphrase of what Simon Wolfson said yesterday, and as chief executive of Next he is perhaps in a reasonable position to know - 1st August 2012
 * In the surreal place called Planet Banker, those in charge are never to blame - The bank's leadership insist that HSBC's issues are a matter of structure rather than culture - 31st July 2012
 * Lloyds boss says we are not all doomed, and he should know - Outlook: Predicting is difficult, especially for the future. Ask any City economist - 27th July 2012
 * Terrified City types are now too scared to take a risk – so they do nothing - Outlook: On a sunny day, assuming there will ever be one, the view across London from the Babylon Roof Gardens in Kensington is fabulous - 19th July 2012
 * Bankers feeling guilty is something, but it's obvious the scheming will only get worse - Outlook: Is the City ashamed of itself? If you include the folk at Canary Wharf that's around 400,000 people and it's a mistake to assume they all think alike. But perhaps for the first time, it is possible to conclude that the answer is yes, a bit - 12th July 2012
 * If McFarlane wants to keep it simple at Aviva he should look to recruit internally - Outlook: A rare goal for the bullshit police, scorer John McFarlane. The new Aviva chairman cut a swath through the nonsense that generally surrounds big insurance companies yesterday, not least by being willing to admit that he finds some of what they say and do entirely baffling - 6th July 2012
 * Diamond ducked and dived – but the MPs were lacking punch anyway - Outlook: Here was Bob Diamond doing his humble act. For a global swinging dick, a £100m, breakfast-in-London, lunch-in-Zurich, dinner-in-New York man, this was always going to be a big ask - 5th July 2012
 * Efficiency drives can go the wrong way - Outlook: Joseph Stiglitz argues that the incentive to work falls when people feel life is unfair - 26th June 2012
 * Executive pay reform is not a side issue, it's vital for a fair and prosperous Britain - Vince Cable’s rather mild proposal on pay would be good for growth - 21st June 2012
 * The short knight, the tall pay and an investor rebellion - Outlook: For comedy purposes only, we return, with great reluctance, to Sir Martin Sorrell - 15th June 2012
 * What's happening in the markets? Don't ask - the computers are in charge now - Outlook: In Robert Harris's The Fear Index, a socially hopeless physicist with a brain too large for his own good devises an algorithmic trading machine that is remarkably adept at predicting moves in financial markets - 14th June 2012
 * How much longer before Marks & Spencer is finally past its sell-by date? - Outlook: What's the point of Marks & Spencer? - 8th June 2012
 * Brace yourself for a bloodbath in the City - Outlook: How bad are things in the City? Evidently, terrible. Anecdotally, even worse - 7th June 2012
 * Tomorrow will not be the end of the world as we know it – try to feel fine - Outlook: Does the end of the world start tomorrow? - 31st May 2012
 * Ailing Thomas Cook goes green as it decides not to play the Long game - Outlook: Peter Long probably doesn't openly plot for the demise of Thomas Cook. On the other hand, he may feel that his intervention is hardly proving necessary - 25th May 2012
 * Let's not get too misty-eyed, but Nationwide is a national treasure - Outlook: There aren't many good sides to the banking crisis, but one must be this: at least all those loonies that wanted Nationwide Building Society to become another bank, as if that's just what we needed, have shut their traps and slunk away - 24th May 2012
 * How London Whale's errors attracted the market sharks - The football match of your lifetime starts in 20 minutes but you don't have a ticket. You will pay whatever the touts on the corner are demanding - 22nd May 2012
 * A little more charm might help us to swallow Alliance Boots' tax medicine - Outlook: If you ask Stefano Pessina whether he pays enough tax, expect derision. Abuse - 17th May 2012
 * Breedon may have earned his £3m L&G payoff, but it's still a huge amount - Outlook: Tim Breedon can skip out of Legal & General (L&G) at the end of this year with two valuable things: vindication and three million quid. Both are nice, but if asked to choose, you might settle for the latter - 11th May 2012
 * A few rebellions but the City gravy train is likely to chug along as normal - Outlook: The phrase shareholder spring is already a cliche that should probably be banned by all self-respecting journals - 10th May 2012
 * This is alarming, but not nearly as scary as 2008 - Don't listen to the man on the news who says you're doomed - 8th May 2012
 * As a caring, sharing chairman, Aviva's Lord Sharman was an abject failure - Outlook: You seem to have mistaken me for someone who has the slightest interest in your problems. Aviva's chairman, Lord Sharman, didn't say this yesterday, but he seemed to communicate it in every other way - 4th May 2012
 * Moss set for a rocky ride but he may well cling on as Aviva tries to tough it out - Whether Mr Moss is personally a nice guy or not – some say he is, some say he's not – is not the issue on hand at today's annual meeting. (The Barbican. 11am. Rock up. Throw fruit.) - 3rd May 2012
 * Barclays is the John Terry of banks - Outlook: For the last 20 years, and perhaps much longer than that, Barclays has been the perpetual naughty child, scrawling abuse on desks, dishing out John Terry-style dead legs and then acting all upset when it turns out no one likes them - 27th April 2012
 * Osborne desperately needs wiggle room – but he gave that up a long time ago - Outlook: Politicians have long got it into their heads that the public most admire politicians of total conviction. U-turns are for wimps - 26th April 2012
 * Sands' warning - the next banking crisis starts here, unless the FPC grows teeth - Outlook: Moaning banker alert. But wait, this one may have a point. Writing (with some style) in Thursday's Financial Times, Peter Sands gives the proposed new banking regulator both barrels - 30th March 2012
 * Death and disasters don't make much difference to Lloyd's of London bosses - Outlook: Under what circumstances would bonuses to executives at Lloyd's of London fall? - 29th March 2012
 * Blankfein's blitz on company emails could well come back to bite him - Outlook: Are Lloyd Blankfein's private emails soon to become public property? News that Goldman Sachs is scouring its own staff's email's for evidence that they referred to clients as muppets mean that it can't be ruled out - 23rd March 2012
 * The business world's dirty secret: they need regulations in order to survive - Outlook: The pre and post-Budget musings of business folk were tediously predictable. Like the revolutionaries in Animal Farm repeating the mantra "four legs good, two legs bad," chief executives and their advisers seldom depart from the script - 22nd March 2012
 * The Oreo cookie milkshake route to a job with Goldman Sachs - Outlook: How do you manage to get a job at Goldman Sachs? There's the Oxford double first, the family connection, and the 17 interviews route (or some combination thereof). But it can be much more straightforward than that. It is just a bank - 16th March 2012
 * Goldman Sachs has to change its ways fast in a new reality or face relegation - Outlook: Investment banks are like football clubs. At some point they fall. Always - 15th March 2012
 * Who is mastermind pulling the strings? - Outlook: Stock-market shenanigans, grand conspiracy theories department - 9th March 2012
 * Just not cricket, but the fraudsters will always be back for another innings - Outlook: The following words by JK Galbraith should be read by every aggrieved Allen Stanford investor - 8th March 2012
 * Perhaps the 500 protesting against a 50p tax band need better accountants - Outlook: Is the 50p top income tax rate damaging the economy? A letter to The Daily Telegraph yesterday was sure of it - 2nd March 2012
 * No sympathy for this struggling inventor of schemes to beat the taxman - Outlook: If you were seeking an accountant, would you hire one that has just blown a £12m black hole in its own accounts? - 1st March 2012
 * Cameron needs his old man's spirit - Outlook: David Cameron is in a quandary. Are bankers (that word seems to be shorthand for anyone working in the City) a force for good or ill? - 24th February 2012
 * We must be allowed to see whatever was going wrong with the Pru's bid for AIA - There has never been a better time for City practices, for the minutiae of gigantic takeover deals, to be scrutinised in the public glare - 23rd February 2012
 * The real problem with our banks? Too fast, too competitive - Outlook: Do we want more competition in banking? John Fingleton at the Office of Fair Trading thinks so - 17th February 2012
 * QE hasn't been a runaway success, and for that we should be grateful - Outlook: Inventing money to chuck at banks in the vague hope that they'll do the right thing with it is over, Sir Mervyn King seemed to signal yesterday - 16th February 2012
 * If Sir Mervyn is now printing even more money, how about using it differently? - Outlook: Sir Mervyn King wanders into the computer room at the Bank of England. He stoops to the printer, checking that it is full (very full) of paper. Then he types Control P and hits Return. Another £50bn chugs out of the Bank and into the streets. Hey presto, economy saved - 10th February 2012
 * Hester's public outpouring proves that bankers are not of this world - Outlook: How many sticks of dynamite would have to explode between Stephen Hester's ears for the fog to clear? - 9th February 2012
 * Don't be scared of overpaid bankers.If they threaten to leave, just let them - Outlook: Here's how we are supposed to think. When they gave Fred Goodwin a knighthood for services to banking, we were to be impressed. What a fine fellow he must be. Now they've taken it away, we are to disapprove of him more than we already did and praise MPs for taking bold action - 2nd February 2012
 * What's your game Lewis? Either make a bid for Mitchells & Butlers or move on - Outlook: What does Joe Lewis want with Mitchells & Butlers? It's several years since his Piedmont investment vehicle first acquired a stake in the pubs group and we are no closer to a proper answer - 27th January 2012
 * Despite this result, the FSA is unlikely to catch any clever wheeler-dealers - Outlook: Goal. A nice win for the FSA yesterday, which nabbed US hedge fund king David Einhorn for a spot of market abuse in the trading of shares in Punch Taverns - 26th January 2012
 * New boss Clarke should pull the plug on Tesco's costly American adventure - Outlook: There was always a coals-to-Newcastle, fish-to-Iceland feel about Tesco's plan to crack the US supermarket industry - 20th January 2012
 * There's nothing to be lost by curbing executive pay - Outlook: A relaxed lunch in a nice boozer. In attendance: a banker from the old school. An angel investor. A PR man of the even older school. An entrepreneur who has just sold a business he built from scratch for tens of millions of pounds with the aid of the others - 19th January 2012
 * Five key questions for Barclays' Diamond - Outlook: The banker is huddled in the corner of Jamies Wine Bar, just off Ludgate Hill, and looking shifty - 13th January 2012
 * One in the eye for Utley as Battle of Hastings threatens to turn really nasty - Outlook: Grateful recipients of Neil Utley's family Christmas card were charmed as usual - 12th January 2012
 * We need a bold move on pay, not just tough talking - There's been a clampdown on runaway executive pay coming any day since at least 1980. It is not obvious that David Cameron's moves finally to get some action will be any more successful - 9th January 2012
 * Why did these chief executives call for their own customers to be impoverished? - Outlook: For a cautious, perhaps even somewhat shy man, Simon Wolfson was unusually forthright. Certain in fact. George Osborne's deficit reduction programme was vital - 5th January 2012
 * Will this be the year the bankers finally clean up their act? Don't bet on it - Outlook: An old joke for a new year: why should you get immediately furious at your bank? - 4th January 2012
 * has looked after its star signing, but what about the rest of the staff?'' - Outlook: "I'm not going to work any less but I am going to work differently. As we move into the second phase of the turnaround of Lloyds I can detach myself from the day-to-day running of the business and focus on strategy." - 16th December 2011
 * Hard to take a shine to Diamond – unless he gets a handle on his bankers' bonuses - Outlook Bob Diamond is clinging on to something. It is this: the highly questionable notion that his existence is good for the rest of us. The Barclays chief executive was in front of the Treasury Select Committee again yesterday, doing his best impersonation of a respectable member of society - 15th December 2011
 * A Government giddy on celebrity deserves Mary's wishful shopping list - Outlook Sir Humphrey wanders into the study at Number 10. "I have Mary Portas on the phone for you Prime Minister." The PM is wading through "her vision for the future of our high streets" and is suddenly feeling very depressed. "Tell her I'm out to lunch," he sighs. "On second thoughts, tell her she is." - 14th December 2011
 * Unrepentant and living in splendour, the kind of banker we just don't need - It is also to be hoped other bankers will decide Greenburgh is not who they want to emulate - 13th December 2011



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