"The corporate brand is not only used to improve competitive
positioning and express company aspirations, it can also be a powerful
tool to motivate employees."
Paul Krugman today once again bemoans the lack of Keynesianism in what passes for economic policymaking discussions these days, and I share that complaint.
However, Krugman may be missing part of the problem here, which is that those who pooh-pooh the prospect of deflation may actually not much care if it materializes, though they would be mistaken to do so.
Republished from the Benche, a financial community for corporate treasurers.
Lots of new country reports can now be found on the Benche. If you click on one of the countries below the report will be opened in a separate window. For more reports go to Country Reports here on the Benche.
Brazilian companies are taking a page from their US counterparts when it comes to governance and corporate social responsibility. In a recent Latin American corporate governance survey by Latin Finance and consultancy Management & Excellence, Brazilian firms topped the rankings across different industries--not only aiming for compliance, but striving for excellence in corporate social responsibility, sustainability, board independence and other governance measures.
Companies throughout the region are showing increasing interest in building their good governance reputations in order to attract capital investment from Latin America, the US, and globally.
Rising labor strife in China has potentially significant implications for US companies and financial markets. The irony is that what companies want isn't necessarily the same thing that markets do.
Yves Smith over at Naked Capitalism does a good job of explaining why.
Companies looking to grow through acquisitions in emerging markets may have more risk to discount: the likelihood of prosecution for bribery arising from such deals seems to be growing. And that suggests they need to do more due diligence on such deals or pay less for a target than they would otherwise.
As we reported earlier, the Department of Justice and SEC initiated 40 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act related actions in 2009, up from 33 in 2008. Criminal and civil corporate fines this year already exceed $400 million, a pace that would exceed the $645 million that companies paid last year.
As a follow-up to yesterday's blog on Molson Coors' experience with outsourcing, the CFO of the Latin American division of Dutch comglomerate Philips provided a different perspective Thursday morning at the Hackett Group's best practices conference in Atlanta.
While Molson Coors' CFO Stewart Glendinning expressed disappointment over high turnover rates at the outsourcing company the beer company signed up with, Philips' Latin American CFO Ronald Eikelenboom said he planned on high turnover when he inked a deal with Indian outsourcer Infosys in late 2008 to expand the two companies' relationship to Brazil, where Philips' Latin American operations are based.
Even as private equity firms struggle to raise new capital , investors continue to be attracted to funds focused on emerging markets. But this time around, they are betting on more stable countries than before.
In the years leading up to the financial crisis, private equity investors were largely drawn to the Middle East and even Eastern Europe. But, as the world economy works to right itself, they are now reducing their risk and choosing more proven markets, such as China, India and Brazil, according to a survey by Coller Capital, a private equity firm focused on secondary investments.
I see that the bond investors are demanding that the Greek government adopt austerity measures to stem the debt crisis that is building there and threatening to spill over into the rest of the European Union.
This of course is classic International Monetary Fund medicine for emerging markets, and bond vigilantism at its cheekiest, only it's likely to prolong an economic downturn and deepen the deficits since pension cuts and the like will serve to further depress consumer demand and with it, tax revenue.
UTStarcom Inc. has run afoul with regulators yet again.
This time the maker of telecom products agreed to pay $3 million for bribing people in China. Half of the penalty is going to the Department of Justice and the other half to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Dubai's bondholders are obviously relieved to hear that its sister emirate, Abu Dhabi, would step up to plate. But according to this article, the offer covers less than a fifth of the $55 billion in debt coming due in the next three years.
Of course, the announcement has staunched some of the bleeding, as an analyst from Nouriel Roubini's firm notes. And bondholders may take this as a sign that more help can be expected down the road.
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