Europe Intelligence Wire articles from September 2003

Europe Intelligence Wire archives from September 2003

Editor's letter - How FDs can get hold of the top job.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) With few exceptions, most financial directors fall into one of two camps: those who believe they could do their chief executive's job better than he can, and those who are prepared to give it a try. In other...

Wilkins in the picture as new FD of BFI.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) The British Film Institute has appointed Jeanette Wilkins as director of finance. Wilkins has experience in the media sector as Granada UK Broadcasting FD and in the same role with ONdigital. RAC has appointed...

Careers - Blow your horn.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Tom Berry. Chris Woodhouse, who was parachuted into Homebase as finance director in March 2001 by private equity firm Permira, told Financial Director in February 2003 that management style in a...

Insight - Higgs rules OK.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Sarah Perrin. Derek Higgs' first draft of the revised Combined Code virtually doubled the number of provisions. Under the Listing Rules, provisions must be complied with, or if not, an explanation...

Insight - Lend and spend.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Jules Stewart. "There is an element of truth in the assumption that corporates are borrowing more in a low interest rate environment," says Gordon Scott, an analyst at Fitch Ratings. "However, for the...

Insight interview - Meller passes screen test.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Andrew Sawers. "It's Belron". You can almost relive David Meller's heart-stopping moment of disappointment. He had been through an exciting couple of years as finance director and then chief...

When the heat is on plan ahead.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) FDs searching for the perfect reason for a profits warning might need to look no further than the tropical heatwave that blasted Britain in August. Some companies are citing temperatures that touched 100 degF as...

Reporting models on the catwalk.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Peter Williams, a chartered accountant and freelance journalist. It's a delicious irony that dissatisfaction with financial reporting has grown in proportion to its increasing complexity and volume....

Chairmen do protest too much.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Robert Bruce, a leading commentator on accountancy issues. We can learn from the summer we have been enjoying this year. Areas of high pressure suck in wind and bluster, and the same, it seems, applies...

An alliance for compliance.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Tom Berry, deputy editor of Financial Director. If you visit the government's website for information on data protection (www.dataprotection.gov.uk), its section on 'guidance and other publications' is...

The last cut is the deepest.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Dennis Turner, chief economist at HSBC and a Fulham supporter. There was an element of surprise when the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) cut base rates in July, not least because it marked Mervyn...

Economic bounceback.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Morgan Stanley predicts that, after three tough quarters, the global economy is overdue for a bounce. Underlying economic indicators in the US, it says, suggest that the economy is "about to shift gears", with the...

Cover story - Boardroom heroes.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) It's the career ambition of many finance directors to become a chief executive, whether at their own company or elsewhere. But how well do FDs perform when they get the top job? Using job data from Boardex and...

Change management - Microsoft's middle-age spread.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Shock is rippling through the finance world at the recent finance-related developments at Microsoft - at least among watchers close to the company. But curiously, the wider business world seems unfazed. ...

Branding - Brand new heavies.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Jane Simms. On the face of it, Intel, Lycra, Teflon, Scotchguard, Visa, MasterCard, VHS, Dolby, NutraSweet and Interflora might not appear to have much in common - but they do. They are all 'ingredient...

Extraordinary Items - Panel beater.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Even though the self-regulating Takeover Panel is largely staffed by lawyers and merchant bankers on secondment from their big City firms, it has a reputation for being a body that corporate financiers don't want...

Extraordinary Items - Swift justice.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) A lawsuit in Wisconsin provides a rare example of US courtroom wit. In it, Hyperphrase Technologies LLC and Microsoft had until midnight 25 June 2003 to electronically file documents with the court, but...

Extraordinary Items - Meeting of minds.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) National Meetings Week takes place on 6-11 October, so if you want to get involved, better get your special projects working party set up quickly. If not, then take a cue from the organisers, which have...

Extraordinary Items - Google is one in a 10100.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) "Googlewhacking" is the latest craze on the internet - but it's harder to play than you'd think. The idea is to type two words into the Google search bar and generate just a single result out of three billion or...

Decisions - Mid-market vendors - The grass is greener.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Malcolm Wheatley. For software companies at the smaller end of the spectrum, the appeal of the mid-market is obvious. Times are tough, so corporate customers keen to cut costs may be prepared to take...

Decisions - Vendor round-up - A maze & confuse ... who's who in software?
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Cath Everett. And Microsoft has already bought Navision and Great Plains for billions of dollars. The landscape of the financial software industry has changed dramatically in the past few months. Here,...

Decisions - Accounting standards - Preparing for 2005.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Peter Bartram. Big international changes, top management challenge, the threat of a meltdown if it all goes wrong. Haven't we been here before? Remember Y2K and the euro? In both cases, it was all...

Decisions - Sarbanes-Oxley - American Standard.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Peter Bartram. Sarbanes-Oxley has far-reaching implications and, in the long term, even those companies that are not obliged to comply could find their approach to internal audit and controls affected...

Decisions - Performance management - Software to watch over me.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Malcolm Wheatley. The notion hardly seems radical. Establish the goals you want the business to achieve, formulate detailed plans to transform those aspirations into reality, allocate enough resources...

Decisions - Consolidation - All for one.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Anthony Harrington. Consolidation exercises across a large group of companies can either be a tedious way to meet statutory requirements or they can yield vital management information. They can be a...

Decisions - Software development - Blue sky thinking.
September 1, 2003... (From Financial Director) Byline: Anthony Harrington. In many ways, 2003 is not the best year to start peering over the horizon, asking what business systems could be delivering in three-to-five years. Today, companies are so focused...

Acord adds LMA data standards.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Acord has added data elements and guidelines from the Lloyd's Market Association to its own global data standards. The new requirements have been validated by London brokers and company underwriters and were formally...

Technology Focus - AIR updates storms model for European coverage.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) AIR's weather program uses patterns to simulate a range of weather and help to model wind storms. US-based risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide has introduced the latest version of its European extratropical cyclone...

Claims Focus - Salvage - SalvageSale set to announce claims alliance.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) US online salvage marketplace SalvageSale has revealed that it will announce a new strategic global alliance with a leading UK-based claims organisation "in the next several weeks". Chairman and chief executive...

Claims Focus - P&C Losses - Severe storms edge US property & casualty Sfigures towards decade high.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) US property and catastrophe losses for the second quarter of 2003 could hit an estimated $4.9bn, the second highest figure for the quarter since 1994, according to the Insurance Services Office (ISO). The ISO's...

Claims Focus - London Market - Claims key to London's status.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) London's position as the leading world reinsurance hub is under threat from Bermuda and New York, according to a new white paper from (re)insurance technology solutions provider RebusIS. The white paper - E-Claims:...

News Analysis - The walls are coming down.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Vic Wyman. The journey between London and Beijing could easily start to pall for Lord Levene, the chairman of Lloyd's. For he could end up shuttling between the two for years, in an attempt to get...

News Analysis - Record results but the warning lights are on.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Janina Clark. The adjectives "record-breaking" and "exceptional" have been cropping up with monotonous regularity in (re)insurers' comments on their second-quarter results this year. Equally, predictions of...

News Analysis - Young Bermudians come of age.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Janina Clark. The Bermudian 'class of 2001' - the (re)insurers set up on the island after the World Trade Centre attacks - all recorded massive year-on-year growth in net written premiums in the first half...

News Analysis - Run-off looks good to Swiss Re.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Marc Jones. Swiss Re's purchase of Zurich Life's closed book of business marks both the first time that its Admin Re service has operated outside the US and the first time it has done business in the UK. ...

Reweb.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) First seen on the Reinsurance website www.re-world.com Atlantic hurricane activity in 2003 will be slightly above average, according to the latest forecast from Tropical Storm Risk, a consortium of experts at the...

TMA agrees on syndicate buyout.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) The management team of Trenwick Managing Agents (TMA) has agreed on a management buyout with owners Trenwick Group for the company's two Lloyd's syndicates. The deal was revealed exactly three months after Trenwick...

Swiss Re agrees storm risk swap.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Swiss Re and Japanese (re)insurance company Mitsui Sumitomo have arranged a $100m catastrophe risk swap. Under the terms of the transaction, Swiss Re will exchange a $50m North Atlantic hurricane and European...

Return to black for Annuity & Life.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Troubled reinsurer Annuity & Life Re is predicting that it is on track to recover from its financial difficulties and post a profit in 2004. The Bermuda-based company made a $128.9m loss in 2002 and stopped writing...

WTC court battle continues.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) The legal battle over the 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre (WTC) is continuing, as the warring parties returned to the courtroom in July. Lawyers representing Larry Silverstein, who bought the...

Brit closes direct aviation book.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Brit Insurance has stopped underwriting direct aviation risks, including airlines, general aviation and aviation product risks. The aggregate premium income of these lines of business was forecast to be approximately...

Aviation treaty gets US nod.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) The US Senate has approved the Montreal Convention, an aviation treaty aimed at bringing airline liability and cargo documentation rules up to date. The convention was signed in 1999 by 71 countries around the...

P&I club calls for more regulation.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) The London P&I club has called for more regulation from all sides of the shipping industry to minimise claims cause by shore-side damages. The call follows examples of inadequately maintained dockside facilities...

Dutch last resort reinsurer set up.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) The Dutch Government has helped to create a reinsurer of the last resort to provide terrorism cover to Dutch policyholders. The Nederlandse Herverzekeringsmaatschappij voor Terrorismeschaden (Dutch Terrorism Risk...

Aon looks at threat horizon.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Broker Aon has produced its "Report Card for the World", listing some of the unconventional threats facing US companies that are doing business abroad. The report identifies several potential hotspots around the...

Ratings.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Swiss Re has had its financial strength and counterparty credit ratings lowered by Standard & Poor's (S&P). The ratings have been cut from 'AA+' to 'AA', but S&P's outlook for the company remains stable. S&P said the...

Technology Focus - AIG announces eReinsure link-up.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) American International Group (AIG) has announced that it is implementing electronic trading platform eReinsure's system for facultative reinsurance buying. AIG has been evaluating the system for the past year,...

Technology Focus - RMS models Israeli earthquake risk.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) An Israeli earthquake model has been developed to analyse the catastrophe risk within the area. According to Risk Management Solutions (RMS), which developed the model,it is the first to offer both high resolution...

Comment - Expect no surprises.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Sal Zaffino, chief executive of global reinsurance intermediary Guy I appreciate this opportunity to address issues of concern within the reinsurance market, particularly given the current conditions in the...

Comment - Moving with the times.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Isobel McCalman, Editor. The process of change is challenging, exciting, daunting and sometimes painful. However change is an intrinsic part of the business environment and progress relies on it. I hope you...

Comment - Security muscles to the top.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Henry Keeling, chief executive of reinsurance operations, XL Capital. Why, you may ask, has the chief executive of a reputable reinsurer suddenly burst into print? I must confess, I began asking myself this...

Interview - A buyer's view - talk first, act later.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Isobel McCalman. How does the company's commercial specialism impact on your reinsurance buying strategy? I would say that transparency is a principle feature of us as a reinsurance buyer. We offer a...

Technical Report: Claims - Rising to the challenge.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: David Fanning. The results for the first half of 2003 have added to the good performances during 2002 of many reinsurers, and most long-established reinsurers have bounced back from difficult conditions....

Technical Report: Claims - Points of concern.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Patricia Vowinkel. A new storm is brewing over reinsurance claims for asbestos and other toxic torts. Policyholders, under fire from plaintiff's attorneys, are combing through old insurance policies to...

Technical Report: Claims - The need for speed.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Patricia Vowinkel. Reinsurer solvency has become a big concern for ceding companies. The 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre took a heavy toll, with reinsurers absorbing the bulk...

Market Report: France - The tides of change.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Yves-Daniel Cochand, Daniel Corbaz and Bertrand Logoz. French property (re)insurers continue to be challenged by the two major loss events of September 2001. Firstly, the industry had to address the general...

Market Report: Poland - Getting the green light.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Almost 13 years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall, the economic landscape has changed in Eastern Europe. State control has been replaced by a broad spread of western-style financial systems and privatised firms. ...

Feature: Investment - Once bitten, twice shy?
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Steve Umpelby. The impact of the equity market correction during the last few years on the (re)insurance sector has been well documented. In many ways the decline in equities was a blessing in disguise for a...

Monte Carlo Preview - Meeting of minds at Rendez-Vous.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Marc Jones. The start of the renewal season is almost upon us and companies throughout the reinsurance industry are getting ready for the annual Rendez-Vous event at Monte Carlo. In previous years the...

Regulation Focus - US regulators hit out against asbestos litigation.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) US regulators have appealed to the US Congress to make any future asbestos legislation fair to insurers. Members of the National Conference of Insurance Legislator's (NCOIL) property and casualty (P&C) insurance...

Regulation Focus - Parliamentary task force calls for less litigation and increased efficiency.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Worries about whether the UK is becoming too obsessed with compensation have increased to the point where a top UK government body is appealing for comments from the (re)insurance industry. The Better Regulation Task...

Regulation Focus - CEA adds to IAS criticism.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) The Comite Europeen des Assurances (CEA), Europe's federation of the (re)insurance industry, has welcomed the European Union (EU) Ecofin council's decision to postpone the International Accounting Standards Boards'...

Legal: D&O - Remedies for a hard market.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: John Hughes and John Emmanuel. Over the last decade, insureds of directors' and officers' (D&O) liability insurance coverage have enjoyed unprecedented expansion of coverage. As carriers sought market...

UK Legal - Elements of conspiracy.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: John Butler. The judgement of Mr Justice Thomas in Sphere Drake Insurance v Euro International Underwriting and others [2003] EWI-IC 1630 (Comm) has created a great deal of interest in reinsurance circles....

US Legal - Cutting through the contract.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Peter Chaffetz and Steven Schwartz. One of the most basic principles of reinsurance is that the reinsurance contracts are strictly between the cedant and the reinsurer. Yet, on 26 June, a Pennsylvanian court...

Risk: Weather models - A brighter forecast.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Dr Robert Muir-Wood. While many reinsurers may assume that all the technical issues underlying catastrophe (cat) models are now solved, the past 2-3 years have shown some significant advances in the...

Business: Bermuda - Flying the flag.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) Byline: Marc Jones. Specialist liability insurers arrived in Bermuda in the 1980s and property catastrophe reinsurers in the 1990s. Captives pop up all the time - another 79 were formed in 2002 - and since 11...

Claims Focus - LMP Reforms - LMP looks at speeding up claims Sprocesses.
September 1, 2003... (From Reinsurance) The London (re)insurance market could save up to GBP50m ($81m) a year in costs by using a new streamlined accounting process, according to the London Market Principles (LMP) reforms programme. The accounting and...

Zeman to attack finance reform at economic forum - press.
September 1, 2003... (From Czech News Agency) PRAGUE, Sept 1 (CTK) - Ex-premier and ex-chairman of the Social Democrats (CSSD) Milos Zeman is going to attack the public finance reform planned by the cabinet of Vladimir Spidla, his successor in both the posts,...

Czech press survey.
September 1, 2003... (From Czech News Agency) PRAGUE, Sept 1 (CTK) - Teachers have a reason why to be angry since the government did not fulfil what it had promised to them, but their strike is still unwise for two reasons, Milos Cermak writes in the daily...

Pencils, Pens and Phones for Sept. 1.
September 1, 2003... (From The Moscow Times) The usual notebooks, pens and pencils are not the only things parents are buying their children for school this year. A growing number of students will start classes Monday equipped with cellphones. Leading...

News in Brief: Voyentorg Appeal.
September 1, 2003... (From The Moscow Times) MOSCOW -- Culture Minister Mikhail Shvydkoi is calling on federal and city officials to put a stop to the demolition of the historical Voyentorg, or Military Store, building in downtown Moscow. Shvydkoi told...

Deputy Goes After Kokh, for a Day.
September 1, 2003... (From The Moscow Times) A State Duma deputy from Yabloko briefly put his party in the unlikely position of pushing for the revision of privatization results last week by filing a formal request to the Prosecutor General's Office to...

TNK-BP: Slavneft in and Sakhalin Out.
September 1, 2003... (From The Moscow Times) BP announced Friday that it had completed its $6 billion-plus deal to merge its Russian assets with those of TNK, but with two notable modifications to February's initial agreement. BP had originally planned to...

Bureya Dam Threatens Railway.
September 1, 2003... (From The Moscow Times) In order to expand the Bureya hydroelectric power station, which came online this June, the federal government must relocate some 50 kilometers of Trans-Siberian rail line -- a 4 billion ruble ($131 million) task....

IMF Closes Kazakh 'Res Rep' Office.
September 1, 2003... (From The Moscow Times) ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- This month, the International Monetary Fund's representative in Almaty, the country's economic capital, ended a two-year assignment and was not to be replaced -- testimony to the Fund's faith...

Flawed Approaches on Iran.
September 1, 2003... (From The Moscow Times) To Our ReadersHas something you've read here startled you? Are you angry, excited, puzzled or pleased? Do you have ideas to improve our coverage? Then please write to us. All we ask is that you include your...

Forgiveness and Resurrection.
September 1, 2003... (From The Moscow Times) "Why [should] someone as ineffective and as entangled in accusations of financial abuses as [St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir] Yakovlev [get a Cabinet post]... " -- Moscow Times editorial, June 17, 2003 ...

Tragic Tale of A Sailor's Bid for Better Life.
September 1, 2003... (From The Moscow Times) To Our ReadersHas something you've read here startled you? Are you angry, excited, puzzled or pleased? Do you have ideas to improve our coverage? Then please write to us. All we ask is that you include your...

Cammel Laird to Bid for Varna Shipyard in New Procedure.
September 1, 2003... (From PARI Daily) Byline: Iliana TONCHEVA Soros's crony ready to negotiate with Navibulgar's new management BRITAIN'S Cammel Laird will bid for the Varna shipyard if a new sales procedure is opened, the PARI daily learned....

MG Abandons Business in Balkan Region.
September 1, 2003... (From PARI Daily) Byline: the lawyers had left Naidenov out and that he would be restored to the board. Insiders commented that what happened is a quiet coup spurred by the polar differences in the views of Popova and Naidenov on the...

EDC Sell-off Starts within 15 Days.
September 1, 2003... (From PARI Daily) Byline: Svetoslava BANCHEVA BY SEPTEMBER 15 we will open a procedure on the privatisation of Bulgaria's electricity distribution companies (EDCs), energy minister Milko Kovachev said. We expect leading foreign...

IN A NUTSHELL.
September 1, 2003... (From PARI Daily) THE RIGHTS for participation in the capital raise of Druzhba Style of Varna will appear on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange within two weeks. The company will offer 122,070 rights, each of them giving right to subscribing one...

DZI Profit Rapidly Up.
September 1, 2003... (From PARI Daily) A BIG increase in the profit for the first half of the year, reaching BGN 8.979 million, is seen from the consolidated balance sheet of DZI, which was published Friday. The whole profit of Bulgaria's former state insurer...