Tomorrow's Business Today
Dear Bankers, love your PR people
Every once in a while bankers on a deal decide they don’t need a PR firm.
They are always, always wrong about this.
The lack of a PR contact is bound to lead to misunderstandings or plain errors.
For one thing, where do I go if I want to ask very simple, uncontentious, things such as: how many people work at this firm? Have I got it right that the chairman is big into horse-racing, or have I confused him with someone else?
Today finnCap confirmed it is on the receiving end of a takeover bid from Panmure Gordon.
Neither side returned phone calls. The finnCap statement had Grant Thornton as nominated adviser, and Smith Square Partners as financial advisers.
The PRs were frozen out, presumably because the bankers don’t want to say anything yet.
That’s understood, but into the gap that is left speculation shall fly, old wounds will be re-opened.
I think finnCap is a busted flush. They’ve had it.
And I think Bob Diamond, the ultimate controller of Panmure Gordon, is an old school fat cat banker of the sort that should be history.
The “unacceptable face of banking” who never showed remorse for anything, as someone once wrote.
None of these views needed repeating, had an in-the-loop PR person been able to amiably chat off the record.
The bankers get this one wrong, all the time.
Press release of the day
Galliard Homes is launching £2m Feng Shui inspired apartments for sale in Soho.
They are “exceptionally luxurious homes”, that “create balance with the natural world whilst still maintaining elements of playfulness via contemporary art”.
This is, especially in present circumstances, highly mockable. But all publicity….
Stories that will keep rolling
1) Are Tesla’s figures reassuring or alarming to Wall Street?
2) Did Asos squeak out a profit?
3) How bad is inflation? Why is it so much lower in Canada?
4) Do the HL figures show why the CEO is on the way out?
