Crash Landing

Gravity of Justice? The high fliers of the corporate world are falling back to earth and the business world's oracle says its high time.

Big Bosses Get The Bullet

Around the world, chief executives were forced to leave their jobs in record numbers in 2002, a study of chief executive turnover by head-hunters Booz Allen Hamilton shows. Nearly 100 of the chief executives of the world's 2500 largest companies were replaced last year for performance reasons - almost four times the number forced to leave in 1995, the study found. "What's happening is that a level of performance that was acceptable to boards a couple of years ago isn't acceptable to boards any more," said Charles Lucier, senior vice-president emeritus of Booz Allen and an author of the study Deliver or Depart.

The consensus among the firm's consultants and clients, he said, "is that CEOs are under much more pressure and are less secure than ever before". (Source: SMH)

Elliott in the Soup

Living testament of this theory comes in the form of one John Elliott, the man once touted as prime minister material, who is now flogging canned tomatoes. Just weeks after his name was stripped from the Heroes' Stand at Optus Oval, Elliott has lent his name to an advertising campaign, joining a list of celebrities who have swallowed their pride to be part of Ardmona's campaign to sell their "rich and thick" canned tomatoes. Big Jack joins such exalted company as Warwick Capper, Rose Porteous and Lillian Frank, who last year all appeared under the "rich and thick" motto. Elliott - whose business future in the hands of the judiciary - said he participated in the campaign because it was vital to keep a good sense of humour through the good times and the bad. (Source: The Australian)

Airport To Slash Costs, Jobs

Meanwhile, the Millionaires Factory shows how its done, with a heavy round of cost cutting at Sydney airport expected to underpin earnings growth of Macquarie Airports in the year ahead. When the Macquarie-led consortium acquired Sydney airport a year ago, it entered into a 12-month stand-still agreement, under which no staff were to be retrenched. Sydney airport executive chairman and chief executive officer Max Moore-Wilton is finalising a major review of the airport's operations. Macquarie Airports units have risen slightly in recent weeks but they are still below their issue price of $2. (Source: SMH)

AMP Says Goodbye To UK

AMP has ended its disastrous 15-year UK foray, unveiling a radical plan to split the 153-year-old Australian operations from its UK businesses. The proposal - described by chief executive Andrew Mohl as "ambitious, courageous and daring" - will see AMP write a further $2.6 billion off the value of UK businesses built up under three previous CEOs. AMP will sell its $50 billion portfolio of UK shares - the source of much of its recent problems - in favour of safer but lower yielding fixed-interest investments. Under his predecessor, Paul Batchelor, AMP harboured ambitions to become a top 10 global fund manager and dominate the UK market. But a plunge in the UK equity market forced AMP to pump more than $1 billion into its UK Financial Services business, which has guaranteed returns to investors, whatever the markets do. (Source: The Australian)

Cuffe Keeps Bouncing

The $33 million man, Chriss Cuffe, has refused to disclose how much his new employer, Kerry Packer, is paying him. Cuff was facing the media to provide an update on a $1.2 billion proposed merger between his new employer, Kerry Packer's CPH Investments Corp Ltd, and financial services group Challenger International Ltd. Asked when he might disclose details of his pay, he replied: "I'm paid out of the responsible entity, CPH Management Ltd. CPH Management Ltd is not a listed entity, it's got no requirement to do it. It doesn't cost people any extra. That entity earns a management fee, and that's the part that's paid out of the trust so my details become irrelevant." Asked if this meant effectively dodging new Australian Stock Exchange rules aimed at improving transparency, Cuffe replied: "No, not at all". "CPH Management Ltd is paid a fee ... out of that it can choose to spend its money any way it likes". Cuffe was thrust into controversy in February over news he had received payments totalling $32.75 million, including accrued bonuses, from his former employer Commonwealth Bank of Australia. (Source; The Age)

Turner To Leave AOL 'In Disgust'

Media heavyweight, Ted Turner, the CNN founder whose company was absorbed into the AOL Time Warner empire, is leaving his top post "in disgust" after losing billions of dollars. Turner told Fortune Magazine he is concerned that his huge losses will mean that the philanthropic causes he supports will suffer. Fortune, which is part of the AOL Time Warner conglomerate, noted that Turner will step down as vice chairman of the corporation at its annual shareholder meeting. Turner initially sold his TBS broadcast empire -- CNN, TNT, the TBS Superstation, Turner Classic Movies, the Cartoon Network, New Line Cinema, and several sports teams, including the Atlanta Braves -- in 1996 to Time Warner. That became absorbed into AOL Time Warner when America Online used its high stock value to acquire the media giant in 2000. (Source: Yahoo)

Disney in the Pooh

The Walt Disney Company has been dealt a blow by a US court in its battle to control the commercial rights to Winnie the Pooh, its most profitable character. The ruling, in a Los Angeles court on Friday night, also undermines a multimillion-dollar deal struck between Disney and the descendants of A.A. Milne, the original Pooh author, which was designed to benefit thousands of disabled people in Britain. Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, a US federal district judge, ruled that Clare Milne, the granddaughter of A.A. Milne, who suffers from cerebral palsy, cannot reclaim the rights to Winnie the Pooh under US copyright laws passed in 1998. (Source: SMH)

Buffett Gives Executives A Canning

Finally, billionaire investment wizard Warren Buffett has urged big institutional investors - the "800 pound gorillas" of the share world - to rise up against greedy executives. Chief executives of some major companies are overpaid, says Buffet, one of the shrewdest traders in the US and the man who turned Berkshire Hathaway into a multi-billion-dollar holding company. At a time of criminal investigations into groups such as Enron, he cautioned stockholders to give careful attention to any company financial reports He said big institutional shareholders needed to get tougher with companies they invested in, to counter the decline in corporate standards in the US. He said large shareholders should co-operate to present a set of principles to companies they invest in, threatening to withhold support if the companies do not comply. (Source: Career One)