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Greek Rich List News
Greek Canadian billionaire resigns from RIM (makers of the Blackberry)
Mike Lazaridis (left) and Jim Balsillie, who have shared the CEO and chair titles at Research In Motion, have resigned. Thorsten Heins, formerly the company’s chief operating officer, was named CEO and president. (Mike Cassese/Reuters).
Mike Lazaridis, Greek Rich List’s 5th richest Greek in the world, and co-CEO Jim Balsillie step aside after a long slide in the BlackBerry maker’s stock value, market share.
Research in Motion’s co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have quit after a tumultuous period at the company, which saw intense competition, declining sales, a failed tablet debut, and a long services outage at the maker of the BlackBerry over the last two years. The company is in the midst of replacing its BlackBerry operating system and product line with a new platform based on the QNX operating system it acquired in 2010. The first “BlackBerry reboot” products are due in late 2012.
An insider, COO Thorsten Heins, has taken charge as president and CEO, to implement the succession plan previously submitted to the board by the former co-CEOs, RIM said in a statement late Sunday. Heins joined RIM from Siemens Communications Group in December 2007 as senior vice president for hardware engineering and became COO for product and sales in August 2011.
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Heins told the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper that he intended to pursue the strategy set by Balsillie and Lazarids, including the move to a new BlackBerry platform. He also said he would be open to licensing that platform to other device makers. In a statement published by RIM, Heins said, “It is Mike [Lazaridis's and Balsillie's] continued unwillingness to sacrifice long-term value for short-term gain which has made RIM the great company that it is today. I share that philosophy and am very excited about the company’s future.”
Lazaridis and Balsillie have also quit their positions as co-chairmen; director Barbara Stymiest takes over as the new chairman. Lazaridis, a founder of the company, will become vice chairman, and Balsillie will remain a board member. Lazaridis will also chair a newly created “Innovation Committee,” and will work closely with the new CEO to offer strategic counsel, provide a smooth transition, and continue to promote the BlackBerry brand worldwide, RIM said.
Will CEOs’ resignation be enough to turn RIM around?
Investors in Research in Motion have been calling for change at the Blackberry maker since profits started falling last year, and on Sunday they got their wish.
Co-chief executives Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie announced they have resigned as the heads of the Waterloo, Ont.-based company.
Former chief operating officer Thorsten Heins will take over as CEO, while Lazaridis and Balsillie will remain on the company’s board of directors.
RIM’s slide in the last few years has been remarkable. In 2008, it was Canada’s most valuable company, with a stock share price of $148. On Friday, shares closed at $17.24.
Its share of the smartphone market has dwindled as competitors Apple and Google surged ahead with their respective iPhone and Android devices. The Blackberry Playbook, RIM’s answer to Apple’s iPad tablet, sold poorly, and the company was forced to sell it at a deep discount.
RIM investors have been pressing for change in the company’s management structure. Some have been calling for the company to be sold, or for the consumer product division to be broken apart from the enterprise business.
Will the resignation of RIM’s CEOs be enough to turn the company around? Does more need to be done to regain investor confidence? Let us know in the comments below.
Sources: CBC News/Info World
Richemont lifted by the super-rich
Expensive watches and jewellery such as the $20,000 (£13,000) Altiplano watch have helped the Swiss luxury goods group Richemont bring in sales of €2.6bn (£2.2bn) in the last quarter.
The luxury goods sector remains one of the strongest globally as the super wealthy keep spending in the face of wider economic turmoil.
Sales for the three months to the end of December were up by 24 per cent from €2.11bn on a year earlier, beating analysts’ expectations.
Johann Rupert, the executive chairman and group chief executive officer, said: “The group’s overall performance remains solid. Operating profit for the full year will be significantly higher than last year.”
Richemont, which owns some of the biggest jewellery and watch brands including Cartier, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Piaget, said growth was solid across all regions, with Asia-Pacific the strongest.
Sales growth in Europe benefited from what experts have dubbed TLC, the “travelling luxury consumer”.
Its online designer outlet Net-a-Porter.com also performed well.
However, some experts have pointed to a slowdown in growth as a sign that the sparkle of the sector could begin to tarnish.
Mr Rupert said: “As expected, the slowdown in sales growth relative to the first six months of the year reflects the volatile and challenging economic environment.”
Source: The Independent
UK’s Clegg wants Budget to target the rich – calls for rich to pay mansion tax.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. Photo: Leon Neal/PA
Nick Clegg is demanding a “tax the rich” Budget in March to head off growing fears that the Coalition will lose public support because its deficit-reduction programme is seen as unfair on ordinary families.
The Liberal Democrats are urging George Osborne to include a mansion tax on homes worth £2m and measures to stop the rich avoiding stamp duty when they sell their properties by transferring ownership to a shell company.
Although it is thought the Chancellor is unlikely to introduce a high-value property tax immediately, he may set up a review to look at raising the tax burden on the rich by targeting property assets rather than income, which would be harder to avoid. Mr Osborne is likely to act on stamp duty, amid evidence that rich people reduce the 5 per cent stamp duty on the sale of homes worth £1m to only 0.5 per cent by placing their property in a company.
Mr Clegg and other Liberal Democrat cabinet ministers will make their demands in behind-the-scenes talks with Mr Osborne before his Budget on 21 March. Other Liberal Democrat proposals include a tax on land values and scrapping the 40 per cent tax relief on pension contributions for higher-rate taxpayers. They also want a new crackdown on “non-domiciles” – foreign residents living in Britain who do not pay tax on their overseas earnings.
Today, Mr Clegg will join the debate about “responsible capitalism” before a speech on “moral markets” by David Cameron later this week. The Deputy Prime Minister will call for millions of workers to own shares in their companies in a new “John Lewis economy”.
A source close to Mr Clegg said: “Nick is pushing his government colleagues for real, early, radical action on this. Employee ownership is part of a long liberal tradition.”
Senior Liberal Democrats are worried public support for spending cuts could melt away unless the rich shoulder more of the burden.
Higher taxes for the rich are popular with the public and the Liberal Democrats do not want to be defined in the year ahead by their pro-European stance, which is not supported by a majority of voters. They believe the Tories might be persuaded to act on property values because opinion polls suggest they are seen by many voters as “a party for the rich” rather than “people like us.” To increase the pressure on Mr Osborne, some Liberal Democrats plan to join Labour to try to bring in a mansion tax if it is not included in the Budget.
Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, a Liberal Democrat peer and close ally of the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, said: “A mansion tax is the real test of whether the Coalition means business on fair taxation. You can’t claim ‘we are all in it together’ when wealth is virtually untaxed.”
Source: The Independent
