Tag: Greece

Footy Grand Final (Cricket after – yay!)


As is often the case, Greece stands as a focus of world attention. If the Germans didn’t agree to prop it up, it was going to unplug the sinkhole for the rest of the world. Or so it appears. Maybe it is just the big German banks which needed protection.

While Europe worked overtime to prevent a crisis, down under we’re all working overtime to prepare ourselves for something far more important – footy Grand Final. I think it was Bob Paisley who said football isn’t about life and death – it is far more important than that. It felt like that once or twice last Friday when the Hawks went agonizingly close to beating the zebras to stake a claim for tomorrow’s big one. As it turned out, we couldn’t get that one goal we needed and went down by just 3 points, to see Collingwood line up against Geelong tomorrow.

I guess I will take a couple of hours off to watch the game at home, busy times notwithstanding.

I have an essay assignment due middle next week, but had to also prepare the home cell meeting tonight as well as prepare a presentation for a Christmas missions launch on Sunday. It all required a bit of ground work and not helping is a busy office – a colleague is away on medical leave, leaving only 2.5 staff to carry the work, which meant I have been busier than usual.

On top of all that, there has been a slew of meals planned with different people and I have been wondering what to cook and all that. Also, the storms recently mean the garden was in a mess and although I spent a couple of hours last weekend cleaning up, the continuing storm meant all that work would have to be repeated some time in the next few days.

All of that would have to be parked aside though – to honour, (no longer “One Saturday in September”) the climactic end of what has been a really interesting footy season. Bring on the cricket!

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The Power of Oui


Another year, another major event or transaction. I joined the company in 2007. In 2008 the meltdown of Wall Street banks scorched. AIG was singed and barely survived. In 2009 the “crown jewels” of AIG, its Asian life insurance business, was packaged up for a float. A very big float. In fact it was too big for associated risks to be palatable. With market exposed to Greece and the rest of the PIGS, going to market was always going to be a touch uncertain. So the big Pru’s overtures come 2010 couldn’t have been better timed. “Transformational” it may promise to be and impressive Mr Tidjane Thiam may look on paper, but the deal is so riddled with hurdles and potholes that it will take every bit of Tidjane’s intelligence and charisma to pull this one through. Already it seems he has been able to reach out to sovereign funds to come alongside to play a role in one form or another, in support of the massive rights issue. Will he be the Obama of insurance, “Oui We Can?” I jokingly sent my colleagues a picture of Tidjane, with a caption “The Power or Oui”. A bit of a send up to the “Power of We” campaign undertaken by AIA recently. I have a feeling that whoever has doubts about whether this deal will carry, probably needs to know Mr Tidjane Thiam a bit more. I think he is the man of the hour. Is Prudential acting against the spirit of its name in acquiring a “brasher, bolder and more brazened” competitor? With Tidjane Thiam swashbuckling away, the power of oui may just carry the day.

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