I used to work for AIG - a few mates still there but they will get jobs easy enough - loads of dicks there & my faith in karma has been restored
Funny the reaction over here to the crisis. The media are so unbelievably upbeat about the whole thing constantly referring to Bush’s comment that he has faith in the capital markets.
Idiots.
“It’s in our national interest that AIG survive,” said Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, a former AIG chairman and a major investor in the insurer.
National interest or your interest Hank?
Anyone who calls himself Hank deserves everything he gets…
Farmer, take a bow (but don’t knock over the Statue of Liberty as you lean down). It was a truly great call on your behalf to head over to New York last Friday and tremendous foresight to see the whole Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG issues were going to reach boiling point. Between sending Juhniallio to Beijing for the Olympics and Farmer to NYC as the credit crunch magnifies, TFK really has everything covered. Jugs, I’m a mere novice in the banking industry compared to you (16 month tea-making experience as opposed to your 5 years) but this has taken me aback like nothing ever before in history. I’m so tense about how things might develop on the NYSE today that I feel a violent dose of diarrhoea coming on.
10.56 ET - Rumours abound there’s Govt money on the table in AIG discussions. (Reuters)
11.05 ET - Fed declines to comment on reports that Govt money on the table in AIG discussions. (Reuters)
This is getting exciting!!!
Probably worth repeating that Bandage. Cracking post.
Okay.
Farmer, take a bow (but don’t knock over the Statue of Liberty as you lean down). It was a truly great call on your behalf to head over to New York last Friday and tremendous foresight to see the whole Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG issues were going to reach boiling point. Between sending Juhniallio to Beijing for the Olympics and Farmer to NYC as the credit crunch magnifies, TFK really has everything covered. Jugs, I’m a mere novice in the banking industry compared to you (16 month tea-making experience as opposed to your 5 years) but this has taken me aback like nothing ever before in history. I’m so tense about how things might develop on the NYSE today that I feel a violent dose of diarrhoea coming on.
Going to log off in a few minutes and head off down to Wall Street to see what heads I can bump into. I have the TFK astro jersey with me so I am bound to get a few quotes once they know who I represent…
What I want to know is: will Man Utd will be wearing a sewn-on patch on the front of their jerseys tomorrow night like West Ham did at the weekend? They could fast become the must have fashion accessory for football fans.
anyone got a handy list of sponsors, could run a “who’s next to go into liquidation” that includes the clubs and their sponsors 
Newcastle and Northern Rock were a perfect match. Cork City today signed a lucrative new sponsorship deal with Cappoquin Chickens.
here’s an article that was just up my yahoo:
With AIG the clear front runners to disappear from premiership jerseys, who else could go? Here’s a list of the other clubs, together with sponsors by market sector:
Travel
Arsenal, Emirates. Despite the airline crisis, Emirate’s clientele means it is unlikely they will become one of the 30 airlines tipped to fold before Christmas.
Manchester City, Thomas Cook. The company is into its sixth year as sponsor - and fans are four times as likely to book holidays with the firm; good news considering they include the Gallaghers of Oasis fame. Not that it will really matter if City play without a sponsor, or without shirts at all.
Finance
Stoke City, Britannia Building Society. Depending on how the credit crunch plays out, we may see fewer finance firms sponsoring football, although some may see it as a golden marketing opportunity to encourage savers. Britannia looks steady, though, having backed Stoke for over a decade.
Electronics
Chelsea, Samsung. Having switched from one giant, Sony to another, the pretenders to Manchester United’s throne have a sponsor who looks every bit as solid as they do.
Portsmouth, OKI printers.
Middleborough, Garmin SatNav.
Fulham, LG Electronics.
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Alcohol
Liverpool, Carlsberg. A 15-year contract makes this the longest running deal in the top flight. Probably.
Everton, Chang. Both clubs should be edgy as alcohol sponsorship of sport is under increasing pressure. Children’s kit replicas have already lost their booze logos.
Internet
Tottenham Hotspur, Mansion.com. An online casino with plenty of cash. Before Spurs took them, they were after Man United. Could history repeat itself?
Hull City, Internet service provider Karoo. No, neither had I, but apparently Karoo is a local ISP owned by Kingston Communications, which is the monopoly web supplier for Hull.
Sportswear
Bolton Wanderers, Reebok.
Wigan Atheletic, JJB Sports. UK-based retailer JJB has been hit hard by the slump in retail spending this year.
Other
Blackburn Rovers, Crown Paints.
Sunderland, Boylesports.
The rise of sponsorship
In recent years, the concept of ‘brand’ has become increasingly crucial, and marketing budgets and sponsorship deals have boomed accordingly. If your target market was likely to watch football then it made sense to get your name out there. Football backing in particular was an easy one to sell into the boss. After all, what flash CEO doesn’t like the idea of being able to impress clients in his box as they watch a team wearing his company’s name and logo?
The cost-benefit analysis was simple: firm pays a wad of cash and in return gets name awareness among thousands, if not millions, of supporters and TV viewers. But just how big a wad do you need?
It depends what sort of club you want to back. Are you seeking stadium naming rights or just a logo on some shorts? Hell, there’s probably even a waiting list to provide the half-time oranges. Spend 800,000 a year and you could be the main sponsor of Portsmouth or Hull City. 5 million will get you Spurs, Arsenal or Newcastle. Expect to find upwards of 14 million a year if you want to back Manchester United - any takers?
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Going down
Wearing a corporate logo with pride is one thing, but what happens if that company goes bankrupt? All that effort you have put into getting your firm’s name out there could rebound horribly as news spreads far and wide of your failure. Not to mention the collective tut-tutting about you having splashed money around on a football team. Think Northern Rock. Now nationalised after near-failure, the publicly-owned bank continues to sponsor Newcastle United and rugby union team the Newcastle Falcons, despite the deals effectively involving taxpayer’s money.
Why Keegan’s departure is good news for Newcastle
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The government-appointed executive chairman Ron Sandler has told MPs that the sponsorship agreements with United and the Falcons were “in the commercial interests” of the bank. In other words, it would cost more to ditch them than to let them run their course. Mr Sandler also said it was essential to “maintain the roots and connections” of the business with the North-East. However, that didn’t stop the bank axing sponsorship deals with county cricket clubs Middlesex and Durham.
Northern Rock have not disclosed the value of the current Newcastle United sponsorship, running from 2005 to 2010, although the club previously reported that commercial revenues of 25.7m in the 11 months to June 30, 2006 were “enhanced by the impact of improved deals with the club’s two main sponsors Adidas and Northern Rock”.
In 2005, Port Vale FC’s shirt sponsors, mobile phone company Tricelli, were reported to owe the football club 92,000. Vale only emerged from administration in 2003, and are still recovering.
Last week’s developments will see West Ham playing in (shock, horror) an unbranded kit until a new shirt sponsor has been found to replace XL. The club was forced to suspend all sales of replica shirts after the airline and tour operator went bust, stranding thousands of passengers around the world. Meanwhile, reports claim that the Hammers have received just a third of the 7.5 million sponsorship deal agreed last year. This raises an interesting point - if West Ham was not getting the money it expected, perhaps football club bosses should be part of an early warning system for British businesses about to fail?
Coincidentally, the club’s first match without XL was against Northern Rock’s Newcastle United. Perhaps there could be a whole new league for jilted clubs? Conspiracy theorists looking to find “the curse of sponsorship” will be also be intrigued to find out that these two clubs are the only ones to have lost their managers this year.
Sponsorship is a two-way street
Sponsors, too, take risks when they invest. For starters, the chosen team could play really badly and shrink into obscurity. Perhaps another brand could hijack its efforts by sponsoring an individual player or something that was not included in the package, such as press conferences. For every ‘Official beer/boots/hot-tub suppliers to Blah FC’ there is the chance for a company to spend no money whatsoever on sponsorship and brand themselves as ‘Unofficial beer/boots/hot-tubs of Blah FC’. At this point, you need to start using your ‘legal action’ budget.
Judgment is key. Some types of business do not lend themselves to sports sponsorship and there could be a backlash about where you’re spending money. How will your customers, shareholders or policyholders react to your sponsorship? Of course, this is brought into sharp focus if and when your company gets into trouble. Reputational damage (a product recall perhaps) will play rather differently to, say, redundancies or fat-cat bonuses during tough times.
Footnote: Partnership, not sponsorship?
A safe option is to go for a company that isn’t out to make money. In June this year, Aston Villa became the first premiership team to be “sponsored” by a charity, West Midlands-based Acorns Children’s Hospice. The deal means the charity’s logo being carried on the club’s shirts for free throughout the 2008/9 season - and means they lose 2m in revenue.
But this effort is dwarfed by European giants Barcelona, which last year signed a five-year collaborative agreement with Unicef that will see the club not only sport the children’s charity’s banner on its shirts but contribute just over 1m to its humanitarian projects each year. So the charity benefits, the club looks good (both morally and from a fashion standpoint - ask West Ham) while attracting a whole raft of corporate partnerships from firms who want the glow to rub off on them.
Good news: The big 4 are rallying this morning after the Regulator put a ban on short selling of the 4 major banks last night. Good move as this was a major contributory factor in the decline in prices this year, particularly in the case of Anglo.
We can all breathe a little easier now.
I wonder if the Lloyd’s take over of HBOS will lead to any job losses for Halifax or Bank of Ireland Scotland staff in Ireland. Bank of Ireland also announced half-year results that were even lower than expectations (which already were low enough) the other day. If only Ben Shermin was still arounfd to provide us with the analysis we crave.
Spanish bank Santander are rumoured to be preparing a bid for BOI while Anglo are rumoured to be looking at Irish Nationwide whom BOI were linked with last week. This is like the transfer window in football, all we need now is an Andy Burton type character to stand outside the banks’ HQ with updates and pretend to be gettting texts from the various CEOs.
I can think of a staff member from the Halifax end of things that wouldn’t be missed - and she’d free up a prime parking space.
Govt has raised the deposit guarantee on savings from 90% of up to 20k to 100k with effect from today giving us one of the highest deposit guarantees in Europe.
Interesting stats from the Irish Times today from the new disclosure requirements on investors who hold short positions in Irish banking stocks.
Those who hold more than a quarter of a percent of the shares had to reveal their positions I think. And cumulatively they hold 4.56% of Anglo Irish Bank stock, 2.25% of Bank of Ireland and 0.88% of both Allied Irish Bank and Irish Life & Permanent.
Not surprised to see Anglo topping the list - goes with most of the anecdotal stuff you hear.
This is nuts. Anglo Irish Bank down 37% to €2.70 and Irish Life & Permanent down 33% to €3.65 today are the most alarming downturns but AIB are down 19% and Bank of Ireland has fallen 18% too.