MORNING MEETING: Serco boss did the right thing in quitting
ALL too often bosses stick around for too long when things have gone wrong. So Alastair Lyons deserves credit for announcing his departure from Serco which has seen its shares slump from 683p last year to 212½p.
Things went wrong at the FTSE 250 group after a period of frantic deal–making and expansion under former chief executive Christopher Hyman who left last year.
But it was Lyons who was in charge of the board of the sprawling group for the last four years and he must share his portion of blame.
He was not asked to go but his move allows new chief executive Rupert Soames to speed up change.
Soames is the grandson of Winston Churchill who once said: "Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon." It is Soames' job to take a firm grip of the reins and get the horse on its feet again.
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He was not asked to go but his move allows new chief executive Rupert Soames to speed up change
The clouds on the horizon of the global economy have been put into sharp focus by Japan's lurch back into recession.
For two years Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been trying to turn things around with his "three arrows" policy of public spending, monet ary stimulus and structural reform.
Dubbed "Abenomics", his policy has been good for the Tokyo stock market but it has sent the value of the yen falling. Japanese exporters have benefited from the weak currency while consumers have stopped spending on imports.
The net result is the Japanese are not buying as much of our stuff as they used to while our producers are having to compete harder with their cut–price products.
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Even though most homes have its products lurking in bathroom and kitchen cupboards Reckitt Benckiser is hardly a household name.
But the decision to split in two is a timely reminder that it is one of that rare band of genuine world–beating British companies.
