Having Their Cake . . .

How the City and Big Bosses Are Consuming UK Business

By: Don Young, Pat Scott

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Product code: 16886
ISBN: 0749438614
272 pages
Format: Hb
Published by: Kogan Page, 2004, 1st edition

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Having Their Cake . . . - front page cover image

Description of Having Their Cake . . .

In the last twenty years top managers of British companies have experienced an unprecedented boom in pay and perks, while their counterparts in the City have earned millions. Just reward for achieving high performance and superior shareholder value one might say. If indeed that was the outcome. The reality, though, is somewhat different as this hard-hitting book reveals.

Having their Cake… is a damning account of neglect, greed and incompetence, and the irresponsible destruction of corporate Britain’s wealth. For the first time, the little publicized informal relationships between the City institutions and top management in UK’s largest public companies is examined in great detail. While passionate in their quest to expose this destruction and propose positive changes, the authors provide us with cool and compelling evidence that:

- financial markets are the dominant influence over the appointment and careers of top managers of public companies;
- these symbiotic relationships represents a seismic shift in the balance of power between the stakeholders in industry and the economy;
- many high-profile corporate deals are made at the expense of company performance or even survival;
- the combination of City pressures and management practices are having an increasingly corrosive effect on British businesses.

And the consequences are alarming:

- there is now little or no larger British presence in many key industrial sectors that require consistent investment in innovation and technology;
- Some 40% of British-based exporting companies are now foreign owned;
- Approaching 50% of gross exports are made by foreign owned companies;
- there are now no larger British owned international investment banks;
- the productivity of American owned manufacturing companies in Britain vastly exceeds that of British owned ones.

Having their Cake… is a wake-up call for everyone who cares about the future of corporate Britain.

Having Their Cake . . . - Chapter headings

Part I: About the book and the values behind it

Introduction to Part I

1. Something’s happening! Changes in the industrial landscape

Part II: The financial markets and top managers

Introduction to Part II

2. Who are the actors in the business--City nexus?

3. Management

4. Dancing partners: the relationships between managers and markets

Part III: Why do some companies get into difficulties?

Introduction to Part III

5. Factors causing failure: mergers and acquisitions (and disposals)

6. Other 'failure' factors

7. The rise and fall of Redland plc: a case study

8. So, what is good?

Part IV: The three propositions

Introduction to Part IV

9. Managers and markets

10. Organizational and behavioural impacts of management--market relationships

11. Industrial, economic and social consequences of management--market relationships

Interlude: 'time out' for reflection

12. So, where do we go from here?

End thought: why is the 'system' so hard to change?

References

Authobiography of Don Young, Pat Scott

Patricia Scott is a co-founder, director and executive coach with Woodbridge Partners Limited. She is also a consultant, in financial and treasury management, having worked as Group Treasurer for Redland plc and Director of Tax and Treasury for Thorn EMI plc. A non-executive director, and a member of the Tax Law Review Committee and the Programme Committee of the Association of Corporate Treasurers, she also leads business management and finance courses for several professional institutes.

Don Young has had a full career in industry. Starting as a graduate trainee with Unilever plc, he has worked all over the world in marketing, operations and top Human Resources roles. His later career included positions as Director of Organization and Human Resources in Thorn EMI plc and Redland plc. He is also chairman and co-founder of three consulting companies, Woodbridge Partners Limited, Value Partnership Limited, YSC Limited. Don is the co-author of two previous books.