Starting at 9am ET (2pm UK), Bernanke will be questioned by a bipartisan panel chaired by Phil Angelides, a former Democratic state treasurer of California, as part of a series of evidentiary sessions entitled “too big to fail: expectations and impact of extraordinary government intervention and the role of systemic risk in the financial crisis”.

Following up from yesterday’s appearance by the former Lehman Brothers boss Dick Fuld, the panel are sure to ask Bernanke about the US government’s controversial path in allowing Lehman to file for bankruptcy – despite putting together rescue packages for other banks including Bears Stearns, Wachovia and Washington Mutual.

A cerebral figure, Bernanke has a habit of speaking in tortuously lengthy sentences.

Read more…

Sometimes it’s nice to get a promotional item that isn’t a calendar, pen or a keychain. Of course, those are all good items and can, indeed, provide a ton of ongoing advertising, but sometimes it pays to use something a little different. Whenever a business caters mostly to men, it is fun to find other useful items that you can use to promote your business, some type of promotional sports and outdoors items. Many of them can become conversation pieces, and now you’ve just provided advertising to a ton of other people as well! Whate Read more…

The return of Asil Nadir, saying he wants justice at last, takes us back to the corporate villains and scandals of an earlier era: that of Maxwell, Peter Clowes, BCCI and Guinness. Those days are long gone: a series of accounting reforms were put in place, but the scandals of yesteryear have been eclipsed by the cataclysmic losses of the credit crunch. Even Nadir’s would-be nemesis, the Serious Fraud Office, had pretty much forgotten about the fugitive, and his case files were gathering cobwebs.

The SFO, and the government, might wish they had continued to do so. His return at this juncture is bad timing from the Conservatives’ point of view, reminding people as it does of his ties with the Major administration.

Read more…

Trends? “Let’s develop a community,” they say, meaning an online community. Search google for let’s develop a community and you get 23 million hits. You tell me: is there a marketing meeting brainstorming web opportunities that doesn’t include an online community?

So, contrarian hat on my head, I want to list some reasons not to develop that online community you and your team have been talking about. I don’t want to be negative … but still …

1. So many communities already.

How many logins can anybody manage? We’re lost in a sea of communities. Each assumes we’r

Read more…

The recently moribund merger and acquisition (M&A) departments at investment banks are unexpectedly having one of the busiest Augusts on record, following the explosion of energy deals this week.

Transactions such as BHP Billiton’s $43.8bn (£28bn) takeover of Canada’s Potash Corp have lifted global M&A weekly volume to $89.8bn, the highest since November last year, and the busiest August week since 2006, according to data from ThomsonReuters.

The sudden jump has caught some bankers off guard.

Read more…

BC Partners, the private equity firm that owns Foxtons estate agents, faces trouble in another of its companies, Greek casino operator Regency Entertainment, which also accumulated large debts at the peak of the credit boom.

The casino operator, acquired for €1bn (£800n) in 2006, has appointed investment bank Houlihan Lokey, which specialises in restructuring, to advise on how to tackle the company’s €557m debt.

The talks are continuing with a group of Greek and foreign creditor banks, which are being advised by Lazard, the Guardian has learned.

Earnings at the casino operator are below expectations, as the business has been hit by a slowdown in consumer spending in Greece in the wake of the country’s financial near-collapse this year. It h

Read more…