Biz People

Dunne gets top job at 02 UK

Telefonica SA, Europe's second-largest telephone company, promoted Ronan Dunne to chief executive officer of the O2 UK wireless unit, the UK's largest mobile-phone company.

Dunne, currently chief financial officer of O2 UK, will take over from Matthew Key in 2008, O2 said in a statement. Key was promoted last month to CEO of Telefonica O2 Europe.

Dunne led the acquisition and integration of the Link retail chain, purchased from DSG International Plc. Vivek Dev, director of strategy, has been promoted to chief operating officer for Telefonica O2 Europe.

The company also said that Dave Williams, chief technology officer of Telefonica O2 Europe, will leave the company in April 2008.

'Cancer' to hit most markets

Anthony Bolton (right), who helped turn Fidelity International into the United Kingdom's biggest mutual-fund manager, said the fallout from the US subprime collapse is like a "cancer" that will further unravel markets.

"I would expect the contagion to seep into most stock markets," Bolton said. "Effects can take some time to work their way through. Banks will remain a difficult call for investors next year."

Some banks may have to cut dividends or sell more shares to overcome a shortage of capital, Bolton said. Stocks in the media and pharmaceutical industries are most undervalued at the moment and provide the best investment opportunities, he said.

Bolton said in May stock markets were ready to fall because banks were lending money too easily. The UK's FTSE 100 Index reached its highest level since 2000 on June 15 and has declined 3.5 percent since then.

Bolton has voiced concern that stock markets would decline for more than a year. He said in May 2006 the drop in world stock markets may "last months".

Noyer urges transparency

Standard & Poor's, Fitch Ratings and other ratings companies must improve the way they assess structured-finance products to avoid another credit squeeze, European Central Bank council member Christian Noyer (right) said.

"The disturbances we've seen in the past three months, and their potential consequences on the economy, are too great," Noyer, who is also governor of the Bank of France, said.

It would be a "mistake" to rush into regulating the ratings process, Noyer said, though he didn't rule out introducing more rules at a later stage.

Rating companies should be more transparent about the way they rate securitized products, and differentiate between bonds and structured products to account for the greater volatility of the latter in case of "liquidity or market stress", he said.

(China Daily 12/14/2007 page16)