(Financial News) Wiseman’s Davos duties overtaken by events lead to red faces at BlackRock. Last month Mark Wiseman, a senior executive at the asset management giant who was regarded as a future contender to replace supremo Larry Fink, was ousted for failing to disclose a personal relationship with a colleague in a breach of the company’s policy. Furthermore, Wiseman is married to Marcia Moffatt, who oversees BlackRock’s Canada business.
So sudden was Wiseman’s departure that BlackRock had already arranged his attendance at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos at the end of this month. Wiseman’s name is on a list of participants attending the elite economic gathering from November seen by Capital. Our source adds that BlackRock has subsequently been in touch with the WEF to say that Wiseman will certainly not be in Davos on its behalf, and it is understood he will be giving the meeting a wide berth. Fink, who is on the WEF board of trustees, will be going together with senior BlackRock lieutenants Barbara Novick and Philipp Hildebrand. Representatives from BlackRock and the WEF declined to comment on Wiseman’s non-attendance. But how things have changed from a few years ago at the World Economic Forum, when Wiseman and Carlos Ghosn, the disgraced ex-Nissan boss, were usual suspects at the elite Alpine shindig.
Train of thought
Meanwhile, Herman Betten, a senior director at Dutch life-sciences conglomerate Royal DSM, wants it known that he is making a grand gesture by taking a train, not a plane, to Davos for environmental reasons. The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting “will be special for me, not because it’s the 50th annual meeting, nor because it will be my 10th consecutive year in Davos, but because for the first time, I will be taking the train from the Netherlands for the entire journey”, he writes in a blog on the WEF’s website. Betten adds: “Contrary to what some might believe, taking the train is not wasted time; it’s productive time.” Unkind observers would note the same could not be said of what happens in Davos.
Prime year
The award for quirkiest holiday card of the year goes to quantitative hedge fund D.E. Shaw. Its card featured white circles outlining the prime factorisation of 2020 (prime factorisation is when prime numbers are multiplied together to make a number, in this case 2x2x5x101). “Best wishes for a prime (factorization of) 2020,” the $50bn hedge fund declared. The firm added in the card that, in lieu of gifts, it would be making a donation to charity Doctors Without Borders.
Plane speaking
Eyebrows were raised this new year when documents from the National Archives revealed that in 1996 former prime minister John Major considered renaming Heathrow airport after Winston Churchill. This is not the only time there has been a proposal to rename the busiest airport in Europe after an iconic Briton. In the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana in 1997, a backbench Labour MP wrote to BAA (at the time the name of Heathrow airport’s operator) requesting that the airport be renamed in honour of the late princess. The MP’s suggestion was backed by then-Tory party leader William Hague. The identity of the political proposer? None other than new House of Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle.
Business as usual
Apart from what will happen when Britain cuts ties with the European Union and how Andrew Bailey will fare as governor of the Bank of England, one of the key economic questions in 2020 is whether there will be a global recession. Billionaire trading entrepreneur Michael Spencer is not feeling bullish. “There are clear signs of an imminent downturn in Europe and some overheating in China,” he told Financial News’s Samuel Agini. “If the global trade war continues and the US slows down then yes, there is a real risk of recession.” Happy New Year!
