File this in the category of 'they do things differently in China.' For those curious about the Chinese "Rent a White Guy" phenomenon, whereby a Chinese company will employ a foreigner part-time to sit near the front of an office or to join in on meetings because it apparently adds a level of sophistication, here's how they get hired. Continue reading →
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Where are the world's busiest airline routes? JEJU, on the South Korean island of the same name, is not one of the country's 20 biggest cities. Yet the island's allure as a domestic tourist destination resulted in 9.9m passengers flying between Seoul and Jeju (in either direction) in 2011. This makes it the busiest airline route in the world, according to Amadeus, a company that provides technology to the travel industry. It measures the cities where passengers start and finish their journeys, so while the busiest actual flight corridor in America is New York-Chicago, it only counts as the third-busiest American route because many of the passengers are connecting to other destinations. It comes just behind New York-Fort Lauderdale (3.1m) and New York-Los Angeles (3m). ... Continue reading →
BEFORE foreign investors came to India, its finance minister remarked recently, “we did not eat lizards.” For all the grumbles one hears about India’s economy, there is hardly a sense of desperation. Those foreign investors keep coming: on May 1st Vodafone’s boss met the government. Despite a corruption scandal, a price war, a huge retroactive tax claim and wildly unpredictable regulations, the mobile-phone firm is committed to its $18.6 billion investment in India, even though its value has fallen by perhaps a third since it was made in 2007. The boss of IKEA is also reported to be meeting the government soon, despite the shabby way the Swedish furniture chain has been treated. Last year the government said it would open India to foreign retailers ... Continue reading →
The former head of a trading desk at UBS AG’s wealth management unit in London lost his challenge to the penalty levied by the UK finance regulator and must now pay £1.25 million (around `10 crore) for unauthorized trading.Sachin Karpe was also accused by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) of moving money between client accounts to hide losses from unauthorized foreign exchange trades and helping Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group invest more than $250 million (around `1,370 crore today) in an offshore trust in violation of Indian law. The FSA fine against him was upheld by a London tribunal on Monday.Karpe helped Ambani’s Reliance Group of companies use an investment fund incorporated in Mauritius to evade Indian securities laws and then concealed the investment from the ... Continue reading →
