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This week's nominee. Bob Malone, the head of BP's US operations. Sheila McNulty reports in the Financial Times:
Mr Malone told staff this week the decision to create his own blog followed his receipt of hundreds ofe-mails and notes of support and suggestions for action in recent months.Mr Malone was appointed in June to improve BP's US safety record, following the biggest-ever pipeline leak in Alaska and the explosion of BP's Texas refinery last year, which killed 15and injured an estimated500 people.
"To make it even easier to have a dialogue with all of you, I am going to try my hand at using what has become a very popular web communications tool: a blog,'' Mr Malone said in an e-mail to BP's US employees, a copy of which was obtained by the Financial Times.
"Now, I didn't even know what a blog was until just a month ago but evidently in this cyber-world we live in, a blog enables two-way communications.''
Posted by dan at 03:14 PM
My latest in Slate, on the meaning of the Dow's record high.
Posted by dan at 10:56 AM
HCA, the giant hospital company that is the subject of a leveraged buyout offer started by management and KKR, reported its earnings late last week. nother stinker.
Same-facility revenues rose, which is a positive, but "same facility equivalent admissions, which take into consideration outpatient volumes, decreased 0.9 percent compared to the third quarter of 2005." Translation: fewer customers.
Oh, and fewer of those who come are paying. "The provision for doubtful accounts in the third quarter of 2006 totaled $677 million, or 10.9 percent of revenues, compared to $618 million, or 10.3 percent of revenues, in the prior year."
The company also has to cut prices sharply on services it offers to the large number of uninsured patients. "Uninsured discounts in the third quarters of 2006 and 2005 were $277 million and $241 million, respectively."
And it continues gives away a lot of its services: "charity care totaled $329 million in the third quarter of 2006, compared to $298 million in the previous year's third quarter. Same facility uninsured admissions, which include charity patients, increased by 2,257 admissions or 10.1 percent, in the third quarter of 2006 compared to the same period of 2005."
Excluding charity care, HCA says that between uninsured discounts and bad debts, in the most recent quarter it had to write off $954 million, or 14.7 percent of revenues, as uncollectable, compared with $859 million, or 13.7 percent of revenues in the year-ago quarter. And this is in an economy in the midst of an expansion.
Does this sound like a good candidate for a leveraged buy-out to you?
Posted by dan at 02:24 PM
Kate Kelly writes in the Wall Street Journal about the talent agency ICM, which, aside from representing big stars, represents your humble blogger.
Not long after private-equity firm Rizvi Traverse Management LLC bought a controlling stake in the Hollywood talent agency International Creative Management Inc., the investor notified an ICM employee that, as part of a group of planned spending cuts, ICM's flower budget would be curbed. "I love those flowers," the employee said to Rizvi Traverse partner Ben Kohn, according to someone with knowledge of the conversation. "Can't we just fire someone instead?"
Posted by dan at 02:20 PM
Apologies to regular readers for low volume of posting. But I have a good excuse: a study trip to South Africa. Preliminary results can be seen in Slate here, and here.
Posted by dan at 05:49 AM