Strategy error by Kraft?

Kraft foods finally won control of Cadbury with a big £11.9 billion ($19.4b) offer. Warren Buffet, owner of 9% of Kraft, says it’s a bad deal – and he’s rarely wrong. Will Kraft do the usual and try to extract ’synergies’ by slashing costs, or deliver real value by leveraging the combined resources to drive medium- to long-term growth in cash flows? … and will analysts allow them to do it right?

Analysts press for underinvestment

I have noted before that stock analysts need know little about how strategy affects firm performance, so an academic study on the impact of stock analysts on firms’ investment behaviour is intriguing. Read more

Good strategy from big listed firms

I have been tough on the poor strategy seen over both of the last two boom-bust cycles, so good to see in Sensible Giants from the Economist that the largest listed firms have disproportionately little debt compared with both smaller listed peers and private firms. Read more

The banking crisis – again

I’ve gone on about this before, but it’s gone way, way worse since I last brought it up, so let’s not forget Read more