London Fall: how to spend it

(15.10.2011 - smz) Upon my return from a trip to London this week I thought it might be more interesting to show you my findings rather than talk about CEOs (there were few CEO news this week, anyway). "Occupy Wall Street" seemed isolated events in a parallel universe, in London or in Zurich, strangely disconnected from what we saw.

It started with a newspaper article on Friday that HSBC has given the names and details of 6'000 British customers with Swiss bank accounts to the British tax office. These customers have used HSBC's branch in Geneva to avoid capital gains taxes and other taxes. As the advertisment in a London branch of HSBC announces: "Global diversity could yield tasty rewards."  Perhaps it is not so funny, if you are one of the people who now yields 'tasty rewards' from their state instead.

A visit to Regent Street confirmed another cliché: Even if unemployed, you need an iPhone 4s, it seems. The crowd in front of the Apple store in Regent Street was exactly like the the crowds in front of Apple stores world-wide.




Continuing to Canary Wharf we asked ourselves if Blackberry has a future, - we could  actually read the signals on the wall. The news screen says that money managers prefer the iPhone over Blackberry (as a result of a recent survey, screen in front of the Thomson reuters building in Canary Wharf).

Another piece of news was that my preferred newspaper, the honoured Wall Street Journal, had faked circulation numbers. At least, this was what the British Guardian revealed. In fact, the European editor of the journal, has resigned over Ethics complaints.

Then  JP Morgan announced layoffs. The news ticker on this building in Canary Wharf reads: "JP Morgan readies pink slips". But below you see bankers having drinks and beer after work like usual. More than 20% of people between 18 and 25 in the UK are unemployed now.

We continued to Regent's Park. Here we found not the new home of an ex-banker (living in a concrete tube) but instead it is a highly praised artwork by Eva Kot'àtkovà and Petr Kot'àtkovà. However, the copy of the Financial Times in the lower right corner is garbage that a passer-by has thrown into it. The installation can be visited in Regent's Park, close to the Frieze Art Show there. Long queues indicated a hunger for art -  no signs of reduced spending!

We confirmed that assumption at Christie's. Friday night, the auction house in King's Street sold pieces of art by contemporary artists worth roughly 50 million GBP.

In a matter of 15 seconds the price of a picture by Piero Manzoni rose from 2'7 million GBP (3'080'700 Euros) to 2'8 million GBP (3'194'800 Euros, 3'942'400 CHF). A huge crowd was present and enjoyed spending money - if it was their own money or other people's money didn't really matter. The difference (100'000 British pounds) equals two annual salaries for the young and unemployed.

Back in Switzerland we were greeted by Lindt CEO Ernst Tanner in the arrival hall of Zurich airport. The image says: "Ernst Tanner salutes another year of growth". With this assurance we went home and hope his forecast will be confirmed in the coming months.

PS: See Christie's auction results or log in to watch auctions online under http://www.christies.com/Results/.

Russian television footage about the protests in London: