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‘A SENSE OF SHAME’
JESSICA FRANK-KEYES
CBI: WE MADE MISTAKES ‘THAT LED TO TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES’ JACK BARNETT AND JESSICA FRANK-KEYES BRITAIN’s bruised and battered business lobby group the CBI issued a last gasp plea to its members last night, promising to give them “reason to consider trusting us again”. The organisation has been rocked by a series of misconduct allegations in recent weeks, with the details of two incidents passed to the City of London police. Brian McBride, president of the organisation, which was founded in the 1960s, admitted it had been “complacent” and apologised for “mistakes in how we organised the business that led to terrible consequences,” admitting to a “sense of shame”. “We failed to filter out culturally toxic people during the hiring process. We failed to conduct proper cultural onboarding of
staff,” McBride admitted. He also set out the first steps of the CBI’s blueprint to turn around the group’s culture to prevent future instances of sexual misconduct in a bid to bring the CBI back from the brink. “Whether that is possible, I simply don’t know. That is, of course, for each of you to decide,” McBride said, referring to the CBI’s around 190,000 members. Last week, Britain’s top companies cut ties with the Royal Chartered lobby group, including FTSE 100-listed insurers Aviva, Phoenix, high street stalwart John Lewis and professional services titan EY. Others, including JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, paused their membership. The government and Labour Party have stopped talking with the CBI. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said yesterday there is “no point” engaging with the lobby right now.
Rain Newton-Smith, its former chief economist of several years, was parachuted in recently to guide the group after the board chose to dismiss Tony Danker as director general over claims he made some female staff feel uncomfortable. Danker, for his part, told the BBC last week that he was being positioned as a “fall guy”. None of the most serious allegations related to the former director general. A summary of an independent investigation by lawyers Fox Williams has recommended a widespread reorganisation of the CBI’s HR department, but suggested senior management were largely unaware of many of the allegations. Due to ongoing inquiries, the report does not make any judgment on the veracity of existing allegations. McBridge said that the organisation had
“tried to find resolution in sexual harassment cases when we should have removed those offenders from our business”, which he describes as the organisation’s “most grievous error”. Last night, the MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, Nickie Aiken, told City A.M. that “it beggars belief that any organisation would fail to take such serious accusations as sexual harassment seriously, let alone the largest business trade body”. Whilst the CBI attempts to rebuild, others are lining up to replace the organisation as the de facto voice of the country’s largest businesses. City A.M. understands that the embryonic BizUK, an off-shoot of Westminster public affairs and communications shop WPI, is in negotiations with a host of household names to provide a solution to the freezing out of the CBI at the highest levels.
PRIME MINISTER Rishi Sunak yesterday insisted his government is undertaking “the most transformative changes to financial services regulation since the Big Bang”. Sunak, speaking on the fringes of a ‘Business Connect’ conference which saw him and his Cabinet colleagues address an audience of City and business bigwigs, told City A.M. that the Financial Services and Markets Bill, making its way through parliament was a “very significant piece of legislation” and described changes to Solvency II regulations, which will allow pension funds to invest in less liquid and more long-term assets, as a “Brexit opportunity” that would “unlock tens of billions of pounds of capital”. It was not all smooth sailing for the former hedgie PM. Burberry chair Gerry Murphy described the UK’s decision to ditch tax-free shopping for tourists after Brexit as a “spectacular own goal”, with the PM promising to look at the data on the issue. “This government is unashamedly probusiness,” Sunak told the crowd. £ THE CITY VIEW: PAGE 2
City’s revolving door speeds up as bank collapses add to the talent pool JACK BARNETT CREDIT Suisse and Silicon Valley Bank’s failures have flooded the City with idled bankers looking for new work, a new report published today suggests. Over 4,000 more workers in the UK’s financial services sector were
looking for a new gig in the first three months of this year, according to recruiter Morgan McKinley. The upsurge was “no surprise given the recent setbacks in the financial sector with news of redundancies [and] the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and demise of Credit Suisse,” Hakan Enver,
managing director at Morgan McKinley UK, said. The news comes as Credit Suisse yesterday posted what could be its last ever set of results as a standalone entity after it was pawned off to UBS by Swiss authorities last month. The fate of the more than 5,000
London-based Credit Suisse staff, mainly at its Canary Wharf UK base, is still unclear and it is not known how many or whether any of their UK staff have been cut loose. There were fears for SVB UK’s staff before HSBC snapped it up for £1. There are signs that the Square
Mile’s banks, brokers and insurers are dipping their toes back in the recruitment market. Morgan McKinley said the number of vacancies climbed three per cent over the last quarter to 7,497 from 7,245. £ CREDIT SUISSE RESULTS: PAGE 2
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