Death by Merger

A corporate entity, which starts
As just an aggregate of parts,
Evolves in time, within its whole,
An idiosyncratic soul.

This personality defeats
Analysis by balance sheets,
The way your character eludes
The X-ray and the cathode tubes.

For what we are, on this strange earth,
Defines our value and our worth;
Not, for a man, his ears or throat,
Nor, for a company, its quote.

Yet analysts are prone to make
This odd but seminal mistake,
And think the rules of purchase hold
When companies are bought or sold.

Yet what the buying company gets,
So often, to its great regrets,
May be a useless bag of parts,
Like buying men without their hearts.

Financial analysts are, then,
The very worst of corporate men
To make so subtle a decision
As merger or as acquisition.

And this is why we see the trail
Of acquisitions, doomed to fail,
Abandoned to the Jack-the-Rippers
Of corporate life – the asset-strippers.

Above all, it’s the people presence
Which permeates this corporate essence,
And catalyses, through the whole,
Its special chemistry and soul.

So synergies from mergers fail
Because the soul is not for sale;
Just as, when plants and factories close,
More dies than most of us suppose.

The Bankers

Oh to be in banking
Now that April’s here!
And celebrate a spanking,
Profitable year!
Some prefer to hear a
Cuckoo on the wing,
But oh to be a Clearer
Now that it is Spring!

Better than the crocus
Peeping through the soil;
Richer than the hocus
Pocus with the oil;
Money is the medium
Surer than the rest,
For sweetening the tedium
With the interest!

Other men may hanker
For a bluer sky,
But oh to be a banker
Now the rates are high!
It’s freezing, more’s the pity,
The darling buds of May,
But down here in the City,
It’s roses all the way!

Speak it not in Whitehall,
Tell it not in Gath,
Lest our little windfall
Cause Exchequer wrath!
Tell ’em it’s for gearing,
A little more to lend
But mainly it’s for cheering
Up the dividend!

Oh to be in lending,
Spreading joy around;
When every quid you’re spending
Spawns another pound!
Loans are what we’re here for,
Helping them invest,
Knowing they’ll be back for more
To pay the interest!

Oh to be in Credit,
As the seasons turn,
With other people’s debit,
Filling up the urn!
Never mind the weather,
Banking is the thing;
As long as we’re together,
It’s everlasting Spring!

The Multinational Corporation

When James D. Flaherty O’Rourke
Came from Dublin to New York,
And peddled round his hot potatas,
Few financial commentators
Forecast he was on the brink
Of World Wide Hot Potatas Inc.,
Founding his Global Enterprise
On Chirpy Chips and Handy Fries –
But such are the bizarre gestations
Of Multinational Corporations.

And having made the humble spud
Synonymous with motherhood,
And Chips With Everything the toast
Of every home from coast to coast,
He felt that he should not deny
The culture of the Handy Fry
To less sophisticated clients,
Untutored in potato science;
And ripe, on Wall Street’s best assessment,
For World-Wide’s overseas investment.

So soon the Hot Potata logo
Flew from Zanzibar to Togo,
With world-wide quality control
By satellite across the Pole;
Linking Chirpy Chip plantations
And process plants in fifty nations,
Including, after tense discussions,
A licence granted to the Russians.

The Tigris, Nile and Orinoco
Were switched from cotton, rice and cocoa
To propagation of the tuber,
As were tobacco farms in Cuba,
On the guaranteed assumption
Of escalating world consumption;
Till all the leading indicators
Were based on futures in potatoes,
With James the undisputed King
Of the carbo-hydrate Ring;
While OPEC in distress reviewed
The synthesis of starch from crude.

Wall Street analysts foretold
A flight from copper, zinc and gold,
And White House strategists demanded
Return to the Potato Standard.
Friedman joined the advocators
Of tight control of seed-potatoes;
And Downing Street was quick to see
Manipulation of P3
As the relevant equation
For final conquest of inflation.

But James was keen to leave decisions
On politics to politicians,
And moved with great reluctance to
Subvert a government or two;
Executives of Hot-Potatas,
Irrespective of their status
And the colour of their skins,
Daily disavow their sins,
Renewing oaths to Handy Fries,
To multinational enterprise,
And James O’Rourke’s financial plan
For Global Brotherhood of Man.

Acquaintance with my father’s boot
Had taught reluctance to dispute
Suggestions he might contribute
And so I acquiesced;
Requesting what might constitute
The Young Executive’s pursuit,
And what it is they execute
That had so much impressed.

Regretfully, Papa displayed
No detailed knowledge of the trade
Except that it was highly paid;
And made the resolution
That I could also make the grade
And join the business-man brigade
If I sufficiently displayed
Some gift for execution.

And so it was I came to buy
A natty suit and hat and tie
And felt that I was quite a guy
When first I was recruited;
But now, at forty-five, I try
To understand precisely why
And what, before I come to die
I’ve really executed.

If Fate would hand me back the dice,
Vouchsafing me to throw them twice,
I’d opt for something more precise.
I frequently have told her;
For I have come to realise
The Young Executive disguise
Insufficiently belies
The fact of growing older.

But Old Executives, I’ve found,
Are rather thin upon the ground,
And why there are so few around
Shakes my resolution;
For could it be that I am bound
To where a failed career is crowned
While ghostly Boardroom bugles sound –
Last Call for Execution?

Some believe in mens sana
In corpore sano,
And the marathon jog
By the Thames or the Arno;
Till the rampant corpuscle,
And ache in the muscle,
Put paid to the pains
Of executive hustle.

While others, I find,
Are more strongly inclined,
To some Freudian view
That it’s all in the mind;
And executive gloom
Can be traced to the Womb,
Or the Ego and Id,
As they elbow for room.

But until we exhume a
True cure for the tumour,
I recommend massive
Injections of humour;
The kind we can give –
Laughing not at, but with –
As the most therapeutic
Incentive to live.

When a smile meets a trauma,
It’s mainly the former
Which tends to prevail
Where the atmosphere’s warmer.

Memorandum nunc, Anate – Aquatica* celere
Est scribendum Directori venditorum hodie.

                                  (Get right in here, Miss Puddle-Duck,
                                    And take a memo, right away.
                                   Address it to the Sales Director.
                                   Move! Ain’t got the whole damn day!)

Quaere lupae cunctatorem quid obstet hunc filium,
Fax instanter est mittenda, sine faece bovium.

                                    (Ask the lazy son-of-bitches
                                    What-the-hell’s got in the way.
                                    Say I want a fax this minute,
                                    And no bull-shit now. OK?)

Benedicte, quo collapsis dividendis fugimus,
Quid sit Urbis declarandum Institutionibus.

                                     (Would he kindly make suggestions,
                                     Now the profit’s in collapse,
                                     As to where we hide, or tell these
                                     City Institution chaps?)

Cogitamus ergo sumus placebat philosophis,
Neque vero elegantis illis monetariis.

                                    (“I think, therefore I am” ’s a treasure
                                       Old philosophy enjoys,
                                       But cash provides the only pleasure
                                       For these banker fancy-boys.)

* an allusion to Jemima Puddle-Duck(Jemima Anate-Aquatica) a well-known beauty and pin-for early 20th century businessmen and business school professors.

Scored for soloist and choir.

Henceforth we would value higher
The cause of Corporate Desire,
And decimate the competition
By force of Positive Volition !

Just one whisper of a mention
Of this laudable intention,
Brought Press and Television news
All pestering us for interviews,
With brokers rampaging amock
And hyping up the company stock.

Nor were the Twitterati slow
To tweet-it for our ‘ Wish-and-Go !’
While neuroscientists galore,
fMRI scans to the fore,
Delved for the source of this new Credo.
Deep in the Corporate Libido.

Major Business Schools were billing
Seminars in Collective Willing,
Exploring Shinto or Islamic
Sources for the Wish-Dynamic;
And in a rash of books rehearsed
Which one of them had found it first.

The Unions, too, were keen to claim
Fraternal interest in the game,
Excited that the wages bill
Be settled by Collective Will;
And moved that plant negotiation
Be based on Mass Desideration.

While Governments, whose every act is
Fashioned on free- market practice,
Lost but little time in hiring
The Heads of Corporate Desiring
From friendly, donor corporations,
To brief their Wish-Tanks on Inflation.

***************

I’m sure you’ll all be chuffed to hear,
They’ve named us BUSINESS of the YEAR !

Help Thy servants on the Board
Understand his words, O Lord,
Since he changed his erstwhile manners,
And joined the Long Range Corporate Planners;
And if he needs must bore the pants off
All of us with Igor Ansoff,
Help us understand the charts -
Even the Synergistic parts.

Help us share his new perspectives,
That Strategies are not Objectives;
And, through Thy goodness, cross the ditch
To know more clearly which is which;
And, by Thy mercy which begat us,
Show us why it really matters,
In the name of Him who knows
All about Scenarios.

Grant us, Father, if you please,
Purer methodologies;
And tempt us not towards decisions
Without a further few revisions,
At interminable lengths,
Of our Weaknesses and Strengths.
Let need for action not deflect us
From codifying all our Vectors.

Grant, in answer to our prayers,
Thicker Strategies than theirs,
Who, in their blind unwisdom, chase
Profits in the market place,
Without a contemplative look
At what is in the Corporate Book.
Let their successes not distract us
From listing our External Factors.

Help us keep our Corporate eyes on
Some appropriate horizon,
Far from all the symptomatic
Signs of anything pragmatic;
Defend us, always, through our prayers,
From acting like entrepreneurs,
And from the uninformed who said
That, in the longer-term we’re dead.

And three advances, out of four,
These gurus tell us matter,
Are less about producing more
Than processing the data!
So what we make, or what we sell,
And what the banker loans us,
We spend on keeping up with all
The information Joneses!

Now, first we mortgaged half the firm
To buy the big computer,
And stood the business on its head
To pacify and suit her;
But what with systems analysts,
And useless information,
The choice was kill the wretched thing
Or file for liquidation!

So then they said that ‘big’ was out;
The trendy thing that’s in is
To do your own computer thing
With micro-chips and minis;
And status for executives
Is measured by the label
On the Samsung in your pocket
Or the Apple on your table.

Yet still the data mountains grow,
Though now the system varies;
So why is it, the more we know,
The less our market share is?
It’s garbage in and garbage out,
And VDUs compelling
More time to view instead of do
The managing and selling.

So round the integrated circuits,
On the technoholic binge;
Micro-chips for tea and supper,
Chips with nearly everything.
Maybe we should talk a little,
Think, before the system flips;
Look, to try and find the people,
Drowning in the micro-chips.

We are the Smaller Businessmen,
But wish that we were bigger;
We’re told that Small is Beautiful,
But Big is on the trigger.
And what between the interest
And loans for which we hanker,
I wish our dear old Mums and Dads
Had raised us for a banker.

We are the Smaller Businessmen,
Getting somewhat smaller;
And after tax and V.A.T.
Our creditors grow taller.
We’ve found some customers to buy
On escalating credit,
And so our income only grows
Inversely to our debits.

We are the Smaller Businessmen,
Not taking on much labour;
Unless you count the wife and kids,
And recently the neighbour.
We’ve found the almost perfect way
Of conquering inflation;
For, since we can’t afford to pay
They do it for the Nation.

We are the Smaller Businessmen,
Thinking of expansion;
Yet it seems the only way
Is mortgaging the mansion.
So, with our new collateral,
We’ll back our innovation;
But maybe not get far upon
Our semis by the station.

We are the Smaller Businessmen,
Depleted but defiant;
We don’t suppose we’ll ever be
Conglomerate or giant.
But nothing’s small about the big
Hearts that keep us vying,
And if we never make the grade
It’s not for want of trying.