We weren’t predicting an illustrious career in politics – Neil worked far too hard at getting no qualifications for that to materialise – but his future wealth. PM stood for potential millionaire. And a million quid was a lot of money in those days.
Neil broke my leg playing football 30 years ago – an impressive feat considering we were on the same team. The company, like Neil’s playing, has always had a reputation for being slightly aggressive; however, what impresses me is the way it has stood by employees who suffered misfortune outside of work, which in some cases meant they couldn’t do the job they were employed to. The aggressive spirit remains intact under Terry Smith’s stewardship and you don’t hear too much moaning coming from its employees. So does Terry have a caring sharing side to his nature as well?
Terry is known for telling it like it is – in some cases, this amounts to little more than stating the bleeding obvious about something that all too often is not understood by others involved in the business. I’m sure he must have been amused by a recent report in the UK’s Observer newspaper that revealed: “The bad and the downright ugly, The 20 companies who fare worst according to our ethical scoring of the FTSE 350”.
The paper pointed out: “Tullett Prebon’s outspoken chief executive Terry Smith probably won’t care that the broker finishes in the bottom 10 as he thinks companies shouldn’t have to report on such ‘tosh’ like environmental, social and governance issues.”
However, I bet he wasn’t too pleased to see that Euromoney Institutional Investor came far higher up the list. Euromoney came second, which should perhaps be a matter of shame, but the only comment I picked up on in the office was from a very senior employee moaning that we didn’t come first. So can I claim to be ‘badder’ than Terry? I don’t think so.
Tullett’s half-year results were released this week; they were quite good and Smith pointed out the obvious fact that market volatility is good for his business.
This fact seems to be slowly dawning on the analysts. Expect upgrades and buy recommendations aplenty.
