It's hard to do the right thing these days...
Sunday Oct 12, 2008
So there's a financial crisis it seems, and what has happened in Belgium is certainly not unique. The government has taken action to save 2 of the 3 big banks: Fortis and Dexia. As both stocks are very widely held by small individual investors, pension funds and social organisations, this has created quite a stir in Belgium. I'm no specialist, so it's difficult to judge whether the right actions were taken, I guess time will tell.
One thing that has really made me mad however is one event that happened this week. A division of Fortis, it's investment arm of the insurance part that is still part of the noted Fortis Holding, has organised an event for a select group of big investors. Apparently the event was hosted in an expensive hotel in Monaco, at a cost of 150K EUR.
As you can imagine the press are all over it, crying outrage over how top bankers are behaving inappropriately, and are wasting the taxpayer's money (the Belgian government partially nationalised Fortis).
Granted, the timing of this event is bad, but let's consider a few facts:
- Planning such an event takes months, and canceling at short notice probably will incur penalty charges
- Even in times like this, you can not stop your marketing and relationship building. Now more than ever business needs to be secured
I can only imagine the headlines should the following scenarios have taken place:
- The event was cancelled, and 150K EUR was spent without a return
- The investors that were not invited take their business elsewhere
So the situation is very difficult to say the least, and stories like this demonstrate how companies that are doing business these days (especially banks) are threading on very thin ice...
To me it's simple, let the banks go about their business, and leave it up to the official institutions both inside Fortis and the government to judge. Stories like this only make the distrust in the financial system worse, so do not help the situation at all.
What is your opinion about this story?
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