CEO scandals hurt the bottom line
No one expects a CEO to be a saint, but the behaviour of some bad boys in the corner office can cost a lot more than their marriages.
A study by three American academics about chief executives – 96 per cent of whom are male – found that sex scandals, substance abuse, violence and dishonesty can pull the rug out from under shareholder value, Fortune reported Tuesday.
Of the 219 CEOs whose indiscretions came to light, companies on average suffered a $226-million (U.S.) loss in shareholder value in the following three days. And the whole mess doesn't just blow over after the media turn away – the damage continues: stocks of those companies fell, on average, between 11 per cent and 14 per cent in the following 12 months.
While Disclosures doesn't like to moralize, there seems to be an obvious moral to this story.
Gold mining on the silver screen
"This might be the best Canadian movie you have ever seen."
Then again, it might not. But that's the slogan touting a planned cinema treatment of the Bre-X mining scandal.
Promotional material for a script reading of Bre-X The Movie: Going for the Motherlode – The Motherlode of all Time arrived in Disclosures' inbox this week.
The invite for the script reading was accompanied by a document attendees were required to sign, pledging they would not "Record, video or photograph any part of the Reading," or "Disclose or communicate [including by social media] any part of the Reading or anything about the Reading." Oops.
All a little odd for a press package, but in keeping with the spirit of the project, Disclosures will only communicate that there may or may not have been a script reading this week.
The drama continues.
Finger-lickin' good coffee
Of all the competitors you'd think Starbucks might ever face, KFC would likely be near the bottom of your list. But that's what's happening in China, where the chain plans to offer high-end coffee in about 2,500 of its 4,500 outlets, the China Daily USA reports.
But if KFC tries the plan in Britain, there's one former customer they won't be able to count on.
Raymond Allen, one of the few people in the world to have KFC's secret recipe after bringing Colonel Sanders's business to Britain 50 years ago, told The Daily Telegraph this week he won't step foot in the place again, calling its food "dreadful."
"Instead of staying with one good thing that was sellable, they have tried to compete with the other fast food units. They should have just stuck with the chicken."
That coffee's out of this world
And speaking of coffee, Elon Musk's SpaceX had a special delivery to make to the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday.
Although the unmanned Dragon failed to land its rocket booster as planned, its 1,800-kilogram payload of supplies is expected to arrive today, and among it is an espresso machine dubbed the ISSpresso, specially designed by Italy's Lavazza to spare astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti the horrors of instant coffee.
Take that, KFC.
Is this snack at least kind of healthy?
The U.S. FDA has a bone to pick with the makers of snack bar Kind, which has been carving out a growing slice of the $2.8-billion (U.S.) market for health foods, Quartz reports. The bars contain fruits, nuts, fibre, protein, antioxidants, and – oh, five grams of saturated fat.
The company's website enthuses that "There's healthy. There's tasty. Then there's healthy and tasty … That's why you'll find all of our snacks are pretty much the nirvana of healthy tastiness."
Er, hang on a minute, says the FDA. After analyzing several flavours of Kind bars, the agency concluded that "none meet the requirements for use of the nutrient content claim 'healthy.'"
In a warning letter last month to company CEO Daniel Lubetzky, the FDA reeled off a list of "significant violations," warning that "failure to promptly correct the violations may result in regulatory action without further notice, including seizure and/or injunction."
It may have trouble enforcing anything, though. The FDA also took issue with the fact the company's address does not appear on any of its packaging (another violation ) and a 411 search yielded several different addresses in New York.