Economy

IT was the hot new thing on Wall Street — one of those exotic investments that seem to promise untold riches for the lucky few.

And, like so many hot new things, it went cold fast.

Such was the fabulous stock-market flameout of a company called Rino International, an untested enterprise that, until recently, would have raised nary an eyebrow in the United States.

With dire news this week that both Borders and Kodak (EK) might be playing out the final scenes of their technology-induced nightmares, the logical question is: Who’s next?

The list of companies facing disruptive technologies is long:

Important discussions lie ahead on the road to Rio + 20 for the global investment community - UNEP FI Global Roundtable 2011, and GLOBE 2012.   

Banking and investment organizations worldwide are monitoring developments in the international financial markets preparatory to the Rio + 20 Earth Summit taking place in Rio de Janeiro, in June 2012.

To global search giant, Google, Africa is the next Internet hotspot. Globally, there are 94 domains registered per 10 000 users. However, in Africa, there is only one domain per 10 000 users. As such, there is tremendous potential for growth on the continent in the web space.

The News Corporation/News of the World scandal has been described as a case study in bad management.

What was there about the company's organizational culture that led to "Murdoch's Mess"?

Many companies today operate like Russian nesting dolls, where one large figure is actually made up of many smaller ones. These organizations present a unified face to the outside world, but rely heavily on other, usually smaller, companies or external individuals to conduct many of their activities.

The London Metal Exchange (LME) has ordered Goldman Sachs, which owns a massively controversial 19-building metals warehouse in Detroit, to boost the rate at which it delivers metals for physical transfer.

The titans of international soccer are used to pampering. Motorcades. Police escorts. Five-star hotels. Lavish dinners. Cash allowances of $500 a day, and an additional $250 for their wives or girlfriends.

Chevron Corp. drilled 84 wells to a depth of two miles beneath the Indonesian rainforest to tap steam, not oil and gas that are trapped in the world’s richest store of volcanic energy.

A recent crackdown by Beijing on rare earth mines and restrictions on exports have caused chaos in some of these markets.

Japan and the US, the world’s biggest importers of rare earths, have repeatedly voiced concerns to China, while complaints from industrial users of rare earths have been growing.

Last year, China cut their exports by 40 per cent and temporarily banned exports to Japan during a political dispute.