Business week in review
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Willie Walsh loves a good battle with the unions, mainly because he usually wins. The boss of British Airways' owner, International Airlines Group, seemingly put an end to a strike threat at its Spanish carrier, Iberia, on Monday.
IAG is expected to save around €250m (£215.5m) a year by wielding the axe, though Walsh did compromise. More than 3,100 people will still lose their jobs, against the proposed 3,800, while Iberia's remaining 16,000 staff will see salaries slashed by 15 per cent.
Many unions are in favour of agreeing to the revised deal, though IAG has surely taken an internal reputational hit given that workers have waved Spanish flags stating "British go home" and "Get your dirty hands off Iberia".
On Thursday, it was revealed that the man who UBS has hired in the wake of the bank's rogue trader will get more than £19m as a very golden hello. Andrea Orcel joins from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and has been made the Swiss bank's head of investment banking.
Also on Thursday, Ocado finance director Duncan Tatton-Brown pleasantly surprised investors in the online grocer with a healthy rise in sales.
...at a loss
Who's been a naughty boy then? Lost in the Huhne-Pryce headlines on Monday was the four-year sentence handed down to a former securities trader for insider dealing.
Richard Joseph was found guilty of six counts at Southwark Crown Court. The confidential and price sensitive information about prospective takeover bids had been given to Joseph, who is now 43.
He was passed much of the information by a JP Morgan Cazenove print-room manager, who is now thought to be in north Cyprus. The pair used pay-as-you-go mobiles in effort to hide the scheme.
Mike Pocock, the boss of the absurdly-named Hibu – it doesn't mean anything and certainly has nothing to do with the company's central business, publishing the Yellow Pages – punished another couple of naughty boys on Tuesday. Two senior US staff were dismissed amid speculation that they were plotting a buy-out of the debt-laden business.
Pocock described their behaviour as "disloyal and against the interests of employees and other stakeholders". It is not known if the pair planned to change the name to something sensible.
J D Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin saw the company's tax burden increase by £23m on Friday.
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