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Bankers

Academics at the Management Centre at Bangor Business School claim that they are ready "to step in to help senior banking staff learn how to avoid the sort of mistakes which triggered the credit crunch which crippled global financial markets over the past year".

You could argue that is a case of shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted, especially as the "top business school in Europe in the specialist field of finance and banking studies" (their words not mine) has already been undertaking research and training programmes for the banking sector for the last thirty years,

However, the conundrum is that this statement seems to suggest that the courses run from Bangor have previously failed to prepare thousands of banking staff for such eventualities. Indeed, one has to wonder what they are teaching if, as one of their own members of staff states, "the top management of banks has not fully understood these financial products created lower down in the organisational structure – and therefore the risks have not been understood by the people at the top"?

I also thought that millions of pounds of public money spent on the Management Centre at Bangor, including £1 million from Gwynedd County Council, was established to help local firms and not to provide large multinational banking organisations with training facilities. But then, what would I know?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Well said Dylan! I believe that they can't manage themselves with more money out than in, never mind other businesses. Still, the buildings look a lot better than they did when I was staying there years ago!
Anonymous said…
Everyone at Bangor knows the work you put into this project only to be shafted by the usual suspects. The fact that they took four years to get the management centre off the ground after you left says it all. As Dafydd Ap says, the place looks better but it is the people behind such a building that matter. What is the point of having so many professors of banking who do bugger all for the Welsh firms? They have no interest in the local economy and if they are focusing on non-welsh businesses, then the european grant should be repaid.
Welshwalker said…
I am assuming that you made a deliberate spelling error in the title - the a should be an o.
Anonymous said…
If banks applied the same rigorous assessment, as they do when they lend money to my business, to the Hedge funds, or whatever they're called, the credit crunch wouldn't have happened. It seems to me that bank's Retail business operations could teach their corporate operations how it's done.
On the second point I know of one other university project funded by public funds whose implemenation seems to me to bear little or no relation to it's original objectives. What monitoring is carried out and who assesses if the project is being used to fulfill it's purpose, I wonder?
Anonymous said…
Bern - none in the answer. There is a conspiracy of silence over the failure of many objective 1 projects with the same usual suspects applying for funding after they have previously failed.
Anonymous said…
I attended an even recently at the management centre and they couldn't even get the coffee served properly. It is a mess and if it isn't sorted out soon, it will go bust
Anonymous said…
Has there been any successful projects in Gwynedd from the use of Objective 1 funds > The GDP is down 6%, the county was better off before Ob 1. Too many snouts in the trough and Plaid are back in power again thanks to the trecherous gang of 4 Labour Councillors who supported everything Plaid put forward. George Soros said that the UK hadn't felt the consequences of the Credit Crunch yet.....God help us.....Plaid helps themselves.
Anonymous said…
Spot on Dylan! What does a bunch of failed in business, bearded white middle class *ankers know about running SMEs?

They know the cost of everything and the value of absolutely nothing. It was serious before, now its a real case of fawlty towers - except John Cleese could do a better job of it.

This is going to end up on Wales this Week - make no mistake about it. Check out your wider networks Dylan asap - they know what is going on, and will update you.
Anonymous said…
Bangor Business School is a bit of a joke. They do little with local businesses and spend their time focused on getting big money in from arab students to pay professors to write papers that no-one reads. What the hell does that do for the economy in Gwynedd?

Hardly any of the staff speak any welsh and have no interest in the local culture or the economy. It is exceptionally sad for North Wales that they have done nothing of any worth since you left.
Anonymous said…
Will the last one out please switch off the lights! Two more departures / disapearances overnight - how many more to come, before someone asks the Board members what is going on at the Management Centre? or better still, ask the Daily Post, before the sanitised pr being issued to the Post from the Centre's PR company (bless their attempts to cover up the ever increasing mess) makes a mockery of the business pages when the Centre goes belly up. Someone really should tell these bankers how to run a proper business!
Anonymous said…
anon 11.51 - don't leave us on tenterhooks - tell us more as you obviously have the inside track
Anonymous said…
It would seem the Daily Post has now become the official PR agents for the business school.

http://www.dailypost.co.uk/business-news/

I wonder if they will report anything when the whole thign goes tits up in the next couple of years
Anonymous said…
It gets even worse - more deck chairs about to be moved at the Management Centre (or should that be the Titanic?). Just how many "Directors" does the place need - we will have a Director of Cleaning next. Still its good to see that the CEO and Head of School are on yet another trip abroad together (obvously trying to help Welsh SMEs in India return home to the motherland - NOT!). Party on dudes, whilst Rome burns.

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