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One Big Reason There’s So Little Competition Among U.S. Banks

Harvard Business Review

Basically, a handful of asset management firms have become the most powerful shareholders of the nation’s largest banks. This collective flood of individual investment has turned asset management companies into ginormous shareholders. BlackRock alone manages about $4.7 trillion in assets.

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Seven Ways CEOs and Investors Can Promote the Long Term

Harvard Business Review

They are not interested in hearing about the technological, regulatory, and societal developments that will determine the long-term, strategic positioning of this company.". Globally, these asset owners manage significant sums, exceeding $50 trillion at the end of 2009. Here are four specific recommendations: 4.

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How to Fix Financial Capitalism? Focus on Ethics

Harvard Business Review

These were among the questions addressed at a luncheon in New York convened by CFA Institute President John Rogers with financial industry leaders that included representatives from private and not-for-profit asset managers, public pension funds, insurance companies, and diversified financial services firms.

Ethics 13
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The 3 Essential Jobs That Most Retention Programs Ignore

Harvard Business Review

For example, in 2009 professors Brian Becker, Mark Huselid, and Richard Beatty estimated that in most companies less than 15% of jobs are what they call strategic positions and said management should focus “disproportionate investments” on finding A players for those jobs. These overlooked roles are: Essential experts.

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Spain Is Now Making Ireland's Mistakes

Harvard Business Review

percent over the ten years of the construction bubble, while loans to developers constituted nearly 50 percent of national output by 2007. percent in the first quarter of 2009 alone. In Ireland a National Asset Management Agency was formed to cleanse private banks' balance sheets and disburse the bad loans over a longer period.

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Innovation Is as Much About Finding Partners as Building Products

Harvard Business Review

The innovation alone is a herculean task, but imagine being that upstart pioneer trying to develop the technology, while at the same time going up against entrenched, powerful competitors with deep industry knowledge, assets, and channels who’ve been around for a hundred years or more.