HSBC comes out on top in battle of the brands
HSBC, according to Brand Finance 500, has knocked Bank of America off its perch to become the most valuable banking brand in the world. It is the only British bank among the top 10 banks, with Wells Fargo in second place, followed by Bank of America in third spot and Spanish bank Santander in fourth position. China Construction Bank is in 10th position. Other Chinese banks such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China made it into the top 20. There are now more banks from the so-called BRICS economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in the top 20 than there are from Europe.
The value of the brands is assessed using something called the 'royalty relief approach', which is based on the assumption that if a company did not own any trademarks it would need to license them from a trademark owner. Ownership therefore 'relieves' the company of paying a licence fee (the royalty) for the use of the third party trademarks. So maybe HSBC's CEO Stuart Gulliver is worth the proposed GBP13 million payout for 2011.
Gina's pile just gets bigger
Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart continues her pursuit of stratospheric wealth and for the second year running tops the Forbes' 2012 Australia Rich List. This year her wealth is put at US$18 billion, twice as much lolly as last year after South Korean steel company Posco recently paid US$10 billion for a 15 per cent stake in her Roy Hill iron ore mine in Western Australia. Ivan Glasenburg, chief executive of Glencore, made his debut at second place following his firm's stock market flotation, with US$7.2 billion. Another miner, Andrew Forrest of Fortescue Metals Group, was third. Clive Palmer who dropped out of the top 40 last year has reappeared at number 29 despite failing to list his mining group Resourcehouse on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Forbes says Rinehart is on the path to becoming the world's richest woman. That title is now held by Christy Walton with US$24.5 billion. However, Rinehart recently invested US$161.6 million to acquire a 12 per cent stake in Fairfax, the publishers of newspapers such as The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review. None of them are doing so well. Rinehart would not be the first mogul to have stepped into the newspaper business, only to regret it later.
Keeping track of bodies