bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Even in these tough economic times some firms are still doing well, and International Bank of Asia (IBA)  chief Mike Murad  does not mind letting everyone know about it.

Last week IBA reported a 20.85  per cent jump in net profit to HK$295.34  million for the year to December 31.

Mr Murad was understandably happy with the situation and walked into the press conference with a big cigar on which he puffed throughout.

'A cigar tastes better when you have good earnings,' he said with a satisfied air.

However, Mr Murad does not just bring out his cigars for the good times - he smokes them through thick and thin.

Back in November 1997 things were not going so well when IBA suffered a mini-bank run as customers queued to withdraw their savings amid rumours of liquidity problems.

At the time Mr Murad held a press conference to soothe investors' and depositors' nerves. In order to show that he was calm, Mr Murad puffed on the cigar throughout the proceedings.

IBA's run ended in a few days with everything quickly returning to normal as the bank was - and is - financially sound.

Yet the mere mention of the bank run riled Mr Murad for years - he complained about it being mentioned in newspaper stories even when they explained the bank was financially sound.

He offered to give interviews only on the condition that the bank run was not mentioned. Mr Murad should puff on those cigars a little more often if it helps calm him down over the bank run being mentioned.

Phooey to you:  A British cartoon fan has changed his name to Hong Kong Phooey without telling his wife, who is more than a little irate about it.

Hong Kong Phooey was a 1970s cartoon show featuring Penry, a canine janitor in a police station, which who secretly turned into a super crime-solver using his Hong Kong Book of Kung-Fu.

Gary Brett took the superdog hero's name by deed poll but his wife was not too happy when she found out after a bill arrived at their home for Mr HK Phooey, according to The Sun  newspaper.

'If he thinks I'm calling myself Mrs Phooey he's got another thing coming,' she said. Presumably Mr Brett's wife just thinks he's barking mad.

Sound advice:  Despite Arthur Andersen's  recent difficulties over the Enron scandal it is interesting to see that the firm's chief executive, Joseph Berardino, is managing to maintain a vestige of humour.

In last week's testimony to the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, Mr Berardino warned that if American accounting regulations were not overhauled the same committee could be holding a similar hearing in a few years time.

'Although I very much hope that I will not be the one sitting in this chair,' he quipped.

Yet his recent comments were not as interesting as the ones he made in Hong Kong last May at the Fortune Global Forum, many months before Enron's collapse began to haunt the accountancy firm.

At the forum, Mr Berardino said Andersen was pushing for better corporate governance 'because we are often the last one standing when there's a mess'.

Prophetic. But now the financial community wonders just how tall Andersen will be standing when the Enron saga finally draws to a close.

However, Mr Berardino's most interesting remark was how Andersen shuns clients who it fears might be behaving fraudulently.

'We will not accept any company as a client because frankly you can't manage the risk when a company will be fraudulent or will not be forthcoming and that's too bad because some of the worst companies are being audited by firms that have the least ability to find out what's going on.'

You said it, Mr Berardino.

If he wants to avoid ending up in that chair facing another House of Representatives Mr Berardino should maybe start to follow his own advice.

David Evans is on holiday.



Frayed nerves disappear in puff of smoke