Standard Chartered's new chairman, Bryan Sanderson, did great things for his former employer, BP. As mentioned in these pages yesterday, Mr Sanderson led BP's charge into mainland China with several significant investments. He can claim some credit, then, for the astonishing rise in BP's share price during his time with the company - it increased sixfold during those eight years. But as chairman of Premier League football club Sunderland, he leads a team currently ranked fourth from bottom. Standard Chartered clearly believes he will bring his oil-industry form to the organisation, not his side's soccer performance. The bank's share price performance under present chairman Sir Patrick Gillam has been pretty strong relative to the FTSE-100 index. We will be watching it closely after next May, when Mr Sanderson takes over the position. He steps on board as a non-executive director from December 9. Lucky touch: As often happens, Lai See has discovered a very important historic event the rest of the Hong Kong media seems to have overlooked or underplayed. It was the completion today of Hong Kong's first ever 34-metre 'Xmas Wishing Tree', part of the Hong Kong Tourism Board's Hong Kong WinterFest campaign sponsored by New World Development. This amazing tree rises into the night sky in Golden Bauhinia Square, Wan Chai. Tourism Board spokesman Simon Clennell told us the tree is 'very electronic'. Rather than throw things up into it for good luck, people will press buttons. Lucky lights will then flash up to various levels, depending on the amount of luck generated by the special superstitious computer in its control centre. The power will be switched on from 6pm to midnight from Sunday until January 5. 'It is an attempt to epitomise Hong Kong's fusion of East West; a cross between a traditional Christmas Tree and a Wishing Tree,' Simon said. The tree will go 'live' on Sunday. Tourism touts intend applying for a new Guinness World Record, possibly 'Largest All-weather Christmas Wishing Tree' or 'Tallest Computerised Wishing Device which looks like a Tree'. Both of these records are up for grabs, we believe. Emotive selling: More exciting marketing news from Yahoo! Hong Kong. Its general manager, Alfred Tsoi, received a special Emotive team shirt from Arsenal Football Club yesterday. The shirt symbolises Yahoo!'s new partnership with Premier League clubs Arsenal and Liverpool. Yahoo! is helping the clubs launch official Chinese-language Web sites to give fans the latest news about all their favourite teams and players. There will be on line chat rooms, fan clubs, merchandising and . . . Even more Yahoo! - the clever company handed out its Emotive Brand Awards yesterday. Lucky winners included Cathay Pacific, Coca-Cola, HSBC Holdings, Nike, Nissin Noodles, Nokia and Sony. These big brands got the most nominations from Yahoo's 10,000 respondents and received the Ace of Hearts Emotive Brand award. The brands Yahoo! users most identified with included Coke, HSBC, Levi's, Nike and McDonald's. Congratulations to them and the dozens of other winning brands in this marketing extravaganza! Oliver wins: The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce's retiring chief economist, Ian Perkin, featured in an item yesterday recalling major Hong Kong events. He called up to tell us that, while he likes a handover party as much as anyone, the most memorable event for him and his wife, Kylie, during their 13 years in Hong Kong was actually the birth of their son Oliver. 'He is only three years old, but his Cantonese is better than mine will ever be,' Ian told us. 'We battle over the TV remote. He wants a local channel, I want the English.' Ian and Oliver won't need to fight over the TV when they get to Buderim in the Australian state of Queensland next month. They only speak Australian there. Graphic: whee29gbz