Business Diary: Analysts hitch their wagon to wedding

We don't want to be royal wedding killjoys, but is Panmure Gordon's attempt to get in on today's fun pushing things just a little too far?

Its patriotic analysts have put out a special edition of their regular notes on the equities they follow – each one has a matrimonial theme. Highlights include "Still Wearing White" and "A Match Made in Heaven". Someone at Panmure is clearly a closet republican, however, since the headlines also include "Are You Eyeing Up My Partner" and, even worse, "D.I.V.O.R.C.E". Send them to the Tower.

Dragon fires up Wall St director

Something of a coup for James Caan, the former Dragons' Den judge, who has secured the services of Oliver Stone as he tries to promote his recruitment company Webrecruit. The two are to star in a promotional video on Vzaar, the professional video company, where Caan is working to create a platform for his business. Stone is an investor in Vzaar, you see, so the marketing effort is in both their interests.

Name-dropping is critical to success

If you are hoping your little ones are headed for a stellar career in business, make sure you give them a good start in life with the right name. Linkedin, the social networking site for professionals, reveals the five most common names among male chief executives are, in descending order: Peter, Bob, Jack, Bruce and Fred. Women bosses are most likely to be named Deborah, Sally, Cynthia or Carolyn. None of these monikers are particularly on-trend just now, but the kids will thank you in the long run.

It's not the sack now, it's 'aligning'

Having announced details of 4,000 job cuts on Wednesday, Nokia has sent us a note explaining what it is up to. "Nokia starts measures to align workforce and site operations with new strategy" is how the mobile phone giant describes the redundancy programme. There's certainly no faulting the Finns' ability to dress up bad news with bonkers jargon. But then Nokia is run by Stephen Elop, the ex-Microsoft man who began his tenure at Nokia with a memo to all staff warning they were standing on a "burning platform" in the middle of a cold ocean.

businessdiary@independent.co.uk