Business Diary: LSE's cyber attack detailed by Google
Another day, another humbling for the London Stock Exchange, which saw trading disrupted on Friday for hours on end by a computer glitch. The bourse was open for business yesterday, but had you sought to get to its internet site via Google, you would have come across a problem. It was being blocked as an "attack site" – one where the search engine had noted suspicious behaviour, such as viruses being downloaded on to visitors' computers. We know these financial types get up to all sorts, but we didn't have the LSE down as cyber attackers.
Goldman boss loves Lady Gaga
Spotted at New York's Madison Square Garden, getting down to Lady Gaga's sell-out show: Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs. More impressive is the fact that Blankfein wasn't schmoozing clients in a corporate box, but on the floor of the venue, pretty close to the stage. Our spies tell us he was there with his daughter, but we prefer to assume that he is simply a massive Lady Gaga fan.
BP no longer so green in Russia
A few years back, some bright spark in marketing at BP had an idea for improving the image of the oil company (well before the Deepwater Horizon incident trashed it afresh). A redesigned logo in shades of green would enhance BP's environmental credentials. The Russians, it seems, are less bothered by such niceties. TNK-BP, the Russian venture in which BP has a 50 per cent stake, has just dumped all the green branding, reports The Moscow Times, in favour of a much more austere blue.
Pearson dreams of settling scores
Whom did he mean? Pearson boss Marjorie Scardino yesterday admitted to feeling uncomfortable about the fact that the Libyan Investment Authority owns 3 per cent of her company. But, she pointed out, Pearson can't control who buys its shares – it's a publicly listed company and the board doesn't have the power to get shot of shareholders it's not keen on. Up piped Robin Freestone, the media company's finance director. "If we did, there's a few we'd use it on," he said. Maybe he was joking, but there was certainly a steely glint in his eye.
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