Business Diary: Save money twice with redundancies

An outfit called Desk Space Genie is in touch to suggest a little money-making scheme for these difficult times. If your company has been through a redundancy programme, why not earn a few bob renting out the desks that the poor unfortunates vacated. Desk Space Genie even has an online exchange to let you advertise the desk space you can offer.

Karaoke session comes back to haunt WaMu

Note to chief executives: corporate videos always end up embarrassing you. Take Washington Mutual, the biggest-ever US bank failure. A video of a retreat for staff that the lender hosted in Hawaii in 2006, played in front of a Senate investigation in Washington this week, features a team of mortgage lenders singing a little ditty entitled "I Like Big Bucks" (to the tune of Sir Mix-a-Lot's 1992 hip-hop hit "Baby Got Back", in case you wondered). Truly humiliating.

Rowing back and forth across the Irish Sea

Martin Sorrell, the boss of advertising giant WPP, annoyed a few people by taking his company to Dublin to save tax a couple of years ago. Now, pending the election result and new tax policies from the next Government, Sorrell says he and WPP might just return. Presumably Ireland's change of fortunes is not influencing his thoughts?

Credit Suisse suffers a serious humour failure

Ructions at Credit Suisse in New York, where a global email warns: "Vandalism of company property will result in disciplinary action, leading up to, and including, termination of employment". It comes with a photo attached of a staff member's desk, which was smashed up by a drunken colleague in a misguided prank. The email adds: "We all work in a corporate environment – not a college dorm – if you can't behave in a professional and respectful manner, you should consider alternative employment."

Childish but funny

Sniggers in the City yesterday about an analyst's note from Bank of America-Merrill Lynch explaining an update to a listing of favoured stocks. The note was entitled "Dick's added; BJ's removed".

Number of the day: £4m

The bonus paid last year to Terry Smith, above, the chief executive of inter-dealer broker Tullet Prebon.

businessdiary@independent.co.uk