Credit crisis diary: Picking his way out of the Lehman ruck

You've got to hand it to the former England rugby international Simon Halliday. A former Oxford Blue, Halliday bounced back from a career-threatening injury to make it into the England side, and was equally resilient after being on the losing side in the 1991 World Cup final, before eventually retiring and joining Lehman Brothers. If anyone was going to survive the US investment bank's train wreck then it would be Halliday. And so it proved: having been picked up by Nomura, which bought many Lehman assets after its collapse in the autumn, the Japanese bank has just promoted Halliday to head its emerging market equity sales team.

And the iffy accounting award goes to...

Modesty is rarely a trait of award-winners, especially in the business world. But one company has been especially keen to trumpet its corporate governance achievements. The Indian IT giant Satyam landed the Golden Peacock Award in 2008, an honour selected by a panel of luminaries including former prime ministers of Canada and Sweden. Satyam has also picked up the UK trade and investment India business award for corporate social responsibility. A tad embarrassing then that the group's chairman has now admitted to a $1bn accountancy fraud that has been going on for years.

In the money as unemployment soars

Recessions aren't bad news for everyone. Just ask NorthgateArinso, the company which, in its own words, processes pay for one in three working people in Britain. It happily reports a 92 per cent increase in demand for production of P45s over the past six months – they've never had it so good.

Nobody mention the d-word

Cattles, the specialist lender, is so worried about being described as a doorstep lender – with all the negative associations the phrase carries – that it has taken to adding a footnote to all its press releases. "[Cattles] has been mistakenly referred to in some articles as a 'doorstep lender' or 'sub-prime mortgage lender'. Please note that it is neither", the briefing note warns. Talk about precious.

An insult to Postman Pat from his bosses

Royal Mail news just in (via email, naturally): "Royal Mail venture launches intelligent mail system". What does that say about Royal Mail's view of the thousands of postmen it has employed for years?

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