Monthly Archives: December 2009

Dumbest business decision of the decade

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The Swedish business paper “Dagens Industri” has listed ten candidates for the not so flattering distinction “dumbest business decisions of the decade” in Sweden. Stora Enso tops the list for the decision to acquire Consolidated Papers for EUR 4.9 billion in the year 2000.
Stora Enso’s CEO Jukka Härmälä and Chairman Claes Dahlbäck burned additional billions in restructuring the North American paper company, before finally divesting the remaining assets to NewPage for EUR 1 billion in 2007. The deal also comprised 19,9% of the shares, which recently became practically worthless.
On top of this, the duo sold Finnish and Swedish forest resources and hydropower assets, just before the booming of wood prices and cost of electricty.
The total loss for Stora Enso has been between EUR 5 and 7 billion according to the newspaper.

Sports beat Paper!

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Paper industry has lost almost its entire glow, the recent recession almost wiping out any remaining aura. Earlier on, even visiting groups of students were treated with good food and drink. Nowadays, they are often not even welcome since there are no resources to receive visiting groups, and if they are allowed on, a cup of coffee and a dry biscuit is enough.
Recently, Amer Sports (owner of Salomon, Wilson, Atomic) were proud to announce to new executives that they recruited from Stora Enso. Sports is today obviously much more attractive than paper.

Jussi Siitonen appointed Amer Sports Senior Vice President, Finance

Failing algorithm

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Amazon has prospered from their amazing algorithms that keep track of customer preferences. This way, they have been able to recommend books based on earlier buys and what other buyers of the same books have bought.
But today, I received a recommendation to buy two books that I already have bought from Amazon. It happens that I forget what I have bought – and even have read – but that can’t be part of Amazon’s algorithms – or…?