While the „leadership“ of Novartis preach ethics, savings and austerity, the irony is that Novartis leadership reportedly are gulping down some of the worlds most expensive wines. Because we’re worth it Some of the Novartis Basel executive dining area staff decided to augment their income, and steal some wine from the vast Novartis wine vault. Vast because 234 or so bottles of wine had to vanish before the sommeliers noticed something was amiss. Imagine 234 wine bottles in your living room. The thieves were apprehended selling the wine, charged and appeared in a Basel court. Some of the stolen wine varieties were mentioned, presumable not the top $ varieties, even Novartis would not be so wanton! Here the court case details in German: http://www.bzbasel.ch/basel/basel-stadt/novartis-weinlager-von-kantinen-angestellten-gepluendert-128536318 ...and details to one of the wines mentioned www.vinopedia.com/store/Millesima+SA+/?wineid=63172221(you may have to copy/ paste the URL) Mere mortals may baulk at a $50.- bottle of wine, but after all it takes special people who combine lofty rhetoric with greasy palms, who believe they are so entitled, privileged, and that such lustful indulgence is specially ordained to them. Who cares about a few 10‘000$ bottles of wine being drunk. Compared to the Novartis revenue one can argue that it is such a miniscule non-subject. But knowing this is your mistrust of Novartis leadership increased? The Board pose as guarantors of governance, order and stability, yet effortlessly move between moralism and corruption. As we say in China “He who holds the honey is bound to lick his fingers.” Rhymes with Ernie A taste in expensive wine has caught out questionable behavior in Basel before. The downfall of Dieter Behring, a former Swiss fund manager accused of cheating 2,000 investors out of an estimated 800 million Swiss francs ($800 million), came when he spent £26‘000 of his investors money on a single magnum of wine. This made it into the press, and investors began to ask questions as to the fiduciary care that this person was taking of their money. Behring ran a trading system that he said produced “above-average results” for investors - before it collapsed. How many millions of $ of wine has Novartis leadership consumed over the last years, juxaposed to the pictures of emaciated 3rd world people they misuse through the Novartis website and annual report? Company and institutional supervisors of people on the Novartis Board should fear transference of this behavior: - Dimitri Azar - University of Illinois at Chicago - Ton Buechner - AkzoNobel - Srikant Datar - Harvard Business School - Elizabeth Doherty - Dunelm Group - Ann Fudge - Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - Charles L. Sawyers - Sloan Kettering - Enrico Vanni - at Advanced Oncotherapy, Lombard Odier or Banque Privée BCP - William T. Winters - Standard Chartered
In other news, http://www.bbc.com/news/health-38796337 Malaria drugs fail for first time on patients in UK
Talking about excess, my Novartis Pharma boss told me he got a massive er***ion signing off on $450 golf rounds for dozens of "opinion leaders" at a conference in California. Yes, he also had other ulterior motives that prevented me retorting as to whether it put him off his stroke. Obviously complicity is all the way to the top.
The thought that the Novartis misleadership could fire people to "save cost" yet at the same time drink wine that over the year would amount to the value of a few employees salary - perverse, especially if one was on the receiving end of "savings"?
If you thought that drinking expensive wine on other peoples "dime" is not correlated with criminal behavior, here we go.... ...His apparent success afforded luxuries including $2,000 bottles of wine, a $3 million waterfront vacation home, a $300,000 mahogany speedboat and four Porsches, He belonged to eight private golf courses and hired top chefs to cook for dinner parties at his home. The general counsel had arranged to meet with Mr. Morris about some unusual expenses. Mr. Morris arrived, then fled the meeting early. .....Millions of dollars were missing from the Washington accounts .... When Mr. Morris finished his round of golf, he went to the locker room, showered and put on a blue blazer with the club's insignia. He ordered a steak dinner at the clubhouse and bought a round of drinks for everyone at the restaurant. Mr. Morris asked for a bottle of Petrus. Around sunset, he walked to a secluded spot a few hundred yards from the clubhouse where members sometimes smoked cigars around a fire pit. He sat in an Adirondack chair and drank. He took out his new revolver and put the muzzle of the gun to his mouth. in the WSJ "The Rise and Fall of a K Street Renegade"
Interesting journey into the mind of a corporate executive type who enjoys mind blowing expensive wine on the company tab. When the chips were down Evan Morris said goodbye to his favorite wine but not his children?
