What's in a name?

 

 

Following the financial crisis of 2008 there was much talk of a collective reigning in and return to the principles of sound business.


However memories are short and it is never long before the blurring starts again and risky practices again become more and more the norm.

 

There is now a concerted move afoot to rehabilitate the image of leverage.

 

This was the mechanism which more than any other precipitated the disaster in the financial system.

 

Companies no longer speak of leveraged deals but are now taking on “sponsor finance”.

 

This re-branding has in-built danger as witnessed previously; complacency has resulted in the demise of numerous organisations.

 

In the words of Machiavelli “Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus the necessarily have the same results.”