Anthony Hilton
Plenary 1 : Economic downturn
Managing Change
Anthony Hilton, The Evening Standard
  He's an optimist on the economy
    Since 1968 it's....
    ...his 4th recession
    ....his 7th banking crisis
    Each crisis prompted regulation to prevent it
happening again
    Highest employment rate ever
    Now downturn before 2008 for over 15 years
  He gave Robert Peston his first job in financial
journalism...so it's "his fault"!
  Quarterly growth rate
    Ignore whether positive or negative
    As it's always wrong
    0.9% uplift on negative quarterly figures
(on average)
    Equiv. of 3.6% over the year!
    To solve recession...work through lunchtime
  The floor of averages
    e.g. average no. of children is 1.8
    Economic growth = 1%
    Some at 10%, some decline at 9%, hence 1%
    Always some do well, some do badly
  "Normal" recovery
    Growth rate during this recession
is the same as during others
    Banks don't lend during "green shoots"
    Not back to the 2008 levels!
    But who cares, as they were unsustainable anyway!
    Long term growth rates should perhaps be 1.75%, not 2% plus
  70 currency unions broken up
since World War II
  Don't worry about....
    ....recession, the worst is over
    ....debt, we've had more before
    ...the economy, it's getting better
  Business risk
    Supply chain is global
    Where do "claims" get made in a global world?
  Law Firm Structures
    Are lawyers being disintermediated?
    Like in medicine and in journalism?
    Will virtual firms come to the fore?
    More lawyers as freelancers working from home?
  Company Lifecycles
    Not like Smiths Industries - 100yrs as a public company
    Predicted we'll have 1m new companies in the next decade
    On top of the 5m we have already
    Companies may now be 1-2 product companies only e.g. MySpace