Pharma Giles writes

Sir Jock McPillock, former CEO of Anglo-Swiss pharmaceutical giant AstraZubillaga (motto: Scaphium tenura pecunia*) and outgoing chairman of the Caledonian Repository And Pensions Group, today took personal responsibility for the plight of the Edinburgh-based bank which is now set to be majority owned by the taxpayer.
He told shareholders assembled at an extraordinary meeting convened to sanction the record-breaking £50bn fundraising that “the buck stops with me as chairman, and as a result, I shall be taking my bloody enormous severance cheque and a £12 million annual pension, and retiring forthwith." He added that he was "profoundly sorry" for the situation that forced CRAP to seek a government bail-out, “but hey, it’s only money after all. Your money though, not mine, thank God...”

Among the many questions that have arisen from this debacle is just how Sir Jock managed to become chairman of one of the world’s largest banks without any banking qualifications whatsoever.

“Why would I need any banking qualifications to be Chairman of a banking group?” laughs McPillock. “I mean, just look at RBS. Lord Stevenson is their former chairman. Andy Hornby and Sir Fred Goodwin are their former CEOs. None of them have any banking qualifications either**, and RBS are doing just as well we are when it comes to getting government bail-outs.”
“In my defence, CRAP did offer Radio 2 presenter Terry Wogan an executive position, but we withdrew the offer after we found out that he actually had banking qualifications**,” noted Sir Jock. “Can’t have a bloody smartarse coming in and upsetting the status quo, can we?”

“After all, being CEO of a major pharmaceutical company is all the experience you need to run a bank,” he explains. “All you have to do is cover up the fact that your products are no good and are possibly harmful, whilst puffing up your portfolio to greedy and ignorant investors. Take my old company AstraZubillaga’s psychiatric drug Queroswell, for example. It gives people diabetes and makes them blow up like blimps, but that didn’t stop us from making a bloody fortune out of it. Pharmaceuticals or banking, it’s all in the marketing.”

“Having rubbish products or no money doesn’t stop you making a fortune,” McPillock observes. “Or at least it hasn’t until now. But I’m all right, Jack, and that’s all that matters,” laughed Sir Jock, showing a true CEO’s trademark concern for his customers, employees and investors.
McPillock acknowledged the timing of the takeover of Dutch bank NBG Agro at the height of the credit crisis last year had "added to our difficulties".

“But let’s face it - my background is that of a pharmaceutical CEO. When things look a bit dodgy, we automatically go for mergers and acquisitions to paper over the cracks and keep the stock market happy. Oh, and massive lay-offs as well. It’s what we always do.”

Many shareholders and observers alike have expressed outrage at Sir Jock’s multi-million pound severance package and pension deal in the wake of CRAP’s collapse.

“But in comparison to executives in the pharmaceutical industry, what I’m getting is peanuts,” McPillock told shareholders in Edinburgh. "Take a look at Pfizer’s Hank McKinnell, for instance. He got $200m when he was edged out, yet he only managed to halve his company’s share price in five years. I’ve reduced CRAP shares from £16 to virtually nothing in only three years. Surely that makes me a far greater success than Hank?”

McPillock highlighted some of the main reasons for his regret.

"I am sorry about the very real financial and therefore human cost that those who have invested in us now feel and recognise how seriously this has impacted shareholder confidence in CRAP," Sir Jock said, pulling out an onion. "And I am also sorry if any of our customers or employees have suffered anxiety as a result of the situation,” he sobbed.

"But I am also sharing your pain. I am acutely aware - every day - of the fact that, like me, thousands of our employees, past and present, have believed so much in their company that they gave more than their labour to it. They bought shares, share-save options and Buy as You Earn, often from very modest incomes. They were proud of what CRAP had achieved and were delighted to be associated with it."

“But unlike me, they didn’t cash in their options before they saw the crash coming. Ha ha, so long suckers. Who’s the Daddy…?”


*buckets of money.

**Absolutely true.