A novel approach to the credit crunch

I am not a journalist nor a writer and am probably not the right person therefore to be telling this story but here is a little gem I uncovered and I was wondering if someone would take it up and look into it for me or make a better job of it than I can?  I dont want any credits for this if it does run - just want to know more about a mystery lady who seems to be on a personal crusade to solve the current credit crisis.

The story concerns a company called SPI who in turn are a privately owned holding company for a consortium of smaller consultancy firms specialising in media, construction, education and healthcare.   At midnight last night, their CEO sold her entire portfolio of shares and donated the proceeds to childrens charities around the world.  The intention was that this should be done anonymously but dumping $200m of shares on the stockmarkets at midnight last night obviously caused a flutter of interest.

The real story though is why did SPI decide to do this?

And here I have hit a problem.  There are no photos, images or articles on SPI or its mysterious CEO and I have had to speak to the bosses of some of her subsidiaries to glean any information about her at all.  They are loyal and (with one exception) have clammed up but finally I persuaded one to tell me about her.

Her name is Rachel, 27, (I do have some more personal information if it is relevant but no surname) and she inherited SPI on the death of her father in a car crash.  Apart from a handful of clients whom she advises, she is never seen.  But, I was able to get a contact number and finally caught up with her in the early hours of the morning in West Africa. 

I got down much of our conversation and summarise what she said below but when I phoned back an hour later to confirm some of the details, the number was no longer obtainable - this elusive lady certainly likes her privacy!

Essentially, Rachel is disillusioned with the banking world.  She believes that money "has to be used to further the aspirations and ambitions of communites as a whole.   If not used, it loses its value."

The current aversion in the banking world to risk, borrowing and lending is having a disproportionate impact on the young and the disadvantaged, stifling development, and devaluing the very funds that banks and institutions are set up to administer and enlarge, she says. 

Her answer is to give her money away so that it can be used to help those most affected by the credit crunch and to go back to work full time herself. 

"The credit crunch is a crisis in confidence.   The bean counters and auditors are killing off the very solutions we need to that crisis.  Our money must be made to work in ways that rebuild confidence and the fat cats (myself included) need to be seen to get back to work ourselves, adding value to the economy, rather than profiting from the misery."

I am undecided: magnificent gesture or naivity.  But I would be grateful if someone who knows how look into this sort of thing could take up this story of the little rich girl who decided to give her fortune away in such spectacular fashion. 

I have posted the full quotes as a story called "A Novel Approach to the Credit Crunch", but have no idea where it is on this web site!

Michael de A

03 October 2008

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