Planet business

Compiled by LAURA SLATTERY

In numbers: PC manufacturing

$8.86 billion

Third-quarter losses at Hewlett-Packard, the biggest seller of personal computers in the world, as PC revenues fell 10 per cent

11,500The number of employees worldwide that will leave Hewlett-Packard by the end of October

20The percentage decline in the share price of Dell – the worlds third biggest seller of PCs – this year, with the company this week warning of a challenging second half to 2012

Getting to know: Chris Mahoney

MAKING A VALIANT bid to destroy any hint of warm fuzzy corporate social responsibility vibes, Chris Mahoney, director of agricultural products at commodities trader Glencore, has described the worst drought to hit the US since the 1930s as “good for Glencore” and its shareholders.

“The environment is a good one,” he said of the heatwave that has destroyed almost half the corn crop and a third of the soya beans in the US crop belt, pushing commodity prices to record highs and prompting G20 nations to start planning crisis food summits. So that’s drought, starvation, food riots . . . all of it marvellous news for Glencore’s millionaire investors. Or as Mahoney put it: “High prices, lots of volatility, a lot of dislocation, tightness, a lot of arbitrage opportunities.”

The list: Forbes' most powerful women

It was the turn of the world’s 100 most powerful women to be the subject of a Forbes’ ranking exercise. While the top spots were taken by politicians such as Angela Merkel and Hillary Clinton, the corporate world also threw up a few names.

1.Jill Abrahamson: The New York Times executive editor made it to No 5 in Forbes’ list, suggesting that the influence of the Grey Lady isn’t dead yet.

2.Sheryl Sandberg (below): Facebook’s chief operating officer was at No 10, even though analysts are a touch befuddled as to how the company plans to make cash.

3.Oprah Winfrey: Behold, an entrepreneur. Oprah’s chat show may have finished its run, but Winfrey’s media empire reigns on.

4. Indra Nooyi: The highest-placed chief executive on the list was Nooyi, who runs PepsiCo for her trouble.

5.Irene Rosenfeld: At No 13 on the Forbes list, the chief executive of Kraft foods was ranked just one place higher than Poker Face singer Lady Gaga.

The lexicon: London whale

As nicknames go, this isn’t the most charming. The “London whale” is the name given to the financial trader who worked at US investment bank JP Morgan Chase and attracted the attention of Wall Street earlier this year by taking massive bets on corporate credit default swaps.

The London-based division responsible lost at least $5.8 billion (€4.6 billion) in a series of complex derivatives trades, while the trader, Bruno Iskil, left the bank in July. Now at least six employees of JP Morgan are consulting their lawyers, as federal authorities mount a probe into allegations that some of the bank’s traders tried to hide heavy losses. The “London whale” story is not yet extinct.

Image of the week

Alan Joyce, the Irish chief executive of Qantas, may be standing next to a miniature A380 (above), but his expression is more “firing squad” than “model aircraft”. Joyce was announcing Qantas’s first annual loss in at least 17 years at a news conference in Sydney yesterday, as higher fuel costs, painful labour disputes and intensifying competition on international routes combined to wipe away profits.

Not only that but Joyce is forgoing his bonus this year as Australia introduces new laws on executive pay that give more power to shareholders to dump a company board if they’re not happy with how much they’re remunerating themselves. Photograph: Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg)