Afondness for Sarbanes-Oxley is not something many chief financial officers in Europe express, when it comes to the draconian US compliance rules introduced in the light of Enron and other scandals.
But Michel Demaré, ABB’s CFO for almost the past two years, ascribes his unorthodoxy to the special circumstances of the Swiss-Swedish electrical engineering group.
During the 1990s, it was among the world’s most admired companies under Percy Barnevik, its “visionary” boss. Expansion and diversification thrived under a highly decentralised structure that took the venerable group far from its roots.
But when demand crumbled, interest rates rose and what seemed blue chip management broke down, the model fell apart. By the beginning of the new decade, Mr Barnevik was out and ABB was fighting for its life.
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