On the back foot

Last year was an annus horribilis for many corporates as a flood of bad news rocked the already volatile markets. Not least, liquidity problems caused by ratings pressures forced a major strategy rethink in many boardrooms. Hardeep Dhillon looks at what corporates may have learnt

One thing companies have had to learn over the past 18 months is how to be defensive. Pervasive equity market weakness and risk-averse investor sentiment have pushed firms onto the back foot as they try to ride out this spell of turbulence within the markets.

The corporate universe has been buffeted by a plague of bad news, ranging from accounting irregularities, asbestos, pension fund deficits and litigation to Sars and the war in Iraq. If that wasn’t enough, last year’s quarterly ‘warnings’