14/02/2017 World Business Report

Yesterday he financed superhero movies.

Today he's the new US Treasury Secretary,

but has Steven Mnuchin got what it takes to balance the books

Toshiba shares go into meltdown after the Japanese giant delays

revealing its latest numbers following its new clear accounting

I know, it is on Friday, it is Tuesday. But I'm stuck here.

In a moment the boss of Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, tells us he's

worried about the effect Brexit will have on the airline industry.

in the last few hours, former banker Steven Mnuchin has

been confirmed as the new Treasury Secretary.

As jobs go, it's a very important one.

Besides serving as the nation's banker, paying its bills,

collecting taxes and managing its debt,

the secretary is also one of the leading regulators of banks

So how well do we think he'll perform in this new role?

He's been critised as a Wall Street insider, having spent 17 years

working for Goldman Sachs and also setting up and running

This has enabled him to finance dozens of high-profile Hollywood

films, including titles like Suicide Squad and the Lego Batman

Last April he joined the Trump campaign when the organisation's

Now he's deeply involved in developing the president's tax

proposals, which could deliver as much as $6 trillion in tax

Most controversially, he's been accused of profiting

In 2009, Mnuchin assembled a group of investors to buy the failed

He renamed it OneWest and turned it around,

selling it for a large profit in 2014.

Housing advocacy groups claim OneWest foreclosed on more

than 36,000 homeowners in California.

Here's how Steven Mnuchin responded to the criticism.

Since I was first nominated to serve as Treasury Secretary, I have been

maligned as taking advantage of others' hardship in order to earn

eight Park. Nothing could be further from the truth. -- earn a buck.

You're in the summer of 2008 I saw the devastation caused by the

housing crisis. When I watched people line up to get their savings

out of indie Mac bank. It was the middle of the financial crisis and

despite the global panic, I saw a way to save the bank.

Well, let's stay with the story. Doctor Stephanie is a vertical risk

analyst expert. Great to see you again. Thank you for coming in at

this horrible a la. He saw a way to save the bank. He made a pretty

penny, didn't he? It is estimated he made $380 million from the profit of

that sale, personally. Personally, OK. With the 36,000 homes that they

foreclose. That is 36,000 families that lost their homes. I know at the

beginning of my introduction I sort of said what he does, he balances

the books and that. For the uninitiated, what does the Treasury

Secretary do? Is he lacked the finance minister? They can impose

economic sanctions, they oversee taxes and banking regulations. Hang

on. He was a former banker. So you have a banker looking at the

regulation, or overseeing the regulation, of rank. Yes. In some

way it is setting the poacher to become the gamekeeper, but in the

same way, it can be setting a thief to catch a thief. He has been on

Wall Street for 17 years, at Goldman Sachs. He is very well-qualified. It

is not necessarily a problem. It is just that we did have the President,

Donald Trump, say that he was trying to drain the swamp. There is a lot

of criticism that many people from Goldman Sachs are in his

Administration. This is on P1 more. -- simply one more. In that job he

would have to do what all the others have to do with their dealings,

their businesses, if he has shares in Goldman Sachs, surely he cannot

keep those? During his confirmation hearings he had to admit that he had

forgotten to declare $100 million in assets. I see. So in the same way

that you might forget you have a ?5 note in your pocket, that happened

for him. But it was an oversight, not deliberate. What is interesting,

you just touched on the S word, sanctions. Given what we have just

seen, also in the last few hours, with Mr Flynn resigning, so the US

Treasury... The national security adviser. Yes, he was. The US

Treasury Secretary can decide on sanctions, lifting or imposing? That

is right. The Treasury is involved in imposing sanctions on countries

or individuals. Of course, things are tens between the US and Russia.

That happened for a while, both due to sessions over Ukraine, and then

sanctions that the Obama Administration impose just before

President Obama left office in December. Those are the sanctions

that have really caused a scandal that has forced the NSA director,

sorry, the national security adviser, Michael Flynn, this

morning. He supposedly misled the vice president of these

conversations he supposedly had with his Kremlin counterparts over

whether those December sanctions, not the Ukraine sanctions, but the

December sessions would be lifted. I am being told we have to wrap this

up. But he does have the skill set to do a job like this, doesn't he?

He has the skill set. He has a big challenge on his hands, and he has

vast powers. Doctor Stephanie, always a pleasure. Thank you.

The boss of Ryanair says he worries Brexit negotiations will be

a disaster, triggering chaos for travellers across Europe.

As a part of our series on the challenges facing the global

airline industry, we've been speaking with Michael O'Leary,

chief executive of Ryanair, the biggest airline in Europe

He's told the BBC's Theo Leggett that that he thinks it will be very

difficult for the UK to remain part of the EU's single aviation.

I fear there will be a disaster. And I hope, I suspect and hope that

within two years the British people will realise that they were misled

into voting for Brexit, and that leaving the single market will be

very damaging for Britain and that they will change their minds. The

problem is that remaining in the open skies probably involves the UK

recognising the jurisdiction of the European court of justice, and

probably recognising the free movement of people, which is a red

light issue. From a consumer point of view, if the negotiations to go

badly, what is the worst that could happen? It is not beyond the bounds

of possibility. It is unlikely, but it is not beyond the bounds of

possibility that there could be no flights between the UK and Europe if

the UK walks off a cliff in March 20 19. If the UK leads the open skies

agreement, I do not believe there will be transitional arrangements,

because they have to be approved by 27 different apartments. There will

be chaos for weeks and months. I am not sure they will not be chaos. It

is really only when the British people and the British government

recognise there is going to be chaos that maybe you'll get some kind of

common sense prevailing. The big boss, Michael O'Leary, we

had to cut him short. Toshiba shares fell by 9%

after the company announced that it was delaying news

of its latest earnings. The company had been expected

to write off around nearly $6 billion and admit

the threat to its future. Toshiba had bet on the future

of nuclear energy but problems at its US subsidiary, Westinghouse,

and the Fukushima nuclear disaster Rupert Wingfield-Hayes

is in Tokyo for us. Good to see you. Corporate scandals

in Japan, they come and go, but as far as they go, this one is a bit of

a doozy. This one is potentially huge. I was told by an analyst this

morning that this is a disaster of perhaps the biggest corporate

disaster in recent years, certainly bigger than Sharp, which had to be

sold off to a Taiwanese company a couple of years back. So, yes, the

markets have reacted, because they do not like the news that is coming,

and they do not like the fact that Toshiba appears unable to produce

its numbers on time. That lovely spells very bad news. Rupert, if you

can come in about 30 or 40 seconds, for those who have not kept up with

the story, what has gone on with the whole sort of nuclear US thing with

Toshiba? In 2006 Toshiba bet on a nuclear render songs of power in the

United States by buying Westinghouse. -- renaissance of

power. Then they started buying up four reactors with a new design in

the southern United States. Those have gone massively over time and

over cost. That is why they will have to write down about $6 billion

of losses in the United States. But the losses are so large they are

putting the future, the finances of the whole company in jeopardy. It

means that their losses, their debts, could exceed their market

capitalisation. That means they may be delisted from the Tokyo stock

exchange. Fantastic stuff, Rupert. We will talk to you again soon. I

will be back to take a look at the papers with you shortly.

Local authorities in England have paid out more than 35 million pounds

in compensation and legal fees to tenants who are living

A BBC investigation found that around 11,000 claims have been