Expert View

12/05/2008

12/05/2008

At the champagne reception prior to the event, the main topic of conversation seemed less to do with speculating about the winners than about the beautiful London sunshine.

Joel Bouzou, partner Melinda Lovett and Yann Coelenbier, who had travelled to the ceremony from Monaco to promote their initiative Peace and Sport, even went as far as to claim that London was hotter than the south of France...

Meanwhile, Katie Booth, the MD of Butterfield International Private Office — Butterfield Bank’s newlylaunched trust unit targeting ultra high net worth individuals — was busy entertaining her guests.

As well as bringing Elena Andrianova all the way over from accountancy firm Pricewaterhouse-Coopers’s Moscow office, she’d also invited a very old friend. “George and I have known each other for years,” she said of one of two brothers who made it to 65th on this year’s Sunday Times Rich List.

George Jatania, who had a great time showing the CityA.M. girls the secret new potions and lotions hidden in the depths of his jacket, is co-owner of a toiletries empire worth £1.1bn — not bad going for a couple of lads from Leicester.

Among the helmeted, Lycra-clad fitness enthusiasts zooming to work in the City on their bikes yesterday morning were 50 blue-jerseyed cyclists on a rather different mission. The group rode out for the launch of a corporate cycling challenge to raise money for the Prostate Cancer Charity.

They ended up at Canada Square in Canary Wharf in time for a morning presentation at Smollensky’s restaurant attended by the likes of ex-footballer Graeme Le Saux and radio DJ Neil “Doctor” Fox. The Real Man Cycle challenge, which is being sponsored by CityA.M., will see 2,000 cyclists in teams of four taking to the streets of London for a 34km cycle race on 14 September.

However, one keen participant was not able to take his place in the launch line-up yesterdayas planned. Barclays Capital’s chief UK economist David Hillier, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer himself in 2002, had a crash on his bike a few days ago and couldn’t participate. “I was very disappointed but I just can’t cycle at the moment — I’m covered in bandages!” he said, though he assured The Capitalist he’ll be fighting fit for September — sign up to join him at www.realmancyclingchallenge. com..

Remember Compass Group, the world’s largest catering firm which was clobbered by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver who badmouthed its school dinner staple, the infamous Turkey Twizzler? Well, the group has obviously decided that upmarket is the way to go in order to avoid any more run-ins with the Essex-boydone-good.

Its Restaurant Associates company, which runs catering services for 17 of the UK’s top 20 investment banks, has announced a partnership with Jamie’s rival Gordon Ramsay.

Restaurant Associates chefs will be taking turns learning the tricks of the trade in the kitchens of Gordon’s star chefs, such as Jason Atherton and Angela Hartnett, pinching menus for their hospitality business. Gordon Ramsay lending his name to mass-produced food? There’s a new one.

The City’s headhunters have been eyeing the ifs School of Finance’s 2007-8 Student Investor Challenge with interest as teams of fresh meat from all over the country vied for pole position as their generation’s most successful investors.

Team Excel, four teenagers from Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School in Hertfordshire, eventually clinched the title, beating more than 30,000 other entrants to win an all-expenses-paid trip to New York and £2,000 for their school.

The contest was a close one, however — in the first round of the competition, which involved investing a fantasy £100,000 in the stock market over four months from November to February, the eventual winners’ more-than-respectable £226,700 paled in comparison to the team which produced the highest returns on their £100k.

Teens from Linton Village College in Cambridge managed to make a whopping £1.3m from their investment — a result many credit-crunch-stricken traders would be proud of at the moment.

Newcastle, reeling from the collapse of Northern Rock, has suffered another blow. Some 2,000 Northern Rock staff are losing their jobs this year.

Now another exodus has begun, this time at Newcastle Falcons rugby club, which is losing international backs Toby Flood and Matthew Tait.

Flanker Ben Woods and scrum-half Lee Dickson are also leaving. The connection? The Falcons are sponsored by Northern Rock.

It seems that almost half of company directors would try anything to improve their image and boost business.

According to a poll conducted for Director magazine, 40 per cent of its readers would consider cosmetic treatment to enhance their career or business prospects.

First choice is cosmetic dentistry, followed by botox injections and fillers.

More worryingly, many directors would consider hair transplants, eyelid surgery, liposuction or facelifts to improve their business chances.

One well known company director to have resorted to teeth whitening and botox was Simon Cowell, boss of X Factor production company Syco.

There’s been much huffing and puffing about our City poll of financial PRs, with a number of disappointed public relationstypes asking why they weren’t mentioned.

The truth is that the poll, published in CityA.M. earlier this week and still on the website at Cityam.com, only mentioned those nominated by the City and business editors on our panel.

But there is hope for everybody else.

We’re planning to re-run the poll in a year’s time and in the meantime here’s a bit of advice for PR stars of the future: plenty of exclusive stories should be leaked to editors, especially ours; panel members all need to be taken to expensive lunches; and don’t bother speaking to any junior reporters because they aren’t on the panel (only joking).