Hannam pipes up while Draghi wishes his mic had been muted
IAN Hannam may have left JP Morgan after a £450,000 fine by the FSA for market abuse, but that hasn’t stopped the newly-established Natural Resources Forum from inviting him to be their keynote speaker at their inaugural event later this month.
Hannam is renowned as one of the City’s most knowledgeable bankers in the field of natural resources and The Capitalist cannot be the only one in the City who feels he has been harshly treated by the FSA, against whom he is currently appealing.
Says Bobby Morse of Buchanan: “Hannam will give a view that people will be fascinated to hear.”
Elsewhere, ECB President Mario Draghi might have wished he’d kept his mouth closed at the end of his monthly press conference yesterday. Presumably unaware his mic was still on, Draghi turned to vice-president Vitor Constancio to declare that discussion of the finer details of the Outright Monetary Transactions had been “boring”.
■ SPREAD betting firm Spreadex was left with a rather hefty bill this week when a punt of its own went slightly awry. The firm ran a promotion for a small selection of their traders to tie-in with cutting their FTSE spreads to one point and Dow spreads to two points. Clients who were enticed to try the tighter spreads were to be rewarded with shiny new Third Generation iPads. Unfortunately for Spreadex, who had anticipated dispatching around 20 of the Apple gadgets, over 100 clients reached the qualifying trade threshold. The Capitalist was told that the resulting £21k bill for tablets and delivery was more than a little unexpected.
■ ONE of the City’s favourite restaurants – 1 Lombard Street – is hosting its annual charity fine wine auction and dinner tomorrow. The event will feature food cooked by world-renowned chefs including Hibiscus’ Claude Bosi and Gleneagles Andrew Fairlie, accompanied by some of the world’s finest wines. But the most hotly-anticipated part of the evening will be the Money-Can’t-Buy Auction. In the past this has offered the likes of a Michelin-Starred dinner party prepared by Giorgio Locatelli in the winning bidder’s home, as well as rare wines and champagnes. All funds raised will go towards charity Action Against Hunger, which works globally to save the lives of malnourished kids.