FULL CIRCLE IN SPORT RETAILERS’ WILY WORLD
IS THERE no end to the incestuous intricacies to the colourful sports retail sector?
The current hot potato in the industry is the tide of bad feeling towards JJB chairman Sir David Jones, whose past emails criticising the firm’s directors were recently leaked by former chief executive Chris Ronnie, the man widely blamed for bringing the firm to the brink of bankruptcy.
JJB itself, which always seems to be at the centre of these gems of gossip, was started up by another sector heavyweight Dave Whelan – whose own personal nemesis, in turn, is Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley.
Ashley was the one who previously dobbed in Whelan over fixing the price of football shirts, netting the latter a hefty fine from the Office of Fair Trading. The affair also gave rise to the publication of Whelan’s most famous line, delivered to Ashley when the pair first met in 2000: “There’s a club in the North, son, and you’re not part of it”.
And now, years later, The Capitalist learns from a friendly history buff that the person who helpfully remembered that quote in the first place – and delivered it to the OFT as evidence in the price-fixing affair – was none other than the person to whom Whelan later sold his JJB stake and was blamed for the firm’s subsequent woes: Chris Ronnie.
There’s a sort of pleasing symmetry to it all, isn’t there?
INSIDER TRADING
We are just weeks away from the first anniversary of the biggest shock in banking history, the fall of Lehman Brothers, and the BBC has decided to mark the occasion with a gritty documentary and drama about the collapse.
The Beeb has roped in Prime Minister Gordon Brown, chancellor Alistair Darling, Bank of England governor Mervyn King and Barcap chief Bob Diamond, among other heavyweights, to give their account of the event for the documentary – and it’s also got its hands on exclusive footage shot inside the bank in the weeks leading up to its bankruptcy.
The drama, on the other hand, will be studded with the stars of the small screen, including Spooks’ Corey Johnson as Lehman chief Dick Fuld and James Cromwell, who appeared in 24, LA Confidential and Six Feet Under, as then-US Treasury secretary Hank Paulson.
NEAR MISS
There was a right royal commotion yesterday on the pavement underneath the tower at 125 Old Broad Street, when a full pane of glass fell from the 18th floor window and was smashed to smithereens.
Luckily, I hear the pane narrowly missed all the passers-by, though one of the attending Canada bobbies said there were “a few scratches” incurred from the splintered shards of glass.
Doesn’t bode well when the tower was only completed last year, does it?
ART ATTACK
Financiers who fancy themselves as budding artists, listen up.
The latest restaurant chain to announce a new opening in Canary Wharf, Mexican eatery Wahaca, is looking for a graffiti or street artist to decorate a wall within its new Canada Square site. Wahaca, which has commissioned street artists Oliver Shaw and Nuria Moreno to embellish its West End walls in the past, is offering to pay £4,000 for the work, which involves covering a space of 28 square metres.
Interested parties should email [email protected] with a picture of their work that best describes their style, along with a 100-word overview of their concept and inspiration, by 23 August.
FEEL THE BEAT
City types are evidently using the August lull to brush up on their extra-curricular activities. Thirty-year-old Dave MacKenzie, left, a board director at spreadbetting firm Spreadex, tells me he’s mightily proud of himself after hearing a song called Stealing Souls on Judge Jules’s Friday night Radio One show at the weekend. The song in question is by MacKenzie’s dance music group Terracotta Army, and our musical spreadbetter both wrote the lyrics and sang the chorus on the track.
Makes a change from the rigours of the trading room, doesn’t it?