The dastardly Mr Deedes
News that Sainsbury’s respected finance chief John rogers is off to head up Argos once the grocer’s £1.4bn takeover is complete set analysts’ tails wagging. they reckon the carrot-topped bean counter is being groomed to eventually succeed Mike Coupe as Sainsbury’s chief executive. rogers, 46, never applied for the post when Justin King departed in 2014, despite being widely tipped for the job. ‘John and Mike have a tony Blair/Gordon Brown Granita-style pact in place,’ claims a source. With a happier ending, I hope.
Goldman Sachs partner Andrea Vella is due in the High Court this week to answer questions on the bank’s entertaining battle with the Libyan National Investment Fund. I trust handsome, happily-married Signor Vella, 43, who is based in Hong Kong but hails from Rome, will dress accordingly when up before the beak. While working in London, he gave an interview claiming he liked to look ‘sexy’ around Goldman’s Fleet Street offices. ‘If I look good in a shirt and it makes me look like I’ve been working out even though I haven’t, of course, I buy it,’ opined the frisky Italian stallion.
financial lawyer Owen Clay, 48, a partner with City bigwigs Linklaters, was recently grilled by MPs on his role advising Sir Philip Green on his sale of BHS to thrice bankrupt Dominic Chappell. ‘Je ne regrette rien’, was the gist of the well-manicured advocate’s testimony. Indeed not. He’s listed the BHS sale among his recent achievements on the firm’s website.
Apropos BHS, will Sir Philip Green be able to keep his febrile temper in check during his appearance in front of the Treasury Select Committee today? I’m told colleagues are running a book on how long it takes the pottymouthed retailer, 65, to swear.
Standard Chartered’s American boss Bill Winters says he has hired EX-FBI agents to root out corrupt practices in his London offices. Despite his heavy-handed mien, colleagues report granite-jawed Bill, 53, to be a surprisingly cultural soul, not quite the silver-haired martinet to which his sobriquet ‘nuclear Winters’ might allude. He and his Croatian wife Anda own Kensington’s historic Coronet cinema, where they stage ambitious productions by celebrated playwrights. Last week they hosted a well-received tableaux from Irish gloom-monger, Samuel Beckett.