The dastardly Mr Deedes

Struggling Deutsche Bank is beefing up its board by recruiting former Merrill Lynch chief John Thain as a director. Cruel-mouthed Thain, 62, is a banking heavy hitter, but not without baggage. He attracted public loathing at Merrill for spending £850,000 redecorating his office, including £60,000 on a rug, while the bank was losing money. A meticulous fellow, he’s known on Wall Street as The Root Canal, because, a former colleagues explains: ‘He drills down soooo deep.’ Blackstone chairman Stephen Schwarzman, who last year paid himself £570m, has withdrawn his request that his old high school in Philadelphia change its name after handing it a £20m donation. The hedge-fund billionaire, 71, had wanted Abington Senior High School to become Abington Schwarzman High School until 1,400 people signed a petition demanding the name remain unchanged. Poet Alexander Pope once advised: ‘Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.’ Goldman Sachs president and leaderin-waiting David Solomon convinced music streaming service Spotify to hire Goldman for yesterday’s stock market flotataion by talking up his side career as a dance music DJ. Perhaps Solomon, 55 – who performs under the stage name DJ D-Sol – should release his own recordings on Spotify. A track featuring his puckish boss Lloyd Blankfein freestyling on the microphone would get a few listens. Once considered a titan of the City, one wonders how soigné ex-BBC chairman Baroness Fairhead, 56, finds the motivation to be Minister for International Trade. A banal role largely confined to ‘bigging up’ British exports, she spent the weekend issuing anodyne quotes about British chocolatiers. It’s also an unpaid position, though did come with a nice little peerage. Lego-haired Financial Times editor Lionel Barber’s appointment as chairman of the Tate galleries remains much discussed, not least among the paper’s Japanese owners. He’s lately received a summons to Tokyo to explain to the bosses how he plans to juggle two such demanding roles.