The dastardly Mr Deedes
■ The good times are rolling at investment bank Houlihan Lokey, which earlier this year snapped up UK analytics firm Quayle Munro. Last week the bank held a corporate away day in Arizona where staff were split into groups of five and given a series of challenges to complete. I’m told the winning team each received a spanking new Porsche. One sore loser sniffs: ‘No big deal. It was only a Porsche Boxster which is a hairdresser’s car.’
■ Italian hedge fund high roller Davide Serra is in a huff over Brexit. He also complains he was made to feel unwelcome applying for British citizenship, telling Financial News: ‘Let’s put it this way, having paid a significant amount of taxes to HMRC and hiring a top law firm to help me, I was left embarrassed by the way the Foreign Office treated me.’ Poor lamb. Note the arrogant assumption that paying high taxes and hiring expensive lawyers somehow afforded him special status. Natty Davide, 47, is now threatening to return to Italy, where everything’s presumably just peachy.
■ Brexit Minister David Davis procures his suits from Marks & Spencer, favouring their luxury range priced at a modest £199. I spotted the label when his navy coat flapped open outside Downing Street yesterday. Good to know he’s buying British, I suppose.
■ Aston Villa look in deep shtook following reports HMRC have threatened the club with a winding up order. With baldilocks chief Keith Wyness, 60, now suspended, could the club’s most famous fan Prince William persuade his grandmother to grant his beloved side clemency? Unlikely. Competitive HM’s rumoured to be an Arsenal fan.
■ Disgraced Royal Bank of Scotland chief Fred Goodwin once pledged to drink a bottle of fiery Tabasco sauce if investors lost money on RBS’s 2008 rights issue. With the Government now selling a 7.7pc stake at a £2bn loss, perhaps it’s time Theresa May dragged Fred down to Westminster to make good on his promise. Another jumbo- sized bottle should be used to waterboard ex-chancellor Alistair Darling for agreeing to the ludicrous £5-a share deal in the first place.