The dastardly Mr Deedes
A puff of white smoke over at Lloyd’s of London. The insurance giant’s new chairman, I am informed, will be Moneysupermarket’s Bruce Carnegie-Brown. Fatherof-four Bruce, 57, former boss of insurers Marsh & McLennan, will replace John Nelson who stands down in May. Enough time for thirsty Lloyd’s workers, frothing at the gills over the company’s recent lunchtime booze ban, to have calmed down.
Private equity doyenne Dominique Senequier, 63, elegant founder of French investment firm Ardian, is adamant Paris will not replace London as a financial centre after Brexit. She says: ‘French people are less financially minded. I am not afraid to say that because I say it very regularly. We have many other things. We are very good cooks.’ Quite so. I’m told City firms gave the French government’s recent attempts to woo them a comprehensive nul points.
Glossy-maned BT boss Gavin Patterson, still tottering after a £530m accountancy black hole recently sent the firm’s share price crashing, will give the Marketing Society’s annual lecture on March 29. For those willing to fork out £150 for a ticket, Patterson ‘will talk openly about his career and life as head of one of the world’s largest communi- cations companies’. Riveting stuff. Let’s hope that £5.4m a-year Gav, 49, is still around by then.
Geeky-looking Google boss Sundar Pichai surprised British schoolgirl, seven-year-old Chloe Bridgewater, by responding to a charming note that she wrote to him inquiring after a job. Pichai, 44, who earned £159m last year, advised: ‘If you keep working hard and following your dreams, you can accomplish everything you set your mind to – from working at Google to swimming at the Olympics.’ No handy pointers offered on how to get away with paying peanuts in UK taxes as Google manages to do, more’s the pity.
Gruesome twosome alert. I’m hearing one of the City’s foremost movers and shakers has been canoodling with a wellknown presenter. Busy boy, this one. Might be time for his wife’s divorce lawyers to get their silks on.