The dastardly Mr Deedes

Tesco’s appointment of whippet-smart Booker executive Charles Wilson as head of its UK operation, following the two firms’ £3.7bn merger, is interpreted as prudent succession planning. There’s speculation Tesco’s £4.1m-a-year boss Dave Lewis is being lined up to succeed Unilever’s Paul Polman. But might that be a tad presumptuous? If Unilever ever come knocking, many reckon it’s not ‘Drastic Dave’, 52, but ‘Three Brains’ Wilson, 51, whose services they’ll be after.

HSBC’s gnomish chief executive Stuart Gulliver, who’s about to relinquish his £9.7m-a-year role, last week visited Mexico’s suave President Enrique Peña Nieto. Gulliver, 58, and his deathly dry successor John Flint, 49, were welcomed to el Presidente’s official residence, Los Pinos, where they warmly shook hands for the cameras. A Central American observer remarks: ‘It was almost enough to make you forget just six years ago Senor Nieto fined HSBC a record $1.9bn for laundering drug cartel money.’ Quite so.

The recent President’s Club revelations did little for The Dorchester’s reputation, what with tales of sleazy financiers groping blameless escorts. Nor was the Mayfair hotel’s standing improved by a cameo appearance in Sunday’s dreary BBC drama McMafia. It was the meeting place for a gang of South American drug dealers and their unseemly bodyguards.

Snapchat’s results are out today and what a difference a year makes. When boy-band founder Evan Spiegel floated the social media firm last March, the share price soared to $27. Analysts now say it’s worth a paltry $7 a share. Still, I’m sure Evan, 27, has no cause for panic. His cougarish wife, Aussie brassiere model Miranda Kerr, 34, certainly never struck me as the flighty sort.

Soho House founder Nick Jones’s plans to float his private members’ club chain in New York for $2bn could net him a ‘nine-figure’ fortune, say reports. And to think straitlaced Jones, 54, started as a humble Trust House Forte trainee. He was able to open his first club in 1995 thanks to £1m of funding from Soho’s seedy porn baron Paul Raymond.