City profiles
Jim Ratcliffe Having built his private empire, Ineos, into one of the world’s largest chemicals companies, Jim Ratcliffe seems bent on “branching out”, says John Collingridge The Sunday Times. The Manchester-born tycoon plans to build a new off-road car inspired by Land Rover’s iconic, but now defunct, Defender model: the target market is “farmers, explorers and residents of upmarket areas”. An ardent Brexit supporter who last year moved Ineos’ HQ back to Britain, Ratcliffe rejects criticism that reviving the “Landy” is a vanity project: “We’ll only do it if we can be economically successful”, he said. If it doesn’t work out, he can always fall back on another hobby. As the Daily Mail once noted, Ratcliffe has “a curious passion for sit-on lawnmowers, which he is believed to collect”.
It has been a bruising week for one of Youtube’s “favourite” celebrities, says the FT. The floppy-haired gamer-comedian, known as Pewdiepie, has been dumped by all the big media groups over the “supposedly anti-semitic content” of his videos: one featured two Indian men holding up a sign reading, “death to all Jews”. Swedish-born Kjellberg, 27, gained cult status by broadcasting footage of himself playing video games in his Brighton flat and “hamming up his reactions”. His average daily audience of almost nine million “is larger than most cable networks”, earning him around $15m last year. His descent from “poster child” to “pariah” has cost him millions in sponsorship. In a tearful video, Kjellberg denied having “hateful attitudes”, and said he was the victim of “an attack by the media”.