City profiles
James Henderson Three months after Bell Pottinger went belly up “following a scandal over its race-hate-charged work in South Africa”, the PR firm’s boss, James Henderson, “is back plying his trade”, says The Sunday Times. Henderson, 52, who “has kept a low profile as rivals have picked over the carcass of Bell Pottinger” is working for four or five clients, according to a source close to the action. He has “dusted himself off and started all over again”. There’s a lot of ground to make up. Before its downfall, Bell Pottinger represented half-a-dozen FTSE 100 clients, and Henderson has personal difficulties to resolve as well. His wedding to socialite Heather Kerzner “was shelved as his net worth disintegrated”. As a big shareholder, she “lost a bundle too”.
Known for the “deal-making sangfroid” that made him “one of the richest men in South Africa” retail magnate Christo Wiese is badly in the wars, says the FT. Steinhoff, the company he helped build, is embroiled in a massive accounting scandal and Wiese, its largest shareholder, is working all-out to prevent the “byzantine” German-south African conglomerate from collapsing. Long thought to have the “Midas touch”, Wiese, 76, parlayed his family’s store business into a retail juggernaut. With investors now questioning Steinhoff’s “debt-fuelled” expansion, one of his catchphrases – “I do not get involved in businesses I do not control” – has come back to haunt him. His net worth, put at more than $5bn at the start of year, “has halved since the scandal broke”.