City profiles

Steve Eisman

The Wall Street money manager, who made a fortune shorting mortgagebacked securities before the 2008 crash, is training his guns on Britain, says The Times. Eisman, 56, whose bets were chronicled in Michael Lewis’s book The Big Short, is betting against two British banks in anticipation of a no-deal Brexit. “But I’ve got a screen of about 50 [stocks], and I might short all 50 if I think Jeremy Corbyn is going to be PM. Corbyn’s a Trotskyite. I know my Trotskyites well and I know you don’t want to be invested in the UK if a Trotskyite is PM.” Eisman declined to name his targets, but traders pointed the finger at challenger banks Metro and CYBG – two of the most shorted stocks on the FTSE 350. Shares in both tumbled.

Claudia Lambeth

Before Claudia Lambeth launched her business, Luna Mae, in 2014, she “spent countless hours pulling bras apart to learn how to make them better”, says the London Evening Standard. That “Savile Row” approach is paying off. Having raised £700,000 from angel investors, Lambeth and her team of seamstresses, cutters and fitters “work around the clock” at her Belgravia atelier to make lingerie for customers “prepared to part with a small fortune”. A pair of knickers costs £360; a handpainted corset with crystals can reach £8,000. The firm now makes a comfortable £1m turnover. “The great thing about a small business,” says Lambert, 28, “is that you can be quite reactive, you can pivot if you need to.” Expansion is probably on the cards. But for now, “exclusive intimacy is part of the appeal”.