City profiles

Crispin Odey

The Crown Prosecution Service “sent shock waves through the financial community” last month when it charged millionaire hedge fund manager Crispin Odey with indecent assault, said Emma Dunkley in The Sunday Times. The alleged incident dates back to 1998, and is strenuously denied. Still, his Mayfair-based firm, Odey Asset Management, has decided there’s no harm in making “contingency plans” should the worst happen. Its “emergency scheme”, in the event of an “absence”, involves shutting down Odey’s flagship European fund and handing control of his “retail” funds to colleagues. Odey, who is married to Nichola Pease, the chair of Jupiter Asset Management, is an ardent Brexiter known for his love of his pedigree chickens. Hopefully, there’s an “absolute worst-case scenario” plan for them too.

Ben Francis

There are still such things as unicorns, said the FT. Britain’s “newest £1bn start-up” is clothing brand Gymshark – a company founded nine years ago by Ben Francis, then a 19-yearold student operating “out of his parents’ garage” in Birmingham. The company, which raised its first ever external funds last week (£200m from the US fund manager General Atlantic), started life as an “online seller of nutritional supplements” before Francis realised there were “higher margins in fashion”, and got to work making “muscle vests and hoodies”, said The Times. Thanks to its swift adoption by “social media influencers”, Gymshark has built a loyal following among gym-goers. Francis said his mission is to build a “great British brand” to challenge Nike and Adidas.