Thanks Gran! Queen’s 90th turns Phillips firm around
AS HER first grandchild, Peter Phillips has always held a special place in the Queen’s affections.
And now Her Majesty has helped transform the business fortunes of Princess Anne’s 39-year-old son.
Phillips’s company was handed the contract to organise the Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations last summer, and newly-published documents disclose the dramatic effect it’s had.
Latest accounts for his events company, Sel (UK) Ltd, reveal that it held £164,038 in shareholders’ funds in the year to June 30, 2016.
The previous year it held just £7,733, indicating a profit for the year of £156,305.
This compares with a loss of £6,807 in 2015 — a staggering turnaround.
Last month, I disclosed that Sel had received a £750,000 fee for organising the not-for-profit Patron’s Lunch street party. That was more than double the sum so far raised for charity by the event held in The Mall. Phillips is London director of Sel and a major shareholder.
Billed as the centrepiece of the monarch’s birthday celebrations, the event was dogged by controversy from its inception because representatives of the Queen’s charities were charged £150-a-head to attend.
Critics thought this particularly incongruous given that the party was designed to celebrate the sovereign’s role as patron of more than 600 charities and organisations.
Phillips, who declines to comment, previously insisted his ‘bid’ to organise the lunch was submitted to the Palace ‘through the normal channels’. At the launch he said: ‘I was very conscious to make sure we did this properly. We had to show that this wasn’t a case of trying to cut corners because the Queen happens to be my grandmother.’
However, he admitted that he had discussed the event with her privately.