Biggest winner from HM’s 90th charity bash? Her grandson
THE Queen’s grandson Peter Phillips was paid £750,000 for organising her 90th birthday street party last year — a tidy sum made more controversial when interim figures showed that charities had benefited from the bash to the tune of just £384,000.
Now, I can disclose, the final figures — which are being lodged with the Charity Commission — reveal Her Majesty’s favoured charities received a total of marginally over £762,000 — or about £12,000 more than Phillips’s company.
The £762,000 has been divided between 291 charities.The figures confirm that the biggest beneficiary of the event was SEL UK Ltd, the sports management company which, aside from numbering 39- year- old Phillips as one of its three directors, boasts his wife, Autumn Phillips, as company secretary.
Phillips came up with the idea of a lunch for 10,000 people on The Mall at £150 a head and was also a founding trustee of the charity set up to collect any profits, The Patron’s Fund. Because SEL UK Ltd won the contract for organising the event he resigned last year as a trustee to avoid a conflict of interest.
Phillips’s role is defended by Sir Stuart Etherington, chairman of The Patron’s Fund, whose wholly owned subsidiary, The Patron’s Lunch Events Limited, gave the £750,000 contract to SEL.
‘[SEL UK] did everything,’ says Sir Stuart. ‘They were taking all the risk. So if the whole thing had gone down the swanee, the liabilities would have fallen to them.
‘It was a great event — and raised over £750,000. That just wouldn’t have happened, had Peter Phillips not done it, had he not come up with the idea and had the vehicle with which to pursue it.’
The Patron’s Fund and The Patron’s Lunch Events Limited, set up specifically for the event, are now closing down.