The dastardly Mr Deedes
Fund manager and nightclub bouncer lookalike Neil Woodford was among investors ruing the AA’s share price slump, following yesterday’s dismissal of chief executive Bob Mackenzie for gross misconduct. It’s turning out to be a sticky week for Woodford. Other stocks currently wobbling are AstraZeneca (failed cancer drug trial) and Provident Financial (hit by a 46pc drop in profits). A mercy, Woodford recently dumped his holding in British American Tobacco, who are now being probed by the Serious Fraud Office.
Re the AA, by the time Mackenzie’s sacking was announced, his profile had been removed from its website and replaced with that of acting chief executive Simon Breakwell. Shame their roadside relay team aren’t as snappy as their IT department.
BT chief Gavin Patterson graces the cover of Professional Manager, moodily lit under the portentous headline, ‘Inside the Mind of a Modern Leader’. On the BT Italia accounting scandal, which sent BT’s share price plunging 17pc, Gav, 49, says: ‘One of the things you have to accept is that you may inherit a business with many good things, but there’ll always be things you have to clean up that don’t relate to things you did yourself.’ Google translate: Not my fault, guv. Quite the modern leader!
Frankfurt has launched a bold pitch to replace London as the next seat of the European Banking Authority, highlighting its abundance of museums, theatres and concert halls. Surely the Germans missed a trick in not including the infamous redlight district among the city’s cultural draws. The Bahnhofsviertel, as the area’s known, and its insalubrious bordellos, is a popular locale for Frankfurt’s financial community, or at least I am told.
Food deliverer Deliveroo has moved into its swanky offices in Cannon Street overlooking the Thames. The 55,000 sq ft development, partly funded by £365m of backers’ money, comes with a gym and various juvenile office paraphernalia, such as swing chairs and pool tables. Some think the money might have been more wisely invested in proper terms and conditions for the firm’s delivery staff, sorry ‘riders’, but hey-ho.