The Dastardly Mr Deedes

The London Stock Exchange is named British company of the year by trade group UK Israel Business. This is the same LSE which in the past year saw its £24bn merger with Deutsche Boerse collapse, ousted its £5.7m-a-year chief executive Xavier Rolet, 58, then suffered a shareholder revolt which, but for an unprecedented intervention by Bank of England governor Mark Carney, almost resulted in the removal of fusty chairman Donald Brydon, 72. What have the UK Israel Business lot been smoking?

Royal London Asset Management has been one of the few Persimmon shareholders to criticise chief executive Jeff Fairburn’s ludicrous £100m bonus. RLAM executive Ashley Hamilton Claxton performed a volte-face yesterday, telling Radio 4: ‘It’s time to move on. We’ve come to a good resolution now.’ Fairburn’s offer to give up just £25m hardly seems a good resolution. Surely Persimmon’s decision to hand RLAM a £11.7m dividend on Tuesday didn’t provoke the change of heart?

Ping! An invitation arrives to next week’s Amplience retail engagement summit. Highlights include an online strategy talk from Rachel Jones, digital chief of Maplin which, somewhat unfortuitously, yesterday collapsed into administration.

Lord (Jacob) Rothschild, 81, received a performance bonus of £418,000 from investment trust RIT Capital, down from the year before. Who’s his cautious remuneration chief? Arthur Wellesley, 9th Duke of Wellington, 72, whose ancestor relied upon Rothschild squillions to finance his Napoleonic campaigns.

IoD chairman Barbara Judge’s letter in the FT is signed ‘Lady Barbara Judge.’ At the risk of being a pedant, only the daughter of a duke, marquess or earl should style themselves thus. As the wife of late businessman Sir Paul Judge, she is Lady Judge. Could be Dame Barbara before long though, if she plays her cards right.

Boob of the day: Association of British Insurers’ Malcolm Tarling, writes: ‘With the Breast of the East doing its worst...’