Sit like a Lord as Michael Howard sells his furniture
WE all knew he had something of the night about him, but were you aware former Tory leader turned serial company director Michael Howard was such a thrifty soul? A City Spy reader alerts us to an ad placed on the Nextdoor app in Pimlico by Lord Howard’s wife Sandra advertising a chintzy sofa and some mirrors as the couple are planning to move. The three-seat Colefax & Fowler number will only cost you £100. As close as most of us will ever get to a Lords seat.
WHERE can you get a decent sarnie in the City after lunch? That’s the question from Spy readers who appear enraged as many of the Square Mile’s restaurants are still shut and Pret A Manger typically closes in the early afternoon. “You have to dash out before the rush or you’re left with the nearest soggiest sandwich left on the shelf you can scramble,” says one starving suit. Answers on a postcard please. That said, our man adds that there’s one particular eatery not so bothered about social distancing which is rammed each lunchtime. We’ll spare its name from print.
FAREWELL to ValueAct, the San Franciscan hedge fund which it has emerged has sold out of Rolls-Royce after five years. Its departure from the troubled aero-engine maker comes as its founder and boss Jeff Ubben, known as “The Friendly Activist” for his relatively collaborative approach with businesses, steps down. Can we expect a more hard-nosed approach now? “The Uncongenial Activist.”
IT’S time to stick a tiny violin in the post to Germany, where the fortunes of mother and son tycoons Maria-Elisabeth and Georg Schaeffler have taken a hit. The pair own a major stake in car-part maker Continental, as well as the ball-bearing business they inherited when Georg’s father died in 1996. In early 2018 a surge in Continental’s share price made George into Germany’s richest person, with the mother-son duo then worth $35 billion. Since that, their wealth has shrunk two years on the spin and is now estimated at around a quarter of that, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates. The pandemic putting cars off the road and the shift to electric vehicles have put the Hanover giant in the repair shop.