The Bottom Line
HERALD BUSINESS DIARY
Clooney is sprinkling Tinseltown stardust on the business scene
By George, we’ve got it
A SPRINKLING of Hollywood stardust has put a major Scottish business event on course for a record year.
Nearly 2000 tickets have been sold for social entrepreneur Josh Littlejohn’s Scottish Business Awards since he announced that movie heartthrob George Clooney would be speaking at this year’s shindig.
The Clooney factor has also helped the awards attract a record number of entrants.
Mr Littlejohn, who has previously enlisted Bill Clinton, Sir Richard Branson and Bob Geldof to speak at the event, said: “The fact that Britain’s biggest business awards ceremony will take place here and not London speaks volumes for the strength of the Scottish business community, but we should acknowledge the part Mr Clooney has played in further raising the profile of the event.”
Clooney will speak at the Scottish Business Awards at the EICC in Edinburgh on November 12.
It’s on the cards
IT would be fair to say The Bottom Line is not quite the target market for the new online concierge service launched by Coutts.
Owners of one of the bank’s exclusive Silk cards can now get preferential treatment on everything from Michelin starred restaurant bookings and five-star hotels to yacht hire and concert tickets.
As if being rich enough to bank at Coutts wasn’t already a bit of an advantage in life.
No gin-soaked queens
WHEN the announcement dropped that “Charlotte Baptist Chapel, a grade B listed 20th century church building on Rose Street in Edinburgh, is set to be given a new lease of life as a 4 star boutique hotel and steak and gin bar” we had to hope that the congregation had been warned.
Of course they had, the thriving city centre chapel has raised £1.5 million so it can move down the road next March into the former St George’s West church in Shandwick Place – where there will definitely not be a gin bar.
Joint enterprise
FOR a moment we thought we were still on our summer holidays in The Netherlands.
A word document for a press release titled “Grangemouth reefer investment” certainly made us think of the think of the notorious coffee houses The Bottom Line recently saw in Amsterdam.
Reefer, we quickly discovered, is short-hand in the shipping industry for refrigerated container.
The reference certainly added an exotic flavour to a story about Forth Ports’ investment in boosting the electricity infrastructure at the Port of Grangemouth.
Chickening out
BREAK out the piri piri sauce. Scottish Chambers of Commerce has revealed that Robert Brozin, founder of the global Nando’s restaurant chain, will give the keynote address to its 23rd annual dinner on December 2.
Mr Brozin will share his “entrepreneurial journey” with guests at the event, which has seen him open more than 1100 outlets in 23 countries.
It has not been announced whether chicken will be on the menu.