City profiles
Meg Whitman After “six turbulent years”, during which she enriched shareholders but presided over 100,000 job losses, Meg Whitman is leaving Hewlett Packard Enterprise, said the FT. A tech industry stalwart, who won her spurs during a decade-long reign at ebay, she led a “turnaround effort” that saw one of Silicon Valley’s pioneers broken into four different businesses. Whitman had already hinted she was looking to move on: this summer, she was “narrowly” beaten to the top job at Uber by Expedia chief Dara Khosrowshahi. In 2010, Whitman ran unsuccessfully as the Republican candidate for governor of California, said Reuters. She will now remain on HP’S board and has said that she’s going to take “a little downtime”, adding: “there’s no chance I’m going to a competitor”. The celebrity chef is taking dramatic steps to shore up his “stuttering restaurant empire”, says Dominic Walsh in The Times. As part of a wider restructuring aimed at stabilising the business, he is underwriting a £5m debt-for-equity swap, with an “option to raise a further £5m if required”. The loans are intended to see his Jamie’s Italian and Barbecoa restaurants through a period of “difficult trading” – the businesses have total debts of £37m. The group has closed six of its 42 UK Jamie’s Italian outlets, tilting it into a £9.9m loss; but there are hopes of a return to profitability next year, with a simplified menu. Meanwhile, some of Jamie’s soufflés are still rising nicely. Both the international restaurant business and the chef’s broadcasting, publishing and licensing operations “continue to grow”.