City profiles

Jim Mellon

The first lab-grown meat is expected to hit UK shop shelves in 18 months’ time, said Ashley Armstrong in The Times – in the form of sustainable pet food. The driving force behind it is the British billionaire investor Jim Mellon, who was credited with forecasting the 2008 global financial crisis, and has since “become evangelical about cultured meats”. His Aim-listed company, Agronomics, has signed a deal with Roslin Technologies (creator of Dolly the cloned sheep) to create Good Dog Food; doubtless his “six Ibizan hounds” will be wolfing it down. Mellon, 65, began his career as a fund manager in Hong Kong and made a fortune in Russia from privatisations. His big bet now is that cultivated meats will become “a bigger market than electric cars”.

Adam Aron

Last summer, Adam Aron was interviewed by a YouTuber wearing a shirt, tie and underpants, said the FT. It merely fuelled enthusiasm for his company, the US cinema chain AMC, “as one of the hottest meme stocks of the year”. At one point, shares rose 2,400% in a week – a spectacular reversal for a chain some thought bankrupt. Fêted as “The Silverback” by the self-styled “apes” (online investors), Aron – a Philadelphian who began his marketing career at PanAm – “even became a meme himself”. AMC shares are down 75% from their peak and many who bought into Aron’s hype “have lost money”. Naturally, “The Silverback” landed on his feet, offloading more than $42m of his own AMC shares “at bloated prices”. He’s now moving strongly into gold.