Any Other Business – 04/09
There was some lively banter in City spinners Maitlands’ Upper St Martin’s Lane offices yesterday, where payday loan company Wonga was presenting its results. It appears that Wonga boss Errol Damelin (pictured) has grand ambitions for his firm, and The Capitalist hears that the chief executive repeatedly compared Wonga to tech giants like Amazon, Google and Netflix during yesterday’s briefing meeting. However, unfortunately for Damelin, Wonga chairman Robin Klein happens to be a serial investor in tech startups, and one of his biggest successes is none other than LoveFilm – a London-based rival to Netflix. Of course Klein politely corrected Damelin, suggesting he ought to reference LoveFilm as his go-to success story instead.
Boris who? The award-winning Mayor of London was back on the radio yesterday, hosting his Ask Boris show on LBC 97.3: "If they give us another £100m for the bike hire scheme, I’ll change my name to Barclays Johnson,” promised BoJo – or BaJo as we may soon be referring to him.