PRIVATE COMPANIES TAKE CENTRE STAGE AT PWC BUSINESS AWARDS
THERE is no reason private companies can’t be as glamorous as their listed counterparts, says PwC, whose Private Business Awards rewarded the companies that support society alongside delivering annual profits.
Like Bikeworks, winner of the Social Enterprise of the Year award, where co-directors Dave Miller and Jim Blakemore run apprenticeship schemes that train young offenders to become bike mechanics. “They could have been making a fortune doing whatever,” said Ruby Parmar, head of private business at PwC. “But they chose to do this.”
Rest assured that awards judge Andrew Wates, the former chairman of Wates Family Holdings, had no say in the decision to name the construction group’s current boss Paul Dreschler as Chief Executive of the Year, while Dyson hoovered up the Private Business of the Year accolade and Sally Brady, chief executive of White Stuff, beat West Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady to win Private Businesswoman of the Year.
Also spotted at the “uncorporate” ceremony at The Savoy were DLA Piper partner Miriam González Durántez, whose husband is the deputy prime minister Nick Clegg; IG Index managing director Tim Hughes; Linda Bennett, the founder of the shoe empire LK Bennett; and Talk Talk Telecom Group chief executive Charles Dunstone.
Notable by his absence, however, was Haymarket Media Group’s executive chairman Rupert Heseltine – The Capitalist hears it was one of his children’s first day at boarding school so he stayed at home to console his wife.
LEADING LADIES
THE PERILS of having the rising star actor Eddie Redmayne for a son – he keeps falling for his leading ladies , says his father Richard Redmayne, the managing director of stockbroker Seymour Pierce.
Following an interlude with Scarlett Johansson after meeting on the set of The Other Boleyn Girl, Redmayne Junior then had a moment with Michelle Williams while making My Week With Marilyn – although Clemence Poesy, Redmayne’s co-lead in his most recent project, the film adaptation of Birdsong, was apparently immune to his charms.
Richard Redmayne was a guest at the Edison Research summer party, where directors Fraser Thorne and Peter Molloy held court on the outside terrace of Skinners Hall as they marked reaching 300 retained clients and opening a new office in Sydney.
“Wine is poison, champagne is medicine,” said Hargreaves Hale investment manager Patrick Evershed as he topped up his glass with the latter before mingling with Paul Dudley of HD Capital Partners and Trowers & Hamlins partner Charles Wilson, out celebrating after advising on Xtract Energy’s successful readmission to Aim tomorrow.
DISASTER RESPONSE
SOME “really excellent” advice from former BP group CEO Lord Browne, himself no stranger to tricky situations, namely: “In a crisis, over-react!”
Browne shared his wise words as a guest speaker at a Brunswick dinner organised by the PR firm’s director David Yelland for a number of senior media executives. So if you see Rupert Gavin, the chief executive of Odeon Cinemas; Incisive Media CEO Tim Weller; serial entrepreneur William Reeve; or YouGov non-executive chairman Roger Parry taking unusually drastic measures when the next boardroom storm blows up, you know the reason why…