OSBORNE UNVEILS ARTS TAX BREAK
TO TATE Britain for the launch of Legacy10, the scheme cooked up by culture minister Jeremy Hunt and RLM Finsbury chairman Roland Rudd to encourage the nation to leave 10 per cent of their wealth to charities and cultural causes when they die.
Backers of the scheme, which takes advantage of a Budget change from next April that cuts inheritance tax for those who comply, include art-loving banker Jacob Rothschild, Innocent Drinks co-founder Richard Reed and ex-City minister Lord Myners.
But this is “not just for the wealthy businessmen supporting this launch”, said NCVO chair Martyn Lewis. “It is also for Mr and Mrs Smith of Acacia Avenue.” “You can’t take it with you,” reminded artist Tracey Emin, who plans to bequeath “considerably more” than 10 per cent of her riches to charity in her will.
The Capitalist was also poised, notebook in hand, to ask the scheme’s enabler George Osborne what percentage of his estate he plans to leave to philanthropic causes.
But, politician’s fixed grin in place, the chancellor was already half-way through the door. “I’m on my way out,” he beamed. Not yet, one hopes. FORUM, P.25.
SHANKS’S PONY
TOM Drury famously quit his £840k position as chief executive of Shanks Group because he was fed up with the commute from Knutsford to the firm’s HQ in Milton Keynes.
Fair enough – but travelling is, unfortunately, “part and parcel” of running the waste management business that spans four territories, said a spokesperson for Shanks, which has scoured the land to make sure the home-loving Drury’s replacement is made of sterner stuff.
Step forward ex-Army officer Peter Dilnot, a Phileas Fogg of a man with a globetrotting CV that takes commuting from London to Chicago, India and Brazil for Danaher and Boston Consulting in its stride.
“Peter has done a lot of travelling in his previous jobs,” reassured The Capitalist’s man at passport control.
END OF AN ERA
WHEN you owe RBS £141m and the advertising recovery has yet to materialise, there is only one thing to do to steer a B2B publishing business out of choppy waters: lose yet another level of senior management.
And so it is that former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine’s Haymarket Media Group yesterday parted company with the business media division’s long-serving editorial director Dominic Mills, following publishing director Rachael Stilwell’s resignation the previous day.
Mills, a former editor of advertising industry bible Campaign who will leave the firm on 21 November, told The Capitalist: “Now it’s time to focus on what I do best – creating great content and products, digital or print.”