Bell Pottinger pulls the crowds at its annual summertime soiree
HOT ON the heels of the Chelsea preview night, Bell Pottinger yesterday threw another City shindig, pulling Centrica’s Sam Laidlaw and hedge fund legend Sir Michael Hintze back onto the tiles for the second night in a row (although they both shot off early to catch up on beauty sleep).
Communications coach to the great and good (including Kate Middleton and William Hague) Anthony Gordon Lennox was a popular guest, pulling quite the crowd, including old client Iain Duncan Smith.
Ex-City spinner Hugh Morrison was there, causing some whispers about what the founder of M Communications has in the pipeline next.
Meanwhile The Capitalist caught Shore Capital’s Howard Shore digging Irvine Sellar about the Shangri La’s problem with guests seeing into each other’s rooms, “I thought Eye-full Tower was a hilarious headline,” laughed Sellar, clearly not too worried about the hotel’s newest quirk.
■ JULIUS Baer’s head of London investments Johannes Jooste and his colleague David Durlacher’s strong stomachs were called for shortly after breakfast yesterday, as the pair were hosting a preview of Julius Baer’s latest sponsored exhibition at The British Museum called Ancient Lives, New Discoveries – which entailed looking at the internal organs of eight mummies (their semi-digested food included). Luckily, Jooste found it a welcome change to modus operandi. “It’s fascinating, much more interesting than bonds,” he told The Capitalist. Jooste had been head of strategy for Merrill Lynch Wealth Management EMEA when it was acquired by Julius Baer last July. Jooste joked it had been time for a change anyway. “I had become a fully depreciated asset,” he laughed.
■ FORMER FTI Consulting rising star Billy Clegg is back on the scene after his gardening leave with a new communications consultancy called Camarco. We doubt Clegg was too nervous about his first day though; it seems his move back into work was eased by a few familiar faces at the new firm. Camarco is led by ex-FTI bigwig Geoffrey Pelham-Lane and the leadership team includes ex-FTIers Ed Gascoigne-Pees and Louise Dolan too. The Capitalist also hears they have a few of FTI’s old clients on the books, and an annualised income of almost £1m. “It’s a great privilege to be working with such a talented team, including many former colleagues,” said Pelham-Lane. Despite the move, we’re reliably informed John Waples, FTI’s UK managing director, wishes them all the best.