ONE of the problems with getting older? Finding you can no longer fit behind the wheel of your vintage sports car.
Sir John Madejski, the 74-year-old founder of Auto Trader magazine and co-chairman of Reading FC, used to keep his red 1988 Ferrari 328 GTS in a spotlit display area by the gym at his Berkshire home. A few years ago he built a new house — a modern pile in the arts and craft style — and no longer had room to store it in the same way.
“I kept it as an ornament more than anything and I didn’t use it at all,” he says. “When I moved I had it serviced and thought I’d try to use it, but then realised it was difficult for me to get in.”
Madejski, who has had mixed fortunes in property and printing ventures since pocketing £175m from Auto Trader in the late 1990s, has now decided to sell the sleek motor. He is offering it for £130,000. Having been kept behind a glass partition for years, it has only 2,000 miles on the clock.
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Madejski still has two Rolls-Royces and a Bentley Continental. “The trouble is, when you get on a bit you don’t want all this luggage,” he says. “Too many cars, not enough garages.”
Another irritating problem.
■ MOHAMED AL-FAYED hasn’t rested on his laurels since selling Harrods to the Qataris five years ago. Accounts for the Ritz hotel in Paris show the autocratic tycoon, 86, is close to finishing a four-year refurbishment of the building. He has lent the Ritz €384m (£278m), of which €314m had been drawn down as of last December.
The accounts say Fayed and his directors consulted the Ritz’s employees before starting the overhaul — an oddly democratic move. All becomes clearer with a mention of €1.5m of redundancy costs associated with the hotel’s temporary closure.
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Ritz Paris has also set aside €316,000 for litigation. A note to the accounts says a union “with a minority representation among the employees of the hotel”, Confédération Générale du Travail, took legal action over the redundancies. The union lost in the High Court, the Paris Court of Appeal and finally in the Supreme Court.
So how many people were made redundant? “All the details are in the accounts and we’re not saying anything more,” snaps Michael Cole, a former BBC royal reporter and Fayed’s longstanding PR lackey. Let’s hope the service in the revamped hotel is friendlier.
POSH London restaurant chain Hawksmoor is having a ball. The steakhouse of choice for overfed bankers and hedge fund managers saw sales jump 10% to £28m last year as its £30 slabs of meat proved more popular than ever.
The owner, Underdog Restaurants, attributed the performance to a new eaterie — its fifth — which opened in Knightsbridge last June.
Now the beefed-up chain has taken the bold step of leaving London. Hawksmoor recently opened in Manchester’s trendy Deansgate, hoping to attract the likes of Wayne Rooney and billionaire Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour.
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Sounds like a solid idea — as long as they don’t make a Hawksmoor faux pas by asking for their steak well done.