HASTINGS became the sponsor of Gibraltar’s football team in March, but it’s just as well the insurer isn’t setting up a brass-plate office there: the prospectus for its forthcoming stock market listing reveals one of its senior executives has in effect been barred from working as a director in the British territory.
Michael Lee, head of insurer services at Hastings for the past four years, signed a settlement with the Gibraltar financial watchdog after an investigation into Southern Rock, a company founded by Ukip donor Arron Banks. The agreement, made two years ago, stemmed from an investigation into Southern Rock’s reserves — the amount of cash an insurer holds back to pay out on claims.
As part of the settlement, Lee, 42, Banks, 49, and four other Southern Rock employees agreed not to apply to become directors at Gibraltar-based financial companies for three years. They did not admit any liability.
At the time, Banks laughed off the setback. “Rather than go through torturous legal procedures we decided to take the slap on the back of the wrists,” he said. “Since I own the company and I’m on the board of the holding company it makes little or no difference to me.”
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The tycoon is known for his blunt language. Last month he described Ukip’s sole MP, Douglas Carswell, as “borderline autistic with mental illness wrapped in”. Unsurprisingly, he was forced to apologise.
■ VISITING foreign dignitaries often pepper their speeches with happy recollections of time spent in Britain as students. CY Leung, chief executive of Hong Kong, surprised a dinner of business big shots at the Dorchester last week with some memories from his time at Bristol Polytechnic (now the University of the West of England) in the 1970s.
It was probably the first time HSBC chief executive Stuart Gulliver, Standard Chartered boss Bill Winters and Jardine taipan Sir Henry Keswick had heard of Fishponds, a suburb of mixed fortunes in northeast Bristol. There, Leung reminisced, he became acquainted with “the people, the spirit and — yes — the Chinese restaurants and fish and chip takeaways that brighten English community life”.
Leung, 61, who once led the Asian division of surveying firm DTZ, failed to mention that he himself served in a chip shop on the city’s Stapleton Road. He might even have sold an 8p bag of chips to a young Sajid Javid, who was brought up on the very same street. But the business secretary was nowhere to be seen at last week’s event. He left the transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin to fly the flag.
■ THROW away your Lycra: Vulpine, a cycling fashion start-up, is raising £500,000 through crowdfunding.
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Nick Hussey, 42, Vulpine’s founder, quit a career in film three years ago to start making cycling clothes you might actually want to wear to the pub after a ride. Having grown sales past the £1m mark, he has now turned down several private equity offers in favour of raising money from fans on the peer-to-peer site Crowdcube.
Vulpine plans to use the cash to push into America, South Korea and Japan, to develop a Made in Britain range using a factory owned by the Savile Row designer Patrick Grant and to expand its partnership with the Olympic gold medallist Sir Chris Hoy.
For £100, you will gain access to an online investors’ forum. Invest £50,000 and you will be rewarded with membership of the Vulpinati — in other words, access to the management.
“I’ve seen it [cycling] change since the 1980s, when it was a joke sport, to become part of the fabric of our culture,” Hussey says. “The old businesses haven’t really taken the opportunity. There’s a new kind of cyclist coming in with new expectations of quality.”
Investors will be able to saddle up this week.
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■ WHEN Angela Ahrendts left Burberry she recorded a toe-curling corporate video imagining the company with her successor Christopher Bailey “at the helm, leading, dreaming”. Presumably she wasn’t talking about the kind of nightmare suffered by Burberry investors last Thursday, when a surprise slump in quarterly sales sent the shares sliding by almost 10%.
The vendor of check scarves and trench coats blamed weaker trading in Hong Kong and China for the dip. Burberry’s shares are down 22% since the start of the year and 13% since Bailey, 44, took over. It’s been hard going, but don’t worry about the chief designer-cum-chief executive: before he succeeded Ahrendts, Bailey was given a £20m “golden handcuffs” bonus to keep him in situ — with no performance criteria.