TCI’s Chris Hohn, the man who bust Deutsche Börse’s bid for Euronext, reaffirmed his position as Europe’s best manager with returns of more than 50% in 2005. Theo Phanos, whose Trafalgar group has had scraps with BAE Systems and Shell, won the credit award. And Lansdowne Partners, which owns stakes in Arsenal and Tesco, won firm of the year after generating double-digit returns across all its funds.
It was very intimidating — even for Lansdowne’s newest and rather interesting recruit who, I hear, has been snapped up from a slightly different battleground.
In May Arnab Banerji, Tony Blair’s economics adviser, was one of a dozen Downing Street aides accused of deserting the prime minister in the wake of Labour’s general-election results.
Then, just a few weeks ago, Banerji was spotted at the Mayfair headquarters of Lansdowne, which I hear he has joined as a fund manager. It’s early days yet, but I’m told Banerji, who worked at F&C fund managers before Downing Street, may be starting a new emerging-market fund for Lansdowne.
Banerji has his work cut out. The Lansdowne partners have accumulated multi-million-pound fortunes but they have earned them. The three flagship funds — the UK, Financials and European funds generated 27%, 40% and 27%, respectively, last year.
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Still, given the experiences of others who have headed east from Downing Street — Steven Norris of scandal-hit Jarvis, Ken Clarke of struggling Savoy and Alan Milburn of Bridgepoint, for example — Banerji doesn’t have too tough an act to follow.
Langbar wife gets into top gear
I WAS STUNNED last weekend by the news that Barry Townsley, the wannabe Labour peer, thought it appropriate to travel by private jet in his capacity as adviser to Langbar, the cash shell being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office for seeming never to have had any cash.
But now I hear that travelling expensively is something of a habit among some Langbar executives, and one they still haven’t kicked.
Last week there was a flurry of excitement in the sleepy villages near Otley, West Yorkshire, as a lorry carrying a spanking new Porsche 911 squeezed down country lanes. These cars cost about £60,000.
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I’m told it was delivered to a charming house belonging to none other than Stuart Pearson, former chief executive of Langbar, best known for travelling all the way from London to Brazil to verify millions of pounds of company cash, yet still failing to notice it wasn’t there.
Pearson couldn’t be contacted but a close source said the car was in his wife’s name and would have been ordered before the scandal broke. That’s okay then.