As the irritating theme tune goes, everybody needs good neighbours. So Diary was relieved to hear that Vijay Mallya, the Indian billionaire dubbed by some the Branson of Bangalore, and Vincent Tchenguiz have recently become neighbours in South Africa.
Kingfisher Airlines tycoon Dr Mallya has fingers in many pies, including United Breweries, his own Formula One team and even a stake in Queens Park Rangers. He also recently resolved a long-running disagreement with Heineken, although an equally protracted attempt to set up a spirits joint venture with Diageo came to nothing.
He bought Whyte & Mackay, the Scotch maker, in 2007 for £595 million from Mr Tchenguiz’s brother, Robert, and his then brother-in-law Vivian Imerman, the South African fruit juice tycoon, who is divorcing the Tchenguizes’ sister, Lisa. Alas, that was something of a high point in recent years for Mr Tchenguiz. Yesterday, he and his brother were arrested by the Serious Fraud Office.
• Good news for Goldman Sachs in its effort to keep a low profile. On Day One of the Raj Rajaratnam insider trading trial, during jury selection, US District Judge Richard Holwell read out a long list of names of people who may testify or be mentioned during the trial, and asked potential jurors whether they had heard of any of them. Not a single juror had heard of Lloyd Blankfein. Even the judge may not have heard of him: he mispronounced the second syllable of the chief executive’s name “feen” rather than “fine”.
• The former Burberry HQ in Haymarket has finally been sold to an undisclosed client of Cheval Properties by PwC, administrator to its previous owner, Paul Kemsley’s Rock Group. We hear the first tenant will be slightly less upmarket: TK Maxx, the discount clothes retailer, is thought to be moving in once the sale is completed.
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In the blue corner: Darren Throop
Teenagers bewitched by Twilight and toddlers captivated by Peppa Pig could soon be looking at more television and film from Entertainment One. The Toronto-based company raised £16 million in London yesterday, partly to fund more acquisitions.
Darren Throop, the 46-year-old father of two who helped to create Entertainment One through a series of acquisitions in the past decade, started out in 1991 by selling cassettes, founding an independent chain of music stores in his native Canada. One of his most important achievements to date was agreeing the deal with Summit Entertainment that sealed the company’s access to Twilight.