Team sheets omitted from Davies commentary

Mark Davies - managing director of betting exchange Betfair and son of footy commentator Barry - dismisses stories that the company has just appointed Rothschild to advise on a flotation.
“It's just not true,” Davies insists to the Evening Standard's City Spy column. “Speculation about a flotation comes up regularly. But we are not about to appoint an adviser.”
The freesheet seems sceptical about that response - and so it should be. What Davies fails to mention is that Goldman Sachs has already been asked by the betting group to handle the £1.5bn listing, while Credit Suisse has also been handed a spot in the starting XI.

Bolton wanders east

Superstar fund manager, Anthony Bolton, is back.
The former Fidelity stock picker is setting up a China-focused fund and will relocate from London to Hong Kong.
Bolton stepped down as manager of Fidelity's Special Situations Fund at the end of 2007 – having run it brilliantly since 1979 – and it was subsequently split in two.
Sanjeev Shah took on the UK Special Situations Fund (which has performed very well), while Jorma Korhonen looks after international holdings in Global Special Situations Fund – which is down since inception (although up nicely this year). So, might the return of Bolton, and the launch of another international fund, put a bit of extra pressure on his former prodigy, Korhonen?
If it does, he has Mrs Bolton to thank. The veteran fund manager mentioned to his missus that he missed running money and fancied creating an Asia fund. She replied: "Why don't you, then?"

Dispatching Deripaska

Oleg Deripaska is set to lose control of aluminium giant Rusal. That's not all that Russia's former richest man has little power over.
Channel 4's Dispatches is set to broadcast an investigation into a cast of our Russian friends next week - entitled Lords, Billionaires and the Russian Connection. It is not expected to be especially complimentary to either Deripaska, or wannabe Arsenal owner, Alisher Usmanov.

A turn up for the books

I see William Hill FD, Simon Lane, has left the bookmaker just a few weeks after its bond issue.
That's a nice touch. Presumably the decision to part company must have been made in the past few days, otherwise I'm sure the company would have let investors know about the switch when making representations during the fundraising.

Update 24/11/09, 15:10: Simon Lane attended the bond presentations yet failed to mention his job move. Says one investor: "They should really have delayed the process until they had a new finance director. He didn't answer many questions and didn't give out his [business] card." Shoddy.

Dumbing down

Overheard in a Mayfair bar:

Pinstriped boozer: Hedge fund management is hardly rocket science, is it?

Hedge fund manager: No - and I should know. I used to be a rocket scientist.

(Dumbing down is an occasional series dedicated to people forced to take jobs below their capabilities.)

Every title helps

I see that Tesco boss, Sir Terry Leahy, has become the latest businessman to accept an Honorary Degree - a pointless bauble that's either a) the height of vanity to accept or b) a shameless begging letter if you dole them out.
The retailer has been "honoured" by the University of Hertfordshire (Hatfield Poly as was) with a gong he can now add to the other honorary award he has from Cranfield University (formerly Cranfield Institute of Technology) - plus the 2:1 in management science he obtained from UMIST in 1977 when he actually had to pass a couple of exams.
This latest degree means Sir Terry joins a growing club of business knights who are rather partial to collecting these trinkets. Among their number is the great Sir Derek Wanless - who loves publicising awards from former Polytechnics yet doesn't like talking much about his time as head of Northern Rock's risk committee.
Why do these people do it?

Fancy that...

"I love Morrisons, I am happy here" - WM Morrison chief exec, Marc Bolland, September 10, 2009.

"Marks & Spencer has confirmed it is appointing Morrisons boss Marc Bolland as its new chief executive" - November 17, 2009.