Welcome to Capital Confidential — a weekly diary column featuring the best tidbits from around the U.K.’s business and political landscape from MarketWatch sister publication Financial News.
This week: Russia’s public enemy number one has a new adversary in the shape of ‘The Rock’, Philip Hammond delivers a rare Wildean quip and a row over nudity at the Royal Automobile Club...
Browder caught between ‘The Rock’ and a hard place
Move over Vladimir Putin. Russia’s public enemy number one Bill Browder has a new adversary: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Browder, once the biggest foreign money manager in Moscow, has been the target of several Russian arrest attempts following his anti-corruption crusade, which was sparked by the murder of his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Browder is also determined to get his 2015 memoir Red Notice filmed. Following a bidding war for the rights to Red Notice, where interested parties included George Clooney, Browder went with Oscar-nominated scriptwriter William Nicholson.
But the film has subsequently languished in development hell, and Browder told Capital at a Financial News event that he is now re-envisioning Red Notice as a TV series with a new script. In the meantime The Rock is starring, alongside Gal Gadot, in a movie that is also called Red Notice. Due to be released in June 2020, the film is about Interpol agents chasing an art thief.
Browder is refusing to cede to The Rock and co. “I bet people remember my TV series Red Notice as opposed to Dwayne Johnson’s [film],” he said. During the event, Browder was scathing about the movie business. “I’ve had a career in Moscow, a career in Wall Street and a career in Washington. They’re all highly dysfunctional, sharp-edged, dishonest places. But I’ve never seen something so dishonest as Hollywood. It’s unbelievable. Everything they do in Hollywood would be illegal in any other place.”
Side-splitting Phil
It was a manic Monday at last week’s Innovate Finance Global Summit when Chancellor Philip Hammond postponed his speech at the Guildhall at late notice. Although Hammond had a decent excuse for postponing (Brexit negotiations), summit staff were unclear whether he would reschedule. But Hammond duly spoke at the event, 24 hours later than envisaged, and delivered a Wildean quip by his standards. Referencing Brexit, the chancellor said he had negotiated a short extension to his Innovate Finance speaking duties. Then it was back to being “Spreadsheet Phil”.
Clubland cover-up
The dress code at Pall Mall’s Royal Automobile Club is notoriously more complicated than the structured finance deals hatched by the banker members of the gentlemen’s club. But a row over a lack of clothes is presently causing upset at the RAC. Members have been baring all in the Neo-Grec Turkish baths since they were established in 1911. No longer. Such liberalism has been curtailed after female members reported feeling inhibited by unwelcome displays of anatomy. Bathing suits are now required and RAC members are essentially being instructed to cover up their members.
Baroness returns to the Beeb
Floella Benjamin, the former children’s TV presenter and now a Liberal Democrat peer in the House of Lords, is returning to the small screen. Baroness Benjamin of Beckenham, chair of the Windrush Commemoration Committee, told Capital the BBC is making a documentary chronicling the creation of a statue celebrating the Windrush generation that will be erected in London. “We’ve found a spot and we’re searching for a sculptor,” Benjamin said. “The BBC is doing a documentary programme about the sculptor and the statue.” Benjamin was speaking at an event inside the House of Lords honouring Lord Learie Constantine, the legendary cricketer and the UK’s first black peer. Despite the parliamentary surroundings, sports journalist Brian Scovell – who is penning a biography of Constantine – revealed that “[Liberal leader] Jeremy Thorpe asked him to be an MP, but he wisely said no!”
Williamson’s web
Often when cabinet ministers resign it’s to spend more time with their family. But Gavin Williamson, the former defence secretary fired over the Huawei leak, will be spending more time with his pet tarantula Cronus. Williamson kept Cronus at his desk in the Commons and at the Ministry of Defence until the three-year-old arachnid got exiled to his Staffordshire constituency because an MoD official had arachnophobia. But Capital hears Cronus will soon be returning to Westminster as his humbled master readjusts to backbench life. Spider-Man returns!
Blairite messaging
A lively City crowd recently packed the May Fair Hotel to hear former US diplomat Farah Pandith, whose new book How We Win argues politics and business can defeat Muslim extremism. “I am not a political creature,” Pandith said during a Q&A with The Sunday Times’ business editor Oliver Shah at the event, which was hosted by Malik Karim of Fenchurch Advisory Partners and Saker Nusseibeh from Hermes Investment Management. “It didn’t matter if it was Bush or Obama in the Oval Office – for me it’s country first.” Political creatures present included Matthew Lawrence from the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, which has made countering extremism a top priority. Onlookers were therefore surprised to see banker-turned-Blairite Lawrence glued to his phone within five minutes of the start of Pandith’s talk.
Dalio’s drama
Bridgewater billionaire Ray Dalio is top of Institutional Investor’s annual highest-earning hedge fund manager list, and is rumoured to have earned $2bn in 2018. But his son Paul Dalio, who is pursuing a career in Hollywood, is nowhere near to becoming the world’s richest filmmaker. Dalio junior has not made a movie since his 2015 debut drama Touched With Fire, which was inspired by his bipolar disorder and starred Katie Holmes. While Touched With Fire got some decent reviews, it didn’t set the box office ablaze, grossing less than $150,000. A friend of Dalio junior’s adds that his next project is Amphibia, a climate change-themed romance. This time, his wife Kristina Nikolova is directing. But Dalio junior’s pal tells Capital: “Admirably, Paul isn’t pressing a certain Connecticut-based hedge fund manager for money. He’s doing things his own way but is not finding the going easy.”
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