JLL signs the Smiths
Although Smith is a common surname, having two agents called Mark Smith in the retail and leisure agency teams at JLL’s London office is a rarer occurrence. Things get more confusing still when the firm’s global head of hotels is called Mark Smith too. Fortunately, the hotel man has a double-barrelled surname, and goes by Wynne-Smith, to offer some differentiation. Sounds like JLL is only a few steps away from a scene from 1999 film The Matrix, with the omnipresent Agent Smith popping up all over the place.
All bets are off
EG’s Cambridge Question Time delivered a blow to panellist Andrew Lansley last week when a live poll revealed only 7% of the 300-strong audience would back someone on the panel to take the job of first elected mayor of East Anglia. We’re not sure voters were an accurate sampling of the electorate, but given Ladbrokes was offering odds of 3/1 on the former health secretary and now chair of the Cambridge Development Forum when it began taking bets on the back of George Osborne’s devolution deal announcement in March, you can forgive the momentary sinking of the forehead.
The less said the better
Consultant John Forbes has come up with a novel plan to deal with the uncertainty caused by the Autumn Statement: don’t have one. In his newsletter he said: “In a surprise move, the chancellor stood up at the start of the Autumn Statement and announced that he would not be making a statement after all, as revealing the parlous state of UK finances to parliament would undermine our negotiating position with the EU for Brexit.” This would be in line with an IMF recommendation, and make reporting on policy easier, so it gets Diary’s support.
Hold on – what’s a Cerberus?
Diary couldn’t help but feel that the Irish politicians’ questioning of Cerberus’s chief operating officer Mark Neporent at a Committee of Public Accounts hearing over Nama’s controversial £4.4bn Project Eagle loan sale was somewhat erratic. Rather than focus on how advisory fees ended up in the hands of a former Nama official, the politicians questioned Neporent’s sincerity on one occasion merely because the name of his company is taken from the name of the three-headed dog in Greek mythology that guarded the gates of the underworld. He was also later asked whether, at the start of 2014, the possibility of Brexit was a significant consideration in the company’s investment strategy. Perhaps focusing on getting to the bottom of one of the most controversial business transactions in the country’s history would be a better idea.
Bedazzled in Cambridge
EG’s Question Time never fails to provide something to talk about, and in Cambridge last week the panel’s take on housing, traffic congestion and whether the region needs a mayor gave attendees conversation fodder until well beyond the curtain call. But there was something else: Richard Janes’ Bedazzled tie. Basking under the stage lights, Savills’ head of development for the region wouldn’t have looked out of place on the set of Strictly. And indeed, we welcome more of it. The tie was created by one of his children as a school project.
