David Parkin on a restaurant full of character and offering to take Kylie to Filey
IT was just like it used to be.
Big hitters in a restaurant, doing deals, swapping war stories and laughing uproariously.
Garry Wilson and Darren Forshaw of Endless held a drinks event yesterday to celebrate their move to become joint chairs of the private equity firm they founded 20 years ago.
In that two decades the firm has done many deals, investing in household names like Crown Paints, Hovis and American Golf, supporting and supporting and creating tens of thousands of jobs in great businesses.
It is unquestionably one of the great Yorkshire business success stories, thanks to the business acumen of Garry and Darren and their team and their fierce loyalty in wanting to keep the firm based in Leeds when the natural step might be to move to London.
But being based in the provinces hasn’t hindered Endless, it attracts investors from some of the biggest institutions in the world who have backed it with £1.5bn to do more than 100 deals.
Many of those celebrating this milestone last night at Sous le Nez were those who have supported, worked with or advised Endless over the last 20 years.
It struck me that all of them are big personalities with bold opinions and interesting experiences of life.
Is that unusual today?
I hope not, but certainly a new generation in the business world are less comfortable sharing their views or discussing anything that might be vaguely controversial.
It is definitely safer, but it makes conversation a lot less interesting.
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THE first time I met Garry Wilson was when he was a partner at Ernst & Young and the administrator of Leeds United when it was sold to a consortium of local business people in 2004.
Also at last night’s event was Richard Fleming, now the London-based managing director for Alvarez & Marsal, the US professional services firm.
Leeds United was also the reason I met Richard when he was appointed joint administrator of the club in 2007.
Owner Ken Bates looked to shed some of the £35m of debt it was carrying and buy back the club through an insolvency deal which eventually saw Leeds docked 15 points and relegated to League One where the club spent three seasons, not a happy memory for supporters.
Given it was for financial rather than football reasons that Leeds made the headlines, at the time I was business editor of the Yorkshire Post and was asked to appear on Sky Sports News to explain how the insolvency process worked and how it might affect the club.
That brought me to the attention of Ken Bates and led to several memorable lunches and dinners with the controversial former Chelsea owner.
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ONE of the first guests I saw at the event was Julian Kynaston of creative agency Propaganda who is currently generating publicity for his new book, Brand Warfare: From the Terraces to the Boardroom.
Despite doing branding work for names like ghd, Clipper Logistics and creating the make up brand Illamasqua, the biggest revelation I learned from press articles about the book is that Julian used to be a Leeds United-supporting football hooligan.
It isn’t something I’d be shouting about, but then the most aggressive thing I’ve ever done at a Derby County match was chanting “Cheerio” at departing away fans.
My friend pointed out that accompanying it by waving a lace handkerchief in their direction was an unnecessarily provocative gesture.
“You're not doing a book signing tonight are you?” I asked Julian.
“No, but have you got your copy yet?” he asked me.
I admitted I hadn’t yet got a copy of the book and he said he would send me one.
I’m not sure whether that was a threat or a promise.
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PETER Helliwell of HSBC came up to me to thank me for some tips I gave him ahead of a trip to California that he went on with his family last summer during a sabbatical from work.
He enjoyed Santa Monica and Palm Springs but told me the highlight was Yosemite National Park and Stephen Griffiths, head of the Leeds office of Rothschild & Co, agreed and added that Lake Tahoe was also well worth a visit.
They are two places I have yet to experience, so they are on the list.
Stuart Warriner, a former corporate finance partner at PwC who is now a serial non-executive director and company advisor, asked whether I had spent much time in California.
I said I had and asked him if he remembered when I bumped into him at Manchester Airport when I told him I was returning from interviewing Arnold Schwarzenegger in Los Angeles?
“No,” he replied.
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THE last time I saw David Forbes, the former head of NM Rothschild, was at his Covid-delayed 60th birthday.
He told me he has lost four stones in weight and is keen to lose more. Given his Facebook posts are like a series of Wish You Were Here? I said it was lucky to catch him in between foreign holiday.
“We are going away again tomorrow,” he smiled.
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THERE are no shortage of choices of what to watch on the telly these days.
Aside from the terrestrial channels, there are a plethora of streaming services and dinner party conversations often turn to recommendations of what box sets to view next.
I watched a handful of episodes of the modern-Western series Yellowstone starring Kevin Costner, while on a flight recently.
When I returned home I saw that there are five seasons of the drama on the Paramount Plus channel as well as two spin-off series, or in modern parlance “origin stories”.
These series are called 1883 and then there is 1923 which stars Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford.
The villain in the show is played by British actor Timothy Dalton.
It brought back memories of my first ever tip-off fee.
That is something that news organisations use to pay for information about stories.
When I was still at school I was doing some work experience on the local radio station, BBC Radio Derby.
It was then home to a show called Barbed Wireless presented by a gobby young Mancunian called Terry Christian who won Sony Awards and went on to present The Word on Channel 4.
I sat in on Christian’s evening show and then the next morning was back to watch the breakfast show, presented by Alex Trelinski.
As he was trawling through the morning newspapers, Alex mentioned that one of the papers had a hot tip that British actor Timothy Dalton was going to be named as the next James Bond.
I turned to the producer of the show and said: “Did you know he’s from Derbyshire?”
They didn’t, but I had remembered that an old history teacher of mine, when taking a class about the English Civil War, had proudly told us that he had once taught Timothy Dalton who played Prince Rupert in the 1970 film Cromwell.
Born in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, Dalton’s family moved to Belper in Derbyshire before his fourth birthday and he attended Herbert Strutt Grammar School in the town.
That piece of useless information stuck somewhere at the back of my brain earned me a cheque for £5 from the BBC.
It was a while until I earned another one.
A few years later, again on work experience, I was at the Yorkshire Evening Post in Leeds.
Like many students at the time, I was an avid reader of the adult comic Viz.
Alongside comic strips featuring subtle, sophisticated characters like Finbarr Saunders and his Double Entendres, Johnny Fartpants, Buster Gonad and Sid the Sexist were spoof news stories.
One of the stories it carried was about popstar Kylie Minogue buying a caravan on the Yorkshire coast.
The headline was: “Kylie off to Filey.”
I mentioned this to one of the reporters who encouraged me to develop it further by phoning the mayor of Filey and asking whether the pint-sized pop princess would be welcome to visit the seaside resort.
The mayor, who clearly had a sense of humour, entered into the fun and said the Australian chanteuse would be most welcome and they could offer her a complimentary week’s stay in a static caravan in Filey.
I carefully crafted my story and presented it to the newsdesk who dismissed it as well beneath the editorial standards of the YEP.
However the reporter who had encouraged me in the first place was not put off and phoned The Sun’s northern reporter who was happy to secure my scoop for his own paper.
It made a snippet in the next day’s edition and I was sent a tip-off fee of £25.
So when people ask me what inspired me to pursue a career in journalism, I don’t say it was a burning desire to right wrongs and champion challenging causes.
No, I say it was James Bond and Kylie Minogue.
Have a great weekend.