Feehely to concentrate on one job

Greg Feehely, one of the City’s most experienced leisure analysts, has announced he is to step down as head of research at Altium Securities after six years in the role. Mr Feehely, who will be replaced by Jonathan Imlah, the firm’s technology analyst, plans to “concentrate full-time on driving our leisure franchise further forward”. He may be relinquishing one of his two jobs at Altium, but somehow I can’t see him taking a pay cut.

Quite an act to live up to

Mario Testino will be awarded the Medal of Excellence tonight at the Walpole Awards, the celebration of the British luxury industry. The celebrity photographer has a lot to live up to. Dame Vivienne Westwood, last year’s recipient, regaled the audience at London’s Banqueting House with a bizarre speech that reached a fittingly surreal crescendo: “If you save a tree, I believe you save a child and Prince Charles is the best one around. He’s trying to do something about the Brazilian rainforest.”

Haye relishes his déjà vu

David Haye, our new boxing world champion, seems a good egg. In the wake of his remarkable victory over Nikolai Valuev, the Russian giant, the Briton took the time to thank everyone at the Park Plaza Riverbank hotel in London, which has set up a full gym identical to the one he had in Cyprus. This enabled him to train in the capital in the weeks before the contest. Most effectively, it seems..

A vintage bargain

Leonid Shutov, owner of the Soho brasserie Bob Bob Ricard (BBR to its friends), is causing a stir with his wine pricing. Rather than charging the usual restaurant mark-up, he is guaranteeing to charge no more than £50 over the cost price, however expensive the wine. He says that a 1995 Cheval Blanc is £271 at BBR, compared with £1,050 at Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s, adding: “You can have your wine at BBR then spend the money you save on a suite at Claridge’s afterwards.”

Two-for-one still adds up

The biggest pub and restaurant chains continue to show resilience against the testing economic backdrop, according to monthly figures from the Coffer Peach Business Tracker. In October, the sample of 14 companies, including the likes of Mitchells & Butlers and Pizza Hut, reported like-for-like sales up by 2.8 per cent. Those two-for-one deals are still doing the trick.

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