London

"Their American base, their intact international network, as well as their two major specializations - foreign exchange and the financing of gold transfers - suddenly became major assets. While bonds collapsed and the franc quickly lost two-thirds of its pre-war value, London and New York fully benefited from the paralysis of the old European financial centers. Over the post-war years, these gentlemen from Lazard thus set up a magical New York-London-Paris triangle, governed by a top-tier team that made the firm a true hidden power. Governments would often call on them. The talent and genius of the partners during this delicate period was to always think big and international."

"be furiously active in New York, with the exception of Maurice who is in London. I recognise this final phase—everyone involved rushing around in chain meetings trying desperately to save the ship. It will go on right up to the last instant, with pleas to make just one more phone call to some crazily impossible benefactor, who could pluck the company out of its predicament. It never works. By that stage anyone not already on the scene is not interested."

"Shenzhen was China’s greatest boomtown and, therefore, the world’s. [Its population soared](private://read/01k3jwt46q240aq6fe12mqkyr0/16_Notes.xhtml#_idTextAnchor344) from three hundred thousand in 1980 to seven million in 2000 and eighteen million in 2020. For many Chinese, who are intently judged on the region they’re from, Shenzhen was a land of opportunity where no one was a local. One of the city’s slogans, still occasionally found on billboards, reads, “You’re a Shenzhen local the moment you’re here.” It’s a poke at Beijing and Shanghai, cities where older families maintain a certain exclusivity (as they might in Paris or London)."

"_ Some people later questioned the logic of having a call centre located in London, where rents were so high. But this was where the best people were — and it would have badly dented the credibility of an online urban fashion and streetwear retailer to have its telephones answered -by call centre assistants in some remote location in - Scotland. -"

"work. In his mind’s eye he could see Monte Carlo awakening from the unnatural slumber and reverting to the glory of the past. One of his exciting visions was of a new outer harbor big enough to accom¬ modate the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth and attracting a big international cruising clientele. There was not a port in the Mediter¬ ranean capable of taking big passenger liners without subjecting them to the noise, smoke, and dirt of a commercial harbor, as in Genoa, Naples, Marseilles, or Barcelona. In Villefranche and Cannes the swell was so strong that it was impossible to embark or disembark pas¬ sengers during more than six hours at a time. Onassis visualized oceangoing liners coming in like yachts and staying while their pas¬ sengers flew on quick excursions to Paris, London, Rome, anywhere in Europe. It would put Monte Carlo among the great international harbors of the world and, he reckoned, attract two thousand visitors to Monaco every day. A man whose visions quickly solidify into hard figures, he worked out that even at twenty-five dollars a head a day, even without gambling, this represented a secure income of fifty thou¬ sand dollars a day. The project might require an investment of at least thirty million dollars but this was not an amount to deter Onassis."

"André gave the character a voice, made him practice every sport, every profession, every clownish act. He inflated or deflated at will, smoked cigars, danced the waltz, transformed into a puppet, spoke in front of a blackboard. He conducted an orchestra in London, entered the arena in Spain, or participated in a rodeo in America. Always good-natured, full of humor, in dazzling form—thanks to the Michelin Exerciser—and devilishly pedagogical."

"As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels saw clearly, the 19th-century business class created more massive and more colossal productive forces than all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground—what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor? Each generation’s inventors and visionaries surpassed their predecessors. In 1843, the London public was invited to make its first crossing underneath the River Thames by a newly dug tunnel. In 1869, the Suez Canal saved Eurasian shipping traffic from rounding the Cape of Good Hope. In 1914 the Panama Canal cut short the route from Atlantic to Pacific. Even the Great Depression failed to impede relentless progress in the United States, which has always been home to the world’s most far-seeing definite optimists."

"In a small city like Ube, information is quite isolated. To get the latest fashion information, I often buy and read fashion and jewelry magazines. I travel overseas once a year, especially to see stores in Western countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. I was particularly inspired by the advanced retail businesses at the time, such as ESPRIT, BENETTON, GAP, LIMITED, NEXT, and other chain store brands. Initially, I participated in business study groups organized by the industry associations and went overseas with my peers. Later, I would go alone to the United States to purchase items like t-shirts and jeans; I also went to London, England to purchase t-shirts, jewelry, and antique watches."

"He distances himself from the factory, even considers moving to London. For a while, he travels back and forth to the British capital, looking for a home in the chic areas. He tries to transform himself from craftsman-president to shareholder-president. He struggles to adopt a role different from the one he has built over fifty years of work, he is a frontline man who tries to stay in the background. Difficult."

"In 1978, Diane Keaton appeared at the Oscar ceremony to receive the award for Best Actress for Annie Hall by Woody Allen, wearing an Armani dress. Two years later, Richard Gere in American Gigolo wears only Armani clothes. Milan is then inaugurated as a fashion city, on par with Paris, London, and New York. "We were in the midst of recovery after the dark period of the Seventies," Armani tells me in an interview for this book. "They were optimistic years, carefree, which saw the fashion system established and the first appearance of words, objects, and habits that still today determine our daily lives." Among the objects that change their "intended use," there are precisely the protagonists of our story: glasses."

"Cookie Jars and Irises 99 room off the lobby. Although it had a very low ceiling, the space was perfect for a cafe to enliven the lobby and create a more welcoming feel to Sotheby’s historic front door. We raised the ceiling, added a kitchen on the level below the lobby, and installed a motorized dumbwaiter to deliver orders to the cafe. A simple video system al¬ lowed the kitchen and waitstaff to communicate effectively. Shortly before we opened for business, I received a call from a se¬ nior Sotheby’s executive in London. He was nearly hysterical and was concerned that our cafe looked too much like—perish the thought—a French cafe, one you might see on the streets of Paris! That was exactly the look we were after, and I assured him that our cafe would fit right in and be attractive to people from all over the world. And that’s precisely what happened. The Cafe (which is what we unimaginatively named it) was an instant hit. Clients stayed lon¬ ger, staff held small meetings over lunch, visitors stopped in for tea and discovered Sotheby’s for the first time. We introduced a lobster sandwich on brioche bread (a London first) that put our simple but distinctive cuisine on the map."

"Early in the 20th century Cartier opened branches in London’s Bond Street and Fifth Avenue, New York. Alfred Cartier’s three sons respectively managed the Paris, London and New York houses, but after they died in the 1950s the business fragmented."

"Sol soon set up an office on Jermyn Street, London, which he shared with Charles Fiddian-Green of Rennies and a young Johann Rupert. Peter Bacon, who had also left South Africa with his then-wife Vicky and their three girls, joined the rebounding Sol, too. Peter and Vicky bought a home in Hampstead from the musician Sting. Their hopes of settling down in London were quickly dashed, however, as Sol put together a deal in Monte Carlo, Monaco, to create Monte Carlo Sporting, a proposed leisure and sport centre with, of course, a casino. Bacon therefore moved to Monte Carlo."

"Solomon Kerzner was born in Durban, South Africa, on 23 August 1935. He was, however, a citizen of the world. He had homes in London and the Chiltern Hills in the UK, the south of France, New York, Johannesburg and the Bahamas, as well as his beloved Leeukoppie estate in Hout Bay, Cape Town."

"Entertaining as the walks were, they represented less than half an hour of the day and could never have compensated adequately for full access to the world of culture that lay at his doorstep in one of the planet’s greatest cities. It was a world that Peter truly missed. The sight of him rather pathetically leafing through The Week, the best of London’s “what’s going on” digests, was more than sad; it was irritating."

"He would often visit Germany, at least once a month. He just showed up at the office, completely unannounced. He had taken the morning flight from London. With Erling Persson present, things happened immediately, Thomas Enderstein explains. If the management in Germany had requested additional supplies, it could happen that the Sweden office said no. "You have enough relative to the sales," they thought. But when Erling Persson called and said that the warehouse was empty, they sent supplies immediately. No discussion."

"– The reward was not in the pay envelope. If you showed initiative and took responsibility, you were rewarded. "Go to Värnamo, go to Uddevalla, go to London," they would say when there was a new opening. You did not say no. I got a job in Germany in 1984. I was only 28 then.[11](private://read/01jas9tvg84jycb27616w1f9k8/#note-11)"

"Norbekk had more tasks for Fredriksen than just piloting the aircraft; he was the shipowner’s butler and bag carrier. Fredriksen's entire archives were kept in three pilot bags that Kjell Norbekk guarded like the crown jewels. They were always with them, and they were not left at the office overnight. After having been subjected to police raids twice, once in London and once in the Oslo offices, the SeaTeams premises at Aker Brygge were not considered safe. At night, the pilot bags slept in a locked cabinet in Fredriksen's house on Ulvøya, driven there by Norbekk."

"For John Fredriksen, the "Sea Empress" was a turning point. He could have hidden behind straw companies, but he came forward as a serious and responsible shipowner. And he received praise from an international shipping community. "It was about time someone stood up and showed that the industry takes responsibility in such a situation," was stated at a shipowner conference in London later that year. "Once a crisis is a fact, there are only two people who can stand up and take responsibility towards the outside world: The shipowner himself and the person responsible for the operation of the ship. Their 'image' before and after the accident will determine whether the shipping company will still be in business.""

"The United Kingdom is a very tax-friendly place to live if one only has wealth and does not conduct business in the country. All income and gains one has in other countries are tax-free as long as the money is not brought into the United Kingdom. This applies to foreign nationals living in the United Kingdom who do not intend to stay there forever. This odd and very flexible rule has made London a very attractive place to live for the wealthy, from shipowners to tennis players. However, the tax law is under review and everyone expects that the loophole for those "temporarily" residing will be closed."

"In hindsight, I should have never put so much money at risk in Iceland. So why did I do so? Part of it was my ego and need for recognition in an Icelandic comeback, but it was also laziness. It was just easier for me to operate in Iceland and I reckoned that, having built a strong financial base there, I could make my name in London and the international markets."

"Alcopops – fruit-based long drinks infused with a shot of liquor – had been sold for some time in Finland and had recently taken off in London. A small quantity of Finnish gin and grapefruit was even being imported into Russia. I could see that alcopops would be a winner in the Russian market because there was no culture of mixing drinks; it was just shots of vodka for men and champagne for women. It was as simple and basic as…"

"Once again, he proves to be a master of long-term strategy. Time works for him: the longer a Picasso or Matisse hangs as a loan in a prestigious museum in London or New York, the more valuable it becomes. He provides museums with the finest pieces as a loan for up to ten years; afterward, their value at least doubles the initial estimate. That is one of the secrets of the art trade: the paintings must "hang," the level of recognition determines the price."

"But the problem in a place like New York or London is that there are always so many people who are doing better than you. My office didn’t have gleaming floor-to-ceiling windows or panoramic views of the Manhattan skyline. I couldn’t match the elegance of Chris Hohn’s offices in Mayfair, London’s hedge fund epicenter. My beautiful home on one of the Upper West Side’s loveliest streets lacked Bill Ackman’s leafy views of Central Park."

"While Gibbs watched a jet ‘bombing’ structures on his farm in October 1999, for a sixtieth birthday party treat, he had a team of engineers working away in the English Midlands on his amphibious car project. Hundreds of thousands of man-hours later, by the time Richard Serra’s *Te Tuhirangi Contour* was launched in February 2003, the team at Gibbs Technologies had nearly completed the world’s first high-speed amphibian legally permitted to drive fast on land and water. Gibbs presented the Aquada to the international media in London in September 2003, and the world was interested. Clips of the Aquada operating as a sports car on the road, then driving down a ramp and seconds later taking off as a jet boat fast across the water were the most downloaded items on the World Wide Web for more than 24 hours. Television stations from Turkey to Argentina covered the story with fascination."

"So what do I do about the knives in the back? Do I just ignore them? Can I extract them? A wiser person would say don’t get yourself in a position where people can take a shot at you. Don’t get in harm’s way. But the only way to ensure that you’ll never be hit by a car is never to cross a road. That’s not an option, so you have to find a balance, but you can avoid much of the flak by simply not being there. You can’t avoid the knives in the back but you can make it further for people to throw them. London was a shelter for me. That’s what saved me when I was vilified. My father didn’t bear the brunt of the criticism; that was reserved for me. But he was living in Iceland and I wasn’t. He told me a story about one of the low points in the aftermath of the crash that illustrated what he was dealing with. He was out walking his dog on a sunny day and as he approached a man with his two small daughters on their bikes they stopped and the father said: ‘You see that man, he’s one of the men who have destroyed our country.’ He spat at my father’s feet and continued on his way. That was the sort of thing he had to deal with. I’ve not been into bars in Iceland much since the crash. I was on my guard for the first few years and still am. It’s hard to break the habit once you have been publicly vilified. Sometimes I still have a sense of unease, but it’s mostly confusion and old habits. The level of online abuse and prejudice in the years after the crash is hard to ignore. However, things in Iceland have moved on so much that two generations of Icelanders do not really remember this time at all. It seems like a different country and I feel perfectly at home and at ease there. Iceland is a country of extremes where people are either loved or hated. I don’t want to be loved or hated. I just want people to be indifferent."

"In the boom days, I was not some sort of ideologue or business guru with strict rules governing what I was doing. My business strategy in terms of all the leverage I was taking and the deals I was doing was not a model I set out with. I went to Russia, saw the opportunity and figured out the easiest way of capturing it, which happened to be leveraged deals. Then I went back to Iceland, saw that banks there and in London were throwing cash at me and wanted to find a way to put the maximum amount of cash to work, so I looked for larger deals with opportunities for higher levels of gearing. Now my world and the financial world in general have changed and this modus operandi has evolved, mostly moving to unlisted companies and technology-focused venture capital. A lot of banks, for example, still have a lot of bombed-out assets which now present opportunities. Also, as a result of the crazy zero-interest-rate environment engendered and perpetuated by Covid-19, many businesses cannot operate in a real interest-rate environment, let alone one coupled with significant inflation. I will therefore try to partner up and use the capital that’s already in the system to try to revive some of these businesses. This is where the opportunities will be for my financial storm-riding in the future. We are in the midst of a major market correction, which is painful to many of my portfolio companies. I will have to try to dodge bullets again – but it will also throw up special situations, which I always find to be the best source of truly unique investment opportunities."

"We used our majority stake and the support of other shareholders to merge Delta and Pharmaco in 2002; in 2004 the merged company changed its name to Actavis. I felt a great sense of achievement in having created one of the largest companies in Iceland, with a research and development arm that complemented its manufacturing operations in, and cash flow from, eastern Europe. Actavis continued to grow but went through a lot of change. One of the Bulgarian entrepreneurs left and sold his stake in 2002 and the other departed a year later. But the Pharmaco deals established me in Bulgaria and in the wider banking markets too. In 2001 and 2002, when I was pitching to investment banks in London, we had turnover of just $150 million and they would hardly give us the time of day. But our growth, both by acquisition and organic, increased that figure fivefold."