Ivan Fallon

Longlisted for the FT and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award 2015 In September 2008, HBOS, with assets larger than Britain’s GDP, was on the edge of bankruptcy. Its collapse would have created the biggest economic crisis since the 1930s and a major political disaster for the Labour government. With the help and support of Gordon Brown, HBOS was rescued by Lloyds TSB, one of the country’s strongest banks, in circumstances that have since become the stuff of City legend. In the highly acclaimed Black Horse Ride, veteran financial journalist Ivan Fallon brings together the accounts of all the power players involved in this dramatic saga for the first time, including the key roles played by the Governor of the Bank of England, the Prime Minister and the Treasury. Through a compelling cast of prominent bankers, politicians and investors, Fallon reveals what really occurred in the aftermath of the crash of Lehman Brothers, perhaps the worst single day in banking history.

The Inside Story of Lloyds and the Banking Crisis

Black Horse Ride

James B. Sherwood

In May 1977 the French national railways announced they were taking the Orient-Express, the world's most fabled train, out of service. The public outcry which followed caught the attention of Jim Sherwood. Sherwood bought two of the last four remaining carriages, then set out on a trip across Europe to track down enough original 1920s carriages, with their exquisite Art Deco marquetry and Lalique glass, to make a full train. In 1982, the lovingly restored Venice Simplon-Orient Express set off from Victoria Station for Venice, almost exactly 100 years after it had first carried passengers on their exotic journeys across the continent. Orient-Express Hotels today owns some of the great hotels of the world, all bought by Sherwood over a period of last 30 years. It also owns two other de luxe trains - the Eastern & Oriental carries passengers from Singapore to Bangkok, and the Hiram Bingham runs down through the Sacred Valley of the Incas to Machu Picchu in Peru. The purchase and restoration of each train and grand hotel has its own extraordinary story behind it, which is wittily and compellingly told.

A Personal Journey

Orient-Express

A biography of the brothers Charles and Maurice Saatchi, who founded the advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi.

The Rise & Rise of Saatchi & Saatchi

The Brothers

Philip Harris

From humble beginnings in wartime Peckham, where his first memories are of being carried down into the air-raid shelter by his mother, Phil Harris would go on to transform his father's market stall into Britain's biggest carpet retail chain, himself becoming one of the richest people in the country, a member of the House of Lords and a passionate supporter of charitable causes. An extraordinary retailer, largely instinctive with an exceptional feel for what the customer wanted, Harris and his astonishing business career, with its ups and downs, are the central themes to the book. Today he is as well-known for his charitable work. Severely dyslexic himself, with Tony Blair's personal support Lord Harris created the first academy school in London. There are now thirty-five Harris Academy schools, and it was David Cameron's relationship with Lord Harris that persuaded the former PM to espouse the academy school so enthusiastically. These, then, are the fascinating memoirs of one of the country's greatest entrepreneurs and philanthropists.

Magic Carpet Ride

The Life of Tony O'Reilly

The Player

James Srodes

Takeovers

Delorean, the Rise and Fall of a Dream-maker

Sir James Goldsmith was one of the most successful businessmen of the 20th century. When he died in 1997, he left a fortune estimated to be in the region of $3 billion to his 9 children and 3 surviving wives, who he lived with concurrently. But he was far more than that.

Ivan Fallon

Books

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