Clean sweep looks possible

The billionaire Reuben brothers — at least, I assume they're still billionaires — are rumoured to be keeping a close eye on events at Premium Bars and Restaurants (PBR), the operator of the trendy Living Room and Prohibition bar chains. The Reubens already have a 32.5 per cent stake in PBR and are said to be eyeing the 20 per cent stake that formed part of the collapsed Dawnay, Day house of cards. I assume that then they would have to launch a mandatory offer for the rest, although, with the shares having fallen 90 per cent in the past 12 months, I doubt that such a move would be welcomed by other shareholders.

Coming around full circle

Simon Johnson, formerly of UBS, is back in banking after nine months spent mulling over his next challenge. The leisure sector specialist, who spent most of his 19-year career in the City as an analyst before switching to corporate finance at the Swiss bank in 2005, has joined, er, UBS. Mr Johnson, who previously has worked for Kleinwort Benson and CSFB, has joined UBS's private bank and wealth management division, where he will handle relations with leisure entrepreneurs. Plus ça change...

Could it be the path to success?

Does Bill Gates know something we don't? His Cascade Investment Group has taken a 5.6 per cent stake in Strategic Hotels & Resorts, the hotel investment company, and has indicated a willingness to become involved in some form of strategic or corporate activity. The Microsoft billionaire, who once had a stake in Cliveden, the luxury hotel operator, looks as though he's calling the bottom of the hotel property market. I'm not so sure.

Once upon a time, there was a plan

The financial meltdown has set me musing on the future of some of the huge hotel property developments devised in cheerier times. What, for example, of the grandiose plan by Sean Quinn, the Irish billionaire (still?), to spend £200 million bulldozing The Belfry and creating a luxury 500-room golf resort? And what of the plans by an American developer to turn the former headquarters of Willis Group, the insurer, into a deluxe hotel? That £250 million project was predicated on turning part of the Trinity Square premises into exclusive apartments for wealthy bankers. I wonder whether such lavishness can still be justified, let alone funded.

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