Dancing with Wolves

Congratulations to Steve Morgan. The football club he owns and chairs Wolverhampton Wanderers are back in the Premier League, just a few weeks after Morgan regained control of the housebuilder he founded Redrow Homes. Redrow may have lost £46.2 million when its half-year results were announced before Morgan took back control of a business he started in 1974, but it was Wolves’ 1-0 victory over QPR at Molineux last Saturday that was the most significant result, taking the famous old club back into the big time. Expect a non-exec role on the Redrow board for Sylvan Ebanks-Blake.
Morgan bought Wolves in the summer of 2007 for a nominal £10, with a commitment to invest £30 million in the club. Wolves may only have been his second choice – he was continually thwarted in his bid to buy his home city club Liverpool – but if Wolves, the best in the land under Billy Wright and Stan Cullis in the 1950s, do not thrive in the Premier League it will not be for a lack of football passion and business acumen from its chairman.
“The name, the brand, the black and gold, Wolves captured the imagination as my second favourite team as a kid. This sleeping giant has the potential to be a top Premier League side,” said Morgan, speaking to me shortly after buying the club.
On the building front Morgan, who has the Bridgemere Group in his property portfolio, is keeping his plans for Redrow under wraps for the time being. We await them and his plans for Wolves with interest.

Grant aid for Hell’s Kitchen

Those good PR people at TTA lined me up for a lunch with Grant Bovey, just before he went into Hell’s Kitchen, as Bovey, facing the fire and ire of chef Marco Pierre White and protecting the culinary honour of his wife Anthea Turner, looks to get back into the world of property, after the easily imaginable happened with his buy-to-let company Imagine Homes. I did suggest that rather than lunch, I simply get to dine in Hell’s Kitchen where as a Liverpool fan I would meet one of my idols Bruce Grobbelaar. Talking of idols, how about a reality TV series called Prop Idol, pitting top housebuilders against eachother in a series of challenges? Knowing most of the builders, a better name for it would be XXL Factor, winning me the Pot Kettle Black Award for 2009. The lunch with Grant is to be very soon and to spice it up I might invite Ade Edmondson too.

The Club at The Ivy actually

Forget Hell’s Kitchen. I am in Heaven’s Kitchen today and in terms of restaurant one-upmanship, it does not get better than saying “No not The Ivy. The Club at The Ivy.” It sits above The Ivy; is far more posh and exclusive and private members only. I am being wined and dined by United House Group duo Jeff Adams and Nick Stonley and hoping to blag a ticket for Jude Law’s Hamlet at the Donmar Warehouse, with the West End season at the Wyndham’s Theatre sponsored by United House.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 10:48 am and is filed under Property UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.