City Insider: Mandelson's mellowing views

Peter Mandelson: Non-dom dealings

Lord Mandelson has joined the advisory board of principal investments company Sapinda, City Insider hears. Sapinda's chairman is Lars Windhorst, the enigmatic German entrepreneur and one-time wunderkind who bounced back from bankruptcy and is making a bit of a splash in London. Sapinda, which invests in mining, agriculture and oil and gas, signed up the Labour politician this month. His own consultancy firm, Global Counsel, with a client list that includes BP and Glencore, is also working with Sapinda. Mandelson, the business secretary in the last government, has long been remembered for his declaration in 1998 that he was "intensely relaxed about people becoming filthy rich". What's often omitted is that he added the crucial condition "as long as they pay their taxes". In this year's election campaign, the Labour party has pledged to abolish the "non-domicile" tax status if it comes to power. This status allows "non-doms" not to pay tax on their foreign earnings. And Windhorst is a non-dom. Mandelson, once dubbed the Prince of Darkness, has mellowed with age. So, it seems, have his views on tax.

HSBC: Horribly Shocking Blame Culture

Another change at HSBC as it battles the fallout from its global regulatory problems. The bank has demoted Patrick Nolan, head of global banking and markets in the Americas. He has been moved back to London to be vice-chairman of banking and had his bonus halved. Nolan and his team were criticised by an independent monitor last month for their "combativeness" and for being slow to strengthen the bank's anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance programmes. His role has been taken by Thierry Roland, group treasurer. It also emerged this week that HSBC has hired headhunters MWM to find up to five non-executives in the next couple of years. Governance issues have come to the fore after CEO Stuart Gulliver, chairman Douglas Flint and Rona Fairhead, former chair of its audit and risk committees, were among directors quizzed by MPs over who was to blame for the tax evasion scandal at HSBC's Swiss private bank.

Catherine Hughes: Much to discuss on honeymoon

On Wednesday Catherine Hughes stood down as non-executive director at Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil. She resigned to avoid a potential conflict of interest following a recent "change of circumstances". Said "change of circumstances" is that last month she got married to Andrew Gould, chairman at BG. (March was a busy month for Gould. He got married and sealed the sale of BG to Shell - the biggest energy deal in more than a decade.) BG is not just a rival to Statoil, but Gould poached Statoil's CEO, Helge Lund. It must have made for some interesting conversation on the honeymoon.

Marsh & Parsons: Safe as houses

Marsh & Parsons has been selected by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to find homes for London-based MPs following next month's general election. The estate agent has been busy hustling for potential rental homes. This week it sent letters to homeowners in Pimlico and Westminster with the tempting offer of renting to "good quality, respectable tenants". It optimistically predicts some "very long-term tenancies". Even by the standards of estate agent euphemism, this is surely a stretch. Luckily, the letter assures potential landlords that MPs' tenancies are "guaranteed by the government". Reassurance indeed.

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