Lord Coe's £12million windfall: London 2012 chairman strikes gold as he sells private firm to Olympic advertising contractor
Lord Coe is set to scoop a
multi-million pound windfall from selling his private business to an
advertising company that played a major role in the Olympics.
The former Olympic gold medallist and head of the organising committee for the 2012 Games could stand to gain almost £12million over the next four years from the sale of his management consultancy firm, the Complete Leisure Group Limited.
The buyer, Chime Communications, is an advertising and public relations group founded by Margaret Thatcher’s former spin master and 1980s PR mogul Lord Bell.
The agency raked in more than £30million from a number of contracts during the Olympic Games.
Given that former MP Lord Coe owns more than 90 per cent of the shares in the group, he will walk away with millions.
Foreign Secretary William Hague is also set to benefit financially, as he is a minority shareholder in the venture.
The pair have a long history together, and Lord Coe, 56, was Mr Hague’s chief bag carrier when he was leader of the Conservative Party between 1997 and 2001.
Chime will pay just under £2million this year for the company, then additional sums of more than £2million over the next four or five years.
In a recent update to investors, Chime boasted about the responsibilities that it had taken on in the run-up to London 2012.
These included ‘managing the attendance of 40,000 guests through hospitality programmes including event hospitality for 12 sponsors and 13,000 VIPs’ and the ‘design of the Olympic pictograms and creation of the UK School Games and Paralympic World Cup’.
The group also told how it ‘created
and built sponsor facilities for EDF, BP and Olympic Club for the
International Organising Committee’.
It added that it was involved in ‘securing commercial partners, drawing up key legacy plans and providing the Bid’s Vice President, Alan Pascoe’.
Other roles included offering consultancy work to major sponsors including drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline, telecoms group BT, oil firm BP and security provider G4S.
The Complete Leisure Group, or CLG, was founded in 2005 but the last time it submitted a full set of accounts was in 2008, when it reported losing almost £50,000 before tax. This was despite turning over more than £470,000 of revenues.
The
document states: ‘The principal activities of the group are that of the
exploitation of the intellectual property and image rights relating to
Lord Coe, and the provision of consultancy advice on sports related
activities.’
It gave no indication of what these activities might be, but in an earlier set of results from 2006 showed that it was involved in ‘developing the World Cup of ocean racing’.
In that year it had only seven members of staff, but incurred wage costs of £651,592 - the equivalent of an average salary for each employee of more than £93,000.
A spokesman for Lord Coe insisted that Chime had been awarded no contracts directly by London 2012 organisers Locog, and had worked only for sponsor companies of the Games.
He added: ‘When Seb has made any concrete plans for any part of his future he will make sure they are communicated.’
A spokesman for Mr Hague declined to comment because the Foreign Secretary was travelling.
No one from Chime Communications was available to comment.
The former Olympic gold medallist and head of the organising committee for the 2012 Games could stand to gain almost £12million over the next four years from the sale of his management consultancy firm, the Complete Leisure Group Limited.
The buyer, Chime Communications, is an advertising and public relations group founded by Margaret Thatcher’s former spin master and 1980s PR mogul Lord Bell.
The agency raked in more than £30million from a number of contracts during the Olympic Games.
Given that former MP Lord Coe owns more than 90 per cent of the shares in the group, he will walk away with millions.
Foreign Secretary William Hague is also set to benefit financially, as he is a minority shareholder in the venture.
The pair have a long history together, and Lord Coe, 56, was Mr Hague’s chief bag carrier when he was leader of the Conservative Party between 1997 and 2001.
Chime will pay just under £2million this year for the company, then additional sums of more than £2million over the next four or five years.
In a recent update to investors, Chime boasted about the responsibilities that it had taken on in the run-up to London 2012.
These included ‘managing the attendance of 40,000 guests through hospitality programmes including event hospitality for 12 sponsors and 13,000 VIPs’ and the ‘design of the Olympic pictograms and creation of the UK School Games and Paralympic World Cup’.
It added that it was involved in ‘securing commercial partners, drawing up key legacy plans and providing the Bid’s Vice President, Alan Pascoe’.
Other roles included offering consultancy work to major sponsors including drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline, telecoms group BT, oil firm BP and security provider G4S.
The Complete Leisure Group, or CLG, was founded in 2005 but the last time it submitted a full set of accounts was in 2008, when it reported losing almost £50,000 before tax. This was despite turning over more than £470,000 of revenues.
Lord Coe poses outside the Olympic Stadium in the Olympic Park in Stratford, London
Lord Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London
Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, shows the Queen around the
Aquatics Centre on day one of London 2012
It gave no indication of what these activities might be, but in an earlier set of results from 2006 showed that it was involved in ‘developing the World Cup of ocean racing’.
In that year it had only seven members of staff, but incurred wage costs of £651,592 - the equivalent of an average salary for each employee of more than £93,000.
A spokesman for Lord Coe insisted that Chime had been awarded no contracts directly by London 2012 organisers Locog, and had worked only for sponsor companies of the Games.
He added: ‘When Seb has made any concrete plans for any part of his future he will make sure they are communicated.’
A spokesman for Mr Hague declined to comment because the Foreign Secretary was travelling.
No one from Chime Communications was available to comment.
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