Michael spencer icap
Those who know Spencer have no doubt that though he is one of the most successful men in the City, he is paying the price for a scandal which hit his firm three years ago. The revelation is a humiliation for Spencer, not least because it is virtually unprecedented for an honour on a PM’s resignation list to be vetoed. Mr Cameron told Mr Spencer privately he wanted to give him a peerage to mark not just his work as party treasurer for the Tories, but also the £127 million he has raised for charity Yet just days after that high-powered reception for Patrick McLoughlin last week in a private room at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Spencer’s world caved in when it emerged his peerage had been blocked by the Cabinet Office’s head of ethics, the civil servant Sue Gray. In the past six years, he has remained close to the heart of power and must surely have hoped that Cameron’s resignation honours list would finally see him become Lord Spencer. Spencer was later cleared of any impropriety by investigators. He denied the two events were linked.Ī previous controversy occurred in 2004 when the story broke that Spencer had invested more than £5 million in Marks & Spencer shares just days before the retail tycoon Philip Green launched a bid for the store chain. It later emerged that only weeks before the warning, Spencer had sold £45 million of shares in the firm. His resignation as treasurer in February 2010 came as his firm Icap issued a rare warning about falling profits.