I've been watching eBay this week as the London Evening Standard has been running a nice little charity auction in there for Plan UK,
an international humanitarian, child centred development organisation
who work in 46 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the
Caribbean.
Two of the prizes that particularly intrigued me were:
(1) a rare opportunity to go head-to-head by playing table-tennis followed by lunch with John Varley, CEO of Barclays, at the bank's Canary Wharf headquarters; and
(2) a chance to meet one of the City's richest self-made men, Michael Spencer,
boss of broking giant ICAP. This gave you a day at ICAP, with lunch
with him and his senior staff. Mr. Spencer knows his stuff as his
performance bonus last year was nudging £6 million.
So I was
intrigued when the auction closed at 12:00 today and Pinkjay127 won
both items. Pinkjay127 appears to be a lady as most of her eBay
purchases are for dresses and Avon makeup, and her mainstay of eBay
purchases seem to be for under £10. Either that or he might be one of
the many bankers who secretly wears fishnet stockings underneath his
trousers and likes to be called Mrs. Tiggywinkle in the evenings.
Anyway,
I was going to bid for these two items myself, but couldn't quite reach
the heady heights of Pinkjay127 who paid £10,500 for lunch with Mr.
Varley. That's a lot more than a £5 lipgloss, so maybe she's
transacting on behalf of another?
She then also won the day with
Mr. Spencer at ICAP for £11,778. I'm guessing therefore that she's an
Executive Assistant to a high-flying investment analyst or someone
looking for a job with Barclays or ICAP, you never know.
Either
way, it's a merry old Christmas for Plan UK, which is the main thing
isn't it? And interesting to note that Michael Spencer's worth more
than John Varley for lunch too.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...