Wednesday4 March 2020 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 7

F T B I G R E A D. UK POLITICS

Quintessentially sells itself as a personal assistant to the 0.1 per cent with impeccable political and royal

contacts. But the London-based luxury service has faced accusations of financial mismanagement.

By Tabby Kinder and Dan Thomas

ing company before the recent reorgani-

sation — recorded a £3.1m loss in the lat-

est available accounts and a £1.8m fall

in revenue to £23.1m in the 12 months to

May 2018. It blamed the drop in revenue

on pulled corporate contracts and bad

debts related to a customer that went

bust. In 2017, the company made a loss

of £2.8m, after a £359,000 profit the

previous year.

Masculine bravado

The pressures on the business have

made its headquarters near London’s

Regent’s Park a sometimes turbulent

place, according to several former

employees. They have criticised the

company’s leadership in interviews

with the FT, citing a high turnover of

staff, dissatisfaction over levels of pay

and tirades by some of its directors.

In a typo-strewn email sent by Mr

Simpson in 2018 to the heads of Quintes-

sentially’s subsidiaries, cited in the claim

brought by Ms Fielding and Ms Villami-

zar-Duque, he wrote: “Anyone whop

questions any decisions I am not making

and doesn’t act on what I am saying is

immediately fired for gross miscon-

duct.” He added: “I amnot FIGHTING

OVER ANY OF THIS. Youlisten to what I

say and you act on it for the greater good

of all in this company. I don’t wasn’t any

decision queries. I will be responsible for

any mistakes I make, no you. Reply that

I have full agreement and that you

understand what I am saying.”

“There was so much masculine bra-

vado at the top of the organisation,” one

former staff member recalls. A separate

former executive, who reported directly

to the founders, says: “The place felt

MadMen-esque, it was old school.”

A third former employee adds: “Some

of us found it ard to square theh [image

of] charismatic, charitable Ben with the

man who shouted in the office and

reduced some younger staff to tears.”

ButAnnastasia Seebohm, who was

appointed in 2018 to run the company,

disputes this. “The culture here is so far

from macho,” she says, citing her own

rapid rise from he group’s Athens officet

to global chief executive in under eight

years while in her early 30s. She points

to the fact that 70 per cent of the group’s

senior executive team are women.

“Some employees when they leave are

disgruntled but we have a wonderful

network of former employees that

remain very close to the business and a

happy team,” Ms Seebohm adds.

Mr Elliot’s status in UK politics has

continued to rise since the general elec-

tion. He was lauded within the party for

raising funds for the campaign.Senior

executives at Quintessentiallyinsist

that Mr Elliot as no problem inh manag-

ing hispublic and private sector roles.

The company says its next financial

results are likely to show a very different

picture. Its first global consolidated

accounts will be filed before the end of

March. Preliminary results showed an 8

per cent growth in revenues to about

£80m, the company says, with earnings

of £3m before interest, tax, deprecia-

tion and amortisation. Insiders say rela-

tionships with big name clients, such as

Facebook and Gucci, are growing.

“It’s clear that we are in great shape,”

says Mr Simpson.

A

n invitation to an event at

No 10 Downing Street? Not

a problem. A place at one of

England’s most prestigious

schools? Consider it done.

The chance to mingle with Prince Harry

at a Coldplay concert? Leave it to us.

These are the sorts of services that

Quintessentially, a London-based

luxury concierge ervice, claims to haves

arranged for its well-heeled clients.

Boasting powerful connections across

British society, the company has

marketed itself for two decades as a

personal assistant to the 0.1 per cent.

At the centre of the operation is the

company’s co-founder,Ben Elliot, a 44-

year-old Etonian who moves effortlessly

across a social circle that mixes the royal

family, the Conservative party and the

City of London.

The nephew of Camilla, the Duchess

of Cornwall, he is frequently photo-

graphed with her husband, Prince

Charles, the future king. Mr Elliot is also

a friend of influential politicians includ-

ing Prime MinisterBoris Johnson.

That sort of access dovetails with the

sales pitch from Quintessentially. The

company advertises that it has secured

clients a private dinner at Buckingham

Palace hosted by Mr Elliot and invita-

tions to events where customers might

rub shoulders with olitical figures.p

P r i n c e C h a r l e s i s q u o t e d i n a

promotional videofor Quintessentially,

praising its services.

Mr Elliot’s networking skills have

proved to be useful. Last July, he was

madeco-chair of the Conservative party

where hislist of contacts helped raise

funds for Mr Johnson’s triumphant

election campaign in December.

He also has a growing presence in

Whitehall. Mr Elliot was appointed in

January 2019 as the government’s first

“food waste tsar”, an unpaid role, to

raise awareness about the issue. Quin-

tessentially has signed up theDepart-

ment for International Trade as a client

of its door-opening services.

But behind Mr Elliot’s high-profile

web of relationships and society image,

his company has confronted difficult

questions.

Quintessentially — which recorded

losses in its last two sets of results — has

faced allegations of financial misman-

agement and has been accused of a

macho,MadMen-style working culture.

Late last year Quintessentially paid

millions of pounds to settle a lawsuit

brought by two of its senior female exec-

utives, the Financial Times can reveal.

The claim contained criticism of the

management style of Mr Elliot and the

company’s other two co-founders,

Aaron Simpson nda Paul Drummond.

The High Court petition, seen by the

FT, contained accusations that Mr

Elliot, who once described himself as a

“relentless, bossy fucker”, and his co-

founders created a hostile environment

for the two women.

The lawsuit cited an independent

report from 2018 by accountants Albert

Goodman, alleging serious problems in

the way the company was run. Quintes-

sentially’s structure was “opaque and

complex”, the report said, and it

claimed that the group’s directors took

“substantial” management fees and

estate agency and a chauffeur service.

From its roots reserving top restau-

rants and booking theatre tickets for

individual members, the company has

tried to branch out — signing up corpo-

rate clients and opening its contacts

book for the British government.

Since 2016, the department for inter-

national trade has paid Quintessentially

£1.4m to introduce officials to high-net

worth individuals so they can “network

at the highest levels”, according to a con-

tract seen by the FT. Quintessentially

arranges “exceptional visits” for civil

servants to meet high-net worth indi-

viduals and convince them to invest in

the UK, according to the contract.

Quintessentially has also looked to

corporate customers to fuel growth. One

former senior employee says the major-

ity of the 160,000 customers the

company claims to have came through

corporate contracts. Quintessentially

has disputed this but declined to

provide the breakdown of members.

Several people close to the business

say a model tailored to individual needs

sometimes suffered when applied on a

larger scale.

HSBC, which offered Quintessen-

tially’s services to its wealthy Jade

account holders, andBritish Airways,

which partnered with the company to

promote its services in the first class

lounge at Heathrow airport, did not

renew their contracts in 2018. HSBC

said it had reviewed its Quintessentially

relationship and decided to move to a

different provider after just 12 months.

Quintessentially says the BA and

HSBC contracts were not renewed for

“specific business reasons... unrelated

to customer service or feedback”, point-

ing to a redesign of the airport facilities

and a shift in strategy at the bank.

Other members have expressed dis-

appointment. A publicist from Chicago

told the FT she was offered three tiers of

membership that started at $8,500 a

year and rose to $40,000 for “Quintes-

sence” — a 13-month invite-only sub-

scription that included dinner at Buck-

ingham Palace, VIP packages to the Sun-

dance and Cannes film festivals, and a

tennis tournament withRichard Bran-

son n hiso private Caribbean island.

She signed up for its “bespoke elite”

membership, which cost $21,000 per

year. It promised 24-hour global access

to a personal “lifestyle manager” who

would organise “travel, VIP event

access, exclusive dinners, top hotel

access, hard to get restaurant reserva-

tions” and more, according to emails

seen by the Financial Times. But the

publicist did not feel it was value for

money. “They promised anything, but

.. I ended up paying for one restau-.
rant reservation and a PDF guide to
London telling me to shop at Harrods.”
Quintessentially says it has an 88 per
cent renewal rate for customers, and
that its internal monitoring system for
member satisfaction shows a “net pro-
moter score of nine out of 10”. It pro-
vided the names of three customers who
were willing to share positive experi-
ences about the company.
One of them, a well-known City busi-
nesswoman who did not want to be
named, says she knew Mr Elliot before
becoming a client and now pays

“hundreds of pounds” a month as a

retainer for Quintessentially services.

The company had helped her find a

house and move her family from Scot-

land to London, as well as finding hotel

rooms and a tutor for her child. “They

got everything set up, got us a discount

and even stocked the fridge,” she says.

Complicated empire

Quintessentially prides itself on an

ability to plan meticulously extravagant

events — it claims to have helped a Saudi

member host a party for 300 guests at

the Pyramids in Egypt.

But several insiders say it has strug-

gled to manage its own complicated

empireof subsidiary businesses.

In 2015, according to several people

familiar with the situation, Quintessen-

tially talked toWPP bout selling itselfa

to the advertising group. A person close

to WPP says the potential deal was

called off at an early stage: “It was [like]

a rabbit warren.”

In 2018 the founders launched a

restructuringto consolidate dozens of

subsidiaries under group control. This

meant rolling about 30 of its subsidiar-

ies, whose management teams held sig-

nificant equity interests, into the group

company, Quintessentially UK.

The legal claim brought against Quin-

tessentially last year was linked to that

restructuring. The petition was issued

by Anabel Fielding and Caroline

Villamizar-Duque, co-founders of Quin-

tessentially Media, an events business

that has organised parties for he Princet

of Wales and Facebook. The two women

argued the shake-up unfairly devalued

their stakes in the company.

The claim also alleged that Mr Elliot

and his two co-founders supervised the

movement of money between UK and

overseas subsidiaries in a eries of loans,s

share transactions and dividends to

help fund the group. At one stage, cash

flow difficulties left the group unable to

pay its staff, the claim alleged.

“Due to a large payment, Q group has

insufficient funds to make payroll this

month (which would obviously [be]

negative for the Quintessentially

brand),” Mr Drummond said in an

email to Ms Fielding and Ms Villamizar-

Duque in November 2018, in which he

requested their events business provide

funds to support the group, according to

their claim. It also said a dividend paid

to the founders from Quintessentially

Events “took the company very sub-

stantially into a deficit” of £602,000 in

2017. Citing the accountants’ report, the
      claim said that the dividend “could be
      deemed to be illegal”.
      The company disputes all of the alle-
      gations contained in the claim and says
      the matter has been “fully resolved”. It
      adds: “Any suggestion that the directors
      of Quintessentially UK have breached
      their fiduciary duties and/or they have
      failed to act in the best interests of the
      company are vehemently denied.”
      Quintessentially settled the claim out
      of court. The resulting restructuring of
      the group left two charges over its assets
      that gave Ms Fielding and Ms Villami-
      zar-Duque rights to equity in the group,
      according to people briefed on the
      matter and filings at Companies House.
      Quintessentially UK Ltd — the hold-

“aggressive” ividends from the operat-d

ing companies.

The result of the payments had alleg-

edly been to make Quintessentially’s

events business “technically insolvent”,

according to the report.

The lawsuit also cited a recording of a

board meeting in February 2019 during

which Quintessentially’s directors dis-

cussed the possibility of reducing a cor-

poration tax payment, estimated to be

£260,000. According to the legal com-

plaint, Mr Elliot, who has cultivated the

government as a client, was alleged to

have said at the prospect of paying that

amount in tax: “We can’t give the fuck-

ing thing to the government.”

Quintessentially told the Financial

Times it “categorically denied” that Mr

Elliot made the statement and said it

was “simply untrue”. It denied all of the

allegations contained in the claim and

said the dispute had been “fully

resolved”. Mr Elliot declined to be inter-

viewed for this article.Mr Drummond

did not provide any comment.

The world of the wealthy

The secret to Quintessentially’s success,

Mr Elliot has said, is “knowing the right

people to contact, for the right favour”.

The company was born in 2000 in the

shadow of the royal family. After Eton

and Bristol University, Mr Elliot was

introduced to Mr Simpson, a former

film producer, and Mr Drummond, a

lawyer, through his cousin, Tom Parker-

Bowles, the Duchess of Cornwall’s son.

It offers clients “anything you want,

anytime you want it, anywhere you

want it”. The latest brochure advertises

“membership highlights” that have in

the past included “access to an intimate

charity event with Samantha Cameron

at 10 Downing Street”, referring to the

wife of the former prime minister, and

“a personal invitation to a fundraiser

hosted by HRH Prince of Wales at Wind-

sor Castle”.

Ever-grander ideas have been dreamt

up. In 2017, it said it was building a 220-

metre superyacht that would be the

“world’s largest floating private mem-

bers club for the global elite” — although

the yacht has yet to materialise.

“He’s a big personality and a big per-

son physically,” says someone who has

worked closely with Mr Elliot. “He’s an

impressive person to talk to and he’s

good with clients. His challenge was

managing people and working with

staff, he has an abrupt manner.”

Quintessentially made a loss of

£833,000 in its first year, but grew

rapidly to more than 1,000 staff and 30

subsidiary companies that have

included an art dealership, a florist, an

Quintessentially

founder Ben

Elliot, centre,

retained his role

as Conservative

party co-chair

aftertheelection

victory of Boris

Johnson, left.

Elliot also has

an unpaid

government role

advising on food

waste. He is a

nephew of the

Duchess of

Cornwall, whose

husband Princes

Charles, right, is

quoted in a

promotional

video for

Quintessentially

FT montage

‘They

promised

anything,

but I ended

up paying

for one

restaurant

reservation

and a PDF

guide to

London

telling me to

shop at

Harrods’

‘They got

everything

set up, got us

a discount

and even

stocked the

fridge’

The embattled concierge with elite ties

Prince Harry

on stage with

Coldplay during

the charity

concert at

Kensington

Palace in

2016, an event

which was

sponsored by

Quintessentially.

The chance to

mingle with

Prince Harry at a

concert by the

UK band is

typical of the

experiences

offered by the

company

MARCH 4 2020 Section:Features Time: 3/3/2020- 18:33 User:charlotte.middlehurst Page Name:BIG PAGE, Part,Page,Edition:USA, 7, 1