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CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK

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It is the early hours of the morning at LesAmbassadeurs Club, the Mayfair casinooverlooking Hyde Park, and Sir PhilipGreen is on a roll. Surrounded by enviousArab and Chinese punters, the flamboyantretail billionaire is playing roulette and thewinnings are piling up. Nervous managerslook on as the wheel spins in his favour.Suddenly, Sir Philip reaches for his mobileand the fellow gamblers are surprised to

hear him call his wife Tina. At that very momentshe is also gambling at the Casino Monte Carlonear their main home. They discuss their evening’sexploits and chuckle at their good luck.

The billionaire is a prolific gambler and the club’sbest customer, although he also frequents The Ritz

ANOTHERSPINWhat’s the latest trophy asset for a socially aspirational

billionaire? A West End casino,of course. Luckily, for Mike Ashley of Sports Direct and Richard Caring ofAnnabel’s, there are two old favourites with recent

Far Eastern owners who might already be persuaded tosell.Mark Hollingsworth says all bets are back on at

Les Ambassadeurs and the Clermont

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OFTHEWHEELcasino. In one night he can win or lose up to anestimated £8 million. He has incurred losses butwins more than he loses. He also links his businessdeals to the gaming tables. When his friend RobertEarl paid £9 million for a stake in Everton FC lastyear with his backing, he half-jokingly describedthe amount as ‘no more than a bad night at Les A’.

In late 2004 Sir Philip hit the gaming tables hard.He won an estimated £2 million in one night at LesAmbassadeurs and at least a further £1 million onother occasions. After receiving his knighthoodlast year, he celebrated at Les Ambassadeurs withfriends. At first he reputedly lost £700,000 playingblackjack – not his favourite game. But he thenmoved on to his preferred game of roulette andwithin minutes had recovered all his losses and

won an extra £100,000 into the bargain. In 2005 Sir Philip’s good fortune at the roulette wheel wassuch that the casino issued a profits warning –down from £18 million to £10 million. While othermultimillionaires also contributed to the profitsdecline, it revealed the financial precariousness ofLondon’s casinos.

Based at Hamilton Place, next to the InterConti-nental Hotel, Les A, as it is known by its members,is going through hard times. For years it has reliedon its Middle East clientele, notably Kuwaitis, Saudisand Iranian Jews. Indeed its 2005 profits warningwas partly based on a decline in gambling duringRamadan. And it has retained prominent mem-bers: Sir Alex Ferguson, the Tchenguiz brothers,Victor Chandler, the Gibraltar-based bookmaker,

and Pini Zahavi, the football super-agent whoplayed a major role in the purchase of Chelsea byRoman Abramovich, are all regular punters.

But former members say that it has lost itsappeal. The gaming rooms and private suites provide stunning views of Hyde Park but the country house atmosphere is dated. ‘Some celeb-rities go there but the aristocrats no longer gambleand it is not attracting the new money business-men,’ said one.

How has this happened? A little over a year ago,both Les Ambassadeurs and the Clermont Clubwere sold with great fanfare to two Far Easterntycoons intent on making a splash in London. LesA’s owners, London Clubs International, sold it for £115 million to an Indonesian billionaire called

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Putera Sampoerna whose fortune is based ontobacco and on palm oil and rubber plantations inMalaysia. A gambler himself and a longtime Les Amember, Sampoerna set up Twinwood Ltd as the vehicle for acquiring the club. Twinwood is an intermediary holding company controlled by aBritish Virgin Islands company called BluestreamHoldings Ltd. The Clermont went to Quek LengChan after fierce bidding from two rival consor-tiums, one of Damian Aspinall and Kerry Packer’sson Jamie, and the other of Ben and Zac Goldsmithand Ben Elliot.

Chan, 66, is a Malaysian tycooneducated in the UK and a barristerby training. He is described byForbes as a shrewd banker withdeft diplomatic skills. In 1982, heacquired Dao Heng Bank, then asmall, obscure bank in Hong Kong, and turned itinto a modern and successful banking operationbefore selling it for $2.9 billion.

While Les A made an operating profit of £11,642,000, a majorincrease on the previous year, this was largely offset by an £8 mil-lion loan from Twinwood, whichwas injected into the club. Now

Sampoerna has reportedly grown tired of thecasino and wants to sell. Mike Ashley, a sports-wear tycoon, has apparently bid more than £90million for the casino and the Indonesian is likelyto accept, a deal that makes him a £25 million loss.

His buyer’s motives are just as mysterious. A for-mer squash coach, Ashley has made his fortunethrough his Sports World stores, the UK’s largestseller of sporting goods. When he floated 43 percent of Sports Direct in February he made £929million in one day, apparently the most ever madeby a Briton in 24 hours. He still retains a £1.02 billion stake in the company, which includes Lilly-whites in London and the Dunlop and Kangolbrands. He recently spent £200 million on a threeper cent stake in Adidas, before selling it for a £29million profit a few weeks later. He also boughtNewcastle United Football Club in May of thisyear. The Walsall-born, Buckinghamshire-raised

businessman is publicity shy (though he’s happyenough to pose for photographs topless, exposinghis impressive girth, with portly, tattooed New-castle United fans), but in 2002 his private life hitthe papers when he had to pay £50 million to hisex-wife in a divorce settlement.

What would ownership of a once-glittering, nowrather less glamorous casino give this hugely successful, but secretive man? According to onecasino-world source, a casino is ‘the latest trophyasset’ for the super-rich. ‘In the Eighties and

Nineties it was hotels, in the Nineties and thisdecade it’s been restaurants, now it’s casinos,’ thesource explains. ‘And for these men, the amountsof money being asked are absolute peanuts.’ LesAmbassadeurs might also be a good fit for Ashley’spersonality: ‘It’s for the get-rich-quick, loud, brash,racing crowd,’ says the source.

The decline of Les A epitomises thedemise of the old-style casinos thatwere renowned for the antics of themembers as well as the ebb and flowof the tables. In the Eighties, RobertMaxwell and the Australian financierKerry Packer were reckless gamblers,regularly losing £1 million a night.One night Packer was approached inthe Palm Beach Casino by a punterwho told him: ‘You are not the richestman in here. I am.’ Packer replied:‘OK, here is the ultimate bet. Let’s putit to the test and whoever is richerwill take the other’s fortune. Howabout it?’ The man walked away.Apart from Green, few flamboyant characters are habitual gamblers inLondon. The Russian oligarchs preferMonte Carlo and the new money hus-tlers in the City prefer taking riskydeals at work rather than late at night.

An exception is the clientele at Aspinalls on Curzon Street, Mayfair, co-owned by DamianAspinall and Jamie Packer, which has revived itself.After being redecorated by Tara Bernerd and hiring the chef from Harry’s Bar, it has attracted ayounger aristocratic crowd. ‘Aspinalls has a lock on society gamblers,’ explains one regular. ‘On anaverage night you’ll see Boris Berezovsky, MatthewFreud, Ben and Zac Goldsmith and two or threeother men with £500 million fortunes to spend, allplaying the tables.’

In this respect, Aspinalls is the spiritual heir tothe Clermont Club. The Clermont, based at 44Berkeley Square, above Annabel’s, has, say mem-bers, lost its class. ‘It is dead as a casino and hasbeen neglected,’ says one punter. ‘Even the Chinesedon’t go there. It’s great to go for a quiet drink at3am if I don’t want to be seen. But it has enormouspotential, because of its interiors, notably the mag-nificent William Kent dining room.’ Last year itwas bought for £31 million by Chan who also con-trols 38 gambling subsidiaries in the UK, althoughmany are dormant. His holding company BIL Inter-national Ltd is controlled by Guoco Group, a pub-licly listed company registered in Hong Kong. Chanhas not invested in renovating the magnificentbuilding which has been stuck in something of arut since the Seventies. Although he hasn’t put theclub on the market: ‘If he can get 20 per cent profiton his investment,’ says one man close to the club,‘he’ll sell.’ And the man in the frame to buy is Caring.

Richard Caring’s reasons for wanting to buy the

Clermont are more obvious than Ashley’s for buying Les Ambassadeurs. Caring’s InternationalClothing Designs Holdings is a London-based supplier of fashion garments, but he has recentlyshown an interest in buying high-profile societyhang-outs. In 2004 he spent £130 million acquiringWentworth, the Surrey golf course. In 2005 he

LES A MIGHT FIT ASHLEY’S PERSONALITY: ‘IT’S FOR

THE GET-RICH-QUICK, LOUD, BRASH, RACING CROWD’

Les A’s ambassadors, far left: Paul McCartney and Merrill Colebrook duringfilming of A Hard Day’s Night at Les A in 1964. Left: Les A’s biggest whale Sir Philip Green and his friend Robert Earl, owner of 50 St James casino

More big fish at Les A: Vincent Tchenguiz with Barbara De Jonghe (left) and Robert and Heather Tchenguiz (right)


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bought The Ivy, Le Caprice, J Sheekey andDaphne’s. This year he acquired the ultimate rich-man’s bauble by buying Annabel’s nightclub fromMark Birley for £100 million.

And from this purchase stems his interest in the Clermont. The building that houses both theClermont and Annabel’s used to have a connectingdoor between the casino and the nightclub, so thecasino’s punters could nip downstairs for a quicksharpener and caper round the minuscule dance-floor before vanishing back to the tables upstairs.Birley and John Aspinall, who ran the Clermont inthe Sixties, were close friends and, indeed, Birleygot the lease for his hugely successful nightclubwith Aspinall’s help in 1963. The two fell out, how-ever, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear (butapparently had nothing to do with the fact that itwas one of Aspinall’s zoo tigers that mauled Birley’s young son Robin; rather, it is thought that

Birley was sickened by the ruthlessness withwhich Aspinall fleeced friends) and the inter-connecting door was boarded up.

Now Caring is thought to want to reopen thelong-closed door. Annabel’s is overcrowded andthe ground floor of the Clermont has beautiful dining rooms he could use for Annabel’s punters.With two levels of dining rooms, he’d have thepotential to expand that has been lacking atAnnabel’s to date. Friends of the socially aspira-tional businessman don’t believe he wants tolaunch himself wholeheartedly into the casinobusiness. ‘It’s a completely different kind of ven-ture from restaurants and private members’ clubs,’says one. ‘With gambling, a business can be wipedout overnight. He won’t want that level of risk.’Instead it is thought that he’ll buy the lease, takeover the ground floor for his Annabel’s expansionplans and then sub-let the casino to someone else.

It is hoped that his involvement can restore theonce-great club to its glory days. The potential of

the Clermont is based on its remarkable history.The building was designed in 1742 by William Kentfor Lady Isabella Finch, Lady of the Bedchamber toPrincess Amelia, a spinster aunt of King GeorgeIII. It later became the home of Beau Brummell,the Regency dandy, and Lord Clermont, who oftenentertained the future George IV there and fromwhom the club gets its name. The Clermont wasopened as a casino in 1962 by John Aspinall whenhe won the first gaming licence under Britain’snew gambling laws. Aspinall himself described theclub as a place ‘where gentlemen could ruin them-selves as elegantly and suicidally as did theirancestors 300 years ago’.

On Aspinalls’ books were five dukes, eight vis-counts and 17 earls. During its golden years theclub attracted punters such as Princess Margaret,Joe Frazier, Roger Moore, Tony Curtis, Peter Sellers, Frank Sinatra, Liz Taylor, Ian Fleming and

Claus von Bülow. The Clermont Club epitomisedthe Sixties and took on a rather symbolic role, having given birth to a group of aristocratic play-boys: James Goldsmith, Lord Lucan, David Stirlingand John Aspinall. The club was the scene of notorious excesses. Aspinall once hired a troupe ofdwarves whose role was to spice up parties byinsulting as many Clermont members and theirwives as possible.

Aspinall himself was involved in one game ofchemin de fer in which he stood to lose £1.5 millionbut escaped paying out when Chicago billionaireErnest Blow staged a collapse at the table. This wasdescribed in Jonathan Aitken’s book Heroes AndContemporaries: ‘At one legendary game of cheminde fer at the casino, the big players included theJames Bond producer Cubby Broccoli, Goldsmith,Lord Derby, Lord Lucan and the Chicago billion-aire Ernest Blow. As the game progressed, thestakes rose higher until the club – that is Aspinall –was down by more than £1.5 million. Intuition told

Aspinall there was little chanceof recouping his losses and all hecould hope for was that the gamewould end.

‘There seemed little likelihoodof that happening with the pun-ters doing so well. But suddenlyBlow vomited at the table andhad to be helped to the cloak-room. After some mopping up,the next round of the game wasabout to begin when Aspinallannounced in a sombre voice: “Iam sorry to have to tell you thatErnest Blow has just died. Wewill have to stop.” Lord Derby

wanted to play on, but Aspinall was adamant: ifword got out that a game had continued after aplayer had died, the club could lose its licence. Sothe game ended and Goldsmith and some of theothers went to seek out female company inAnnabel’s. A few minutes after arriving, they wereamazed to see Blow healthy, hearty and far fromdead, gyrating on the dancefloor. Outraged, theydemanded an explanation. ‘I had to stop my losses,’said the unrepentant Aspinall. ‘When you’re down£1.5 million, you have to take desperate measures.’

In 1972 Aspinall sold the club to Playboy Enter-prises to concentrate on his animal parks. At thetime Playboy Enterprises had a successful casinonearby on the corner of Curzon Street, and so theClermont was used as a grand salon privé for VIPs.The change in ownership changed the tone andclientele of the club. Another factor that may havechanged the Clermont in the Seventies was the

influx of foreign money from theGulf, particularly Saudi Arabia.What was once a distinctively English venue took on a moreinternational flavour. On one occa-sion a Saudi prince was playing for£1 million at one table while his

secretary wagered the same for him at another. Playboy was forced to sell the club in 1982 after

losing its licence when Victor Lownes, who ran thecasino for Hugh Hefner, was (falsely) accused ofirregularities by the gaming authorities. Lownessays: ‘Hugh fired me and brought in an Italian torun the place, but the authorities did not approveof foreign ownership.’ One top gambling boss saidthat from that moment the Clermont has neverreally been on the radar. The club was acquired byRank in 1990 as part of the takeover of MeccaLeisure. Rank did not invest enough in marketingand sold to Quek, who has also proved unwilling tospend on the club.

The Clermont is empty, and Les A boasts a meresprinkling of decidedly unglamorous punters. Thechallenge for Ashley and Caring, if they want tobecome the new players on the casino scene, is tocompete with Aspinalls – to steal back some of itsglamour and a lot of its profits, and restore the twocasinos to their long-lost glory days.

CARING IS THOUGHT TO WANT TO OPEN THE LONG-CLOSED

DOOR BETWEEN ANNABEL’S AND THE CLERMONT

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Winner takes all, left: Aspinalls. Below: its punters (from left) Kate Moss, CourtneyLove and Gwyneth Paltrow coming out on to Curzon Street

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