Are there black flags flying high over No 6, Broadgate, the beleaguered home from home of Tokyo-Mitsubishi International which once promised to light a monster rocket under the Euromarkets? Unfortunately, someone in Tokyo forgot to bring the Zippo lighter and TMI turned out to be more of a damp squib than Guy Fawkes' gunpowder plot. Last week we wrote that the inestimable Philip Porter, whom we have not been able to contact anywhere in the world, had fallen off his perch at TMI. Perhaps Philip is playing a hand or two of gin rummy with Lord Lucan and Jimmy Hoffa, because no one has ever doubted that Philip has friends in high places. Porter always added that touch of class to Tokyo-Mitsubishi International which seemed to be so elusive to the Japanese.
February 09, 2001