City of London establishes ‘Anti-Presidents Club’ fundraisers

The City of London is launching a new series of fundraising dinners to restore its image in the wake of the Presidents Club scandal.

Helena Morrissey, head of personal investing at Legal & General, is establishing a new charitable trust and its first event will be hosted by M&G Investments on Monday night at the Chelsea Flower Show in west London and is expected to raise £250,000.

“When we all read the story [about the Presidents Club], it was so shocking in so many ways, particularly in 2018. Most people were taken aback that that could happen in this era and slightly paralysed about how to respond other than being very critical of the occasion,” said Dame Helena.

“So I decided to do something more positive and try and show we are not all like that,” she added.

She and three other female City executives, including Sarah Bates, chair of St James’s Place, the wealth manager, will serve as trustees. She said that she was now looking for male trustees to ensure the diversity of the board.

Another five fundraising dinners have been organised in Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester, Belfast and in London’s Guildhall later this year with the aim of raising a total of about £2m.

Tables at Monday evening’s dinner, which will be attended by Nicky Morgan MP, cost £11,000 for each participating company. So far 19 charities have applied for funding from the events, including Great Ormond Street, the Evelina Children’s Hospital and the NSPCC.

Some of these charities were former beneficiaries of money raised by The Presidents Club, which closed down in January after the Financial Times reported that many women hired as hostesses to work at an all-male event hosted by the charity had been sexually harassed or assaulted.

More than 40 financial services companies including PwC, Bloomberg, HSBC, Schroders, BlackRock and Goldman Sachs have signed up to the fundraisers set up in the wake of the closure of the Presidents Club in a show of support for better cultural practices in the City of London and beyond.

The organisers of the M&G dinner on Monday night have ensured that the hospitality staff working at the event are a mix of men and women, and guidance has been given to the attending companies on appropriate behaviour.

Ms Morrissey added that although some people in the City had argued that the Presidents Club was primarily a property event and had little to do with culture in broader financial services, she viewed that as a “weak argument”, “particularly when there were some bankers there and we are all connected”.

“We can turn a blind eye and say it’s not us and shrug our shoulders, or try and do something more positive. When something bad happens, we need to do something good and move forward.”