Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy - Eamon Javers [123]
That’s a frequent problem with asking questions in the world of global private intelligence. Sometimes it’s impossible to know the truth.
ANOTHER FIRM THAT shies away from publicity sits at the pinnacle of London’s corporate spies: Hakluyt and Company. This intelligence firm specializes in dealing with the global corporate elite—CEOs of multinational corporations and their boards of directors. Hakluyt cultivates a tony, upper-crust image derived from the days when English gentlemen sipped tea served from silver platters and divvied up the world’s resources over dinner. The company has a butler, a former Gurkha,* who greets visitors at the door, and meetings are sometimes held alongside a crackling fireplace.
In 1995, Mike Reynolds and Christopher James—both veterans of the British intelligence agency MI6—combined forces to start the firm. Reynolds had served British intelligence in Berlin during the cold war, and James was a veteran of the British special forces as well as the intelligence agency. James—who has been described by a friend as “hale, hearty, and well met”—hit the London cocktail party circuit in the mid-1990s looking for connections to help launch his firm. He already had plenty of experience in the corporate world. As a spy for MI6, James headed the section of the agency in charge of liaisons with British companies. And now his contacts were about to get even better. At a cocktail party, he was introduced to Sir William Purves, then the group chairman of the global bank HSBC Holding, and a pillar of the City, London’s financial district.
Tapping into Purves’s Rolodex, James came to know almost everyone important in the industry, and put together the Hakluyt Foundation, an advisory board of glittering corporate names. In time, a stint at the Hakluyt Foundation became known as an exit station for captains of British industry entering their retirement years. It soon included luminaries such as Sir Fitzroy Maclean,* who many thought was Ian Fleming’s inspiration for the fictional spy James Bond; and Baroness Smith, who was married to the Labour Party leader John Smith. Also serving on the foundation was Sir Peter Holmes, a former chairman of Shell. Such contacts put Hakluyt in touch with the boards of directors of scores of multinational companies. All this was good for business.
To name their firm, James and Reynolds reached deep into British history, choosing as a namesake Richard Hakluyt, an author who specialized in navigation and exploration in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Hakluyt was more than just a mild man of letters. He was by turns a savvy businessman, persuasive government lobbyist, and daring undercover spy—a perfect role model for the international corporate spies of today.
Hired by the explorer Sir Walter Raleigh, Hakluyt produced propaganda papers on the glory and fortunes to be made in America, hoping to persuade Queen Elizabeth I to support Raleigh’s expeditions there. During a stint in Paris as a secretary to the British ambassador, Hakluyt was asked to covertly gather information about French and Spanish activities, and their intentions and capabilities in the New World. For all this, Hakluyt was well compensated by his benefactors, accumulating a small fortune by the time he died in 1616.
Today, Hakluyt and Company’s Web site, www.hakluyt.co.uk, includes none of the traditional marketing boilerplate that other firms post on the Internet. The site has only the firm’s logo and contact information, which convey a subtle message of discretion. But despite the