Planet Business

Compiled by LAURA SLATTERY

The List Life, Larry Ellison-style

Larry Ellison, the sixth richest person in the world, doesn’t need to consult the Financial Times How to Spend It supplement. He already knows how to indulge.

This week, the Oracle co-founder bought an airline to go with the Hawaiian island, Lanai, he picked up last year for $500 million. So what other status symbols has he acquired for loose change?

1 A portfolio of Malibu beach houses: Ellison owns several properties on Carbon Beach, a stretch of the Californian coast known as “billionaires’ beach”.

2 Museums: He’s in the process of turning a clutch of his mansions into museums of art.

3 A yacht with a basketball court: In 2010 Ellison sold the 453ft Rising Sun and downsized to something easier to moor.

4 Fighter jets, plural: The software mogul is a licensed pilot, obviously, and owns several aircraft.

5 Sport: He has invested in sailing teams and the US Open tennis championship, and has told CNBC he would like to buy a major sports team. “I could go buy the Los Angeles Lakers,” he mused.

In Numbers

Note laundering

€291 billion - The total value of €500 banknotes in circulation as of January 2013 – a third of the total value of euro currency in circulation.

28 - The percentage increase in the number of €500 notes over the past six years. The European Parliament’s special committee on organised crime, corruption and money laundering may recommend their withdrawal, according to Gay Mitchell MEP, who is a long-time advocate of the move.

90 - The percentage of all €500 notes in the UK that have been estimated by its Serious Organised Crime Agency to be in the hands of organised criminals.

Getting to know David Einhorn

David Einhorn is the successful hedge fund manager who is running a campaign against Apple that chief executive Tim Cook dismisses as a “silly sideshow”. With Apple’s share price down 35 per cent since September, Cook might be right.

Einhorn is leading calls for the tech giant to boost the return earned by shareholders, which he claims is pulled down by the low income it earns on its $137.1 billion cash pile. He’s gone to court over it, arguing that Apple should issue more preference shares – or a special kind of preferred stock called “iPrefs” that his company Greenlight Capital like.

Einhorn (44) is a “boyish, impeccably prepared presence” who possesses “a singular ability to sink a stock just by uttering its name”, according to Businessweek.

Uh oh.

The Lexicon

Vunk

Vunk is what you get when you cross Versace with punk, or so Donatella Versace claimed during Milan Fashion Week. (This means lots of red vinyl trousers with zips.) After a glamour-free recession, the fashion house has regained some of its attitude of late, returning to profit in 2011 after three years of losses. But can the family-owned business stay independent long enough to enjoy its new-found love of rebellion?