PALIN MITENK BLOG

By Sara Nathan

Thanks a Lott! Pixie received a £25,000 pay cheque for a 20 minute performance at the bar mitzvah of Alan Howard's son Daniel


Even for a chart-topping singer, it was an eyepopping pay day.

Pixie Lott and boyband JLS were both given £25,000 to perform for just 20 minutes in the unlikeliest of surroundings.


Alan Howard hired them to sing at his 13-year-old son Daniel's bar mitzvah celebrations.

But with an estimated fortune of £1.2billion, it was but a drop in the ocean to the financier.

Stockbroker's daughter Pixie, 19, and X Factor runners-up JLS took to the stage at a huge party in the ballroom of one of London's grandest hotels, The Dorchester.

Mr Howard, a stalwart Conservative supporter, lives with his French wife Sabine and their four children in Hampstead, North West London.

He become well known after astute reading of imminent danger helped him become a billionaire, as his Brevan Howard hedge fund liquidated 80 per cent of its investments into cash at an early point in the global financial crisis.

The former Salomon Brothers bond trader, 45, founded Brevan Howard in 2003 and the firm, based in Marks & Spencer's former headquarters on Baker Street, has grown to become the world's fourth-largest hedge fund with £20bn run by 300 staff


Pay day: Boyband JLS also performed at the bash at The Dorchester hotel


Following a global macro strategy of betting on international financial trends, Brevan Howard's key fund produced a 21per cent return in 2008 while most of its rivals suffered.

Forbes magazine put Mr Howard's personal fortune at $1.8bn (£1.2m) , ranking him 556th among the world's richest people.

In a rare interview with Bloomberg News last year, Mr Howard, who is a diminutive 5ft 5in, admitted he prefers to refrain from the spotlight, saying: ‘We're a company that prefers to have a low profile. That's just the way we are.’

Mr Howard is acquainted with top figures including George Osborne and has served on the board of Conservative Friends of Israel.

But his spokesman has denied persistent reports that he is a donor to the Conservative party.

He owns two properties in London and in March 2008, bought a sprawling apartment in Central Park for for $11,330,000 (£7.51million).

But Mr Howard's spending on his son still doesn't eclipse that of retail king Sir Philip Green.

Sir Philip spent £4million on thee three-day party for his son Brandon in 2005 and paid Beyonce Knowles and her former band, Destiny’s Child, £750,000 to perform for 200 guests who had been flown out to the French Riviera and were put up at the exclusive Hotel du Cap.

Other performers included opera singer Andrea Bocelli.

And former Point Bank solutions boss David Brooks paid Aerosmith $2million (£1.5million) to play at his daughter Liza's Jewish coming of age bash in 2005.

In March last year Leona Lewis was paid £1million to perform at Phone 4 U billionaire John Caudwell's daughter Libby's 21st birthday. She sang songs including Happy Birthday.

And hotelier Telman Ismailov spent £1million getting Jennifer Lopez to sing Happy Birthday to him at his 50th birthday party.

But that still does not top the late Michael Jackson who was paid £5million to perform at the 25th birthday party of Prince Azim, son of the Sultan of Brunei, in 2007.

Both JLS and Pixie have had a string of number one hits. Pixie, 19, topped the charts with her debut single Mama Do last June and then followed that up with Boys And Girls last September.

While JLS saw their debut single Beat Again go to number one last July, followed by their second single Everybody In Love, which topped the charts in November.

The band's eponymous debut album was released on 9 November 2009, and has since gone triple Platinum, with sales of over one million copies in the UK alone. JLS won the awards for British Breakthrough and British Single at the Brit Awards in February, becoming the first X Factor contestants to win an award at the ceremony

source: dailymail