Coe Worker

The twitching at the DCMS over the recruitment of a new chair of the BBC Trust is unimpressive. The ad's been adjusted twice - once, so that candidates only prepared to do two days a week, rather than three, can apply, and second, to extend the closing date to 27 June.

If this is all to make it easier for Lord Coe, someone's missing a big elephant. Lord Coe's company, Complete Leisure Group, was taken over by Chime last year. Its principal asset was the rights to all Lord Coe's income streams for the next 15 years.  Lord Coe now chairs CSM Sport and Entertainment within the Chime group, three days a week. If he can stay in the job and meet targets, there's an £11m bonus coming, to be paid out up to 2017. Seb also takes fees as a Global Advisor to Nike, as a writer for the Telegraph, and from Chelsea FC.

CSM have just acquired JMI, which brings F1 expertise to the group. CSM's target is to be in the top three of worldwide sport and entertainment businesses. Chime has at least eight major sponsorship contracts at the World Cup, and expects 25% of its profits in this financial year from them.

Chime's ad agency, VCCP, has a client roster including Coors brands Carling, Cobra, Doom Bar; ASDA; O2; Comparethemarket and BetVictor. Chime's PR wings include Good Relations, with 400 clients including Sky, Fujitsu, Sennheiser, Unilever, Talktalk and Airbus. Chime's venture into healthcare PR, Open Health, now employs 200 "specialists in healthcare communications and market access." Its new subsidiary, EarthWorks, makes apps for companies like Lilly, GSK and J&J.  Teamspirit Public Relations is the the second largest financial services PR company in the UK, with clients including Aviva and Barclays.

In all Chime boasts 80 subsidiary companies, including Opinion Leader Market Research, Pure Media, Cherry Picked, Watermelon Research, Corporate Citizenship, TTA Property...

It's hard to imagine a pie without a finger in it. It's hard to imagine the BBC writing a cheque to CSM for Lord Coe's services - isn't it ?