And with the firm she created on the verge of breaking into the City’s top five small-cap brokerages, she is preparing for a trip to Croatia ‘with my girlfriends’, to unwind and take her mind off what has been a hectic, uphill struggle.

At just 35, she has been described as a hard taskmaster, a rising star. She even garnered attention as one of the ten loveliest ladies in finance by one newspaper. It doesn’t rankle – much – that she came tenth.

‘It caused a great deal of amusement. I got called Number Ten in bars in the City for weeks,’ she recalls.

But regardless of the characteristic banter of the Square Mile, she has won great respect for the gutsy way in which she has steered FinnCap through the financial storm.

The brokerage began as a team within 65-year-old investment manager JM Finn, until Smith – who joined the firm as a fresh-faced 23-year- old – decided she wanted to spin off a team to focus on small companies in need of financing.

She brought with her some 28 staff, as well as the blessing and financial backing of JM Finn, but it was still a hard slog.

Smith and her team ploughed £1million of their own money into the business, some borrowing from family and friends. And then everything went pear-shaped.

‘We launched in August 2007 and two months later the Northern rock issue happened and I was thinking “What have we done?”‘

The global economy was tottering ominously in the headwind of the burgeoning sub-prime mortgage crisis.

But instead of throwing in the towel, Smith was determined to fight on, running headlong in the direction of trouble with all the fearlessness of a seasoned war correspondent.

‘We were totally going against the cycle, recruiting good people and providing a service to small caps, while most of the competition was shrinking,’ she recalls.

‘We took the risk that when things picked up we would have the right people in place.’

But as the year went on, the economy lurched from bad to worse. Smith returned from a rare holiday in January 2009 to find the markets frozen and the pool of potential deals dried to a mere puddle.

‘I don’t know what happened but it just felt like everything was 100 times worse.’

‘Usually you’d raise £50million even in a bad year and that was going to be the buffer for our cost base. But suddenly there was the possibility that there might not be a deal all year.’

For four months between January and April 2008, FinnCap didn’t work on a single deal for its clients and Smith – something of a workaholic – barely slept.

‘It was quite an interesting start to life as a chief executive, but it was probably the worst four months of my life.’

She and the rest of the board made a secret pact to waive their salaries in April, in a bid to avoid alarming the staff. And then the tipping point came.

At the end of April, FinnCap raised £5million from the flotation of consultancy business Norcon.

A flurry of deals followed and FinnCap moved steadily up the rankings of the top small cap brokers, to the point where the firm is now poised to break the top five.

‘Everything feels like it is starting to work. We’ve done our five-year plan in three years by just going for it and we’re growing fast.’

‘It could have gone horribly wrong but we just weren’t big enough to get away with retracting. We would have just shrunk to nothing and it would have been all over.’ Smith’s appetite for adversity paid off. FinnCap now boasts around 80 clients, while former Alchemy boss Jon Moulton has just been brought on board as non- executive chairman.

The City veteran had more than 200 offers of work upon leaving the buyout firm late last year, but after a half-hour interview at his house in Kent, Smith got her man.

‘That took us to the next stage in terms of the market thinking about us.’

‘He supports me in the way I manage, rather than being a chairman who tells you what to do. I don’t react to that very well at all.’

Her single-mindedness comes as no surprise. Smith is that rare breed of chief executive who turns up when her staff do at 7am, but still finds time to network on the City circuit in the evening.

And she thrives on hard graft, estimating that she works at least a 12-hour day on average, standard practice for someone who shuns the quiet life.

She hates the idea of sitting around in the evening just watching TV and treats her London flat ‘like a hotel … there’s no food in it, I just turn up to sleep.’

When she does have some downtime, it is usually spent at her home in Dorset.

It’s in this rural idyll that she has time to relax, taking her Land Rover (named Lara, after computer game heroine Lara Croft) for the odd spin and playing a game of tennis now and then.

The countryside setting speaks to her West Sussex youth. She hails from the small coastal town of Selsey, and is perhaps the town’s second best-known export after eccentric astronomer Patrick Moore.

‘My parents were working-class people and it took them a long time to understand what I do, but they always led me to believe I could do anything I wanted,’ she recalls.

That belief, coupled with a grammar school education which she says fostered her ambition, has fuelled her will to win.

It is an attitude she is keen to pass on by getting involved in mentoring organisations such as motivational speaker Pinky Lilani’s ‘Women of the Future’ awards, of which she is a former winner.

‘If we sold FinnCap and I had a bit more time, I’d like to get much more involved in career guidance and spend all of my time on that.’

But quitting the business she created isn’t on the horizon any time soon.

‘I do get knackered and I’ve been a bit grumpy recently, which is why I’m going on holiday,’ she admits, pausing to reflect on whether her employees have been on the receiving end of some whip- cracking in recent days.

‘But I love my job. They say with small-caps, you get married and never get divorced.’

For now, the focus is on where she can take FinnCap in the next three years. She reckons the business has already reached the point this year where it will be ‘hard to make a loss’.

And the future is about making FinnCap the City’s favourite small firms broker, rather than looking to move up into the mid- cap market.

‘We could keep doing what we’re doing, we could add bits to the business or we could sell it.’

‘I just don’t know yet,’ she says. But, judging by her obvious enthusiasm for small companies and a sheer bloody-minded drive to succeed, it won’t take her long to work out the endgame for FinnCap.

‘You just have to keep going and not care at all what anyone thinks’.

With an ethos like that, the broking house that Sam built looks like it is on the fast track to success.

DOREEN Lofthouse’s philosophy in life is to always keep it simple.

It is this ethos that has helped the 80 year old to transform an old family recipe to treat fishermen with chesty coughs into a global brand worth £165million.

At the company’s headquarters in Fleetwood, Lancashire there is no state of the art office, no slick teams of spin-doctors and PR’s. The company remains a family business run by Tony, Doreen and her son Duncan – there are no other shareholders and no boardroom – and that’s the way the Lofthouses like to keep it.

‘Many people think to simplify their lives they need to get more help, she says. ‘But I’ve learned it’s best not to surround yourself with people who tell you they know better than you do.  I know my own business inside out. I trust my own judgement.’

Yet no amount of business acumen can prepare you for some of life’s most unexpected dramas.

In March last year, Doreen and husband Tony faced an ordeal she describes as ‘her worst nightmare.’

The day started like any other. After a busy day in the office, the couple enjoyed a stroll around the garden with their two dogs.  She and Tony were curled up on the sofa in a kitchen watching television, when two raiders wearing black clothes with balaclavas, armed with a screwdriver and a crowbar, burst into the room.

The thieves threatened them, assaulted Tony with a crowbar and made off with the couple’s most treasured possessions, including the solid gold Fisherman’s Friend that Tony gave Doreen on their wedding day, and the MBE and OBE medals, awarded for charity work.

‘I was just so horrified. It was like the worst nightmare anyone could ever have, says Doreen. ‘The night was normal – nothing seemed unusual, it was calm and quiet and then suddenly, oh my God, these two men in black ran down the stairs.
‘I see these two figures coming down the stairs – I still see them.

‘They had Eastern European accents and told us ‘we know who you are and what you are worth’.

‘I felt strangely calm. One told me to take him to the safe.  I thought I’m not going to argue, I’m not going to lie, I took him upstairs to the bedroom and told him ‘there’s the safe, there’s the keys – there you go’.

Concerned for his wife, Tony tried to escape his captor. But the robber hit him over the head with a crowbar, saying ‘that’s for being a hero’. Tony suffered a serious head injury, and was also cut with the screwdriver during the struggle.

‘When I came down stairs afterwards and saw the blood, that undoubtedly was the worst moment, I feared the worst, she adds.

‘They locked us in the bathroom. We couldn’t get out and we thought ‘there’s only one thing to do, we will have to lie down on the floor and wait.’

It was 8 o’clock the following morning when the gardener arrived for work and became so concerned at the couple’s absence he called police.

Says Doreen: ‘We were very upset and traumatized. They stole a lot of possessions of enormous sentimental value, things like my late mother in law’s engagement ring, trinkets Tony had bought me for special occasions over the years.’

Tony was rushed to hospital where he received treatment for a number of injuries.

Several days later, Doreen’s OBE and MBE medals were found in the middle of a small burnt-out fire on a dirt track in Walton, Liverpool.

‘The robbers probably thought my medals would be easily identifiable so destroyed them.  I was terribly upset at first but at the end of the day the thieves only took our possessions, I still have my memories – and no one can take them away.

The thieves are not the only targets of their anger. Several days later, Doreen’s OBE and MBE charred medals were found in the middle of a small burnt-out fire on a dirt track in Liverpool. Doreen recalled: ‘We were terribly upset at first, but I didn’t want the originals back – they were tainted after being handled by the robbers. So I wrote to the Palace, telling them what had happened and asking if replacements were possible.’
In return, she received a standard letter telling her that that if she wanted replacements she would have to send a cheque for £41.36 per medal.
‘To be recognised for my charitable work and awarded an MBE by the Queen and an OBE by Prince Charles is one of the proudest achievements of my life.’ said Doreen. ‘So I was upset to be treated with such indifference. It was not a lot of money, but it was the principle. That’s why I have not replaced the medals. In many ways to be treated in such a manner has reduced their value in my eyes.
It was clear that the raiders had done their homework, dodging CCTV cameras, climbing a 15ft high wall topped with barbed wire and by-passing two Alsatians running free in the garden.
‘We had been watched for some time which was very upsetting and unnerving, says Doreen. ‘The raiders knew everything about us; I suppose that comes with being on the Rich List, she adds. ‘Tony and I feel vulnerable when it comes out each year. That’s also why we are so against the streetview pictures on Google maps,’ she added. ‘It makes it to so much easier for thieves to stake out properties on-line, allowing them to research doors and windows and security.
‘Shortly after the attack we were chatting to the police and they told us about this wonderful technology called “automatic number plate recognition (ANPR)”, a clever technology that enables police to capture registration numbers displayed on all types of vehicles, compare them with stored intelligence, then hotlists and transfer them to a database for analytical purposes.
We felt strongly this was what we needed in Fleetwood, so we donated our £500,000 insurance money from the burglary.
‘The Police took Tony and me out for a ride in one of their cars to demonstrate how it worked. It was very exciting because within minutes it identified a stolen vehicle. Tony and I were all up for them switching on the sirens and heading for a high speed chase – but they radioed another car for back-up and dropped us off at the station.

But while Doreen was shocked by the experience, there was a pressing reason for her to recover her equilibrium: the business.

It is clear she draws great strength from the love and support of her family and the 280 workers at Fisherman’s Friends.

‘They were wonderful; I couldn’t get through the door for flowers and cards. Even people I’d never met – outside the community from miles away – wrote letters of support.’

‘The people at Fisherman’s Friends are like a family to me, I know everyone by name and I am very proud that 12 people in our factory have worked for the business for over thirty years.’

James Lofthouse invented the Fisherman Friend recipe in 1865.  For 100 years the tonic was used exclusively for the community of Fleetwood – until the1960’s, when a vivacious girl with a good head for business married into the family.

Doreen’s arrival at the firm was a breath of fresh air and every bit as potent as the Fisherman’s Friends recipe mix of liquorice, capsicum, menthol and eucalyptus oil.

She quickly recognized the potential of the fiery lozenges and started selling them outside of Fleetwood. Heading off in her small white van with no indicators and a leaky petrol gauge, Doreen spread the word across Lancashire, then Yorkshire and in a short while then they were inundated with orders from all over the UK.

She also managed to persuade Boots the Chemist to trial Fisherman’s Friends and it was soon ‘in demand’ across the UK.

While the family carried on running their Fleetwood pharmacy, Tony and Doreen decided to increase production of Fisherman’s Friend and look abroad.

It was a recipe for success. These days, Fisherman’s Friends sells five billion cough lozenges into 120 countries. In Germany they consume the lozenges in a similar way as Brits eat crisps or chocolate bars, while in Far Eastern countries; the lozenges are a luxury item equivalent to a box of chocolates. Thailand loves fruity Fisherman’s Friend in chewing gum form.

Even in times of economic uncertainty the business continues to buck the trend, with turnover slightly up this year to £34.1m.

In recognition of its global success, Fisherman’s Friend has received the Queen’s Award to Industry for Export Achievement three times. And Doreen has been honoured for her services to charity; receiving both the MBE and OBE.

Doreen and Tony say the wave of love and support they have received from the townsfolk of Fleetwood has helped them to recover from the attack.

‘It was a terrible ordeal that hit us hard. But it is all in the past now and in many respects I feel sorry for our attackers, says Doreen. ‘They were high on drugs that night and you must take pity on anyone whose addiction has forced them to find desperate ways to feed their habit.’

At 80, Doreen says she has no plans to slow down or retire, she says:  ‘I believe a business is like an engine, you must keep it fired up with fresh ideas and hard work or it will stop.

‘I came into this business without knowledge, expertise or qualifications, but I have always been blessed with an abundance of energy and enthusiasm.

‘Each morning I am eager to get into the office, log onto the Internet, find out what is going on in the world.

‘Fisherman’s Friends is our baby, it pays the money and allows us to employ several hundred people.’

It is clear their town is a place very close to their heart. As well as providing the area with work, the family set up ‘The Lofthouse Foundation’ in 1994 to put something back’ into Fleetwood.  Since then a percentage of the company’s profits has poured into the town. Hospitals have been refurbished, medical equipment upgraded; there is a new playground and improvements to the promenade and part of Fleetwood’s shopping centre now named Fisherman’s Walk.

Several years ago, Doreen bought a 17ft high statue of Eros at an auction at Sotheby’s.  Today it stands proudly on a roundabout at the entrance to the town.

‘Eros, the God who represents unselfish love, is something I felt was very appropriate for Fleetwood, she says.

‘The town has suffered so much over the past few years as the traditional fishing industry declined. It now needs all the love and support it can get.’

And as Doreen and Tony come to terms with an attack that has left them feeling vulnerable and has changed their lives forever, you can be certain this love and support will be reciprocated.

>> Wondering how you and your business might profit from the 2012 Olympics? Take a look here.

Stella McCartney has been appointed creative director for Great Britain’s London 2012 Olympic team.

The British fashion designer will oversee the design of both athlete kit and fan wear for the Adidas Team GB range for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

It is the first time in the history of the Games a designer has been taken on board to design the teams’ kit, with Adidas having now provided kit for Team GB since 1984.

But McCartney’s sportswear range for Adidas has enjoyed fantastic success, and this new role looks to be an extension of that.

She said: ‘As a British fashion designer it is an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be creative director of Team GB as the host nation of the London 2012 Olympic Games.’

Olympic and world champion Victoria Pendleton was also enthusiastic, saying: ‘I’m a massive fan of Stella McCartney and with London hosting the Olympic Games it is really important as the host nation to set the standards.

‘To have a British designer inputting into the British kit is going to be very special.’

Andy Hunt, chief executive officer of the British Olympic Association, said: ‘We know that how an athlete looks and feels in their kit gives them a psychological advantage when competing, and we are delighted that Adidas has brought Stella on board.

‘This apparel line provides an exciting opportunity for fans to connect with Team GB and show their pride and support for the athletes who will represent our nation during the 2012 Games,’ he added.

McCartney, 38, is the youngest daughter of former Beatle Sir Paul, and is currently pregnant with her fourth child.

Prior to starting her own label she worked under Tom Ford at Gucci, and was creative director for French fashion label Chloe.

She is the only woman MD of a UK Fleet Management company and has helped transform the operation into a business that has grown on average more than 50 per cent a year since 2003, and today keeps many of the UK’s most high profile fleets running safely and efficiently.

The year BT Fleet opened to external customers, in 2003, we won over £3m worth of business. Since then, we have transformed our business from an in-house transport function into a recognised market leader. I currently manage a turnover of £200m with a team of 800 people.

Our strategy is focused on businesses, where keeping vehicles on the road is central to their success. Around half of our business is for customers like The AA, G4S, National Grid, Eon and Thames Water and of course we also look after BT Group’s fleet – the largest in the UK.  Key to our success are our 62 owned garages, located across the UK, where we repair and maintain most of our customers’ vehicles.

I am one of the few women in an industry that is mostly male – but that also helps people remember who I am. Although being a woman in the transport industry brings its challenges, on the whole I would say that people appreciate someone who works hard and delivers. In particular, the people who work for you want an effective leader – nothing else really matters.

Our hard work was recognised in 2008 and 2009, at what are effectively the Fleet Industry Oscars, awarded by Fleet News – Van Fleet Management Company of the Year and Van Fleet Management Initiative of the Year and Van Service and Repair Company of the Year, respectively.

To win business you need to pitch in a way that is going to get the attention of the decision makers.

We play to our strengths, which is our people, their skills and capabilities. We persuade customers to come and meet our people and see our passion and commitment, which in turn builds trust.

For me, persistence is a virtue, throughout my career I have had a mind set of never giving up. You need to be willing to take risks along the way. There are times when you just have to “go for it”. 

In 2006 we had an ambitious aim of bidding for four big contracts at the same time. It was a challenge, and it stretched us, but we were successful which was a tremendous achievement for all the team.

In 2007-2008 we effectively grew the business by over 200%. 

If you do grow quickly, it is important to recognise you will need to take time to digest that growth. However if you want your business to be sustainable, you need to ensure you keep your customers once you’ve won them. 

It takes longer and is much more expensive to win new ones. Last year, BT Fleet’s priority was customer retention and we successfully renewed or extended five of our major contracts.

Looking forward, it is essential to continue to refresh. 

At BT Fleet, we will continue to grow but we will now need to diversify the business and look at new markets. To succeed in the long term, you need to continue to adapt and change.

Our people are crucial for the future success of our business. Communicating effectively with them cannot be under-estimated.

At the end of the day this means lots of hard work for you and your people – not forgetting to have fun along the way.

Janet is a Barrister and joined BT Group as a commercial lawyer in 1987.  She changed career direction and took over BT Fleet, then BT’s internal transport operation, 10 years ago.  She is also an Advisory Board Member of Opportunity Now, the UK’s leading gender diversity organisation and a National Executive Board Member of the Freight Transport Association.

http://www.opportunitynow.org.uk/

EasyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou will this week call for an emergency meeting of shareholders as part of his high-profile campaign to stop the company spending too much money on expansion rather than dividends.

The call for an EGM will come at a meeting of shareholders on July 13 – the first such meeting attended by the airline’s new chief executive, former Guardian boss Carolyn McCall.Ironically, Haji-Ioannou, who speaks for 38% of the company’s shares, is not expected to be there. This will be McCall’s introduction to internal politics at easyJet. The board and the founder have been at loggerheads for the past two years over his determination to curb the company’s dramatic growth.

Last month, Haji-Ioannou said that one way to gauge dissatisfaction of the board would be a vote on the removal of a director.

Haji-Ioannou resigned from the board in May following the departure of chairman Sir Colin Chandler and finance director Jeff Carr.

He wants easyJet to limit its fleet to the current 190 for the next four years and concentrate on boosting shareholder returns and profit margins.

The company is backed by most analysts who believe that easyJet is in a good position to win greater market share from rivals.

>> Click here to find out more about Carolyn McCall, her past at the Guardian Media Group and her task ahead at easyJet.

Last week, its creator, Nicolas Hayek, died aged 82. Not only was he responsible for introducing the world to the cheap and cheery timepieces, but he is also widely credited with saving the Swiss watch industry.

Back in the Eighties, it was in turmoil as the Japanese flooded the market with cut-price, digital watches. But Hayek developed a method that meant he could make a traditional watch (with hour, minute and second hands) just as economically.

In 1983 the colourful, plastic and affordable Swatch was launched. Its name stood for ‘Second Watch’, promoting the idea that a good watch didn’t have to be a luxury accessory, but something fun, trendy and disposable.

Swatch’s designs have always reflected this philosophy, with their bright colours and quirky styles lending them appeal to everyone from fashionistas to children.

Cool beauty Catherine Deneuve promoted them and Andy Warhol was an avid collector.

Moreover, if you have a couple of old Swatches in the back of a drawer somewhere, it might be worth dusting them down. Christie’s has valued a 1988 Swatch with fake-fur at £18,500 and a transparent model at £8,896.

Swatch proved a pretty lucrative career move for Hayek as well. earlier this year he was ranked the world’s 232nd richest person, worth around £2.6 billion. As Benjamin Franklin once said: ‘time is money.’

Since taking over as MD of BT Fleet ten years ago, (making her the only woman in charge of a fleet management company in Britain) Janet Entwistle has transformed the company from BT’s in-house transport function into a recognised market leader managing the fleets for a host of household names.

On average the company has seen 50 per cent growth or more, every year, since 2003 and now has a turnover of £200m.

Exclusively for FMWF’s Notes from the Boardroom, Janet explains how she’s achieved that consistent level of expansion and offers her advice on how to find and woo new clients and achieve consistent and profitable growth.

Notes from the Boardroom is FMWF’s exclusive business-based guest column written by successful and inspirational women who have already risen through the ranks.

Previous blogs have been penned by John Lewis’ Commercial Direct Andrea O’Donnell and Christie NHS Trust boss Caroline Shaw.

Andrea revealed how the retail group won and maintains its hard-earned reputation for customer service and offered advice on how your business might achieve similar results. While Caroline gave insights into how she’s used her experience as a midwife to rise through the ranks and take the helm of the entire hospital trust.

>> More brilliant British businesswomen will follow with exclusive advice and insight for FMWF readers, tackling a host of different business topics, and you will find them all here.

Victoria Beckham has unveiled a new ‘baby’ Range Rover in a bid to turn the mini-off-roader into a fashion icon for a  younger generation of customers.

The popstar wife of footballer David Beckham, who has her own fashion label, revealed that she has been asked to design the interior of the new Range Rover Evoque – extending the ever-expanding ‘Brand Beckham’ into the world of motoring.

The new, smaller and lighter vehicle, to be built at the company’s Halewood plant on Merseyside, will create 1,000 jobs – though an axe does hang over one of the companies other two factories in the West Midlands.

On sale from summer 2011 and priced from £30,000 to around £45,000, the Evoque will be the ‘greenest’ Range Rover so far produced. 

Beckham, wearing a nude asymmetric drape neck dress from her Autumn/Winter 2010 range, was among a host of celebrities invited by Land Rover and fashion magazine Vogue to Kensington Palace’s Orangery in West London for the 40th anniversary of the up-market Range Rover.

On her new role as car designer, she said: ‘I am incredibly excited to be collaborating with Range Rover. I like to take on a challenge and I’m ready for it.’

Model Erin O’Connor and TV presenter George Lamb were also among the 300 invited guests, as were Gabby Logan, Richard Hammond, and Jo Wood.

The new car will be available in four-wheel and two-wheel drive versions and will make its official public debut at the Paris Motor Show at the end of September.

Land Rover managing director Phil Popham said: ‘It was important to give the car a name that was instantly recognisable through language and cultural boundaries throughout the world.

‘We wanted to create a new name which was innovative and different. A name which implies exclusivity and arouses emotions. It is cosmopolitan and cross-continental, sophisticated and matches the car’s urban elegance.’

Mr Popham continued: ‘Today is a very special occasion for Range Rover – not only are we celebrating 40 years of the brand, we are also demonstrating our exciting future by showing the all-new Range Rover.’

He said the new vehicle would be ‘an important step for the future continued success and growth of the brand’.

The JaguarLandRover company is now owned by giant Indian conglomerate TATA after being bought by previous owners Ford for more than £1billion.

The new ‘baby’ Range Rover is based on the earlier ‘LRX’ prototype and being built with the help of a £27million taxpayer grant.

The new ‘green’ Range Rover  will be the lightest and most fuel-efficient in the series Range Rover, with CO2 emissions of below 130g/km.

The company hopes the sportier and smaller off-roader will attract a new group of customers who may not have considered a Range Rover before.

Land Rover design director Gerry McGovern  said: ‘In 2008 we introduced the LRX concept car.  After a positive reception worldwide, the natural step for the business was to turn the LRX concept car into reality.

‘Tonight we wanted to show the world that we have stayed true to our word and delivered a car that completely represents the spirit of the LRX concept.’

Despite the star-studded launch, an axe still hangs over two JaguarLand Rover factories.

Indian owners TATA have announced one of the Birmingham factories will be shut down in a cost-cutting drive.

Either the Solihull factory, which employs 5,000, or the 2,000-strong Castle Bromwich plant will be shut down – with all production transferring to the other.

JaguarLand Rover, which currently employs 14,500, says there would be no compulsory redundancies but could not rule out voluntary job cuts, though it stressed that none were being called for.

Range Rover’s partnership with Vogue magazine stretches back to 1981, when the first factory-produced limited-edition Range Rover ‘In-Vogue’ was used by by the magazine for a fashion shoot in Biarritz, France.

This special edition led to Range Rover adopting the ‘Vogue’ nameplate in 1983, which is still a specification choice on the car today – the Range Rover Vogue.

>> Interested in exactly how rich Victoria Beckham is? Or some of Britain’s other financially successful female celebrities?

She’s gone from teenage model to successful businesswoman with a few scrapes along the way, but just how rich is Kate Moss?

Well, according to the Sunday Times rich list, Kate Moss is believed to be sitting on a £45m fortune.

Kate first came onto the modelling scene in the 1990s; alongside Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford, she became part of the super elite breed of supermodels entering the fashion industry. At the young age of 14, Kate was scouted at JFK airport and has since featured in an array of fashion projects.

She was instantly in demand and became known for her ‘waif’ look, this led to numerous modelling deals where she went from an unknown school girl to a top earning model.

However, at the peak of her career, or at least her mentions in the newspapers, Kate’s financial situation took a dive after a newspaper reported an alleged drug scandal. Her career struggled but today she is ranked third on the Forbes world’s top-earning models list.

In the early 1990s Kate’s career rocketed as she landed contracts with elite fashion designers; Yves Saint Laurent, Versace and Calvin Klein. With such lucrative clients, Kate earned an impressive $2.6m in 1994 which soon soared to $22.6m at the end of 2000.

Though her wealth and career escalated, Kate became subject to a controversial media speculation. In 2005, the Mirror captured Kate taking cocaine with her then boyfriend Pete Doherty. She was immediately exposed.

These allegations came as a blow and her contract with Chanel was not renewed.

After a public apology and rehab, Kate’s career began to flourish, as six months after the scandal she was once again the face of Calvin Klein adding a reported £1.5m to her earnings. Burberry shortly followed after by renewing her contact. Kate bounced back, with her earnings tipped to be £9m a year.

Kate became a loved public figure again and her lost contracts had been compensated for as she gained more multi-million-dollar deals with Bulgari, Longchamps and Virgin Mobile, which effectively increased sales for Richard Branson.

Prospering on, Kate’s own company Skate was thriving as profits of £3.9million were made in 2006 compared to £2m in 2005. This suggests that during the time she was dropped by many brands, Kate’s company survived.

A major move in cementing her role as a clever businesswoman was teaming up with long-term supporter Sir Philip Green, the TopShop boss, wher she designed and baranded her own line of clothing.In 2007, posh underwear brand Agent Provocateur choose to replace Kate with younger model Daisy Lowe, this meant a knock to Kate’s earning leaving her without £500,000 a year.

However, five years after her cocaine scandal, Kate is still ranked as one of the top-earning models, owning many profitable assets, including a £2million Cotswolds home.

Kate is still a favourite for the runway and covers of popular fashion magazine and to add to her fortune, her new relationship with Sir Philip Green has led to a £3m contract with Topshop.

Her exclusive range has become internationally recognised and she is a brand in her won right. Kate it seems is going stronger than ever.

This story was originally published by our sister site ThisisMoney.

Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister, had revealed that his administration intended to introduce a 40 per cent tax on miners’ profits.

However, his successor, Julia Gillard, has negotiated a compromise agreement with a profits-based minerals resource rent tax of 30 per cent that will affect about 320 companies, rather than the 2,500 that fell under the original tax proposal.

It will come into force in 2012.

Mining companies had campaigned against the proposed tax and the fallout was a factor in Rudd’s fall from grace.

Gillard ’s decision effectively removes the issue from the political agenda and clears the way for national elections in the country.

Gillard said: ‘The breakthrough agreement keeps faith with our central goal from day one: to deliver a better return for the Australian people for the resources they own and which can only be dug up once.

‘It is the result of intense consultation and negotiation with the resources industry.’

In a joint statement, mining companies BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata welcomed the new scheme.

BHP Billiton CEO Marius Kloppers said: ‘BHP Billiton believes that tax reform that is prospective, competitive, differentiated and resource-based will ensure that the Australian mining sector continues to grow through investment in the industry which benefits all Australians.

‘We are encouraged that the design is closer to our frequently stated principles of sound tax reform.’