HAS the absence of champagne-swilling City boys hit lapdancing club Spearmint Rhino's pocket so hard that it is having to ask the taxman for a break? Rhino's latest accounts show the firm owes HMRC £1.7 million. It admits: “The company has been negotiating with HM Revenue & Customs and is awaiting the finalisation of a Time to Pay agreement.” Later it goes on: “There can be no certainty in these matters...” The Revenue calls “time to pay” a “debt management process”.

So is the chain in trouble? Just-filed accounts for parent firm Spearmint Rhino Companies (Europe) show it made a £1.9 million post-tax loss last year, compared with a £391,961 profit the previous year.

* FORGET the worst slump to hit the construction industry in living memory — one Galliford Try investor had a more pressing concern at the company's AGM: swifts — that's right, the bird.
The shareholder asked if the new houses Galliford was building were fitted with boxes for the birds to live in.

Boss David Calverley said: “As chairman of Galliford Try, I've had a few other things to worry about in the last few months.” Funny that.

Novera lands itself in hot water on sale claims

NOVERA Energy, the wind farms operator on the end of a hostile takeover from Guy Hands' Infinis — a subsidiary of his Terra Firma private-equity firm — committed a howler in its defence document.

In a section aimed at showing just how very special it is, Novera claimed that rival wind farms and methane gas group Renewable Energy Holdings had nothing operational in the UK and that “it is in the process of selling off all assets”. Novera has been forced to correct the first statement and admit that REH in fact has 41 megawatts installed. But it has not apologised for the sell-off claim, which is also wrong.

After REH's shares slid 10% on the back of Novera's “news” about the company, REH's management has now instructed m'learned friends to find out what damages it might extract from Novera.

* THE battle for Novera has already got a little mucky. City spinners who act for Guy Hands are Financial Dynamics, who also act for REH. That REH is attacking Novera is, of course, complete coincidence…

IN the four weeks since Hands launched his hostile bid he has secured just 0.1% of Novera's shares. He needs just over 7% to gain control. At this rate he should be victorious some time in 2014.

FIRMLY in the shadows is one Mike “Killer” Kinski, MD at Hands' private equity firm Terra Firma. “Killer” has yet to put his head above the parapet — unsurprising given his renown as an abrasive cost-cutter gained in a previous incarnation at Stagecoach.

* SHELL is outed in a Sunday newspaper for not selling remembrance poppies in its service stations. And lo, they're reinstated.

A memo to staff from Melanie Lane, head of UK retail for the oil giant, explains: “Our policy for some years now has been to have no collection boxes on site. The main reason for the policy was to reduce the risk of robberies that sometimes occur at site and hence minimise on-site risks for staff and customers, as we take [health and safety] very seriously. Clearly some of our customers have been upset by this policy.

“Given the importance of the Poppy Appeal and the strong support that this campaign has from customers in the current environment, we have reviewed the policy and decided to change it.”

But what puzzles City Spy is Lane's insistence that they didn't sell poppies because of the likelihood of robbery. Really? And was the prospect of crime only confined to Shell or were other firms that did stock them behaving in a dangerously cavalier fashion?

* PROPERTY developer Irvine Sellar wants Southwark council to renegotiate section 106 offset agreements for both the Shard and the “Baby Shard” next door.
This is understandable in the economic circumstances, and a formal submission for “significant reductions” from the agreed £27.3 million is expected in a few weeks.
If the council agrees, the losers will be the proposed new concourse and public piazza at London Bridge station, affordable housing programmes, a new museum, a new pedestrian crossing and £100,000 for improvements to Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals.
But what price Qatari Diar stepping in and buying out Sellar from the project? The Qataris already control two-thirds of the development, having bought out both CLS and Simon Halabi. Now it's thought they may keen to grab the part they do not own. If they did, the Qataris of course could easily afford to stick to the original plan.

GOLDMAN Sachs lined up with other Wall Street banks to ask for thousands of doses of swine flu vaccines, but when it emerged that elsewhere in New York hospitals were facing a shortage of the vaccine, rivals like Morgan Stanley returned the 1000 doses they had ordered. But Goldman still won't let go of its stash...