HOW quickly cobbled together was the final deal which has seen British Airways agree to merge with fellow loss-making flag carrier Iberia?

The merger of course could yet be called off if Iberia does not ultimately like the look of BA's burgeoning pensions black hole. However, in all the horse trading — Britain gets the London headquarters and the chief executive's job, Spain gets the tax domicile and the chairmanship — the two airlines have forgotten to leave room on its new unwieldy 11-person holding company board for a finance director. The Spaniard who has got the job, Enrique Depuy de Lome, has to make do with a subsidiary role instead, on CEO Willie Walsh's new management committee.

* ROLL up, roll up... Ernst & Young is auctioning 31 paintings which used to hang in Kaupthing's New Street offices.

...and the AGM moves to Madrid

THE BA-Iberia merger, should it go ahead, will not finalise until next autumn, meaning the enlarged company's first annual meeting will not be until the summer of 2011. But City Spy can reveal the AGM — and all subsequent AGMs — is to take place in Madrid, as BA has agreed that all shareholder meetings of the merged company will be held in Spain.

Ay Dios mio, what will all those whingeing retired pilots, cabin crew and pensioners from the Home Counties do for their once-a-year entertainment? BA has thought of this and will be providing a video-linked meeting for UK shareholders in London. “Because Shell is headquartered in The Hague, they do the same thing,” an insider tells City Spy. Any shareholder who has attended the London end of the Shell AGM will know what a fantastic cock-up-in-waiting this will be...

* THE trip to Vienna on BA was fraught — and not just because the carrier charged £390 return in economy. The packed A320 aircraft was operating with just four cabin crew. On a two-hour flight, it took more than an hour to get a drink...

Theo lights way for charity

PILOTLIGHT is a charity that advises other charities. Its corporate partners, among them Aberdeen Asset Management, Barclays Capital, Herbert Smith, Lazards, Morgan Stanley and Vodafone, lend their staff to a charity to see if they can assist it in being more businesslike. They give up three hours a month of their time to work for free. Gillian Murray, its deputy chief executive, says that since Pilotlight was founded in 2003, Pilotlighters, as it calls the executives it sends in, “have worked with 120 charities that have seen, on average, 36% increase in turnover”.

There's still a long way to go — there are 1.8 million charities in Britain, many of which could do with help. Which is why tomorrow we should bid generously in the online “skills auction” Pilotlight is holding — visit www.pilotlight.org.uk. The sale, which lasts until 9 December, is aiming to kick-start a £1 million fundraising drive to triple the number of charities it reaches.

“Lucky bidders will learn or benefit from the skills of gurus” — same as the charities receive from Pilotlight -—so the lots include two weeks' work experience with Harvey Nichols or a day designing a ring with master jeweller, Theo Fennell.

* MUCH gloom at publisher Reed Elsevier. Last week, the magazine division parted with 18 staff and folded Contract Journal. The closure of the 130-year-old builder's weekly is viewed by gloomy hacks as the latest manifestation of Reed's retreat. Those higher up the tree are just as glum. Former CEO Sir Crispin Davies was no barrel of laughs. But at least “Crisp and Dry” got the once-fractious Anglo-Dutch business pulling in one direction during his nine-year tenure, which ended 11 months ago. His replacement, former Taylor Woodrow boss Ian Smith, was clearly not sure where to go next – until the door was pointed out by chairman Anthony Habgood last week. Now insider Erik Engstrom has got the job: someone at last to cheer up the troops? Don't bank on it: Engstrom apparently makes Sir Crispin Davies look like Sir Norman Wisdom.

Bailey is under starter's orders

TRINITY Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey is tipped to become a non-executive director of bookmaker Ladbrokes.

City Spy gathers that recently appointed Ladbrokes chairman Peter Erskine, the well-connected former boss of phone giant O2, personally recruited her. Bailey, who has run the Daily Mirror newspaper stable since 2003, knows a fair bit about the gaming industry: Trinity Mirror used to own the Racing Post, which she sold at the top of the market in 2007.

* THE former Midland Bank head office at Poultry has been sold for £40 million... three years after it was bought by Russian deputy finance minister, Vladimir Chernukhin, for £72 million. His plan was to turn the Lutyens-designed building into a “six-star” hotel. Then he defaulted on a £55 million loan and administrators Grant Thornton moved in — hence the sale. Alas, the buyer, described as “a private European”, does not share the same ambition and the six-star plan is likely to be shelved.

* BEWARE developers proposing “six-star” hotels. Simon Halabi had the same intention for Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, which he billed as “Britain's first six-star hotel”. Then his property empire came crashing down...

* CADBURY sent staff at trade magazine The Grocer a box of Creme Eggs, all part of its PR effort to fend off Kraft. The chocolates were more than a year out of date.