GUY Hands' nightmare with EMI just gets worse.

The boss of Terra Firma has had to reveal the full extent of losses at the record label as EMI's holding company, Maltby Capital, filed annual accounts to Companies House. Maltby, which is chaired by former BBC director-general Lord Birt, was supposed to have filed the accounts for the year to 31 March 2009 by last weekend — 31 January 2010. City Spy gathers the accounts only arrived at Companies House on Sunday which is cutting it fine. Why so coy? The small matter of £1.75 billion in pre-tax losses, of course.
But the suspicion is that Hands wasn't too keen to let anyone see the accounts any earlier than necessary since he is in the middle of a legal battle with his lenders Citigroup. This may explain the curious situation which arose yesterday morning when Terra Firma still wouldn't release precise details of the accounts, with sources close to EMI telling interested parties that they would have to wait until Companies House made them public.
Of course, there was nothing to stop Terra Firma being open and making the accounts public itself. But then the private equity firm has a funny way of making life difficult — not least for itself. Eventually Terra Firma did release them. But it took until about 4.30pm yesterday.

* POPLAND is abuzz with rumours that hard-up EMI is on the verge of declaring it will not be hosting the traditional booze and celebrity-fuelled post-Brit Awards party later this month. Universal and Sony are having theirs, but City Spy's man in Guy Hands' Kensington eyrie says his managers are mulling over whether it would look good for a business that lost £1.75 billion last year to be spending all that money on “fruit
and flowers”.

* TALK about rubbing it in... A freebie bag arrives at City Spy tower from Kraft full of bars of their own confectionery... and Cadbury's Dairy Milk and Creme Eggs.

* GULP! Those looking at where the next domino falls after Greece need look no further than Portugal. At least, that's what the governor of its own central bank seems to think. Lisbon's answer to Mervyn King, Vitor Constancio, says he is “relatively pessimistic” about the state of the country's economy, given that it's currently running a defict of 9.3% of GDP. We'll be raising taxes, he says. Cue huge scramble from Portuguese ministers declaring they have no such plans. Whisper it softly, but here in the UK, the deficit will be 12.8% this year.

Qataris have no hard feelings, HRH

HIS royal intervention in the Chelsea Barracks episode cost it £30 million in abortive fees and has resulted in a £100 million law suit but Qatari Diar does not appear to bear the Prince of Wales any grudges. Its London MD, Jeremy Titchen, attended the Prince's Foundation seminar this week, the theme of which was that “Greener buildings can help lift us out of recession”. Just back from holiday, he was tanned, relaxed and all smiles and assurances that good progress was being made on the new scheme for the Barracks
site, for which QD paid £1 billion before the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

* AT the seminar, Prince's Foundation chief Hank Dittmar says: “Green buildings are a gift that keeps on giving.” Prince Charles himself says that swallows and swifts would not nest in metal walls, which is another reason for his strong objection to Lord Rogers's failed steel and glass design for the Chelsea Barracks site. And Mayor Boris Johnson's chief of staff, Sir Simon Milton, makes his own contribution to energy conservation by dozing off during the pre-lunch discussion...

Please, don't call me Dr Doom

ECONOMIST Nouriel Roubini, known as Dr Doom, has been moaning that he doesn't much care for his nickname.
So CNBC has tried to help out by conducting a poll of 1400 viewers. The suggestions: Roubini the Realist got 25%, Sir Fretalot 24%, Dr Know 17%, Dr Real 17% and Dr Toldya 17%.
Hmmm. City Spy reckons your old name is going to stick, Doctor...

* MANY in the City and Westminster are convinced the feeble fourth quarter growth figure of 0.1% will be revised upwards. Former Bank of England monetary policy committee member David “Danny” Blanchflower, the man who spotted the recession coming months before many others, is not so sure. “There is an equal chance that the reported figure will be revised down or up in the future,” he says. “There is no credible evidence to sustain the claims that we have been out of recession for some time. The we couldn't possibly be wrong' crowd have egg on their faces once again.” So who is Blanchflower talking about? It could be anyone from Lord Mandelson to a host of City economists who once again got their forecasts wildly skewed. But special mention is reserved for Ben Broadbent and Kevin Daly — “those highly paid economic forecasters at Goldman Sachs, bonuses and all” — and his ex-Bank of England colleague Andrew Sentance, “that supreme forecaster of recessions”. Ouch.

* BLANCHFLOWER also has a few choice words for George Osborne and the shadow chancellor's view that “we urgently need a new model of economic growth that includes a credible deficit reduction plan that keeps mortgage rates low, creates jobs and doesn't choke off recovery”. Cue Blanchflower: “It would be wonderful if, in the next two weeks, we discovered oil under Hampshire, gold in the Yorkshire Dales, silver deposits on Clapham Common, and a cure for both cancer and Aids. Osborne is living in a world of make-believe: pretending there are simple solutions to tough problems is just tomfoolery.”