Will Peggy Gou save the night?
Peggy Gou announcing a partnership with Jägermeister seemed like a noble idea to save the nightlife industry while it’s been on its knees. People celebrated her engagement, but there’s more to it.
On July 7th 2020 Sub Club launched a crowdfunding campaign. On the same day we got aware that Sub Club is co-owned by a multimillionaire.
After becoming aware of the Sub Club fundraiser #SaveOurSub, we did a quick search and came across a BBC article from 2016 about one of the Sub Club’s co-owner’s companies (Jacobs & Turner) which was accused of tax avoidance by HMRC, after investing in high-profile movies such as Avatar and Life of Pi.
https://www.bbc.com/.../uk-scotland-scotland-business...
So we took a few days to look deeper into what was going on. Our research comes from information that is public and we aren’t including any confidential things we were sent.
In this thread we’re looking into how Peggy Gou pledged a donation for the Sub Club via Jägermeister UK that later got cancelled by Jägermeister. Peggy Gou announced on June 10, 2020, she was partnering with Jägermeister for their #SaveTheNight campaign. On the same day her business partner Usman Khushi posted that he’s working on the #SaveTheNight campaign with Peggy Gou & Jägermeister. Usman Khushi is the sole director of Peggy Gou’s company PEGGY GOODS LTD.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12424200/officers
Almost a month later on July 7, Peggy Gou announced that Jägermeister would be making a donation through its #SaveTheNight initiative. As many are aware now Usman Khushi is a co-owner and director of Glasgow Sub Club.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11768712
We reached out to Jägermeister and asked them how this initiative can seem credible if the only donation which has been published on social media thus far is to a club which is co-owned by Peggy Gou business partner, given her role as brand ambassador for Jägermeister.
Jägermeister agreed that donating to a club with business ties to people involved in the initiative would lead to false impressions and harm the cause it is designed for. Sub Club is no longer in consideration to receive part of Jägermeister’s #SaveTheNight funding, but Peggy Gou will remain an ambassador for the initiative.
On August 13th 2020 The Ferret reported that Sub Club recently crowdfunded £190k after they couldn’t access furlough cash — in which they also cited a £45k legal challenge over plans for a Wetherspoon hotel next door. Their investigation revealed that one of the club owner’s family sold the land to the pub chain for £1.15m in 2014.
