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THE Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft has reportedly paid nearly £1.5m for the only double Victoria Cross awarded during the First World War.

MORE than 100 dealers braved gales to be at Olympia at 9.30 on the morning of November 18 for a meeting called by Florida impresario David Lester. They were there to discuss the London International Fine Art Fair, the renamed June Olympia which he co-owns with Clarion but very much runs himself.

DAVID Lester’s Florida company International Fine Art Expositions have announced that Freya Simms, who recently stepped down after four years as show director of Olympia’s antique fairs, is joining them as director of sales and marketing at Expoships and IFAE.

David Lester has unveiled his new plans for next year’s summer Olympia, now branded the London International Fine Art Fair.

PARTRIDGE Fine Art chairman Mark Law has told ATG that the firm’s bank called in administrators after giving him only 90 minutes notice to pay off their £3m loan facility.

FLORIDA fairs impresario David Lester and his wife Lee Ann have taken control of the summer Olympia fair. They have already rebranded it the London International Fine Art Fair.

FLORIDA-based fair organiser David Lester and his wife Lee-Ann have secured a deal with Clarion Events to become the directors of the June Olympia art and antiques fair.

FLORIDA fairs impresario David Lester and his wife Lee Anne will launch the Miami International Art Fair at the Miami Beach Convention Center from January 6 to 10 next year.

FLORIDA-based art fair entrepreneur David Lester is proposing a radical new relationship between exhibitor and fair organiser in response to the global economic turmoil.

LORD Ashcroft’s Victoria Cross collection – the largest in the world – is to go on public display following his £5m donation to the Imperial War Museum. The news comes as the museum has also received a donation from the Art Fund to purchase an important watercolur by Keith Vaughan (1912-1977) at auction.

A DEAL is being finalised which means Palm Beach | America's International Fine Art & Antique Fair, is owned once again by Florida-based entrepreneur David Lester, who founded the event.

Lord Ashcroft has been at the centre of a successful bid to recover 96 medals, including nine Victoria Crosses, stolen from a museum in New Zealand in December.

Spink are to put the unrivalled Victoria Cross collection of Lord Ashcroft on display in an 11-day exhibition in their main gallery in April. The exhibition is a forerunner to what is expected to become a permanent public display in two years’ time.

ALMOST five years after the idea was first conceived by Florida entrepreneur David Lester, his luxury floating exhibition palace SeaFair is preparing for its maiden voyage in the summer.

SEAFAIR, the ambitious project of a floating antiques selling exhibition along the Eastern seaboard of the United States, has delayed its launch from late this year to next June.

HENRY Sandon, the acknowledged leading authority on Worcester porcelain, has been awarded the Freedom of the City of London. The ceremony took place at the Guildhall on February 28, where Mr Sandon then gave the annual Ravenscroft lecture at Glaziers Hall SE1, an event staged by the Glass-Sellers’ Company.

ALONGSIDE, Tom Jones, Bruce Forsyth and the Ashes winning cricket team, the New Year’s honours list featured Richard Dennis.

Plans to rejuvenate firm include big stand at Olympia

Charles Hanson, formerly of Wintertons, launches his own auction business next month.

The recent arrest of Sheikh Saud Al-Thani of Qatar appears to mark the end of a remarkable one-man, eight-year spending spree in the global art market.