Anil Bhoyrul

He was born in Mauritius[1] and moved to the UK when he was 14.[3] He graduated in Civil Engineering in 1988.[1]

Bhoyrul started working in civil engineering but soon switched to journalism.[4] In 1993 he joined BusinessAge magazine under its editor and owner Tom Rubython, becoming deputy editor the following year.[4] Rubython sold the title to VNU in 1995; according to PR Week "The legend of the pre-VNU BusinessAge was that it went down in a welter of writs".[4] In April 1996[5] Rubython launched the Sunday Business with Bhoyrul as editor,[4] but despite strong initial sales and investment by Owen Oyston, the Sunday Business struggled financially[6] and failed within a year; the Barclay brothers finalised a deal to buy it from the receivers in August 1997.[5]

Meanwhile BusinessAge had struggled under VNU and was closed in June 1996.[7] Bhoyrul saw that he did not fit in the plans of the new regime at the Sunday Business and with a consortium of investors led by Oyston[8] bought BusinessAge back from VNU.[4] BusinessAge relaunched in June 1997 with Bhoyrul as editor[9] promising "to take the title back to its glossy, controversial and scandalous best. We’ll probably ruin a few careers along the way, but only if they deserve it".[4] Oyston sold his media interests[10] after he was convicted of raping a teenager in 1997.[11] Chris Butt took over as editor in 1998,[8] when Oyston sold to Priory Publishing.

Bhoyrul and BusinessAge colleague James Hipwell[3] then joined the Daily Mirror under editor Piers Morgan. Between incidents such as Bhoyrul getting caught stealing a penguin from London Zoo,[12] they wrote a share-tipping column called "City Slickers". They bought shares before tipping them in the newspaper, in 44 separate incidents between 1 August 1999 and 29 February 2000.[13] Bhoyrul pleaded guilty to the conspiracy on 11 August 2005.[14] He was convicted on charges of conspiracy to breach the Financial Services Act 1986 and sentenced to 180 hours of community service.[15] Hipwell denied the charges[13] along with private investor Terry Shepherd,[16] and they were sentenced to six months[17] and three months in prison[16] respectively.

After they were sacked from the Daily Mirror in 2000,[12] Mohamed Al-Fayed gave Bhoyrul and Hipwell a column in Punch and £100,000 to turn into £1 million within 12 months.[18] They wrote a book "for Mirror readers, not your sophisticated types"[18] entitled Make a Million in Twelve Months; We did! but at the time of its launch, five months into the challenge, they had lost 30% of the money.[18] In July 2000 he was planning to write a book on the City Slickers story called A Tip Too Far, and claimed that he had had enough of newspapers and wanted to go back to Mauritius to run a bar on a beach.[18]

However soon Bhoyrul joined Richard Desmond's Express group, where he wrote articles under the byline Frank Bailey.[19] He wrote 26 negative stories about Conrad Black in the Sunday Express between September 2001 and May 2003,[20] including one questioning Black's finances that the newspaper subsequently admitted was false.[21] In May 2003 he wrote to Piers Morgan apologising for articles he had written under various pseudonyms in the Sunday Express :"Nothing would make me happier than not having to write all this stuff, but then nobody else pays me £6k a month...the thinking behind that column comes as you can guess from people above me".[22]

In 2004 he moved to Dubai to become editor of Arabian Business,[16] a weekly English-language magazine published by ITP Media Group. He left the magazine suddenly in 2005[16] but stayed with ITP and became editor-in-chief. He left in June 2020, shortly after Arabian Business introduced a paywall.[23] As of March 2021 he is CEO of JES Media in Dubai.[24]

Bhoyrul is married to Branka, a Slovenian photographer.[25] They have three children - Joe, Evita and Savannah.[26] In 2018, worried that his children were becoming too spoilt and materialistic in Dubai, he got them to each throw a dart at a world map and as a result sent them to live in La Paz, Bolivia for two years.[26] He is a fan of Arsenal F.C.[26]

• ITP articles written by Anil Bhoyrul