King’s favourite interior designer hits back at investor pressure

The under-fire chairwoman of King Charles’s favourite interior design firm has hit back at the “distracting” investor plot to remove her. Dame Dianne Thompson, chair of London-listed Sanderson Design Group, wrote to shareholders on Monday urging them to slap down a major investor’s “disruptive” attempts to oust her. LBV Asset Management, which owns 12 per cent of Sanderson, has been pushing for the removal of Dame Thompson, a former National Lottery boss, over the designer’s drift towards “inaction and inertia”. The historic wallpaper maker holds a Royal Warrant and earlier this year hosted King Charles at its new headquarters, but the investor claims new leadership is needed to kick off a “sustained period of change”. Shareholders supportive of LBV’s coup attempt have hit out at the “lavish” redesign of Sanderson’s new headquarters, its slow expansion in the US and the “unjustified” decision to hand the chief executive and finance boss 36 per cent of the group’s profit