Princess Eugenie of York's (centre) husband Jack Brooksbank (left) has resigned from the Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson's (right) company Rumpel Water Ltd. Photo / Getty Images
Princess Eugenie of York's (centre) husband Jack Brooksbank (left) has resigned from the Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson's (right) company Rumpel Water Ltd. Photo / Getty Images
She has welcomed both her sons-in-law in gushing style, declaring when Edo Mapelli Mozzi married Princess Beatrice last month "never has a mother been more proud".
And she observed of Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank that they "float with laughter and love".
But these effusions have not, alas, dissuaded both men from cutting themselves adrift from the Duchess of York — in a commercial sense, that is.
In a flurry of activity remarkable even by the sometimes haphazard pattern of Fergie's business career, I can reveal she and Mapelli Mozzi and Brooksbank became the three directors of a company, Rumpel Water Ltd, which was incorporated on June 25.
Princess Eugenie of York's (centre) husband Jack Brooksbank (left) has resigned from the Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson's (right) company Rumpel Water Ltd. Photo / Getty Images
Yet only three weeks later, on July 13 — just four days before Mapelli Mozzi married Beatrice in a private ceremony at Windsor — both he and Brooksbank resigned, leaving Fergie as the company's sole director.
A spokesman for Fergie attempts to unravel this brief but extraordinary chapter in British corporate history.
"Both sons-in-law were going to get involved but then realised they didn't have enough time to commit to it," he tells me, "so they resigned as directors."
Rumpel, he adds, is a "water-cleansing company" whose operations may ultimately be mainly overseas — although not at the moment. "It's now dormant but will start up again at some point in the future," explains the spokesman.
Despite Fergie declaring she has 'never been more proud' of her daughter's wedding, Edo Mapelli Mozzi quit the Duchess' firm four days before the marriage. Photo / AP
It is difficult to envisage either of Fergie's sons-in-law returning to the Rumpel board. Mapelli Mozzi heads his own highly successful property and design company, Banda.
His former fiancée, Dara Huang, with whom he has a 3-year-old son, recently relocated her office to the same Kensington building in West London in which Banda is based.
Brooksbank, formerly a manager at Mahiki, the Mayfair nightclub favoured by Princes William and Harry during their carefree youth, is now a brand ambassador for Casamigos, a tequila company co-founded by George Clooney.
The Duchess' business career has been a rollercoaster ride. In the mid-1990s, she cleared debts of £4 million, courtesy of an ITV adaptation of her children's stories about Budgie the Little Helicopter.
Earlier this year it emerged that Gate Ventures, the theatre investment company of which she was until recently a director, would have debts of £10.3m — even after recovering all money owed to it.
But she bounced back by forging a commercial partnership with Montegrappa, an Italian manufacturer of luxury goods.
Let's hope that Rumpel gives Fergie something to write home about.
