Fred crimps his way to a fortune

Good Lord, it's miserable over here. Everyone hears the news, but for the time being at least, most are keeping schtum about how it affects them. Apartments are quietly landing on the market and children are being pulled discreetly out of expensive private schools. Much like London in fact.

I found myself in SoHo in the middle of the day on Monday and it seemed everyone was either French or Italian. There was even a decent crowd at Cipriani Downtown on West Broadway, one of those places where a starter costs $20. It struck me that these old-school Europeans have probably been socking away cash these past years, just as their parents taught them. No Anglo-Saxon credit junkies here.

In fact, the idol of this downtown Euro-crowd is not a financier, fund manager or lawyer, but a hairdresser. Earlier this year, just before the markets tanked, Frédéric Fekkai sold his haircare business to Procter and Gamble. Or rather, the private-equity firm which had acquired the business from Fekkai in return for a stake in their investment funds, rather than cash, sold the business.

Fekkai has made hundreds of millions of dollars from selling the various parts of his empire: salons, products, brand. And he is spoken of in reverential terms by business people and the fashion crowd alike. Not bad for a man who first made his mark as a colourist to celebrities like Martha Stewart.

And a reminder that in good times or bad, someone who can actually do something people understand - fix women's hair - is worth far more than some gimcrack financial engineer.