Financial Times journalist Christopher Parkes passes away

Christopher Parkes, a Financial Times journalist, has died at the age of 75

Jurek Martin of the FT writes, “That was followed by a stint as consumer industries correspondent in London, where he wrote some fine fly-on-the-wall stories about corporate takeovers. But, always restless, he also harboured a strong entrepreneurial streak unusual for journalists in the pre-digital age when long-term employment with a single publication was more normal. He went to work on a FT European business magazine, which took him back to Europe, unfortunately just as the magazine was on its last legs.

“But he was in his element in Bonn, and later as Frankfurt bureau chief. He loved nothing more than tweaking the stuffy noses of German businesses and shocking the equally staid local financial press by turning up at press conferences in his trademark bright red braces. Quentin Peel, then his boss in Bonn, remembers his unforgettable words on the opening of the new Munich airport when he described the endless escalators and moving walkways as resembling ‘a gigantic human pinball machine’.

“It was the same spirit of adventure that next took him to Los Angeles, principally to cover Hollywood. His articles on the power struggles at Disney between the family and Michael Eisner, the chief executive, cut to the heart of the story.”