High society Bell Pottinger wedding on hold as troubled PR firm's reputation takes a spin

With a guest list set to include royalty, rock stars, business tycoons, supermodels and Conservative politicians, their wedding should have been the high society event of the year.

But, with the near collapse of the PR firm Bell Pottinger amid damning allegations it tried to incite race hatred in South Africa, James Henderson, its former boss, and Heather Kerzner, a his fiancee and wealthy socialite, have been forced to cancel their ceremony.

The couple were due to marry in November in what would, no doubt, have been a glittering spectacle. The wedding’s “postponement” is particularly embarrassing after Kerzner, the ex-wife of a hotel billionaire, invested a sizeable part of her fortune to buy 15 per cent of Bell Pottinger.

That modern day dowry and his stake, giving them 40 percent of the company, is now near worthless as the company is predicted to close after losing key clients.

A source close to the couple insisted their relationship had not been put in jeopardy by the loss of their investment or the company’s probable collapse.

“The wedding will go ahead next year. They’re still together. It’s just they’ve got a lot on their plate.”

The demise of the firm that once advised Margaret Thatcher, and the question mark hanging over this power couple’s relationship is as tragic as it is absurd.

Set up in 1998 by Lord Bell, Thatcher’s former media advisor, Bell Pottinger was not afraid to represent controversial clients, including General Pinochet and Oscar Pistorious.

In 2010, Henderson merged his City public relations company with Bell Pottinger. With offices around the world and multi-million pounds contracts advising the rich and powerful, the future looked very promising.

Five years later, Henderson was introduced by the Duchess of York, one of his clients, to Kerzner at a charity fundraising party.

The glamorous 48-year-old New Yorker hobnobs with the rich and famous, including Ronnie Wood, from the Rolling Stones, Sir Philip Green, Boris Johnson, photographer David Bailey, and Prince Edward and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Wessex.

Henderson would have been well aware the socialite was used to the finer things in life. Her first husband, whom she married aged 24, was a successful American banker. In 2000, she married, Solomon Kerzner, a hotel tycoon 34 years her senior and described as the Donald Trump of his native South Africa.

Before their divorce in 2011, she had enjoyed the 82-year-old’s private jet and yacht, travelled to his luxury resorts in Mexico, Dubai, Mauritius, the Maldives and lived in the Bahamas, on a Buckinghamshire country estate and later in their Holland Park mansion.

With that in mind, no doubt, Henderson this year booked a table for a Valentine’s Day dinner at Scott’s in Mayfair and proposed. Within days, gossip columnists began speculating about the London wedding of the year.

Her investment a few months later in Bell Pottinger meant they had a powerful and controlling 40 per cent stake.

However, the company in the reputations business was about to suffer a catastrophic public relations crisis of its very own.

Before his resignations last year, Lord Bell had won a contract to represent Oakbay Investments, a South African company owned by the super-wealthy Gupta family. The deal, rumoured to be worth £100,000 a month, was to promote “economic emancipation”.

But, allegations of “dirty tricks” forced Henderson to commission an independent report. It made damning reading. It alleged that the company had stoked up racial tensions and staff had set up fake Twitter accounts to target white businessmen, while journalists were “misled” or “undermined”.

The fallout was spectacular: Henderson, who was not involved in the account, promptly resigned. He said he was “very concerned” this had happened under his “watch” and he and Heather still held their “major stake” and were “committed investors”.

Then, the company was ignominiously thrown out of the PR trade association for bring the industry into disrepute.

In the days that followed it emerged that Lord Bell and Henderson had been at loggerheads. There was even some speculation that Henderson’s relationship with Kerzner had meant he had taken his “eye off the ball”, a claim he denied.

Neither Henderson nor Kerzner were available for comment.

For two people who have enjoyed and controlled the limelight, they now face their toughest times yet.