Last modified on Thu 11 Feb 2021 15.15 EST The life of Naim Attallah, who has died aged 89, might have come from the pages of Balzac: he went from currency dealer to company director, racehorse-owner, film and theatre impresario, publisher, magazine proprietor, parfumier, chocolate-maker and – perhaps most importantly and controversially – author. In the early 1970s, he fell in with John Asprey, heir to the luxury goods group, and under his patronage became joint managing director and eventually group chief executive, expanding the company greatly. On the way up Attallah acquired, independently, Quartet Books (1976), The Women’s Press (1977) and several magazines, including the Wire, the Oldie and the Literary Review, the last of which lost him, over time, an estimated £2.5m.