The publisher of Sarah Ferguson’s recently cancelled children’s book is owned by a Chinese state company.
New Frontier Publishing, ostensibly an Australian book firm with a London office, is owned by Zhejiang Publishing United Group, a business under the provincial government of Zhejiang in south-eastern China. The company bought New Frontier Publishing in 2015 for $2m.
New Frontier was due to bring out Flora & Fern: Kindness along the Way this week but withdrew it from sale and removed any reference on its website to the former Duchess of York as one of its authors. The book was first due out on 9 October but delayed until 20 November after it was revealed Ferguson wrote a grovelling apology to the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein in 2011 and called him her “supreme friend”, despite publicly denouncing him.
Ferguson, 66, who lost the right to call herself Sarah, Duchess of York, after the King stripped Andrew of his royal titles, is said to be distraught at the fallout. Friends fear for her health and portray her as the author of her own misfortune, partly because of her chronic overspending. “She’s never been good with money,” one said. “What is she going to do? Where’s she going to go?”
Last week, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor applied to shut some of his last remaining business interests, including the international arm of his Pitch@Palace Dragon’s Den-style company start-up competition. Its Chinese version was founded by Yang Tengbo, who was suspected of being part of an arm of the communist state targeting influential figures to make them sympathetic to China’s world-view.
Andrew, 65, also met at least three times Cai Qi, President Xi Jinping’s de facto chief of staff, who was alleged to be the ultimate recipient of material in a spy case involving two Britons which collapsed in September. Neither New Frontier nor Ferguson would discuss the book deal, which they announced in July last year.
Photograph by Marc Piasecki/WireImage