CATS could make way for Bitches after the hip-hop mogul Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs emerged as the surprise bidder for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s West End theatres.

Now calling himself P. Diddy and famed for dating Jennifer Lopez and flaunting his diamond-studded jewellery, Combs, 35, wants to expand his £250 million clothes and music empire to include the theatre.

Bids are being considered for Lord Lloyd-Webber’s Really Useful Group venues and accountants at Combs’s Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment group have seen the figures.

Combs, who was cleared in 2001 of an illegal gun possession charge in New York, has discovered a love for the smell of greasepaint. The former business management student made his Broadway debut last year, bringing a young urban audience to Raisin in the Sun, a drama about the black American experience.

Bad Boy business managers were alerted to the news that Lloyd Webber is seeking to offload several theatres in his group to allow him to concetrate on composing.

Combs is looking to add one of the Lyric, Duchess, Apollo or Garrick theatres to an empire that includes a rap record company, a £150 million clothing brand, two restaurants, music publishing and a product marketing business.

Combs is believed to have visited the venues recently and has been made aware that the buildings need renovation. It is believed that profits are almost impossible to squeeze out of the four smallest playhouses in the Really Useful Group. Combs, though, may have other plans for the theatres. Instead of Terrence Rattigan revivals at the Duchess, the venues’ West End locations would make them highly attractive upmarket nightclub properties.

Lloyd Webber, 57, complained recently that he was “a very, very bad businessman”, and that, while his company may appear to be worth a fortune, it was saddled by debt. Combs’s financial acumen has not so far been doubted.

The privately educated rapper dropped out of univer- sity after being offered a record company job and soon produced a stable of stars with his Bad Boy records.

When his discovery, the rapper Notorious B.I.G, was killed in a shoot-out, Combs’s tribute, I’ll Be Missing You, went to No 1 around the world.

Combs and Lloyd Webber have been accused of employing familiar-sounding melodies to create immediate hits.

Music soon took second place to empire-building as Combs opened the 3,500sq ft Sean John menswear store in New York. A womenswear range is planned for this year.

Bad Boy has 400 employees and Fonzworth Bentley, Combs’s former valet, is now promoting cognac and “The Gentlemen’s Movement”. Combs’s marketing company, Blue Flame, teaches Fortune 500 clients, including Pepsi and Microsoft, how to reach an inner-city audience.

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