Estates Gazette Rich List 2011 – 141- 170
When Estates Gazette published its annual Rich List last year, property’s surviving super rich were under starter’s orders, raring to go. So this year they should have been off. But in the current gloom, the so-called recovery is looking more like a false start as runners and riders face increasingly soft ground.
The good news is that the top 250 thoroughbreds in the Estates Gazette Rich List are now worth a total of £87bn, up a cool £15bn on last year.
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172 Con Folkes & Family
£90m
Folkes Group
2010: £85m (+£5m)
Folkes Holdings saw its profits jump sharply in 2010 from £3.7m to £8.3m on an increased turnover of £27.3m.
The Midlands-based group, which can trace its history all the way back to 1697 as a blacksmith making chain mail and swords, has more than £60m of net assets.
Run by 58-year-old Con Folkes, it is now one of the largest private property groups in the Midlands. In the current climate, it should be worth £60m.
We add another £30m for other assets to the Folkes family.
172 John Hitchcox
£90m
Yoo Holdings
2010: £90m (No change)
Property entrepreneur John Hitchcox owns about two-thirds of his Yoo Holdings company, which is working on 33 developments worldwide. He formed the development and design group with designer Phillipe Stark in 1999.
Before the recession, the business was worth around £170m but its value fell and, in 2008, its design arm alone was valued at £64m. That represents around half the overall operation. With the sector still under pressure, we cautiously value the whole business at £120m today.
Hitchcox also has around £9.5m of personal property assets and a stake in a London estate agency. Last year he put £10m into a new fund to invest in stalled property developments. In all, we reckon Hitchcox, 50, is worth around £90m.
172 Roger Wickens & Family
£90m
Store Property Holdings
2010: £67m (+£23m)
Store Property Holdings began developing shops and offices in Sussex more than 50 years ago. Today, it is a broadly-based property operation with 1.5m sq ft of industrial and retail units throughout London and the South East.
The Chichester-based operation made £4.8m profit on £11.2m sales in 2010-11. Owned by Roger Wickens, 67, and his family trusts, it is worth its near £83m of net assets. Other assets take the family to £90m.
175 Simon & Paul Upward
£86m
Ocobase
2010: £63m (+£23m)
The profits for brothers Simon, 50, and Paul Upward, 48, who own and run Croydon-based property company, Ocobase, hit £4.8m this year on a turnover of £6.5m – a juicy return. The company is worth its £76m net assets. We add another £10m for other assets to the Upwards.
176 Martin Birrane
£85m
Peer Group
2010: £110m (-£25m)
An Irish property magnate from Co Mayo, where his father ran a tailoring business, Martin Birrane developed a taste for real estate and, in the 1960s, set up his property company, Peer Group. In 2009-10, Peer’s net assets rose from £70.5m to £76.4m and it is worth that sum.
Birrane, 76, also owns the Mondello Park racing track in Co Kildare which, after significant investment, hosts international race meetings.
With other interests, including the Lola racing car operation, which last year lost £3.3m, Birrane is worth £85m in the current climate.
176 Simon Clarke & Family
£85m
St Modwen
2010: £100m (-£15m)
The Estates Gazette award-winning St Modwen reported a £37.5m profit in 2010. It was co-founded by Sir Stan Clarke, who died in 2004, leaving £138.9m in his will.
A plumber by trade, Clarke later started a construction business with £125 of savings. He sold it for £51m in 1987, keeping the Birmingham-based property arm, which became St Modwen.
Simon Clarke, his 46-year-old son, sits on the St Modwen board. The family stake is now worth £36m as the recent stock market malaise takes its toll.
The Clarke family also owned a stake in the Northern Racing operation, sold for £65.9m in 2007. Other assets take the family to £85m after tax.
176 The Duke of Richmond & Gordon
£85m
& Family
The Goodwood Estate Company
2010: £80m (+£5m)
Losses of £1.1m on £52m sales at The Goodwood Estate Company in 2010 paint a gloomy picture, but the firm still has nearly £51m of net assets.
And the entrepreneurial Earl of March has done wonders at the 12,000-acre West Sussex estate. Horse racing, vintage car races and other attractions have raised huge revenue for Goodwood.
March’s father, the 82-year-old Duke of Richmond & Gordon, succeeded his father to the title in 1992.
With land prices rising, and taking into account an incomparable art collection as well as the value of the Goodwood brand name, the family wealth should total £85m at least.
176 John Marston & Family
£85m
Marston Properties
2010: £76m (+£9m)
Led by John Marston, 76, the London-based Marston family has been in the building and property business since 1895. In 2002, the family demerged its hotel interests and, four years later, these were sold for £180m.
The separate Marston Properties Holdings made £1.4m profit on £7.4m sales in 2009-10. It is worth its £65m net assets.
Marston had bought out family members from the business before the hotels sale. Allowing for this and any tax on sale proceeds, we value the immediate Marston family at £85m.
180 Jeff Smith
£84m
Proudreed
2010: £119m (-£35m)
Jeff Smith chaired AIM, a Hampshire company making cabins for aircraft and trains. It was recently sold to its management team. Smith had a stake worth perhaps £24m.
The 65-year-old is a keen racehorse owner and maintains a stud in Hampshire where he breeds thoroughbreds. His main asset is a property company, Proudreed, which he owns jointly with Caspar MacDonald-Hall. It had more than £140m net assets in 2010, valuing Smith’s stake at £70m. Other assets take him to £84m after tax.
181 Zef Eisenberg
£82m
Maximuscle
New entry
Now based in the Channel Isles, where he is heavily involved in property, bodybuilder and athlete Zef Eisenberg wrote a book about sports supplements at the age of 18. He used the profits to launch his firm, Maximuscle, which supplies supplements for athletes and bodybuilders.
Eisenberg, 38, sold stakes to private equity companies but remained a shareholder until December 2010 when pharmaceutical giant GSK bought the company for £162m.
Following the sale, Eisenberg earmarked £150m for investment in health and fitness businesses and real estate, and in May bought a retail and leisure property on Kensington High Street, in west London, for £12.8m, a 5.48% yield.
Eisenberg’s proceeds from the Maximuscle sale and his other investments take him to £82m.
181 Bill Morris & Family
£82m
Morris & Co (Shrewsbury)
2010: £82m (No change)
Started in 1869, Morris & Co (Shrewsbury) has developed into a flourishing business with interests in property, care homes, power generation and marketing.
In 2009-10 the company made £480,000 profit on £22.1m sales. Run and owned by the 73-year-old Bill Morris and his family, it is worth its near £82m of net assets.
181 Kip Bertram & Family
£82m
Rysa Lodge Residential Properties
2010: £80m (+£2m)
The UK’s largest independent book wholesaler was founded in a disused chicken shed in Norwich by Kip Bertram and his late mother Elise. In 1999, it was sold in a £54m deal, valuing the Bertram family stake at £35m. Bertram, 67, moved into property development and other investments. He is now worth £82m.
181 John Chamberlain & Family
£82m
Chamberlain Holdings
2010: £81m (+£1m)
Run by John Chamberlain, 67, Chamberlain Holdings showed £74m of net assets in 2010. The Luton-based company started life as a small joinery manufacturing firm in 1951, later diversifying into property. The Chamberlain family own 99.5%. Other assets add £8m.
185 Eddie Irvine
£80m
E Irvine Enterprises
New entry
Eddie Irvine never managed to win the Formula 1 world crown in an exciting racing career from 1993 to 2000, but he earned £40m as a driver who was pipped at the post for the 1999 championship. The son of a Northern Irish garage owner, Irvine, 46, invested heavily in property, with around 50 flats and houses to his name – the result of spending only 10% of what he earned. His portfolio includes four palatial houses in Miami, several in Milan and two spacious apartments in Manhattan, New York. There are also his Irish retreats in Dalkey, just outside Dublin (he sold another smaller house there for around £5m).
Irvine’s biggest visible company asset in the UK is Chrishardzoe Developments, a property operation with £566,000 of net assets in 2008-09.
His massive Eddie Irvine Sports complex in Bangor, Northern Ireland, seems to be going from strength to strength as a popular venue for karting, football and paintball events. In all, he is worth around £80m.
185 Peter Gadsby
£80m
Ark Capital
2010: £80m (No change)
Peter Gadsby, one of the East Midlands’ top developers, sold his stake in the Birch property group in 2000 for around £35m.
Gadsby had a close involvement with Championship football club Derby County until its 2008 £50m takeover. In March 2010, he launched a £37m bid to buy the club back, but this was declined by the Derby board. Ark Capital is the holding company for the Gadsby family trusts. The group’s primary activity is commercial and residential property development, undertaken by its main operating companies, Cedar House, Radleigh Group and Miller Birch.
The latter is the developer behind the ng2 business park in Nottingham. In all, Gadsby, 63, is easily worth £80m.
185 Patrick McCormack & Family
£80m
Donegal Place Investments
New entry
The low-key McCormack family own several Belfast property operations, including Birchsilver, Charioteer and Manach, which have around £15m of
net assets between them. But their biggest stake is a 50% shareholding in Donegal Place Investments (Michael Herbert, of Lebreh, has the other half). This company showed £151m of net assets in 2009. In all, we value the McCormack family, represented here by 44-year-old Patrick McCormack, at around £80m.
185 Bill McCabe
£80m
LNC Property
New entry
Irish tycoon Bill McCabe backed a venture capital operation, Atlantic Bridge Ventures, which made a hefty profit on the recent sale of a telecoms company, AEP Networks, for over £50m. McCabe, who hails from Belfast but is based in Dublin, knows the tech scene well. He made £47m from judicious sales of stakes in SmartForce (now Skillsoft), a Nasdaq-quoted global leader in online learning he led until 2000.
He invested part of the proceeds in other emerging technology companies and Glasgow-based LNC Property Group, which grew out of his €117m purchase
of a mixed property portfolio from Scottish Life.
In 2004, LNC Property Group bought an abandoned waterfront leisure complex in the German city of Bremen for around £40m. It has been converted into a top-class shopping, leisure and hotel complex worth around £180m. In all, with his shrewd investments, McCabe, 54, is easily worth £80m.
185 Ray Horney
£80m
Real Estate Opportunities
2010: £90m (-£10m)
Property group Real Estate Opportunities is chaired by Ray Horney, a veteran entrepreneur, whose early career was renting out washing machines.
Horney moved into white goods retailing and sold his business for £21m in 1985. Five years later, he took a stake in St James Beach Hotels, making another £27m when it was sold in 1993. Horney, 75, has £1m-worth of share stakes in four quoted property companies, including Real Estate Opportunities, which recently reported a loss of £91.1m in the last year.
REO owns Battersea Power Station, which has a £230m expired loan secured against it. It has been looking for a long-term equity partner for a £5.5bn redevelopment, but this is not for the faint-hearted. Schemes to redevelop the site have repeatedly run aground since power production ended three decades ago. Nonetheless, taking into account other assets, we value Horney at £80m.
185 The Earl of Yarborough
£80m
CYZ
New entry
The late Earl died in 1991, leaving £67m in his will. He left Yarborough the family seat – a 28,000-acre estate near Grimsby.
Yarborough also has some small property companies with, in all, around £280,000 net assets. With good farming land soaring in value, we value Yarborough, 48, at £80m.
185 Charles Yeates
£80m
WS Yeates
2010: £80m (No change)
Ex-RAF man Charles Yeates, 75, started in business at the age of 22 and became a leading dealer in buses and coaches. Today, his Loughborough-based company – WS Yeates – is involved in property and fine art. In 2010, the company showed nearly £30m net assets. Overseas property and his art collection take him to £80m.
192 Melvyn & Delia Grodner
£79m
Atmore Properties
2010: £80m (-£1m)
Melvyn, 67, and Delia Grodner, 58, own Atmore Properties, which made a £6.5m profit on £12.2m sales in 2010-11.
We value the Liverpool-based business on its £48.5m of net assets. But we can see at least another three small but separate businesses with a further £15m of net assets. Other assets add over £15m.
193 Howard Raymond
£78m
1861 Leisure
New entry
Howard Raymond was for many years estranged from his father, the late Paul Raymond, porn king and owner of vast tracts of London’s Soho. But the pair were reconciled just before Paul’s death in 2008. A deep family split over the direction of the family property empire was settled recently. Raymond, 51, took 20% of the Soho Estates’ property portfolio, which includes 90 West End freeholds. It had net assets of £378m in 2009, since when it has been wound up. We ascribe nearly £76m of those assets to Raymond. Other wealth should take him to £78m.
193 Jeremy Middleton
£78m
Homeserve
2010: £72m (+£6m)
Quoted household repair services group Homeserve was founded by Richard Harpin and Jeremy Middleton, who teamed up in a joint venture with South Staffordshire Water in 1993. Growing rapidly, it was demerged from South Staffs in 2004 and is now worth nearly £1.56bn. Middleton is not on the main board but sits on the operating company board helping to grow the business. Middleton, 50, is also a canny property investor and business angel. He retains a stake in Walsall-based Homeserve now worth £50m. Other assets, including a property company – Cortonwood 1 – with £3.6m of net assets, plus past dividends from South Staffs, should take him to £78m.
193 David Russell
£78m
Property Alliance
2010: £75m (+£3m)
David Russell’s fast-growing private property empire has teamed up with a fund management group to invest £150m in the North West over the next two years.
One of nine children, Russell trained as a carpenter in his native Rochdale. He went to work on a market stall but made his first fortune in fitted kitchens.
During the 1980s, he built up the Farouche Kitchens company. By the age of 29, he had sold the business for £12m. A few years in the jet-set world of supermodels and high living followed.
Today, Russell, 55, spends his time on his property and construction businesses. The Russell empire, apart from city centre sites in Manchester, also includes offices and leisure developments in Oxford, Chorley and Blackburn.
His Property Alliance operation now has a development and investment portfolio valued at £240m. It showed £3.2m profit and £57m of net assets in 2009-10. We value Russell at £78m.
196 Michael Heller & Family
£77m
London & Associated Properties
2010: £72m (+£5m)
London & Associated Properties chairman Michael Heller, 75, says he is “cautiously optimistic” about the future after the firm swung back into the black. In its half-year results to 30 June 2011, the shopping centre specialist posted a pretax profit of £1.4m, compared with a loss of £9.8m last year. Its earnings per share also increased to 1.62p from a loss per share of 7.23p.
The Hellers have controlled the business since the early 1970s, with a £17m stake. They also have a majority stake in the quoted Bisichi Mining which, together with other holdings and property interests, conservatively values the family at around £77m.
197 William Rankin & Family
£76m
Hanro
2010: £61m (+£15m)
Hanro, Newcastle’s largest commercial property company, snapped up a prime city centre property at a knock-down price of £3.25m, a 7.5% yield, earlier this year.
The Bar Luga restaurant and office premises on Grey Street had fetched £5m at the height of the boom.
Hanro has been lauded for its sensitive £2.5m redevelopment of the Grade II-listed Cooper’s Auction Yard building in Newcastle city centre. The 1897 building, close to Newcastle Central Station, is a rare example of a purpose-built, multi-storey horse, carriage and motor car repository.
The company has invested heavily in Newcastle’s city centre area around Grainger Street, with £7.5m of purchases in recent months. It is chaired by William Rankin, 80, and, while he has only a small stake, many of the shares are held in family trusts.
In 2010, Hanro’s profits came in at £5.6m on £9.4m sales. With £70.3m net assets, it should be worth at least that. It is owned by the wider Rankin family and trusts. We add £6m for other assets.
198 Debbie Dove
£75m
Spey & Dove
2010: £75m (No change)
After taking her A levels, Debbie Dove took a holiday job as an estate agent in the late 1970s. Within three years she was branch manager and she eventually bought the local North London agency.
Later, Dove, 50, former wife of top divorce lawyer, Raymond “Jaws” Tooth, built up her own luxury property portfolio in the area and offered interior design services to wealthy clients. Her portfolio has been valued at around £80m.
The jewels in her property crown – a seven-bedroom Victorian mansion with a neighbouring 18th-century three-bedroom cottage in north London – were on sale for £30m. Cautiously, we settle for £75m.
199 Austin Baird & Family
£72m
Ravenhill Estates
New entry
Austin Baird, 45, is now quietly working as a property developer through a company called Ravenhill Estates. It had £8.5m of net assets in 2010 and Baird owns it all.
The Baird family previously owned Bairds Chemists, Northern Ireland’s largest chain of chemist shops. It was taken over by the Alliance Unichem operation in May 2005 in an £81m deal.
The family followed this by selling the chemists’ shops that they still owned for £20m. We assume that they reinvested some of the proceeds in property assets, such as Ravenhill. After tax and any capital gains, the Baird family should be worth £72m today.
200 Duncan Sinclair & Family
£72m
Mountview Estates
2010: £75m (-£3m)
Mountview Estates, the London-based property company, is now worth £155m. It declared a full-year pretax profit of £23.6m for 2010-11, down slightly on
the previous year.
The company is chaired by accountant Duncan Sinclair, 64, and the Sinclair family’s stake is now worth £67m. We add another £5m for the family’s other assets.
julia.cahill@estatesgazette.com
Rich List 2011: 201-230
