378£50m
Paul Bassi
Bond Wolf
Paul Bassi moved into the public spotlight in December 2006 when he was named as the new chief executive of AIM-listed Real Estate Investors, the Hertfordshire-based property investment firm.
The eldest son of a Black Country foundry worker, Bassi, 45, also chairs Bond Wolfe, a West Bromwich-based company, which has one of the largest privately owned property portfolios in the Birmingham area. The portfolio continues to grow in value.
Bassi is also regional chairman of Coutts Bank for the West Midlands. He received the Asian Jewel Lloyds TSB Lifetime achievement award in April this year, the youngest ever to receive the accolade.
We can see a total of around £18m of net assets in various Bond Wolfe companies attributable to Bassi. Personal assets, which include a 125-acre private estate and farm, overseas property, and commercial property predominately in West Bromwich, push Bassi to £50m.
378£50m
Linda Ashley
Current Design
Swedish-born Ashley, 41, is the ex-wife of Mike Ashley, the sportswear billionaire. A property developer in north London, she has stakes in several small businesses including Watford-based Current Design, and, with a divorce settlement, is worth at least £50m.
378£50m
Steven Collins
City & General Group
Steven Collins is a low-key London property man with over 260 directorships listed at Companies House. He works with partners Terence Cole and Mark Steinberg, who have built up a formidable empire. The stable includes CGIS, Compco Holdings and Industrial Securities.
Collins, 54, has a 20% stake in its parent. But his other directorships should easily take him to a very conservative £50m.
378£50m
Andrew Ruhan & Family
Bridgehouse Capital
Arena Central, a joint venture in Birmingham between Andy Ruhan’s Bridgehouse Capital and Miller Developments, secured HSBC bank earlier this year for a 400,000 sq ft prelet – the city’s largest office letting.
Ruhan, 45, is also heavily involved in telecoms. From 1998 to 2000 he ran Global Switch, the data centre provider that was later sold to Chelsfield. Ruhan went on to buy hi-tech businesses that had fallen on hard times. A former director at shed developer Kingspark, he has also continued to expand his property activity.
Having survived a terrible helicopter crash, in 2002 he snapped up a portfolio of Thistle hotels with co-investors for almost £700m. Poor trading eventually led to a sale last year that barely covered the £400m debt taken out against the properties. But Arena Central is looking far more promising for Ruhan, who should be worth at least £50m.
378£50m
Luke & Brian Comer
Brookstream Properties
The former Royal Masonic Boys School at Bushey in Hertfordshire provided a number of locations for the Harry Potter films and, in particular, some scenes set in the magicians’ school Hogwarts. Now, Irish developers Brian, 49, and Luke, 47, Comer have converted it into a series of upmarket apartments so that more people can live in their Harry Potter fantasy world.
Luke Comer spends most of his time attending to his property business in London but he is best known in his native Ireland as a serious trainer of some top racehorses. Originally from Galway, he and his brother Brian made enough money through tirelessly plastering houses to start acquiring properties of their own.
“Brian and I worked 15 hours a day, seven days a week,” he recalls. “We would finish one house or two flats in a day – our trowels were a blur.” He admits he has to keep away from any plasterers in his employ for fear he might sack them for working too slowly.
He has earned a reputation for rescuing derelict public buildings such as mental homes and defence properties, turning them into desirable properties.
The brothers are best known on this side of the Irish Sea for their unsuccessful bid to take over Aston Villa, the Birmingham Premiership football club. We can see £11.5m net assets in the main Comer company, Brookstream Properties, in 2004-05. There are another 12 companies, taking the net assets of the Comers to £40m. With other assets, we value them at £50m.
378£50m
Malcolm Hall
Nobel Property Developments
Malcolm Hall is a Jersey-based property developer. His main company, Nobel Property Developments, showed £8m net assets in its 2006 accounts. But we can see at least another £3.7m of net assets in other companies, such as MSJ Properties and Steelux Holdings.
Hall built up property interests after inheriting a steel tube manufacturing company. Aside from his £3m Jersey mansion, 71-year-old Hall also has homes in London and Florida, and he has launched several commercial radio stations. His total wealth was put at around £50m in late 2005 during a widely reported court case over money involving Hall and his stepdaughter. We stick with the £50m figure.
378£50m
Roger King & Family
International Hospitals Group
Roger King, 71, is chairman of International Hospitals Group, a Hertfordshire-based health care company, which showed nearly £9m net assets in 2004.
King also has a number of other assets including Stoke Park, the luxury Buckinghamshire golf club which featured in the Bond film Goldfinger. Hugh Grant and Tom Cruise play there. It has 27 holes and a grade I-listed club house.
King invested around £12m in a new spa at the course. According to The Sunday Times, King has put it up for sale with a £40m to £50m price tag. With other property, King should easily be worth £50m.
378£50m
Jack Lovell
Morgan Sindall
Now a non-executive director at Morgan Sindall, the quoted London-based specialist construction and property company, Jack Lovell retains a near £40m stake in the business.
Morgan Sindall specialises in office design, property investment and refurbishment and its shares have soared in 2006-07 on the back of a strong performance.
Lovell, 52, has sold £13.6m worth of shares since 2004. With past dividends, share sale proceeds and the like, he should be worth £50m after tax.
378£50m
David Metter
Innisfree Group
South African-born David Metter set up Innisfree in the mid-1990s after a career in the construction and property investment business.
While the Private Finance Initiative was still in its infancy, he sold the idea of a specialist PFI investment vehicle to Hermes, the giant BT pension fund that took a near 36% shareholding in Innisfree, though it sold it back to Metter in 2006 for £13m. Metter, 55, now has a 72% stake held via a Jersey trust.
Innisfree, based in the City, has been involved in a number of landmark projects, including the financing of the new Barts and Royal London hospitals and the refurbishment of the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall. It has £2bn of funds under management, and made a £5.5m profit on £14.6m sales in 2005-06.
Growing fast, it should easily be worth £80m on these figures, valuing Metter’s stake at around £58m. Allowing for any borrowings to buy back the Hermes stake, he should be worth perhaps £50m.
378£50m
Michael Pass
Granwood Holdings
Granwood flooring was invented in the early 1900s and has been developing ever since. More than 5m m2 of British-made Granwood floors have been laid in over 50 different countries throughout the world. The business is owned by the low-key Michael Pass, through Chesterfield-based Granwood Holdings.
In 2003, Pass was in the news when he sold a 29% stake in Gaskell, a quoted Lancashire carpets group, which he had acquired in 2001. Pass, 70, owns all of Granwood with £5.5m net assets in 2005. He has other companies, including a property firm called the Derbyshire Group, which made £1.7m profit in 2005 when it had £15.7m net assets.
He also owns Amber Agriculture with £24.5m net assets in 2005, and National Floorcoverings Group with £11.2m net assets. Pass should easily be worth £50m.
378£50m
Nicholas Porter
The Unite Group
Nicholas Porter, the entrepreneur who founded student accommodation group Unite in 1991, stepped down as chief executive to become non-executive deputy chairman at the end of 2006. Porter, 38, is leaving the group in fine fettle. Pretax profits rose for 2006 from £28.1m to £56.1m. An increase in foreign students and UK undergraduate applications have strengthened the outlook for Unite.
Porter started as a property developer but moved into building new student accommodation through Unite in 1991.The student rooms are built on production lines, dropped into the shell of the building as it goes up. They have cable TV and internet access.
London-based Unite floated in 1999 and is now worth £500m. Porter has a £12m stake, but by late 2006 sold £63m worth of shares to add to an earlier £2.1m share sale in 2004. He should be worth £50m.
378£50m
The Duke of Richmond & Gordon & Family
The Goodwood Estate Co
Profits at the Goodwood Estate Co doubled in 2005 to nearly £1.2m on £32.3m sales. The improvement comes as the Earl of March, the entrepreneurial son and heir to the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, builds the Goodwood brand and reputation. The horse racing at “Glorious Goodwood” is a highlight of the summer season, made popular by Edward VII. In addition, the estate’s golf course was voted recently one of the world’s top 100 courses, a year after being redesigned.
A new exclusive club recently launched by Lord March offers all the 12,000-acre Goodwood estate’s sporting activities under one roof. He is expecting 15 large companies to join, paying a £25,000 joining fee and a £175,000 annual subscription.
Despite the fact that the family’s total investment capital is only around £2m, according to the duke, we can see around £31.5m net assets in the Goodwood Estate Co. Art and other assets should take the Richmond family to perhaps £50m.
378£50m
Charles & Anne Scrutton
Scrutton Estates
Founded in 1962, Scrutton Estates is a property company based in the East End of London. It is owned and run by Charles, 62, and Anne, 59, Scrutton either directly or through trusts. In the year to April 2006, the business made £1.2m profit on £1.8m sales. But its net asset figure rose to £47.3m.
Other assets should take the Scruttons to £50m.
378£50m
Philip Yuill & Family
Yuill Group
The late Cecil Yuill, a former chimney sweep, founded the Yuill Group in 1927. It now builds 350 luxury homes each year in the North East.
The Hartlepool-based company is also involved in urban regeneration development work and has contracts with councils in the Newcastle area.
Philip Yuill, 54, chaired the business, which saw its profits soar to £13.8m on £58.4m sales in 2004-05. With £31m net assets, it was easily worth the £60m paid for it by Derry-based Taggart Homes in early 2006. Sale proceeds, past dividends and other businesses such as South Shore One take the Yuill family to perhaps £50m, allowing for tax.
394£49m
John Sunley & Family
Sunley Family
John Sunley’s father started work shifting muck at 14. At his death in 1964, he was the chairman of several successful public companies. John Sunley, 71, heads the family company, Sunley Family Ltd, which is engaged in property investment and housebuilding.
In 2005, the Sunley Family made a £5.5m loss on £33.5m sales. But it is easily worth its £40.6m net asset figure. We add over £8m for Sunley’s other assets and past dividends (over £9m from 1995-2004 inclusive) including Sunley Farms with £1.7m net assets.
395£48m
Peter Gleeson
Gleeson Properties Developemnt Co
Dublin-based Peter Gleeson, 60, was a director and shareholder in the Jefferson Smurfit packaging group. He made around £17.2m when the company was sold in 2002, and has turned his cash into Leinster property.
We can see Gleeson Properties Development Co with £4.8m net assets. With his property assets added, Gleeson is worth £48m.
395£48m
Michael & Chris Miller
Harris & Sheldon Group
Harris & Sheldon, the Coventry-based industrial and property conglomerate, turned from a loss to a £161,000 profit on £23.2m sales in 2005. The business, still with £38.6m net assets, has some choice subsidiaries such as House of Hardy, the fishing tackle maker.
It is largely owned by the Miller family, led by MD Michael Miller. It was his late father, Jim, who built up Harris & Sheldon. In 1963, Jim Miller was offered the job of chief executive at the age of 39. He subsequently became executive chairman in 1965, remaining in that job until his death in 1997.
He led the management buyout of the group in 1981.
The family also had a stake in the former quoted industrial conglomerate Wassall, run by Michael Miller’s elder brother, Chris. A chartered accountant, Chris Miller worked for Lord Hanson before setting up Wassall in 1988 when it was valued at £2m.
When Wassall was taken over in 2000 by US buyout group KKR for £627m, the Harris & Sheldon stake was worth £22m. Chris Miller is trying to repeat the Wassall success at Melrose, an industrial investment company which floated on the AIM in 2003. He has a £9m stake there. In all, the Miller family should be worth perhaps £48m.
395£48m
Jerry O’Reilly
Woodmead
Dublin-based Jerry O’Reilly, 61, is now heavily involved in green development. He is joint developer of the £300m Elmpark project in Dublin, which is targeted to deliver 41% more savings on energy and 74% more savings on carbon dioxide emissions than conventional design.
O’Reilly controls 21 Irish property companies, including Kings Island Development in Limerick. He has stakes in at least six hotels, including a 16% stake in the Shelbourne in Dublin, and owns 50% of SAP Landscapes, an international landscaping company.
O’Reilly often works with Bernard McNamara, another developer and, early in 2005, they sold another hotel in Dublin – worth €25m – to the Hilton Hotel Group. In all, O’Reilly is easily worth £48m.
398£47m
Nicholas Kebbell & Family
Kebbell Holdings
Kebbell Homes is a family business founded in 1953. The Watford-based operation is involved in property development for the residential housing market.
The company’s UK projects have been built from Durham in the North to Southampton in the South. Kebbell developed in France for over 20 years, with flats and houses around Paris and flats in Lille and near Caen. In the US, it also has several developments in the Houston area.
Managing director Nicholas Kebbel, 55, is the son of the founder. In 2005, profits at Kebbell Holdings rose from £3.1m to £4.7m on sales of £33.6m. The company has £41.2m of net assets and today it should be worth £45m. We add £2m for other family assets.
398£47m
Brian Moss & Family
GAT Holdings
Brian Moss runs Gat Investments, a property group based in South Wales. It has £26.5m of net assets in its 2005-06 accounts, when it made £3.9m profit. The business is owned by the Moss family and trusts.
Moss, 71, also founded Nuaire Holdings, a South Wales-based air-conditioning manufacturer, which was sold for £38m in March 2004. Family trusts had around half the company. The Moss family is worth around £47m in total.
398£47m
Amanda Yates & Family
Yates Property Holdings
Amanda Yates is a director of London-based company Yates Property Holdings. The 2005-06 accounts show net assets of nearly £47m. After the year-end, the company sold £7m worth of properties, but we value it on the net assets.
It is entirely owned by the Yates family, whom we value at £47m. Amanda Yates, 58, has a 50% stake in her own name.
401£46m
Henry Bandet & Family
Prime Estates
Henry Bandet, 44, and his family own 64.5% of Prime Estates, a Hitchin-based property company which made a £4.8m profit on £5.3m sales in 2005. We value the business on its £69.2m net asset figure. That values the Bandet stake at £44.6m.
Bandet, an American, also owns 78% of Hunting Gate Group, another property firm, with £2.2m of net assets. In all, we value the Bandet family at £46m.
401£46m
John Smart
J Smart & Co (Contractors)
The share price of J Smart & Co, the quoted Edinburgh-based contractor and property developer, roared to an all-time high in July 2007. Takeover fever may have prompted the rise, but any move will depend on 63-year-old John Smart, its chairman. He has a 48% stake in the business that bears his name. It provides construction and engineering services in Central Scotland.
Founded in 1951, the company was floated on the stock market in 1965. In 2005-06, it made £13.7m profit on £26.2m sales and is valued by the stock market at £90.7m. Smart has a £43.6m stake. Other assets take him to £46m.
403£45m
Muquim Ahmed
Sylto
Having invested £2m in a bakery and a ready meals factory in south-west London, Muquim Ahmed is building up a food-manufacturing leg to his property and restaurant portfolio. Best known for his work in transforming the Brick Lane area of east London, Ahmed has had a rollercoaster ride to success, with past bankers and insurers going bust on him four times.
Ahmed, 53, came from Bangladesh in 1974 to study engineering. After two years, he started helping his father to import goods from Britain and Holland to Bangladesh. Business was good and he diversified into property, buying the Naz cinema in Brick Lane.
He was a millionaire at 26 and went into electrical wholesaling as well as expanding his property portfolio, which is now worth £30m. His Café Naz chain of eight restaurants turns over around £3.5m a year and is powering ahead. In all, his interests add up to around £45m.
403£45m
Jeffrey & Edward Azouz
AR & V Investments
Originally backed by their uncle, the financier “Black Jack” Dellal, the Azouz brothers are directors of around 106 companies between them. Their main vehicle, AR&V Investments, is a property investment group which made £2.5m on £15m sales and showed over £31.5m net assets in 2005-06.
The Azouz family owns it all. But the pair are large property owners and we assume other properties and stakes such as a 12.8% slice of quoted Pathfinder Properties, would comfortably justify a £45m valuation for the brothers.
403£45m
Ben Brodie
Carrick Capital
A former electrical contracting apprentice, Ben Brodie founded Glasgow-based Carrick Care Homes in 1986 with its first home in Prestwick, Ayrshire.
Brodie, 49, owned it all until its sale to Bupa, the healthcare giant, in September 2004, for over £40m. Brodie is now involved in property development and we value him at around £45m.
403£45m
John Finlan & Family
Morbaine Properties
The Finlan family owns Morbaine Properties, a private property group based in Widnes. Started in 1963, Morbaine has built a solid reputation as a commercial developer, particularly in the food and non-food retail sector.
It also focuses on general commercial development (car showrooms, offices), and industrial and large-scale distribution schemes. It retains a proportion of its developments, and has built up a substantial property portfolio, including a number of B&Q stores.
Morbaine made a £2.6m profit on sales of £8.3m in 2005-06. We value it on its near £39m of net assets. The biggest individual shareholder is John Finlan, 68. Past salaries (£6.6m from 1998 to 2004 inclusive) and other assets take the Finlan family to £45m.
403£45m
Louis Goodman & Family
Union Estates
Profits soared from £3.5m to £9.7m in the year to September 2005 at Union Estates, the Glasgow property group. The business, with £34.2m net assets, is owned by 56-year-old Louis Goodman and his family.
As a young man of 21 he launched his property empire from the backroom of a dress shop. After a period as a public company, Goodman took the business private in 1998. His City Site Properties subsidiary has £42.7m net assets.
In all, the Goodman family is worth £45m.
403£45m
Sir Jack Harvie & Family
CBC Construction & Property Group
Building magnate Sir Jack Harvie runs and owns CBC Construction & Property Group. In the year to September 2006, the Glasgow-based company made £3.1m profit on £46m sales. Adding in some of the directors’ £828,000 pay to the bottom line takes the profit to nearly £4m and justifies a £38m valuation.
Other assets take the Harvie family to £45m. Sir Jack, 71, the Tory Party chief fund-raiser in Scotland during the 1990s, was knighted by John Major in 1996.
403£45m
Robin Leigh & Family
Sterling Securities
Robin Leigh, 42, is the son of the late Gerald Leigh, a noted property developer and racehorse trainer who died in 2002. His company, Sterling Securities, is still owned by the Leigh family. In 2005-06, it showed over £6.3m net assets after an extraordinary £8.3m profit two years previously.
Gerald Leigh left over £28m in his will and, in late 2004, his widow sold the family’s Northamptonshire mansion for £17m, way beyond the £11m asking price. In all, the Leigh family is worth at least £45m.
403£45m
Tony Marcus & Family
Thornfield Group
After 30 years at the helm of Thornfield Group, the Leeds-based developer, Tony Marcus, 61, stepped down from the chairmanship to a non-executive role in early 2007. His son Jason replaced him.
Thornfield has an estimated £3bn development pipeline of 10m sq ft of mixed-use and regeneration work. For example, a £150m project to transform the town centre of Bury is one of its projects.
A veteran property man, Marcus owns Thornfield Group, which made an extraordinary £17.8m profit in 2002. In 2006 it made a £4.9m loss, mainly because of a £9.4m payment to directors’ emoluments and pensions. Marcus teamed up with the Bank of Scotland and Lehman Brothers in early 2002 to form a joint venture, Thornfield Properties, which was valued at around £250m at the time. Cautiously, we run with a £40m valuation for Marcus overall.
403£45m
Brendan McDonald
McDonald Industries
Co Louth-based Brendan McDonald will be pleased with the sharp rise in profits – to £5m – at McDonald Industries in 2004. McDonald made about £23m a year earlier selling his Irish distribution companies to Glen Dimplex, the white goods company, and has never looked back.
McDonald, 68, is better known as a property investor than as an electrical appliance distributor. He helped beef baron Larry Goodman out of a financial mess when the Co Louth meat processor bought his companies back from the banks in 1995. McDonald made about £10m when Goodman bought back his 9% stake in his Irish Food Processors in 1999.
McDonald has another eight subsidiaries in his group. Adding in his BMD Investments property operation, his assets are worth £18m. In all, McDonald is easily worth £45m.
403£45m
Giles Pritchard-Gordon & Family
Giles W Pritchard-Gordon & Co
Giles Pritchard-Gordon, 60, is the chairman of Giles W Pritchard-Gordon & Co, a West Sussex-based company involved in shipowning, shipbroking, farming and property.
The 2005-06 accounts show a £4.4m profit on £27.7m sales and net assets of £44.4m. We value the firm on the net asset figure. The Pritchard-Gordon family and trusts own it, and should be worth £45m.
403£45m
Iain Ure & Family
Associated Tower Cinemas
Plans for a daring £5m development at The Lounge cinema site in Headingley, Leeds, were turned down by planners in late 2006, much to the disappointment of the Ure family. It was to have been the latest scheme from Ian Ure, 74, and his Associated Tower Cinemas operation, which has property and cinema interests in the area.
Associated Tower Cinemas is owned by Ure and his family trusts. It had £42.8m net assets in 2005-06 and we value the business on that figure. Other assets take the Ures to £45m easily.
403£45m
Rupert Webb & Family
Freedom Finance Holdings
Wilmslow finance group Freedom Finance sold its mortgage lending business to investment bank Merrill Lynch for around £5m in July 2006. Freedom Finance has also hired NM Rothschild to advise on a possible sale of the business. It would be a coup for founder Rupert Webb, 49, who eschewed work in his family toy firm, and describes himself as “the black sheep of the family”.
After years working for financial services companies, in 1983 he set up his own operation, Wilmslow Financial Services, in his back bedroom. In 2000, he sold 55% of the business – now renamed Freedom Finance – to JZI, an American group. The deal valued the firm as a whole at £23m then.
We believe today that it is worth perhaps £50m, which values Webb’s stake at £22.5m. Earlier sale proceeds and property assets take him to £45m easily.
403£45m
Roger Wingate & Family
General & Mercantile Development & Trust Co
Roger Wingate’s father founded Chesterfield, the London property company. Wingate chaired the business until its £139m takeover by Quintain Estates in 1999.
The Wingate family’s 28% stake, held in trust, was worth around £38.9m. But Wingate, 66, also emerged from the deal with Chesterfield’s cinemas and television production assets. His main vehicle now is the General & Mercantile Development & Trust Co, with a Liechtenstein parent. It had just £706,153 net assets in 2002-03. With his own property assets, we believe Wingate and his family are worth perhaps £45m.
403£45m
Carol Ainscrow
Artisan Holdings
Carol Ainscow’s business life started in her early 20s when the former teacher invested in property in Bolton. Manto, the bar she developed in Manchester’s gay village, launched her as a driving force behind the city’s expanding nightlife scene before she diversified into city apartments.
Ironically, she recently sold Manto, which has been in business since 1990. Artisan, her property company, is branching out into regeneration in the estates of Manchester and Sheffield. It now has at least £600m of developments in the pipeline and is busy on some daring oval-shaped flats at the Albion Works scheme in the historic Ancoats quarter of Manchester.
Artisan will then switch its attention to neighbouring Vulcan Mill for redevelopment and new-build apartments.
Ainscow, 49, has nine separate companies we can see, with around £45m of net assets in their 2005-06 accounts. We value her on that figure.
