Tom Bloxham
Urban Splash
Morecambe is the latest place to receive the Bloxham treatment. The tired old resort and its splendid, if dilapidated, Art Deco Midland hotel are being turned into a trendy new area — if the public takes to it.
With 4m people within an hour’s drive of Morecambe, there is everything to play for. And Tom Bloxham is perhaps the best man to kickstart the revival. Bloxham, 42, has proved an adept inner city developer, converting derelict buildings into trendy apartments through his Urban Splash group.
In 2004-05, Urban Splash made £5m profit on £26m sales. It has £41m net assets and Bloxham has a 70% stake in the £60m operation. There are other Bloxham ventures such as TBI 2000, a property letting business, and he chairs the BaaBar leisure operation. In all, Bloxham is easily worth £50m.
Richard Cattermole & Family
Elizabeth Holdings
One of Lowestoft’s most prominent buildings is to receive a makeover. The redevelopment of Tuttles, with 15 exclusive waterside apartments, is set to breathe new life into the station square area.
The work is being carried out by local entrepreneur Richard Cattermole, 61, who started a hotel in 1971 when he bought a run-down terraced house in Ipswich for £800. He now runs property-to-hotels-and-pubs group Elizabeth Holdings. It owns 1,339 properties made up of offices, retail, private houses, clubs and hotels. Elizabeth Holdings made a £765,000 loss on £22m sales in 2005.
We value the firm on its £38.9m net assets. Cattermole and his family own 95%. We can see about £11m of net assets in other smaller companies including Cavendish Hotels and Manor Investments (Ipswich). We value Cattermole and his family at around £50m.
Paul Bassi
Bond Wolfe
Paul Bassi chairs Bond Wolfe, a West Bromwich-based property company, with one of the largest privately owned property portfolios in the Black Country and the Birmingham area. The portfolio continues to grow in value through rising rents and increasingly higher property values against a background of low interest rates and high institutional demand for commercial property.
Bassi is also regional chairman of Coutts Bank for the West Midlands, a board member of Birmingham Hippodrome and Investbx, a former vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce and a West Midlands ambassador. He received the Asian Jewel Lloyds TSB Lifetime achievement award in April this year. In 2004-05, Bond Wolfe’s net assets stood at £38m.
Personal assets including a 125-acre private estate and farm, overseas property and commercial property, largely in West Bromwich, push 44-year-old Bassi to £50m.
Malcolm Hall
Nobel Property Developments
Jersey-based Malcolm Hall’s Nobel Property Developments showed £6.5m of net assets in its 2004 accounts. But we can see at least another £3.7m in further companies such as MSJ Properties and Steelux Holdings. Aside from his £3m Jersey mansion, Hall also has homes in London and Florida.
His total wealth was put around £50m in 2005 during a widely reported court case involving Hall, 70, and his stepdaughter over money. We stick with that figure.
Jack Hamilton
Parador Properties
Raised in a Glasgow tenement, Jack Hamilton left school at 16 to become an apprentice in a chartered accountancy firm. A varied career followed until Hamilton and his wife moved to Spain in 1996. His wife wanted to return to Britain after two years and, when he advertised their property in British papers, he was flooded with enquiries. He saw an opportunity and set up Parador Properties to sell Spanish properties. A trip to Ireland really transformed Parador’s prospects. In 2004-05, the Redhill-based operation made £4.4m profit on £35.2m sales, valuing 58-year-old Hamilton’s 50% stake at £50m.
Brian Howard & Family
CAEC Howard (Holdings)
Brian Howard, 70, chairs CAEC Howard (Holdings). The Howard Group was founded in Bedford in 1935. Its history spans a diverse range of businesses, but in recent years it has largely focused on the commercial property sector, though it retains interests in other businesses. The company saw its profits fall from £4.9m to £4.4m on sales of £5.6m in the year to September 2005. But we value the business on its net assets which have shot up to £58.4m. The Howard family owns 85% of the shares, worth £49.6m. Other assets should take the Howard family to £50m easily.
Mark Kay
Eagle One
Exeter-based Mark Kay, 56, was the founder of the Rockeagle operation. In 2001, the EBC construction firm bought the business in a £14.7m deal and it was renamed ROK Property Solutions. Kay joined the board of the quoted group as property director, but he left the board and in August 2005 sold his stake for £14.3m, claiming unpaid bonuses of £5m. In July 2006, ROK agreed to pay £1.25m in an out-of-court settlement, and we add that to our calculations. Kay also has £35.7m of net assets in other companies. Kay is a £50m man.
Roger King & Family
International Hospitals Group
Roger King is chairman of International Hospitals Group, a Hertfordshire-based health care company. It showed £8.8m net assets in 2004. King also has other assets including Stoke Park, the luxury Buckinghamshire golf club. It has 27 holes and a Grade I-listed clubhouse. 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, 70-year-old King should easily be worth £50m.
Jan Fletcher
Jan Fletcher Properties
Recently appointed chair of Marketing Leeds, Jan Fletcher will oversee the promotion of Leeds and act as an ambassador for the city. She is well equipped for the job. Her £500m City One development shows her commitment to revitalising Leeds. City One is just part of her business empire, but it should prove the most lucrative.
Fletcher, 52, also has a 50% share in Bee Health, a health products firm which is the world’s leading manufacturer of propolis. Her largest visible business asset is Jan Fletcher Properties, which had £8.9m net assets in 2003. She has 50% of MSF Motor Group, which made a £377,000 profit on £91.5m sales in 2003, yet it could be worth £20m. Bee Health has around £500,000 net assets.
With property developments elsewhere, Fletcher should now be worth £50m. And when her City One project is complete, its enhanced value will push Fletcher up this list rapidly.
Kevin Linfoot
KW Linfoot
Leeds planners gave the go-ahead in August to a £225m development on part of the former Royal Mail site in Wellington Street.
The scheme — put together by Leeds developer Kevin Linfoot and the Scarborough Development Group, and to be called Lumiere — will set an architectural benchmark in the city.
There will be two towers: the taller block, at 560ft, will include 618 apartments, a health centre, exhibition space and offices. The other, at 370ft, would have apartments and offices. The development includes shops, bars, restaurants and 356 car parking spaces. Work could start early in 2007 and would take about three-and-a-half years to complete.
Linfoot, 48, began at 16 buying and selling terraced houses. In 1981, he started KW Linfoot, building it into one of the North’s leading developers. This firm increased its profits to £683,000 on £35.3m sales in 2004. Linfoot owns all the business. With other assets, including an art collection, a chain of filling stations and a leisure portfolio, he is worth £50m.
Peter Livesey & Family
PJ Livesey Group
PJ Livesey’s Highcroft Hall development in Erdington has what one writer called the “wow” factor. Forming part of the original Aston Union Workhouse, the development has been created to offer unique living spaces.
The PJ Livesey Group is known for converting old buildings into stunning homes throughout the North. Run by Peter Livesey, 58, the Manchester-based operation made £6.6m profit on nearly £40m sales in the year to June 2005. It is easily worth £50m. The Livesey family and trusts own all the shares and we value the family at £50m.
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Taureans can thank the heavens |
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Aries |
36 |
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Taurus |
50 |
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Gemini |
42 |
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Cancer |
34 |
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Leo |
31 |
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Virgo |
33 |
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Libra |
34 |
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Scorpio |
34 |
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30 |
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Capricorn |
46 |
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Aquarius |
26 |
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Pisces |
34 |
Andrew Ruhan & Family
Bridgehouse Capital
Andrew Ruhan is moving into residential development with his Bridgehouse Capital operation, with four of his office blocks set for conversion into luxury flats. This follows the £40m scheme to turn London’s Lancaster Gate Hotel into 138 flats.
Ruhan snapped up 37 hotels two years ago in a £688m deal. He paid £155m in cash and took a £531m loan secured on 32 of the hotels. However, the value of the hotels has dropped sharply to between £447m and £524m. Interestingly, we can also see that the main parent company for his hotels, Exitcluster, made a £20m profit in 2004. It also paid out a £20.4m dividend to its parent company based in Jersey.
We are not sure if Ruhan owns the Jersey parent (though he is one of two directors). Other small stakes add £3m of net assets to his wealth. He also has a stake in Global Marine, an installer of subsea cables.
In all, Ruhan, 44, should be worth easily £50m.
Jack Lovell
Morgan Sindall
Now a non-executive director at Morgan Sindall, the quoted London-based specialist construction and property company, Jack Lovell, 51, retains a £38m stake in the business. Morgan Sindall saw its shares soar in 2005. Lovell sold £13.6m worth of shares in 2004. With past dividends and share sale proceeds, he should be worth £50m after tax.
The Murray Family
Hollins Murray Group
The Hollins Murray Group is a well-respected Cheshire-based property concern. With investments in many of the prosperous Cheshire towns south of Manchester, it is run by Andrew Murray, 52. In 2004-05, the group made £3.3m profit. But we value the operation on its £47.1m net asset figure.
Although Murray has only a small stake, the business is owned by the wider Murray family and trusts. We add another £2.3m for the net assets of Dinmore Manor Estate, taking the Murray family to £50m with other assets.
Michael Pass
Granwood Holdings
Granwood flooring was invented in the early 1900s and has been laid in more than 50 countries. The business is owned by Michael Pass through Chesterfield-based Granwood Holdings.
In 2003, Pass sold a 29% stake in Gaskell, a quoted Lancashire carpets group, which he had acquired in 2001. Pass, 69, owns all the Granwood shares, which has a subsidiary, National Floorcoverings, with £9.7m net assets in 2004. Pass’s other companies include a property concern, Derbyshire Group, which made £2.8m profit in 2004 when it had £14.1m net assets, and Amber Agriculture, with £24m net assets in 2004. With past dividends, Pass should easily be worth £50m.
Solomon Potel & Family
Fairholme Estates (Holdings)
Fairholme Estates (Holdings), a London-based property developer and building contractor, is owned by Solomon Potel, 73, and his family trusts. In the year to August 2005, it made £4.4m profit on £3.8m sales. But we value it on its £48.4m net assets. Other assets take the Potel family to £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 and Anne Scrutton, aged 61 and 58, either directly or through trusts. In the year to April 2005, the business made £1.2m profit on £1.7m sales. But its net asset figure rose to nearly £47m. Other assets should take the Scruttons to £50m.
Elizabeth Abbott & Family
Abbott Bros Holdings
Abbott Bros Holdings, a St Albans-based investment company, made a £2m profit and had £32.8m net assets in the year to March 2005. Elizabeth Abbott, 52, is a director and represents the family which, with its trusts, owns all the shares.
The company is easily worth its net asset figure. But the family also took a £15m dividend in 2001 and £3m in the previous three years combined. After tax and allowing for other property assets, the Abbotts are now worth £48m.
Sean Dunne
Mountbrook Holdings
Irish developer Sean Dunne, 52, plans to create a Knightsbridge in Dublin and will spend over £800m before he gets a penny back.
Originally from Co Carlow, Dunne trained as a quantity surveyor and has a BSc degree in construction economics.
In 2005, he spent £260m acquiring seven acres of land owned by the Jurys Doyle hotel group. This smashed the previous land price record. In April 2006, he spent a further £138m on 3.75 acres of land from AIB. It will take at least £470m more and four years for his company, Mountbrook Homes, to build the Jurys site.
Dunne has substantial assets and good bankers to fund the deal. He owns 50% of the Whitewater shopping centre in Newbridge, has a land bank in Charlesland in Greystones, and is completing a 300,000 sq ft high-spec office development called Riverside II along the Liffey quays.
Although there are few assets visible in four of his companies (including Mountbrook), we can see profits of around £700,000 in their 2004 accounts. But with his development work, Dunne should easily be worth £48m after stripping out borrowings.
Lisa Voice & Family
Woolcastle
Lisa Voice, 53, started work when she left school at 15 and her father, property magnate Cecil Rosen, gave her a shop in Godalming worth £6,000. From this shop, she built up a residential property empire.
She divorced her late husband, Steve Voice, a music producer, in 2000; that cost her £7m. She was also the former partner of the late Billy Fury. Today, she is a property and music publishing magnate. Her Woolcastle operation made a £248,000 loss on £1.7m sales in 2004-05, but it does have £37.4m net assets.
The business is owned by Voice and her trusts. We can also see a 60% stake in the separate Border Investments, which has £236,000 net assets. In all, Voice is worth £48m, with £10m of personal property assets.
John Sunley & Family
Sunley Family Ltd
John Sunley, 70, heads the family company, Sunley Family, which is engaged in property investment and housebuilding. In 2004, it moved from a £3.2m profit into a £3.3m loss. It is worth its £38.3m net assets. We add nearly £8m for Sunley’s other assets and past dividends (over £9m from 1995-2004 inclusive) including Sunley Farms with £1.7m net assets.
Andrew Creighton
Brunswick (No 1)
Andrew Creighton, a former plumber, is now one of Northern Ireland’s leading developers. With partner Frank Boyd, a former electrician, Creighton came to prominence in 2002 through one of the biggest property deals in Belfast’s history. The pair spent £90m buying out the northern property holdings of Dublin-based Dunloe Ewart, gaining around 12 properties including Lanyon Place, the Howden Sirocco site, Windsor House, the area around Cathedral Way, touted as a new retail extension, and three properties in England.
Their main business, jointly owned, is Brunswick (No 1), one of the fastest growing property companies in Northern Ireland. In 2004, its net assets rose sharply from £23m to £90.6m.
We can see other assets owned by 45-year-old Creighton which should take him to £45m easily.
Peter Gadsby
Cedar House Investments
Peter Gadsby, 58, sold his 77% stake in Birch, the Derby-based property and construction group, to the Miller Group. As part of the deal, Miller Birch was created as a joint venture for the commercial division of Miller and Birch. Its net assets stand at £12m.
Gadsby also owns Cedar House Investments, responsible for the development of Derby County FC’s Pride Park. Cedar House has a net asset value of £5m. And Gadsby recently acquired a majority stake in Radleigh Homes, an East Midlands housebuilder. It is on track for £3.3m profit in 2004 and is worth around £15m.
With other investments and his own non-business investments, Gadsby is now easily worth £45m.
Stephen & Trevor Ashworth
Hurstwood Developments
John Ashworth left school at 15 to work in the construction industry. He set up on his own in 1977 and his company Hurstwood Developments now embraces commercial and residential property development.
In the year to August 2004, Hurstwood made a healthy £6.6m profit when it also showed £13.7m net assets. The latest accounts, for the year to August 2005, show a profit of £94,000 on £12.7m sales but the net assets shot up to £24.7m.
The firm is now run by Ashworth’s sons, Stephen, 39 (pictured), and Trevor, 36, who we list here as representing the wider Ashworth family, which owns all the business. Stephen Ashworth took over in 1994 and has turned the firm into a group comprising 15 companies, employing more than 300 staff and with a property portfolio worth more than £100m. He was named the North West Property entrepreneur of the year in the Ernst & Young awards last year.
Mindful of the net asset figure and any borrowings, we value the Hurstwood business at around £40m, adding in past directors’ pay to take the Ashworth family to £45m after tax.
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 Louis Goodman and his family.
As a young man of 21, he launched his property empire from the back room of a dress shop, while he was working full-time as a company secretary at a steel stockholder. After a period as a public company, Goodman, now 55, took the business private in 1998.
His City Site Properties subsidiary has £42.7m net assets. Deals in recent months have included the £4m sale of The Exchange, a multi-let office investment at the junction of Hope Street and St Vincent Street, to David Murray’s Premier Property Group. In all, the Goodman family is worth £45m.
Robin Leigh & Family
Sterling Securities
Robin Leigh, 41, 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 2004-05, it showed over £6m net assets, but that was 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 as a whole should be worth at least £45m after tax.
Tony Marcus & Family
Thornfield Group
A £150m project to transform the town centre of Bury is a step closer. In October 2005, Leeds-based Thornfield Properties formally applied for planning permission to redevelop The Rock Triangle area with a mixture of shops, flats and leisure facilities.
A veteran property man, 59-year-old Tony Marcus owns Thornfield Group, which made an extraordinary £17.8m profit in 2002, following that with a £1.9m loss in 2003 and a £37,234 loss on £4.6m sales in 2004. It does have nearly £10.9m of net assets and paid out £1.9m in directors’ pay.
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 £45m valuation for Marcus overall, when taking into account the Thornfield Group net assets.
Michael & Chris Miller
Harris & Sheldon
Harris & Sheldon, the Coventry-based industrial and property conglomerate, had a pretty tough time in 2004, with a loss of £65,000 following a £1.4m loss in 2003, with sales virtually static at £17.8m. The business, still with £36.6m net assets, has some choice subsidiaries such as fishing tackle maker House of Hardy. It is largely owned by the Miller family, led by MD Michael Miller, 52.
It was his late father, Jim, who built up Harris & Sheldon. In 1963, a consultancy assignment at Harris & Sheldon led to Jim Miller being 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, 55. A chartered accountant, he worked for Lord Hanson before setting up Wassall in 1988, when it was valued at £2m. When Wassall was taken over in 2000 by KKR, the US buyout group, 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 and in which he has a £7.1m stake.
In all, the Miller family should be worth perhaps £45m.
Nicholas Porter
Unite
Nicholas Porter, the entrepreneur who in 1991 founded student accommodation group Unite, is stepping down as chief executive to become non-executive deputy chairman at the end of 2006. He will be replaced as chief executive by his finance director, Nick Allen.
Porter is leaving the group in fine fettle. Pretax profit for 2005 rose to £28.1m (from £17.1m) on revenue of £113.8m (up from £74.6m the previous year). An increase in foreign student numbers and UK undergraduate applications have strengthened the outlook for Unite.
The company has also been successful in letting a greater proportion of its residences for 50 to 52 weeks, rather than shorter academic-year lets. It is set to add 4,677 bed spaces to its portfolio for the 2005/06 academic year.
Nicholas Porter, still only 36, started as a property developer but moved into building new student accommodation in 1991. Unite provides students with rooms built on production lines, dropped into the shell of the building as it goes up. They have cable television and internet access, and many have en-suite bathrooms.
London-based Unite floated in 1999 and grew by acquisition to a £478m market capitalisation by mid-2006. Porter kept a £34m stake, but in early 2006 sold £13m worth of shares to add to an earlier £2.1m share sale in 2004. He should be worth £45m after tax.
John & Stephen Rosefield
Endeavour
John and Stephen Rosefield, aged 62 and 53, are directors of Endeavour, a low-key London property group. The family was in the news in 2004 when its Endeavour Trust took over the quoted Estates & Agency property operation in a £52.3m agreed deal.
The Rosefield family and family trusts own Endeavour, which made £1.3m profit on £6.5m sales in 2004-05. Its net assets shot up to £41.6m. We can see other Rosefield companies such as Dokimas Group Holdings with £2.2m net assets in 2004-05.
As a result, we value the wider Rosefield family at around £45m.
Ann Serruys & Family
SPC Holdings
SPC Holdings is a highly profitable but low-key operation with interests ranging from metal recycling, skip hirers, industrial services, building contractors and property developing to sporting and leisure-facility provision.
The Norwich-based company is run by Ann Serruys, 70, and her family, which also owns all the shares directly or in trusts. In 2004-05, SPC’s profits soared from £3.3m to nearly £7.9m on sales also up sharply from £43.8m to £63m.
With a solid balance sheet and over £17m net assets, the company is easily worth £45m. We value the Serruys family at this level.
Roger Wingate & Family
General Mercantile Development & Trust Co
Roger Wingate’s father founded Chesterfield, the London property company. The younger Wingate chaired the firm until its £139m takeover by Quintain Estates in 1999. The Wingate family’s 28% stake, held in trust, was worth £38.9m, but Wingate also emerged from the deal with Chesterfield’s cinemas and TV production assets.
In all, with his own property assets, we reckon that Wingate, 65, and his family are worth perhaps £45m. His main vehicle now is General Mercantile Development & Trust Co, with a Liechtenstein parent. It had just £706,153 net assets in 2002-03.
Iain Ure & Family
Associated Tower Cinemas
The Lounge site in Headingley, Leeds, is undergoing a £5m redevelopment which should create 300 permanent jobs. It is the latest scheme from Iain Ure and his Associated Tower Cinemas operation, which has property and cinema interests in the area.
Started in 1989, Associated Tower Cinemas is owned by 73-year-old Ure and his family trusts. It had £41.7m net assets in its abbreviated accounts for the nine months to December 2004, and we value the business on the net asset figure. Past dividends and other assets should take the Ures to £44m easily, we reckon.
Tony Kilduff
Cheval Properties
In March 2006, Tony Kilduff sold a period house in Dublin for £24m, which was the second biggest sale price ever achieved for a house in the city.
Fifty-five-year-old Kilduff is one of Ireland’s first technology millionaires. He chaired a Dublin-based software development and manufacturing company, Kindle, which he founded in 1979. It was bought by a UK computer group for around £14m in 1991.
Kilduff later invested in airlines and a computer services group called Reflex. More recently, he has led consortiums investing £250m in UK property through Cheval Properties and other firms in 2004-05. He is now moving into the European market and has a stake in Motorcise UK, a fitness chain.
The Dubliner part-owns the Prada store on Old Bond Street, London, and has a large stake in Healthy Living Centres and other interests.
With the proceeds from the house sale, we can raise Kilduff to £43m this year.
