The Millionaires Club, no doubt we're all looking to upgrade our lives in this privileged circle. Read the success stories that have allowed these millionaires to live the life they want
2009-05-05
Richard Branson
Richard Branson, seemingly in permanent mid-life crisis, is one of the country?s richest men, worth at least ?1 billion, although his fortune is difficult to quantify. The latest Sunday Times Rich list valued him at ?1bn, but admitted it was only guesswork given the sheer number of companies under the Virgin label.
Branson?s business career began in 1968, when he was still at Stowe school, with a magazine, Student. He then built up the Virgin Music Group, from 1969 onwards, issuing records, CDs, and cassettes, publishing music, and selling these and other goods in Virgin stores around the world. His big break came five years later when he signed the then unknown Mike Oldfield to his label. Big names like the Rolling Stones and the Sex Pistols followed. From Pistols to planes, from islands to safari parks, from railways to moblies, Branson has had a finger in many pies ? currently around 250 of them in fact.
He?s been a millionaire for around 30 years, but tales of his shall we say, thriftness are legendary. If he takes you out to dinner, don?t expect him to pay. By his own admission he never carries money around and is forced to borrow cash from his friends. He?s frugal by nature and claimed in an interview published in The Observer that any luxury he allows himself must also pay its way, and so his island, Necker, is available to rent if you have a few spare grand.
Not exactly a conventional businessman ? he has posed naked for his autobiography, dressed as a bride, a pirate, a Zulu warrior, and held Ivana Trump upside down at a party ? Branson reputedly has only recently learnt the difference between gross and net profit, proving that you don?t have to be a financial guru to be a business genius.
The secret of his success? Well, from his history, it seems that the old virtues of hard work and being careful with your cash have worked for Branson. Plus that key first break of course.
Martha Lane Fox
Martha Lane Fox of Lastminute.com might not be as wealthy as the others on the list, but having sold 20 per cent of her shares for ?4.6 million, she isn?t doing too badly.
The story of Lastminute.com is one of the most publicized dot com stories around. The company was floated on the London Stock Exchange and New York?s NASDAQ on 14 March 2000. Within days the initial price of 380p had climbed to a peak of 555p. At one point, Lane Fox was worth over ?50m. After its first day as a public company Lastminute was valued at ?733 placing it ahead of Debenhams and Iceland, so justpeople.com had reported (December 6, 2000). However, it soon went badly wrong. By March 2001 the share price was in the 30s, and Lane Fox and co-founder Brent Hoberman were widely pilloried by the press ? the same press who had been talking them up a few short months earlier. The company was making losses with no clear sign of blackness on the horizon and private shareholders were not slow to vent their anger ? at one point naming her the most hated woman in Britain.
Unlike companies such as Boo and Clickmango, Lastminute kept going and expanding and are now probably the second most recognised e-tailer in the UK after Amazon. Their losses have now shrunk, and in March 2004 they bought rival company Online Travel.
Lane Fox has said that the best advice she received was from Hoberman, who said to ?think big and act fast?, as reported in the Media Guardian (March 25, 2002). ?The market moves so quickly,? she claims in another interview (Motley Fool, February 24, 2000) that it is vital to get on with things as soon as you get that earth-shattering idea. She goes on: ?Taking risks is a good thing if you feel like it. People should be prepared to go with their gut instict if they feel it?s the right thing to do. If you want to leave your job and go and do something else, then do it.?
Stelios Haji-Ioannou
Stelios Haji-Ioannou has some things in common with Martha Lane Fox. Stelios comes from a privileged background. ?I was a millionaire before I ever stepped out at Luton,? he said in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph (April 2, 2000), and has made a fortune harnessing the new opportunities that the Internet has brought ? a ?500 million fortune, in fact.
That?s where the similarity ends, however. Brought up in Athens the son of a wealthy ship magnate, his first venture since leaving his father?s shipping business was to open another shipping company, Stelmar Tankers. At 28 he went from ships to planes in one east step. EasyJet was started in 1995 with a ?5 million loan from his father and took advantage of the deregulation of the European airline industry. The company was listed on the London stock exchange in November 2000. Its share price has also been through turbulent times, following September 11, although it was not quite the rough ride of Lastminute. EasyEverything, now a common name on the High Street, and EasyCar followed, along with a variety of other companies under the easy label. EasyJet acquired its rival Go earlier this year, making EasyJet the largest British low-cost airline by some distance. Some of the other companies have not fared as well, however: EasyEverything came within a whisker of bankruptcy last year.
Shy and retiring are not words you?d use to describe Stelios (he insists everyone call him by his first name). One of the major reasons for the success of EasyJet and the others has been his willingness to appear in advert for the company and to stage what some might call publicity stunts by appearing on EasyJet flights chatting away to passengers, and on Airline, the awful docu-soap following EasyJet?s staff and customers around Luton airport. It might not have been a great programme and it didn?t always paint EasyJet in a rosy light, but it certainly did wonders for brand awareness, and EasyJet?s passenger numbers continue to grow, along with other budget airlines like Ryanair.
Stelios announced in November 2003 that he was stepping down as chairman of the budget airline. This coincided with the publication of EasyJet?s full-year results, which showed a forecast-busting annual pre-tax profit up 78% to ?71.6m. He had intended to leave EasyJet in 2004 but brought forward the date after successfully completing the ?374m acquisition of Go.
To what does Stelios attribute his success? Well, he freely admits that having his father?s money was a big factor, but also he has said that it was one simple realization that gave him the idea. That realization? That not everyone flies business class (Sunday Telegraph, April 2, 2000). It?s not exactly earth shattering is it? Perhaps though, the point is that even great ideas come from spotting something simple and obvious, realizing that a service is missing, and being able to deliver that service.
Since then the easy name has gone on rental cars, Internet cafes and cinemas, with plans in the pipeline for a low-cost coach network to complete with National Express.
James Dyson
James Dyson?s Dual Cyclone TM system is spoken of as the first breakthrough in the vacuum cleaner technology since, well since the invention of the vacuum cleaner in 1901. As an accolade it?s perhaps not up there with being voted Britain?s sexiest man, or winning the Nobel Peace Prize, but this breakthrough has made Dyson into Britain?s 37th richest man, with a fortune estimated at ?700 million.
Dyson has long been an inventor. The Sea Truck, his first major invention, was launched in 1970 while he was studying at the Royal College of Art. Another early invention was the Ballbarrow: a wheelbarrow that can go where no wheelbarrow has ever been before. Then there was the Wheelboat and the Trolleyball. These products were well received, but no pioneering wheelbarrow is going to make you a fortune of ?700 million. Dyson?s real break came when he was renovating his country house in the Cotswolds. He noticed how frequently vacuum cleaner bags clogged with dust.
Five years and 5,127 prototypes later, the G Force Dual Cyclone arrived and revolutionised the vacuum cleaner market. Because of difficulties finding someone to licence and sell the product in the UK and Europe he took it to Japan where it won the 1991 International Design Fair prize and became a status symbol there. It was an expensive status symbol (as they usual are), selling for $2,000 a time.
In 1993 Dyson opened a factory in the UK and his first cleaner, the DC01 became the fastest selling vacuum cleaner ever to be made in the UK and was followed by the Root Cyclone vacuum cleaner and Dyson DC06 robot, which guides itself around a room. His vacuum cleaners are so successful they?ve been put in museums (as exhibits, not cleaning appliances). Amongst the museums are the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.
Like the other multi-millionaire above, Dyson had the initial bright idea, but if bright ideas were all it took, we?d all be millionaires. What followed the idea was years of financial hardship and struggle ? Dyson was close to bankruptcy at one stage ? but then Thomas Edison did say genius was 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
Anita Roddick
If anyone has come to business via an unconventional route was the late Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop. Her many jobs before opening the first Body Shop included clipping newspapers for the International Herald Tribune in Paris, teaching for a short time in England, and working for the United Nations in Geneva. After that she hit what she called the ?Hippy trail? and toured Tahiti, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Reunion, Madagascar, Mauritius, Australia, and South Africa. She married Gordon Roddick in 1971 and the couple ran a restaurant and hotel in Littlehampton. When Gordon was away in 1976, Anita took out a ?6,000 loan to open the first Body Shop. It was situated, somewhat ironically, next to a funeral parlour in Brighton. The first shop sold 15 cosmetic products that she had developed in her garage, packaged in urine sample bottles.
Her philosophy of profits with principles, and green image caught on in an age when environmental concerns came to the fore. It caught on to such an extent that there are now over 1800 shops in 49 countries, achieving retail sales of ?700 million last year from ?77 million customers choosing from a range of over 600 products and more than 400 accessories. This success has brought financial rewards to the Roddicks. In 1993, Anita was the 5th richest woman in Britain. The couple?s fortune is valued by The Sunday Times at about ?68 million.
In 1999 The Body Shop brand was voted the second most trusted brand in the UK by the Consumers Association and the previous year The Financial Times ranked The Body Shop the 27th most respected company in the world. However, the company had had its fair share of questions to answer concerning possible exploitation of indigenous workers, and the extent to which their products are ?natural?. No matter what your take, there?s no question that Anita Roddick spotted a gap in the market and rode the zeitgeist wave all the way to Paradise Island, if you?ll excuse the florid prose.
