Interesting.....Is this another Rich Businessman looking set to leave the UK?
I do wonder at what point the property market in Central London will topple...The UK still has a Seriously overvalued Housing Market.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/7695606/Mohamed-al-Fayed-sells-Harrods.html
Or a 77-year old looking to reduce his business activities and enjoy a well-earned retirement?
Or a 77-year old looking to reduce his business activities and enjoy a well-earned retirement?
Not sure how one can enjoy their retirement a bit more if they already have a £600m or so net worth..
When you have that kind of money I think on can leave the agro for someone else to deal with on their behalf.
Hi StrollingMolby,
If you have the time/inclination , try and get a copy of Tiny Rowland's expose of "Al"Fayed, 'The phony pharaoh' I think.....nearly as entertaining as Rowland's expose of Alan Bond, 'The hero from zero'.......
After reading the former, I think that AlFayed enjoying his "ill-gotten gains" is nearer the mark !
Not sure how one can enjoy their retirement a bit more if they already have a £600m or so net worth..
It's not all about the money though is it......
"After 25 years as chairman of Harrods, Mohamed al Fayed has decided to retire and to spend more time with his children and grandchildren.
Mr Al Fayed gets an unremittingly bad press in the UK, so I'd like to say something positive about him.
As a girl Princess Diana went to West Heath School in Sevenoaks, Kent which was then a posh private boarding school. The day after Diana's tragic accident the school went into receivership and was closed down. Mr Al Fayed stepped in and provided funding for a new school to be opened on the same site (The New School at West Heath). This is a special school which caters for children who have suffered significanty trauma and experience emotional difficulties and which aims to help them rebuild their lives. Its survival is largely the result of Mr Al Fayed's continued generosity and support. His motivation is the creation of a living memorial to Diana and to Dodi Al Fayed. He does not seek publicity or recognition for what he has done and continues to be reticent about it. I have seen for myself the way he tries to help the school, the children who go there and their families. I think his behaviour in this has been and continues to be wholly admirable.
see www.westheathschool.com for more info
Aah, the real reason Mo Fayed sold Harrods revealed - he was unable to pay himself a dividend !
Mr Fayed said he had originally rebuffed the Qataris and other potential buyers. At the beginning of last month, following talk of an approach, Fayed was quoted as saying: "I put two fingers up to them all. It is not for sale."
What made him change his mind, he says, was his efforts to get a dividend approved by the trustee of his pension fund. "It's difficult," he says, "but it came to a moment where I felt completely disillusioned.
"How this can happen? I've owned the place for 26 years. I have 5,000 people to look after. We have a pension scheme which it is my duty to subsidise. Come every year, sometime £10 million, £20 million, £30 million I pay from the profits to be sure my pensioners have money to live.
"But it came just as a surprise that the Government put a body in called pension trustee. I'm here every day, I can't take my profit because I have to take a permission of those bloody idiots.
"For three months I've been trying to get a dividend. They say tomorrow, next week, lawyers ... I say Jesus Christ! I say how this can happen? Three months I've been trying to get my finance director and the managing director to clear the dividend.
"They say yes, the trustee will need this and this and this, coming tomorrow, coming next week. I say is this right? Is this logic? Somebody like me? I run a business and I need to take bloody ####ing trustee's permission to take my profit." At that point he said, he gave up, and went back to the offers on the table for the business: "I say I have proposal, I choose the best one, I say fine, come on, shake hands". And with a decisive gesture of his arms the former owner of the world's most famous grocery shop signals a done deal.
Well he has a point.Can't blame him for cut and running. Never had him down as the "look after the pension schemes of my 5000 employees" type though.
But if those are the restrictions,for a business one owns can't fault him selling out frankly.
Maybe he just wants to spend more time up here enjoying what his Balnagown estate has on offer ;-)
http://www.balnagown.co.uk/
