After a long fight to save his commercial property business, David Ross has been forced to admit defeat and appoint Jones Lang LaSalle to help ‘review the strategic options’ available for his 30 plus property portfolio that’s currently worth somewhere in the region of £200m.
Ross has been a prolific entrepreneur since he and school friend Charles Dunstone launched Carphone Warehouse back in 1989. Within four short but very busy years they had twenty shops and had started the venture’s rise to the billion pound business that it is today. Ross went on to become chairman of British transport group National Express (until recently) and has had directorships with his family’s ship supply company Cosalt and publishing and media group Trinity Mirror Plc. He was also on the board of the National Portrait Gallery and the board responsible for the construction of the new Wembley Stadium before launching Kandahar Real Estate, his commercial property business, in 2003.
With his rapid rise to the top, his fortune (which at one point was valued at over £800m) and his work with charities and the arts, you would have thought that he would be about ready to put his feet up and relax, but unfortunately Ross’s commercial property business never quite achieved the heights he expected of it and was constantly plagued by its debts. Now this business, which was once apparently worth in excess of £500m, is now worth just a fraction of that.
Ross is expected to stay in commercial property after building strong relationships with Julian Newiss and Peter Kasch, who run private equity investment firm Catalyst Capital, the company he has been in negotiations with to help save his commercial property business before Lloyds pulled the plug recently. With Ross’s history we’ve no doubt that his Midas touch will return to ensure him even bigger things in the sector in the future.
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