FELIX DENNIS

49 £575m Publishing

Felix Dennis's attitude to money is straightforward. He has said: "My whole ethos is - spread it about. Spend it as fast as you can get your hands on it." On his 1,350-acre Warwickshire estate, he has a cinema, gym, Jacuzzi and swimming pool, a place where he can relax and dream of spending £200m planting 50,000 oak trees, to be called the Forest of Dennis. Except relaxation for Dennis, 55, who once had a crack cocaine habit and smokes three packs of cigarettes a day, is a luxury he has no interest in. His lifestyle, with its five Rolls-Royces, a history of exotic mistresses and six luxury houses, is reflected in the magazines that have made him so successful. In America Dennis publishes the laddish Maxim, which shifts 2.6m copies a month, while Stuff, the gadget mag, sells 1.2m a month. Maxim now makes a profit of £30m a year. In Britain his Dennis Publishing should make £2m to £2.5m profit on nearly £40m sales in 2002. But the publication he seems most proud of is A Glass Half Full, a book of his own verse that he promoted across Britain, handing out 9,500 glasses of fine wine in the process and selling 7,500 copies.

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