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| Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay |
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| RESULTS 2005 |
Ranking |
Worth |
Industry |
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33= |
£1,200m |
Media, retail and property |
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| Hot on the heels of their £665m purchase of the Telegraph Group, the Barclay twins, 70, are seeking to cut costs by making up to 90 editorial redundancies. But if costs are being squeezed at The Telegraph, the twins, based in the Channel Islands, may be sitting on a gold mine at Littlewoods, the department store and home shopping business. They bought it in 2002 for £750m and followed with the £590m acquisition and merger of the brand's mail order business in 2004. Spotting undervalued assets is the brothers' forte. Their first coup came in 1983, when they bought the Ellerman Lines shipping business from the widow of the owner, Sir John Ellerman, for £48m. They later sold it, making more than £250m. In 1999 they made a further £100m backing Philip Green (qv) in the break-up of retail group Sears. While their empire embraces hotels, property, retail brands and other newspapers, they do not appear to make huge amounts of profit — many of their enterprises are loss-makers. But the Barclays were calculated to be worth £1.2 billion by bankers doing a thorough financial analysis of bidders for the Telegraph Group, and we accept that figure. |
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| RESULTS 2004 |
Ranking |
42= |
Worth |
2004: £750m |
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