The flamboyant property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz has for years cut a swath through Britain's property industry like he was taking a turn around the monopoly board. His combined fortune with his brother Vincent has been estimated at £850m - wealth on a par with Lord Ashcroft and Sir Alan Sugar. He inhabited the world of the Monaco yacht set, celebrity parties and the gossip columns.
But the luck of the dice has turned: the Mayfair-based investor has emerged as one of the biggest and most high-profile victims of the credit crunch.
A series of collapsed corporate deals and plunging stock market sentiment have led to a fall in the paper value of three Tchenguiz investments of more than £560m in less than 12 weeks. Calculations by the Guardian show that declines in the share price of Sainsbury's, the pub group Mitchells & Butlers and the computer games publisher SCi Entertainment have respectively led to a drop in the value of Tchenguiz investments of £325m, £200m and £40m since November 4.
The fortunes of the Tchenguiz empire are also believed to have been hit by the impact on his private pub businesses, which are expected to have suffered in line with the rest of the industry as many drinkers are put off by the smoking ban. Tchenguiz's Globe Pub Company was nine months late filing its latest accounts with Companies House on Tuesday.
Somerfield, the convenience store chain where he also holds a stake, is also believed to have experienced a tough trading spell and has been put up for sale.
Rumours that heavy paper losses had forced him to sell his Monaco-moored yacht were laughed off last weekend. He told one newspaper: "So I've lost a lot of money but I'm not in trouble as people keep saying. It's just a case of taking the rough with the smooth, that's all."
Tchenguiz - whose name is said to be Persian for Genghis, after the Mongol warlord - is a stalwart of the jet set, on friendly terms with Bernie Ecclestone and Stelios Haji-Ioannou. Gossip columns have named him as the man who introduced Princess Diana to Dodi Fayed. In recent years, however, he has at least partially retreated from a playboy lifestyle, focusing on his business interests. |
