Peter de Savary

Peter John de Savary (born 11 July 1944) is an English entrepreneur and a former Chairman of Millwall F.C.

In the 1999 Sunday Times Rich List, he was placed in 971st place with an estimated fortune of £21 million, but was not listed in the top 1,000 places in subsequent editions.

Biography

De Savary built his first business in Nigeria through contacts he made back home in England. The bulk of his business career has been spent in the shipping and oil sectors; he once owned or managed 13 shipyards around the globe, still retaining one shipyard in the United Kingdom, and he still has a global oil-trading and refueling business.

Clubs and property

His first venture into the hospitality was the St. James' Clubs in the late 1970s, in Los Angeles, London, Paris and Antigua, which he sold in the late 1980s to finance the £4m purchase of Skibo Castle.

De Savary built up a large business empire in the 1980s, with property interests including Land's End and John o' Groats. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/4/newsid_2538000/2538261.stm BBC News: "1987: Millionaire's big plans for English landmark"] ]

However, in the early 1990s economic downturn his empire collapsed with serious debts – he sold both Land's End and John o' Groats in 1991 for an undisclosed sum to businessman Graham Ferguson Lacey, and 14 of his companies were wound up between 1992 and 1994, with a combined shortfall to creditors of £715 million. [ [http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11472-2103541,00.html "De Savary’s finance disasters revealed" "The Sunday Times" 26 March 2006] ]

2000s

His recent business activities have concentrated on property development and hotels, with a number of major country house hotels incorporating golf courses. De Savary saw a niche for the affluent; leisure properties that were small enough to make guests feel as though they were on their own private estate, but equipped with all the facilities of the world's great hotels. His first such development was The Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle in Scotland, the venue for Madonna and Guy Ritchie's wedding. Other similar developments have included: the Cherokee Plantation in South Carolina; Stapleford Park and Bovey Castle, both in England; and Carnegie Abbey in Rhode Island. Each is a private club with golf courses and other amenities—clay pigeon shooting, falconry, horseback riding, tennis—depending on what fits with the club's local environment.

He has recently bought four properties in Grenada in the Caribbean, where he is developing a marina and resort village.

Yachting

He led the British sailing team in its challenge for the America's Cup in 1983 but his contender "Victory 83" was beaten by "Australia II" in the final heat.

He used the Motor Yacht Kalizma as a support vessel for the America's Cup races, but has since sold the ship. He also once owned the luxury yacht MY "Land's End".

He founded Pendennis Shipyard in Falmouth, Cornwall, which builds and restores luxury yachts.

He now is also sponsor of the Grenada Sailing Festival.

Football

In November 2005 he succeeded Theo Paphitis as Chairman of Millwall Holdings plc and as Chairman of Millwall F.C. Stewart Till succeeded him on 3 May 2006 as the football club Chairman, and de Savary remained as Chairman of Millwall Holdings plc until October 2006.

Personal life

De Savary is married with five daughters. Two are from his first marriage – Lisa, who has provided him with two grandsons and a granddaughter; Nicola, who is a doctor and mother to three more grandsons. His second wife is Lana, from Charleston, South Carolina, and the couple have three daughters – Tara, 20; Amber, 19, who is an up-and-coming dressage rider who has already represented her country, and Savannah, 16. [ [http://www.broughtonsmagazine.co.uk/issue4/content/interview_peter.html Broughtons Magazine Online - The Uk's leading Bentley Dealership ] ]

In December 1987, after departing from St. Barthélemy in the Caribbean with his pilot, a nanny, his pregnant wife and his three daughters, their plane went into a stall, plunged into the Caribbean and landed upside down. The pilot died, and one of de Savary's daughters had to be revived on the beach. In June 1989, de Savary underwent a life-threatening operation and lost part of his intestines. De Savary says: "At that point, my philosophy on life changed a little. When you genuinely look death in the eye twice, you know that nothing's going with you, and life is but a thread. It's a pretty tenuous thing we're hanging on to. So, what is the point of making money? I concluded it certainly isn't for accumulating it. That's the most stupid thing I ever heard of. So, there can be only one point, and that's to spend it. Now, I'm not ridiculously wasteful, but I may be slightly extravagant. As Andrew Carnegie said, to die rich is to die disgraced." [ [http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Profiles/People_Profile/0,2540,153,00.html Cigar Aficionado | People Profile | Peter de Savary ] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.desavary.com/ Official website]
* [http://www.cnconnect.com/charter/yachtdetail.aspx?id=258 MY "Land's End"]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/millwall/4484160.stm BBC Sport: "De Savary sets Premiership target" 30 November 2005]
* [http://www.portlouisgrenada.com/ Port Louis Grenada]
* [http://www.mountcinnamongrenada.com/ Mount Cinnamon Grenada]