Page 18 - Yorkshire Rich List 2017

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John Guthrie and family £280m
2016
Position: 19= £260m
The childhood home of Anne Boleyn is just one of the valuable assets in Scarborough property owner John Guthrie’s portfolio.
He heads up Broadland Properties which owns Hever Castle – one of Kent’s most popular tourist a ractions.
Mr Guthrie, 81, is chairman of Broadland which has net assets of around £270m. It turned over £48.6m in 2016, making a pre-tax profit just shy of £15m.
Among its assets are hydro-electric schemes in Scotland and a range of commercial, agricultural and leisure interests and sporting estates in the UK and Poland, as well as interests in renewable energy generation.
Broadland acquired Hever Castle and its collections from the Astor family in 1983. The business has invested large sums maintaining the castle and estate and has added to its art collections, which include one of the finest collections of Tudor portraits a er the National Portrait Gallery.
Investment has also gone into visitor facilities
including the Guthrie Pavilion restaurant. Hever Castle was built as a medieval fortification in 1270 and became a dwelling in the 15th and 16th centuries, counting Anne Boleyn and Anne of Cleves among its residents.
Mr Guthrie, a chartered surveyor by profession, founded Broadland Properties in 1950.
He was a 10 per cent shareholder in Merchant Retail and made £22.3m when Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing bought the company. When he bought into Merchant Retail, shares were trading at 9p. He sold for 197p.
Mr Guthrie is a director of Scarborough Rugby Club and Hever Castle Golf Club, and has other interests in property, finance, leisure and minerals.
Broadland Properties donated £58,000 to the Conservative party in 2016.
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David Hood £275m
SUBSTANTIAL ESTATE: Broadland Properties chairman John Guthrie is a chartered surveyor by profession.
2016
Position: 18 £270m
AT A SWIPE: David Hood’s main interests are in Infoserve and Multiflight, both based at Leeds Bradford Airport.
Electronics engineer David Hood is co-founder of Saltaire-based set-top box manufacturer Pace. He and Barry Rubery set up the business in 1982, with Pace starting life as a so ware mail order firm in a terrace house in Clayton.
In the mid-80s the firm began making satellite receivers at premises in Allerton. By 1989 it was turning over £8m, and became one of the first tenants of Salts Mill in Saltaire.
A er the business floated in 1996 with a valuation of £370m, Mr Hood, 69, sold shares worth more than £210m. He le the board in 2004 but retains a stake worth at least £75m. Pace is now merged with US technology group Arris.
Mr Hood’s main companies now are online search operation Infoserve, of which he is senior non-executive director, and air charter and repair business Multiflight.
Infoserve, based at Leeds Bradford Airport,
is a leading player in the UK online local search market. The operation, which also has offices in Darlington, lists more than two million SMEs in its online business directories.
Multiflight – also based at Leeds Bradford Airport – came about from Mr Hood’s passion for flying. It sells and charters aircra , repairs them and provides hangarage and fuelling. The business disposed of its flight training operation in 2016 but continues to operate the region’s air ambulances. It turned over £3.7m in 2016.
Mr Hood has a helicopter pilot’s licence. He also bought a new Boeing 737 as a corporate jet, paying £30m for it and a further £15m to fit it out. It was later sold to a Russian businessman for £50m.
Mr Hood also set up Freedom Clinics, a service in which people with back and joint pain can visit a city centre clinic to be assessed and treated. The company has clinics in Leeds, London Moorgate and Canary Wharf and has expanded its services to include treatment for stress, IBS, sleep-related disorders and infertility. Mr Hood founded the business with Andrew Thirkhill, a former director of laser eye clinic Ultralase who is also on the board of Infoserve. He resigned as a director in 2015.
Mr Hood, who lives in Skipton, was awarded the OBE in 1996.
18 the magazine TUESDAY NOVEMBER 28 2017
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
JIM MORAN ANDREW HIGGINS