Page 6 - Yorkshire Rich List 2017

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Robert Miller and family £1.75bn
2016
Position: 1 £1.6bn
Robert Miller is the man who links North Yorkshire to the Greek royal family. As well as owning a very large piece of North Yorkshire he is the father of Marie-Chantal, the crown princess of Greece.
His youngest daughter, Alexandria, is also a princess, having married Prince Alexander von Furstenberg, son of a German prince. His eldest daughter Pia didn’t marry so well, se ling for Christopher Ge y, grandson of John Paul Ge y.
Duty-free shopping billionaire Robert Miller, 84, owns the 36,000-acre Gunnerside Estate near Reeth in Swaledale, one of the biggest sporting country estates in Britain. It is also said to be one of the best, described by The Field magazine as “exhilarating”.
In the heart of the estate is the impressive Gunnerside Lodge on the west side of Shore Gill overlooking the tiny hamlet of Ivelet.
Robert Warren Miller was born in Norfolk County, Massachuse s, USA, into a family which counts original passengers on The Mayflower among its ancestors. He graduated with a degree in hotel administration.
In 1960 he co-founded the Hong Kong-based Duty Free Shoppers (DFS) chain with Irish- American businessman Chuck Feeney. This was at a time when duty-free shopping at airports was in its infancy.
The business expanded into Europe and
Asia, gaining the lucrative exclusive duty-free concessions in Hong Kong and Hawaii. It opened off-airport and downtown stores and became the world’s largest travel retailer.
The French luxury goods group Louis Vui on Moet Hennessy (LVMH) bought a controlling stake in DFS in 1998, but Robert Miller retains a 38 per cent holding.
In 1973 he founded Search Investment Group of which he is chairman. The international investment company is a substantial shareholder in Ortelius Capital Partners. He sold his private equity company, Squadron Capital in 2012.
He is married to Ecuadorian Marie Chantal Pesantes. Although born in America, he is a British citizen. As well as his estate in Yorkshire he has a home in London.
LIE OF THE LAND: Robert Miller owns the 36,000-acre Gunnerside Estate in Swaledale.
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Eddie and Malcolm Healey £1.5bn
2016
Position: 2 £1.5bn
Hull-born brothers Eddie and Malcolm Healey are best known as the businessmen who built the Meadowhall Shopping Centre near Sheffield. Both proved that they have a knack of making money from a wide range of retail ventures.
Meadowhall was derelict land when Eddie Healey, 79, bought it with fellow developer Paul Sykes (qv). The completed retail centre, which opened in 1990 and was the largest shopping mall in the UK, was sold to British Land for £1.17bn in 1999. Eddie Healey made £420m from the sale.
He went on to develop the £500m Centro in Oberhausen, Germany, Europe’s largest shopping centre. He sold the Parkgate shopping complex in Rotherham for £260m, and sold the Parc Trostre retail park near Llanelli in Wales for £156m in 2014.
He owns Westella Hall at Kirk Ella, but he and his wife Carol spend much of their time in Barbados where they have a £17m home. His son Mark owns Blue Energy, a wind and solar farm business in Scotland worth at least £250m.
Malcolm Healey, 73, built up and sold the Hygena Kitchens business in 1987, ne ing £200m. He
then moved to America and repeated the process, se ing up the Mills Pride operation in Ohio and then selling it to the Masco Corporation for £800m before returning to the UK. He retained shares in Masco, which have performed well
His Hotham-based West Retail Group, which includes Wren Living kitchens business and electronics retailer Ebuyer, turned over a record £524.4m in 2016, making a pre-tax profit of £12m.
Home for Malcolm Healey is the 12,000-acre Warter Priory Estate near Pocklington, East Yorkshire. He bought the noted shooting and farming estate from the Marquess of Normanby for £48m. The estate includes a school, a community hall, around 60 houses and co ages, a village store and extensive parkland. He sold his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida for more than £20m.
The main Healey family company, SPH 2011, has assets approaching £450m.
Both brothers, who le school at 16 with no qualifications, started out in their father’s Hull- based DIY business. Their Status Discount Stores chain was sold to MFI in 1980 for £30m.
RETAIL RICHES: Meadowhall multi-millionnaire Eddie Healey.
6 THE YORKSHIRE POST TUESDAY NOVEMBER 28 2017
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
STUART HASTINGS GARY LONGBOTTOM