Page 7 - Yorkshire Rich List 2017

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Jacques Gaston Murray and family £1.2bn
2016
Position: 4 £1.1bn
At 98, Jacques Gaston Murray is the oldest person in our list by quite a few years, but he still takes an active interest in his Leeds-based fire protection business and his air conditioning and heating firm, despite now being resident in Switzerland.
One of his two main businesses is Elland-based London Security plc, one of Europe’s leading
fire protection businesses, of which he owns 98 per cent. Despite currency movements and a competitive market it continues to grow, turning over £115m in 2016, with pre-tax profits of more than £20m. It has assets of almost £100m.
The company provides fire protection for around 222,000 customers in the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, France, Germany and Luxembourg. It includes Nu-Swi International Ltd which was founded in 1933 and manufactures, sells and services fire extinguishers from its West Yorkshire headquarters.
His other main business is the Wolverhampton- based AIM-listed Andrew Sykes Group, supplying industrial heating and air conditioning. The group began life as Sykes in 1857 and has well over 30,000
customers, employing more than 300 people in the UK from 30 sites from Scotland to Devon.
The family – including his two sons Jean-Jacques and Jean-Pierre – also has six hotels worth more than £320m, including the 431 bedroom Grand Beach Hotel in Miami Beach.
He has been a British national since just a er the Second World War, during which he served in the French army. He studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts when he was called up in 1940. When France surrendered to Germany he made his way to England where he joined the Royal Air Force, flying 38 missions as a navigator. He was awarded the French Legion of Honour.
A er the war – during which his father died in Auschwitz – he returned to France, but came back to England to embark on a distinguished business career. His involvement with fire extinguishers began in 1961 when he invested in a business which became General-Incendie SA, one of France’s largest fire extinguisher companies.
As well as these businesses, the Murray family has a property portfolio and other assets.
SECURITY CHIEF: Jacques Gaston Murray, owner of Elland-based London Security Plc, pictured in 1992.
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Lord Kirkham and family £1.2bn
2016
Position: 3 £1.2bn
Despite being 72, Lord Kirkham hasn’t lost
his appetite for furniture retailing. In 2016 he launched Fabb Sofas, a business to compete with DFS – the company he founded himself in 1969.
Doncaster-born Lord Kirkham floated the DFS furniture chain in 1993, generating £450m for him and his family. He then took the operation private again before selling it to Advent in 2010 ne ing a further £400m.
His new business works directly with partner manufacturers, cu ing out the wholesaler. With stores in London, Scotland and the Midlands, Fabb Sofas also sells furniture online.
In 2014 Lord Kirkham gave his bank account another boost when he sold his 19 per cent stake in frozen food retailer Iceland to South African Christo Wiese for £86m.
Lord Graham Kirkham le school – Maltby Grammar School – aged 16 with no qualifications. He became a furniture salesman before se ing up his own business – Northern Upholstery – in a converted billiard hall in Carcro . He made and sold his own furniture range.
In 1983 Darley Dale-based Direct Furniture Supplies (DFS) – a Northern Upholstery supplier – went bankrupt. Graham Kirkham bought it. At the time it has 63 stores employing 2,000 staff, turning over £3m a year.
He branched out from furniture to fish in 2012 when he bought the Whitby chain of fish and chip shops.
He was knighted in the 1996 New Year Honours, and was made a life peer as Baron Kirkham of Old Cantley three years later. In 2001 he was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.
He gives prolifically to charity through the Graham Kirkham Foundation which has helped cancer research at Bradford University as well
as grants to local and national charities. He is deputy patron of Outward Bound and is chairman of trustees and a supporter of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme. He is a significant donor to the Conservative Party.
Married to Pauline, he has two children. He has a home in Sprotborough and the Grade II listed Cantley Hall. He collects old masters.
LIFE IS SUITE: Lord Kirkham at Adwick Le Street, Doncaster in 2012.
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TUESDAY NOVEMBER 28 2017 THE YORKSHIRE POST 7
SIMON HULME REX/SHUTTERSTOCK