Great news! Another super rich member of that socially useful economic powerhouse delivering monumental benefits to us all – the financial services industry – has just made more money in a few months than you can possibly imagine.
Step forward Stevie Lansdown, Bristol City Chairman and Executive Chairman of Hargreaves Lansdown, whose assets in his company, we learn from Bristol 24-7, have grown by 22% in just 3 months.
Based on FourFourTwo’s Football Rich List, published a couple of months ago, Lansdown’s shares were worth £300m, putting him at number 23 on their list.
Back in August the Hargreaves Lansdown share price was about 220p per share but now it is up around the 290p mark. So the value of his shares have increased by 70p a share – or about 30% – meaning his share is now worth about £400m.
This means Lansdown has effectively increased his wealth in the last few months by more than 6 times as much as the difference (£15m) between selling the land at Ashton Gate as residential (£5m) or selling the land as retail (£20m)!
So ‘No Foodstore = Two weeks earnings’?
Oh – and don’t forget – Lansdown recently paid himself a “tactless” dividend “a bit less than Peter’s”, his business partner. Based on their assets, Lansdown’s haul would have been in the region of £9m then …
But he loves the club, yeah, he really loves it…
(I’m reminded of City’s report from a meeting between him and the supporters club where he is quoted as saying he is “supportive of the Atyeo statue [but] again made it clear that this is something the fans could and should be able to do without any financial help from him or the club…”
Because nothing shows how much you love a football club more than refusing to contribute a couple of grand towards a statue for one of its greatest players.
I believe he has stepped down as chairman at Hargreaves Lansdown. But I could be wrong?
Less than two weeks work assuming the council get citizens share of 20% of the land say £3.5m at hypermarket value.
Ben, Lansdown didn’t get rich by being generous with expenses. On the contrary he will have kept a tight lid on costs and that attitude will carry on however wealthy he is (I’ve dealt with such people). I personally applaud that and wish I’d had money to invest in his entreprise in the early days.
But that doesn’t mean the City Council have to roll over and play dead as soon as Lansdown makes a play to see what he can get away with at Ashton Gate. Of course he’s going to try it on. He’s an entrepreneur, a risk taker. But the Council shouldn’t be suckered.
They should decide on each application (and the ransom strip sale) on its individual merits, considering what’s best for Ashton and Bristol. But the link between the two is spurious. We have no evidence that Tesco is a precondition for the Stadium other than the claim of the football club, but they would say that, wouldn’t they.