David Ross (businessman)

David Ross
Born	David Peter John Ross (1965-07-10) 10 July 1965
Nationality	British
Education	Uppingham School
Alma mater	University of Nottingham
Occupation(s)	Accountant, co-founder of Carphone Warehouse
Years active	1988–present
Children	1
Relatives	Carl Ross (grandfather)

David Peter John Ross (born 10 July 1965) is an English businessman and one of the co-founders (with Charles Dunstone and Guy Johnson) of Carphone Warehouse. At the peak valuation of his business interests in 2008, Ross was one of the 100 richest people in the United Kingdom. In 2008, Forbes ranked him #843 in the world's richest billionaires; his net worth was estimated at US$1.4 billion. A 2014 profile in the Sunday Times Rich List put his current net worth at £892 million.

Early life

Ross was born on 10 July 1965. He is a grandson of Carl Ross, who created one of the UK's largest commercial fishing firms from the family business, which eventually became Ross Group, and took over the Great Grimsby Coal, Salt and Tanning Company (known as Cosalt), which was founded in 1873 as a cooperative that supplied fishing fleets. Both businesses were listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Ross was educated at Uppingham School. At the age of 16, his father sent him to work on a building site in Algeria, which he later described: "It was a defining moment because it was so bad I had to get away from it and be able to control my destiny". He graduated with a BA degree in law from the University of Nottingham and worked at Arthur Andersen from 1988, qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1991.

Business activities

Carphone Warehouse

Main article: Carphone Warehouse

Ross had become friends with Charles Dunstone while at Uppingham. Dunstone went on to found Carphone Warehouse from a flat in Marylebone Road, London, using £6000 of his savings. Two years later, he asked Ross to join the business as finance director. Four years later, the business had twenty stores and thereafter continued to grow rapidly through a process of both acquisition and internal development.

While Dunstone became the public face of Carphone Warehouse, Ross (described by Dunstone as his "secret weapon"), developed and drove the high-street retail footprint of the company by buying Tandy in the UK, and developing markets in Europe and the United States. The business also expanded into other telecommunications areas, establishing the TalkTalk ISP in 2003 and taking over other providers such as AOL. When Ross assisted the IPO of Carphone Warehouse in 2000, the company had been so successful that the partners had not needed to borrow or involve outsiders: Dunstone owned half, Ross a third, and Guy Johnson most of the rest.

Ross was finance director from 1991 until 1996 and then joint-Chief Operating Officer of the company until 2003. He started to reduce his role from 2003, was appointed deputy chairman in July 2005 and by 2008 was a non-executive director.

The successful involvement of Ross in Carphone Warehouse created a demand for his services at other businesses. He was the chairman of National Express from 2001 and also had directorships of several other companies, including publishing and newspaper group Trinity Mirror, Big Yellow Storage, and Frontiers Capital.

Kandahar Real Estate

A private investment business called Kandahar had been formed by Ross, comprising a team that had gained much experience of the UK high-street property market as the number of Carphone Warehouse stores had grown. In 2006, Ross set up a commercial property joint venture with the Morgan Stanley investment bank. His 50 per cent investment in the venture, which was known as Kandahar Real Estate Ltd, came from injecting the one-million square foot high-street private property portfolio of Kandahar, while Morgan Stanley injected the newly completed Drake Circus Shopping Centre in Plymouth. The joint venture was worth £500 million but hit problems soon after due to the financial crisis of 2007–08; in 2007 it had to arrange a £460 million refinancing deal through the HBOS bank.

2008 resignations and aftermath

Ross resigned from Carphone Warehouse, National Express and Big Yellow in December 2008 after allegations were made regarding his use of shares in the businesses as collateral for personal loans without informing the companies was against stock market rules. However, shortly afterwards, the Financial Services Authority said that its rules on the issue were unclear and that other directors had used their shares in a similar fashion.

The Drake Circus shopping centre, which was the largest asset in the Kandahar portfolio, was sold to British Land in January 2011 for £240m. Other sales followed as the portfolio was divested during the year, including shopping centres in Bishops Stortford, Caterham, Ipswich and Market Harborough.

Cosalt

Like his grandfather and father before him, Ross was chairman of Cosalt. He took on the role in 2007. Some individual shareholders tried in December 2012 to have the Takeover Panel and Financial Services Authority investigate Ross amid claims that he had abused his position in an attempt to buy the business cheaply. Ross said that he had acted altruistically and that the company's pension fund liabilities were now twice its value. By that time, trading in shares had been suspended due to a failure to comply with regulatory requirements by April of that year.

Unable to obtain funding from existing or new lenders, or by a deal with pension fund trustees, the company was put into administration in February 2013. Ross and two banks were owed £17 million and Ross held 46 per cent of the shares.

The business had a £50 million pension deficit when it fell into administration. According to Private Eye, after its collapse Ross bought the company's assets at "knockdown prices" and recovered "far more of his money than anyone else." Partners from PricewaterhouseCoopers were joint administrators of the business. Amongst their actions was the subsequent sale of the Ballyclare workwear division to Ross for £5.8 million. They said: "This sale ensured continued trading for the business and continued employment of all the companies' staff ... The alternative offers would have resulted in further insolvencies within the Group which would have resulted in lower realisations and increased costs". In the same year, Ross also acquired Simon Jersey, adding to his workwear portfolio.

The decision of the Insolvency Service not to disqualify directors of Cosalt from holding future office has been questioned in Parliament. Jo Swinson, a minister, said that "there was insufficient evidence of relevant misconduct for it to be in the public interest to investigate further since the issues raised are unlikely to be viewed by the Court as serious enough". She also said a potential criminal prosecution of the directors for failure to file accounts had been rejected.

Other business activities

In 2013, Ross resigned as Deputy Chairman of the Humberside Local Enterprise Partnership. He had become involved when Cosalt was investing in the area with proposals for wind-generated energy but the collapse of that company meant that he had little in the way of involvement in local business and was having to spend more of his time elsewhere. The Ballyclare workwear division was based in Barnsley and Stockport, neither of which are on Humberside.

Ross, who has a strong personal interest in sport, was for some time on the board of Wembley Stadium and, with his friend Gary Lineker, was part of the consortium which rescued Leicester City Football Club from receivership, before it was later sold to Milan Mandarić.

Other activities

Charitable activities and the arts

Ross was appointed by Tony Blair to the board of the National Portrait Gallery for a four-year term in February 2006. This was to satisfy the Gallery's desire to recruit "a person with senior level of financial, accounting, strategic planning and risk management skills". There were accusations of cronyism later in that year when it emerged that the Gallery had commissioned a photographic portrait of Ross, among other telecoms-related subjects, but the Gallery noted that he had not been involved with the organisation at the time of commissioning. As of 2015, he is a trustee of the Gallery.

In May 2012, Ross participated in "The Dallaglio Flintoff Cycle Slam 2012" charity cycle ride from Olympia, Greece to Stratford, London in aid of Andrew Flintoff and Lawrence Dallaglio's respective charities. He hosts the annual Nevill Holt Opera festival.

Education

Ross founded the David Ross Foundation in 2006. It believes that “every child and young person has passions and talents” and that its intention is to "help them discover their strengths by offering them a wide range of world class educational opportunities". It has funded the David Ross Educational Trust, which operates various academies and at least one free school in England. Its first academy was sponsored in 2007; by July 2014 it was running 25 educational establishments in the country.

As of 2015, he is a member of Nottingham University's Council. He had been shortlisted for the role of chairman of Ofsted by an independent panel in 2014 but his involvement went no further due to objections from the Liberal Democrats regarding a potential conflict of interest relating to his past political donations.

Sport

After Boris Johnson was elected Mayor of London in May 2008, Ross was his nominee to the board of the London Organising Committee of the 2012 Olympic Games. He resigned from this position December 2008 due to unrelated allegations. Johnson has also appointed Ross to the board of the London Legacy Development Corporation which has responsibility for redevelopment of Olympic Park in Legacy mode and to London United, the body that supported the capital's bid to be host city for the 2018 World Cup.

Currently in 2013, Ross is a member of the Commonwealth Games England board. He is also a non-executive director of the British Olympic Association.

Personal life

Ross has a son with Michelle "Shelley" Ross, a former partner whom he did not marry but who happened to have the same surname. He has also been in relationships with high-profile women such as Saffron Aldridge and Ali Cockayne.

In 2007 he bought 4,500 hectares (11,000 acres) of grouse moor in Yorkshire.

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