|
Nick Candy
Nicholas Anthony Christopher Candy (born 23 January 1973)[1][2] is a British billionaire luxury property developer and politician, who has been the treasurer of Reform UK since December 2024.[3] He was estimated to share a joint net worth of £1.5 billion in the Estates Gazette rich list 2010 along with his brother Christian Candy, placing them at position 52 in the list of the richest property developers in the United Kingdom.[4] Early life and educationBorn in London to a Greek-Cypriot mother and English father, he was privately educated[3] at Priory Preparatory School and Epsom College[5] in Surrey. He graduated from the University of Reading with a degree in human geography.[6] Business careerIn 1995, he bought his first property along with his brother Christian Candy, a one-bedroom flat in Redcliffe Square, Earl's Court, London. Using a £6,000 loan from their grandmother, the brothers renovated the £122,000 apartment while living in it. Eighteen months later they sold it for £172,000, making a £50,000 profit.[7] In their spare time between 1995 and 1999, the brothers began renovating flats and working their way up the property ladder.[8] Eventually they were able to give up their day jobs where Nick worked in advertising for J. Walter Thompson and Christian for investment bank Merrill Lynch and established Candy & Candy in 1999, of which he is CEO.[9] They formed the CPC Group in 2004 and collaborated on the prestigious One Hyde Park scheme in London, operate separate independent businesses and have done for a number of years. In June 2018, Candy & Candy was renamed Candy Property in order to reinforce Nick Candy's sole ownership of the business and to align with his wider portfolio of companies.[10] Candy VenturesIn recent years Nick Candy has diversified his interests outside of real estate and developed a portfolio of global investments (often in high-tech, leading-edge technology) through his private investment fund Candy Ventures.[11] Candy Ventures,[12] alongside Qualcomm Ventures, was reported to have led a $37 million funding round for a leading augmented reality and computer vision company.[13] Candy Ventures acquired the intellectual property assets of leading augmented reality start-up Blippar in January 2019.[14] The website for Candy Ventures lists 18 investments within the companies portfolio, including Blippar, UK fashion house Ralph & Russo and data processing company Hanzo Archives.[15] Nick Candy is currently in dispute with Ralph & Russo, which filed for bankruptcy in March 2018, in the UK High Court over the terms of a £17 million loan given by Candy Ventures to the company.[16] Candy Ventures acquired a stake in Blippar and another tech start-up, Crowdmix, after both companies were placed into administration.[17][18] The takeovers were both facilitated by Paul Appleton, who worked as the administrator for the two companies and was appointed administrator in the Ralph & Russo bankruptcy.[19] Their portfolio includes mining investments in the Runruno gold mine in the Philippines, which has faced opposition from human rights groups after the demolition of local communities in 2012, which caused injuries to six local people.[20][21] The development has also been blamed for causing landslides leading to deaths in the area.[22] On 28 May 2022, The Times reported that Candy Ventures was considering a bid to buy The Hut Group, though journalist Oliver Shah was sceptical, pointing to "a series of disastrous investments in tech start-ups" and "no record of big acquisitions".[23] However, on 15 June 2022, Bloomberg reported that Candy Ventures had pulled out of the bidding process for The Hut Group.[24] In July 2022, his Luxembourg-registered investment vehicle, Candy Ventures SARL, sued Aaqua BV and its major shareholder, Robert Bonnier, for an alleged fraud.[25] He claimed that Bonnier misled him about Aaqua, a false claim that Apple and LVMH are interested to invest in Aaqua, so asked the court to freeze Bonnier's assets and nullify the swap of his shares in Audioboom Group PLC, a podcast platform, with Aaqua.[25][26] Later, the High Court issued a freezing order against Bonnier, but ordered that Candy Ventures had to obtain a £10 million bank guarantee to maintain the freezing order.[25] In August 2022, the freezing orders were discharged. On 7 September 2022, Bonnier demanded £150 million in damages from Candy for falsely obtained freezing orders that turned his technology company into a credit risk.[27] Other venturesIn October 2018, it was reported that Nick Candy refinanced his penthouse at One Hyde Park with an £80 million mortgage from Credit Suisse in order to pursue rental opportunities.[28] The property is reportedly valued at £160 million.[28] In April 2021, Bloomberg reported that Nick had placed his penthouse on the market for £175 million.[29] In August 2020, Nick also announced that his yacht, the Eleven Eleven, was up for sale for €59.5 million.[30] On 9 March 2022, Nick Candy, a boyhood fan, confirmed he was planning a consortium bid to take over Chelsea Football Club after owner Roman Abramovich put the club up for sale following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.[31] The sale process was halted the following day after Abramovich's assets, including the club, were frozen to stop him making money from Chelsea, but the UK government was open to considering a variation to its sanctions licence to allow a sale so long as Abramovich received no funds.[32] On 25 March 2022, The Athletic reported that Candy's bid to acquire Chelsea had failed, despite support from South Korean firms Hana Financial and C&P Sports Group.[33] In 2023 Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) and Nick Candy's Candy Capital announced that they had formed a partnership to develop a “super-prime” real estate development in Dubai.[34] LawsuitIn 2016 and 2017, Nick and Christian Candy were involved in high-profile litigation in the High Court in London which put their reputations on the line. Mark Holyoake claimed in the High Court action that the Candy Brothers had used threats against him and his family to extort total repayments of £37m against a £12m loan.[35] Although they were cleared of extortion, Mr Justice Nugee said in his judgment "the protagonists...have been willing to lie when they consider their commercial interests justify them doing so". Mr Justice Nugee went on to say "he had found none of Mr Holyoake's claims to be true, and that there had been no undue duress, influence, intimidation or unlawful interference with economic interests."[36][37] In June 2018, following another application by Mr. Holyoake, the Court of Appeal rejected Mark Holyoake's bid challenging the high-profile high court ruling in December 2017 (above). Lord Justice David Richards concluded that Mr Holyoake's arguments had "no real prospect of success", meaning Mr Justice Nugee's original decision in 2017 was affirmed.[38] Political careerNick Candy has donated over £270,000 to the Conservative Party.[3] In December 2021, The Daily Mirror published a photograph revealing that Nick attended a party with the then Conservative Party London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey on 14 December 2020, which would have broken coronavirus restrictions at the time.[39] The publication of the photograph in December 2021 followed reporting by The Times in March 2021, which named Nick as the leader of fundraising for Shaun Bailey's London mayoral campaign.[40] In June 2020, The Guardian also reported that Candy had donated £100,000 to the Conservative Party in March 2020.[41] In February 2024, Nick was reported by the The Independent to have expressed support for Keir Starmer's Labour Party.[42] Treasurer of Reform UKIn December 2024, having left the Conservative Party, he was appointed treasurer of Reform UK by leader Nigel Farage.[43] Shortly after taking on the role, he arranged a meeting between Farage and billionaire Elon Musk at Mar-a-Lago, with the goal of securing a donation to the party from Musk.[44] Personal lifeOn 29 September 2012, Nick married the Australian-British actress-musician-TV presenter Holly Valance in Beverly Hills, California, US.[45] In November 2013 in London, they had their first child, a daughter, Luka Violet Toni.[46] Their second daughter, Nova Skye Coco, was born in September 2017.[47] On 8 April 2022, Candy and Valance were pictured with former US President Donald Trump and British politician Nigel Farage at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, with a tweet by Farage indicating that the group had dinner together.[48] A report in The Times on 28 May 2022 indicated that Candy is also friends with comedians Jimmy Carr and David Walliams, referring to Candy as "an Olympic level name dropper".[23] References
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||