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The first thing many British reporters know about the business built by Frederick and David Barclay is that it is secretive to the point of reclusiveness. The second is the family’s reputation of being keen to use lawyers to ensure that remains the case.
So we have to doff our caps to media journalist Jane Martinson for tackling the family story in her new book, You May Never See Us Again. It is a forensic but occasionally frustrating account of the London-born brothers’ rise and fall over the past 70 years.
The gothic introductory paragraphs (flashing lightning, stormy seas) underscore the significance of the mock-gothic castle that the identical twins built on their private island off the coast of Guernsey. Fort Brecqhou, she posits, is as impregnable as the complex financial structures built around their business empire — a portion of it sitting, likewise, in offshore tax havens.
The brothers — David died in 2021, at the age of 86 — emerged from humble beginnings from a large working-class family in south-west London. Martinson attempts to make up for the mysteries of their early lives with descriptions of the city in the 1930s, all peasoupers and cheap lodging houses. Like many entrepreneurs of the period, the brothers made their first fortunes in the booming postwar property market, using this success to move on to bigger and ever-better deals through the 1960s and 1970s.
The twins wrongfooted blue-blooded City bankers with their speed, aggression and sharp eye for an undervalued asset and weak management. A lucrative exit often ensued. They were also pioneering in their use of debt — other people’s money — in raising money from banks, and finding ways to manage loan structures and tax losses to their advantage. When they faced political opposition to the highly leveraged £750mn takeover of the Imperial Continental Gas Association in 1986, they also learnt the lesson that friends in Whitehall are useful. This led to close relations with senior Conservatives and a relationship with Margaret Thatcher, who spent her last days living at the Ritz under their ownership.
Martinson dives deeply into the fractious island politics of Sark, next to Brecqhou, which they acquired in 1993. The island was as much a place to hide from the world as a home, but also clearly a symbol of how far the two had travelled. Some visitors were more than slightly condescending about the gold leaf, ornate ceilings and full-length oil paintings of the pair clad in Scottish dress.
Buying the Ritz a few years later, in 1995, was the most public display of their wealth. While even this trophy asset was tax-efficient, the great attraction was a ticket into high society. The brothers took table nine in the restaurant; the only other people who could reserve it were the British royal family. Meetings were timed by the length of their expensive cigars. A friendship sprang up with the Prince of Wales, now King Charles.
The pair had a hand in many buyouts during the next decade, agreeing to back Sir Philip Green’s deal for Sears before venturing into retail themselves with the acquisitions of Littlewoods and then GUS, formerly Great Universal Stores. Their acquisition of The Telegraph in 2004 didn’t yield a financial killing, but ownership of the newspaper cemented their status as pillars of the Tory establishment.
The brothers’ luck then ran out. An early decision to move into online deliveries with Yodel became a financial disaster. A battle over their interest in Claridge’s, the Berkeley and the Connaught hotels in London forced them to retreat after a costly series of court cases. Strains emerged across parts of the business, which Martinson forensically reveals, sifting through company documents to show the tangled movement of loans and payments.
The endgame for one of the most successful business partnerships of postwar Britain began shortly afterwards. Some time around 2015, Frederick ceded control of the empire to David’s children by agreeing that his only child, Amanda, would have just 25 per cent, held in trusts.
Two glaringly public court cases followed and led to the family’s fortunes being pushed on to the front pages: first a claim by Frederick against his nephews over bugging of his conversations at the Ritz, and then a protracted and disputatious £100mn divorce settlement with his ex-wife. For the first time Martinson was able to take a ringside seat for events. The court heard Frederick say: “There is no money now.”
The problem for Martinson — as it was for Frederick when trying to safeguard his daughter’s future, and the courts when trying to secure money for his ex-wife — is assessing what this really means. It is difficult to judge just how rich the family is now, or indeed how rich they ever were, given the extent of their bank loans and the fact that the money is so often offshore.
But the biggest issue for most readers is trying to glean who the twins themselves are and were. The book is strong on financial detail and island politics, but weaker on what made the brothers tick. Descriptions of them by Martinson and her sources vary from eccentric, tax-shy wheeler-dealers to dapper, ballroom-dancing gentlemen who took care of their friends, loved their mum and who gave generously to charity. Aidan — David’s son, who has been running the business for some years — is barely described.
The fact that the family has been successful in managing to keep so many things private is, unsurprisingly, a problem. Martinson never quite comes to a view about the Barclay brothers’ characters at a particularly tumultuous point of postwar wealth-making.
The book ends with the cliffhanger that came earlier this year, when the family lost control of The Telegraph to its lenders at Lloyds, for once finding that a banking relationship wasn’t to their advantage. Yodel is now for sale and there are questions about the future of Littlewoods. All this will now play out on the pages of newspapers they sought to control — in public at last.
You May Never See Us Again: The Barclay Dynasty: A Story of Survival, Secrecy and Succession by Jane Martinson Penguin Business £25, 320 pages
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