What You See Is What You Get: My Autobiography (95 page)

Another genius I came across was a so-called expert on the Mayfair retail market. We owned a few buildings in the fashionable Bond Street area and, having acquired one for about PS26m, we were on the lookout for others. This genius offered us another building at a price which yielded an income of only 4 per cent (for those who don't get this, it's the percentage of income achieved by rent based on the price you paid for the asset). This was massively expensive at the time. He assured us this was the way the market was and there was no way that buildings in Bond Street would go for a better yield.

I said that if that was the way the market was - only yielding 4 per cent - then the building we'd bought for PS26m a year ago in the same location (arguably a much better location, with a much better tenant) would, based on the rent we were achieving, using his 4 per cent figure, now be worth PS43m! I offered him my hand, ready to shake on it.

'Well, bigshot? What about it? Where's the forty-three million? Ours is in
a better location in Bond Street than the one you're offering, so come on, Mr Expert, where's the forty-three mil?'

What was his answer?

'No, no, you won't get forty-three million for that building. Everyone knows you only paid twenty-six million for it a year ago.'

You couldn't make it up, could you? I promise you, that's what he said. What a tosser.

We went on to sell all the apartments at the Hard Rock, including the penthouse, which I personally sold to the steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal for PS7.25m.

This episode demonstrates one thing. People who have cash (and don't need to panic to repay a bank) can take their time in the decision-making process. So many of the horror stories in the real estate business come from people who use bank financing to cover the acquisition of buildings and refurbishment. This places them under enormous pressure to sell in order to repay the bank.

I've concluded over the years that there is no science to the real estate market - it just tracks the general economy. If retailers are doing well and business is booming, premises will be taken and high rents will be paid. I've sat through a few peaks and troughs of booms and recessions and seen the value of buildings rise and fall like a yoyo. Over the long haul, buildings in strategic prime positions in high streets and town centres will always maintain their value. Eventually, through one of the cycles of boom and bust, you will have the opportunity to sell at the top of the market or buy at the bottom.

I openly admit that I am no expert in the real estate business. As I've said, I find it a bit boring. However, if it is played correctly, it's a safe place to be. Having said I'm no expert on real estate, I can double-barrel assure you that neither are any of these agents.

*

All through the nineties and well into the new millennium, I had been writing for some of the national newspapers, mainly on business or football. I'd agreed with Piers Morgan, the then editor of the
Daily Mirror,
to do a weekly business column answering questions from readers who were either interested in starting their own businesses or needed advice on their existing ones. Hundreds wrote in every week. I'd select the best questions and dictate the answers to my secretary, Frances, in bulk, so the paper would have enough stuff to get on with for at least three weeks. This avoided having to meet weekly deadlines. Other newspapers, like the
Evening Standard,
also wanted
me to do a regular weekly column, but that would pin me down to a deadline and was a bit like having to get your homework in on time, so I declined.

I continued doing my Q&As at universities, schools and colleges of further education and was often asked to speak at charitable events and business seminars. With all these activities, and my involvement at Spurs, I think it fair to say that I was a well-known person in England. Of course, the financial community remembered me from the mid-to-late eighties. As a result, over the years, Nick Hewer received lots of requests for me to be a guest on various chat shows or to be involved in some second-rate TV reality or quiz show, all of which I rejected. However, I had given many interviews on TV - on football programmes and
The Money Programme
in the computer days - and while I wasn't an expert, having done it so many times, I'd become experienced in how to deal with it.

In March 2004, a young researcher from the BBC came to Brentwood to talk to me about a reality programme known as
The Apprentice.
The BBC was considering the programme, which had been successful in America. She gave me the bare bones of the format: a leading businessman such as myself would be presented with fourteen candidates, who would be split into two teams each week and given business tasks. Over the course of a twelve-week period, I would eliminate one candidate each week who'd failed to perform well. The researcher had been sent to check out some potential businessmen to head up the programme. I told her I was mildly interested, but needed more detail. She said she'd get back to me and that was the last I heard.

I thought no more of it until I went to Florida at Easter-time. Ann told me that her American friends there were raving about a programme called
The Apprentice,
headed up by Donald Trump. Apparently, it was the biggest hit in America and everyone was talking about it. It kind of rang a bell in my mind and I remembered the young lady from the BBC who'd come to visit me in March. When I spoke to people
I
knew at the tennis club, they also told me how popular
The Apprentice
was and how they always stayed in to watch it.

So I was interested (although surprised) when on returning from Florida after Easter, I was contacted by the television production company Talkback Thames who wanted to talk about -
The Apprentice.
The young lady who'd come to see me, Sophie, explained that the rights had been bought by Talk-back Thames's parent company, Fremantle. I wasn't really au fait with the goings-on, as I had no knowledge of how the TV industry worked. It later became clear that the owner of
The Apprentice
format, Englishman Mark Burnett (who resided in America), was the person who had thought it up and made it popular in the USA, using Donald Trump as the host. He sold the
rights to Fremantle, having previously approached the BBC to see if they wanted to buy the rights directly. Knowing the BBC, it may well be that during their slow deliberations they were gazumped by Fremantle.

The irony was that Talkback Thames, having now acquired the rights to produce
The Apprentice,
entered into an agreement with the BBC for them to broadcast it! To be honest, I wasn't interested in all the politics of who did what, but I
was
interested in doing the show, simply because I'd seen it in America and knew how popular it had become. Additionally, I felt it would be an extension to the work I'd done over the years in promoting enterprise and business to young people. It would be an opportunity, in a controlled way, to get my message across - rather like I'd been doing on my round-the-country Q&A trips.

Young Sophie explained to me that they were interviewing various people and I was just one of them, so I asked Nick Hewer to pursue the boss of the production company and see where I was in the pecking order. Nick got busy and talked to the producer at Talkback Thames, Peter Moore, who said I was one of three or four people they were homing in on. A couple of the other obvious candidates were Philip Green and Stelios Haji-Ioannou. Interestingly, Richard Branson wasn't on their list, as he had agreed to appear in a copycat version of
The Apprentice
in the USA for Fox TV.

I admit, I
really
wanted to do this - no question about it. I told Nick to get to work on Peter Moore. Having seen how successful the show was in America, there was no question of me needing to be persuaded. I also called Philip Green to ask if he had been contacted about this show. He told me he had, but said he didn't have enough time to do all this stuff and wasn't interested. In fact, he said, 'It's much more suited to you.' I think the truth of the matter (and Philip may agree) was that he didn't have much experience in front of a camera. On top of that he was very busy building his booming business and wasn't prepared to allocate any time to the programme.

*

Eventually, I met with Peter Moore, a very slight man about my height with flowing silvery-grey hair, and Daisy Goodwin, who appeared to be his boss at Talkback Thames, for a drink at the Dorchester Hotel. It was the first time they had seen me face to face and after a few niceties, I launched into, 'I've seen this programme in the USA and, quite frankly, I could carry off Trump's role with my eyes closed. I know you don't know me from Adam, but it's a shame you weren't a fly on the wall at some of my board meetings at Amstrad - if you had been, you'd know you need look no further for the right man.'

Peter was really onside because, as a Spurs supporter, he had followed me and seen my so-called brash approach in TV interviews. However, Daisy didn't know me at all and said, 'Well, Alan, as you may know, we're looking at some other options, but it's been very nice meeting you.'

I'd gleaned from the meeting that the controller of entertainment commissioning at BBC2 at the time was Jane Lush. From what I understood, she was pushing hard for Philip Green (though no one ever admitted that afterwards). Peter had kind of hinted that to me and told me he was going into bat on my behalf.

'As far as I'm concerned, Sir A [that's what he always called me],
you're
my man. I can see your enthusiasm and you're not afraid to speak your mind. That's what this show will need.'

He set up a meeting for me with Jane Lush and Roly Keating, controller of BBC2. Again it was at the Dorchester Hotel, on the same night I attended a charity function there. Peter and Daisy also turned up. What I didn't realise at the time was that they were pitching me to the BBC. It obviously worked because a day later Peter told me he was going to make a certain Mr Stelios very upset by telling him he hadn't been chosen.

I was at my house in Spain at the time and suggested his team fly out there, as they needed to start the production planning. We could have a relaxing day discussing the details. Nick Hewer was staying with me at the time and, as he had been so involved in arranging all this, I thought it'd be a good idea if he was also at the meeting.

One of the first things they asked me was who I wanted for my two lieutenants. These two advisers would be tracking the teams of candidates throughout the tasks and would then report their findings to me. In Trump's programme, he had one of his trusted long-term male employees on one side and a woman on the other. I hadn't really thought about who I would have at my side until that moment. I felt it was important, from a credibility point of view, that they were people who had worked with me for a long time and knew how I thought.

Peter said, 'How about Nick Hewer, Sir A? He seems to know you very well. He's been around you for twenty-odd years. He seems the perfect person.' Tanya Shaw, the number two producer of the show, agreed immediately that Nick would be ideal.

'Bloody good idea!' I said. 'Nick, you'll be great, you know everything about me.'

Nick's initial reaction was one of shock. 'No, not me, I'm a PR consultant. No, you'll have to find someone from the business world.'

'Nick, you don't need to know all the ins and outs of business,' I said. 'Plus, you're selling yourself short - you say you don't know, but you
do.
How many deals have you been involved in with me, burning the midnight oil? It's a great idea - you are my number one choice.'

I had to think of a lady to assist me and Margaret Mountford came to mind immediately. She'd been there through most of my deals; she'd helped me float the company back in 1980 and she was now a member of the board at Amstrad. However, she wasn't the type of person you'd expect to participate in a TV programme, so I parked the idea. I told the people I had someone in mind, whom Nick knew, but I needed to talk to her to see if she'd be prepared to do it.

I told Talkback I was so eager to go ahead with this, I would do it for no fee at all. However, if my two advisers were to give up twelve weeks of their time running around doing this programme, they
would
have to be paid. It was the first time I'd seen how money played a big part in the production of television programmes. Perhaps the BBC
weren't
so stupid - they'd effectively sub-contracted the making of the programme to a production company for a fixed fee. The production company had to stick strictly to the specification of the programme and deliver, in this case, twelve first-class, one-hour programmes. Clearly they needed strict financial controls to achieve the deal they'd struck with the BBC. When I mentioned that Nick required a fee, Talk-back started to get a bit hot under the collar. I think they misread my offer of participating free of charge as
desperation
and assumed I would provide two free advisers as well!

I saw them hesitating and it occurred to me that I'd better pour on another bit of bad news: if they required any of my premises or staff, or the use of any of my cars or planes or anything like that, they should not expect to get
them
for free either.

I wouldn't say it was a heated debate, but it was certainly a serious one. I needed to put my stake in the ground to show them I wasn't just a telly wannabe, prepared to do anything for them. Sometimes these TV people assume that if someone who's relatively unknown is given the opportunity of being on TV, they'll stop at nothing to get on the box.