Peter de Savary
Businessman
BORN JULY 11, 1944 – DIED OCTOBER 30, 2022, AGED 78
PETER de Savary’s business career defined the boom and bust era of the 1980s and 1990s, making and losing fortunes as trends changed.
When he was not doing deals in a swirl of cigar smoke, he enjoyed sailing competitively and came second in the Admiral’s Cup in Australia in the 1980s. The entrepreneur’s mascot was a British bulldog called Winston.
His father John ran a pig farm in Essex, but when he split from his wife in 1946 she took Peter to live in Venezuela for a while with her second husband.
De Savary returned to England to attend the private Charterhouse School, but only managed one O-Level. He was kicked out at the age of 16 after being caught in bed with the headmaster’s au pair.
De Savary travelled to Canada to live with his
mother and stepfather and worked as a tutor and gardener. With a wife and baby in tow, he returned to Britain to try to make a fortune and learned about business opportunities in West Africa.
He befriended a relative of Nigeria’s president and started doing trade deals in everything from steel to wheat and later oil.
By 1979 he had enough money to create upmarket St James’s Club in London, with others in Antigua, Paris and LA, which he sold for around £90million. This helped him buy Skibo Castle in Scotland, which he sold for £23million.
The opportunist was always looking for a good property deal and in 1985 he wanted to buy an estate in Florida but was beaten to it by Donald Trump.
He had two daughters with his first wife. His second marriage only lasted six weeks. In 1986 he married beauty queen Lana Paton with whom he had three daughters.