How ‘Britain’s richest banker’ wants to become a drugs baron
From Tom Leonard Well, it’s hardly less respectable!
Reckoned to have once been the richest British banker in Britain, Roger Jenkins was the multi-millionaire financier credited with ‘saving’ Barclays during the crash by persuading Middle east investors to bail it out.
He didn’t quite manage to save either of his marriages or his later glamorous relationship with elle ‘The Body’ Macpherson. When he and his second wife, diana, a glamorous Bosnian refugee, divorced in 2011, Jenkins famously agreed to split his £300 million fortune in half.
But now he may be heading to recoup that loss and more in his latest venture as he sets out to become America’s new cannabis king.
The muscular, bald Scot — who looks more like a Glasgow bouncer than the man nicknamed Roger the dodger in the city for his expertise in tax avoidance — is backing a fund that has bought land in california to set up a huge marijuanagrowing business.
Has the dour-looking money man, who was educated at edinburgh Academy and Heriot-Watt University, taken leave of his senses? In fact, while he’s taking a risk — marijuana hasn’t been legalised yet in california — the oil refinery manager’s son could be on to the most lucrative ‘little earner’ of his career.
Marijuana is such a hotly tipped investment that experts are talking of a ‘Green Rush’, echoing the california Gold Rush of the 19th century, as investors cash in on the fact that, increasingly, it is being legalised in the U.S.
A trickle of states have voted to allow socalled recreational use of the drug (as opposed to medical use, which is allowed across half the U.S.) amid estimates that the industry could be worth $50 billion a year — and four times that worldwide.
A drug once associated with drop-outs and police raids is today synonymous in the U.S. with aggressive venture capitalists and corporate raids.
In november, californians will be asked to vote on Proposition 64, known as the Adult Use of Marijuana Act. The state has twice voted — first in 1972 and then in 2010 — against legalisation, but resistance is slackening. Polls show 55 per cent of voters support legalising the drug, and among those who actually plan to vote, the figure rises to 60 per cent.
As with so much in the U.S., the debate has boiled down to money, with the drug’s powerful and wellfunded advocates arguing taxation of legally consumed cannabis will hugely boost state revenues.
Though four states and Washington dc have voted to legalise marijuana, california is the country’s biggest producer of the drug, thanks to its year-round sunshine.
Its ‘cannabis tax’ revenue would be vast if legalisation was given the goahead. (colorado, which became the first state to take the plunge in 2012, collects more taxes from the drug than alcohol).
And if a state as big and rich as california votes ‘Yes’, other states are expected to follow suit. This will in turn increase pressure on congress to take cannabis off the federal list of illegal drugs. In addition, the U.S. experience will naturally be keenly watched by prolegalisation campaigners in the Uk, where Lib-dem MPs including nick clegg are leading a cross-party campaign to introduce a legalised cannabis market in Britain which they say could raise up to £1billion a year in tax.
Yet many mainstream investors have so far given cannabis a wide berth because of continuing health and social concerns as well as the fact that, despite a trend towards legalisation, it still remains illegal in most of the U.S.
The tobacco industry is keen to muscle in on the marijuana business to make up for the decline in cigarette smoking, especially as many cannabis users smoke the drug with tobacco.
But tobacco companies are wisely keeping a low profile for now because of their chequered reputation. This means a disparate band of venture capital firms and deep-pocketed individual investors — wealthy Roger Jenkins is just the latest — have been left to usher in the pot revolution.
Foremost among them is Peter Thiel, an eccentric Silicon Valley billionaire and vociferous supporter of donald Trump.
Thiel, who made a fortune creating the internet payment system PayPal, has some alarming political views — he has said women should never have been given the vote.
Another prominent pro-legaliser is fellow Silicon Valley tycoon Sean Parker, who is championing attempts to legalise the drug in california.
He spent £7.5 million on his lavish Lord of The Rings-themed wedding, though his offer to pay Sir Ian Mckellen £1 million to dress as his character, the wizard Gandalf, and officiate at the ceremony was turned down by the actor.
oddballs such as Parker and Thiel may be a natural fit to champion a drug associated with switching off from reality, but Roger Jenkins has always been seen as having his feet firmly on the ground.
But — like his fellow cannabis investors — the hard-headed, but softly spoken 60-year-old is used to being accused of making money without much in the way of moral scruples.
Before he left Barclays in 2009, he ran the bank’s legal but muchcriticised tax avoidance division.
He was so talented at helping clients avoid tax that he was estimated to earn £75 million a year — more than his boss, the controversial Bob diamond.
Jenkins, a talented athlete who once sprinted for Scotland in the commonwealth Games, has been described as a ‘big presence with a big ego’.
At Barclays, he presided over macho team-building away days in which he and a senior colleague played poker, gambling hundreds of thousand of pounds, with staff divided into ‘big boys’ and ‘babies’ tables. His formidable and glamorous Bosnian former wife, Sanela dijana catic, who changed her name to diana, met Jenkins in a gym and reinvented herself as a socialite and philanthropist after they were married in 1999.
counting George clooney and Guy Ritchie among her friends, it was her social connections with the Qatari royal family that were reportedly instrumental in Jenkins being able to persuade Middle eastern investors to inject £12 billion into Barclays during the 2008 financial crisis so the bank didn’t need a public bail-out.
The Middle east fundraising prompted an investigation by the Serious Fraud office which is still looking into Jenkins — who went on to work in private equity investments — and other Barclays executives over the bank’s financial dealings with the Qataris.
Mrs Jenkins once complained of effectively being an ‘eastern european mail order bride’ on the London social scene, but both of them insist their divorce five years ago was amicable.
Jenkins — whose portfolio included a £25 million house in Malibu, where he lives — insisted it was ‘quite right’ she had half his fortune.
A private man who rarely gives interviews, Jenkins is unlikely to become the new public champion of ‘weed’ as a result of his investment.
That said, it could do with a more thoughtful cheerleader than Peter Thiel. Last year, Thiel joked that Twitter’s executives might be smoking too much pot to run an effective company — an embarrassing own goal for cannabis campaigners, who insist it stimulates your mental faculties. Though public attitudes are softening, many Americans clearly share that negative view of ‘stoners’.
Its effect on the brain development of young people remains hotly debated by medical experts while — according to the nHS — regular use is associated with increased risk of developing a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia.
The nHS also supports new scientific evidence contradicting claims that dope isn’t addictive — 10 per cent of regular users become addicted, it says.
In colorado, Factcheck.org, a highly respected independent research group, last week insisted marijuanarelated traffic deaths, hospital visits and school suspensions had increased since the drug was legalised. ‘Statistics from various official sources show substantial increases,’ said the organisation.
In June, the children of Richard kirk of denver, colorado, filed America’s first wrongful death lawsuit against a recreational marijuana company. They claim he ate a cannabis-laced sweet that triggered a terrifying violent turn at the family home in April 2014.
He Took his gun out of the safe and shot dead his wife, kristine. The lawsuit claims the sweet’s maker and distributor failed to warn customers edible marijuana can cause psychosis, paranoia and hallucinations.
Prosecutors say kirk, who has yet to be tried, killed his wife because of marital stress.
The case has highlighted the risks surrounding edible marijuana, a huge growth area that accounts for nearly half of pot sales in colorado.
eaten marijuana is much sloweracting than the smoked alternative, increasing the risk that users will overdose because they can’t initially feel any effects.
In 2014, a Wyoming student ate a marijuana biscuit containing six times the recommended dosage of THc, the active ingredient, and jumped to his death from a denver hotel balcony.
But what do a few ‘niggles’ about health and safety matter when there are billions to be made?
Roger Jenkins — whose former running champion brother, david, was once jailed for smuggling $70 million of anabolic steroids into the U.S. — is sprinting towards his next pot of gold.
could Britain’s richest banker one day become an American drugs baron?