£7.9MILLION Modest Dane who loves Britain so much he bought it!
...or enough of it to make him our largest landowner (while driving an old VW and sending his children to state school)
One summer in the eighties, a young boy from Denmark went flyfishing in the Scottish Highlands with his parents and brother. It would arguably prove the most expensive family holiday in history. For while the incessant rain or infernal clouds of midges might have deterred a less hardy visitor, the wee Scandinavian found himself captivated by the majestic landscape.
Three decades and upwards of £100 million later, the young boy, Anders Holch Povlsen, has quietly turned himself into a real-life Monarch of the Glen, having collected no fewer than 11 Scottish estates, and a castle, covering an astonishing 221,000 acres.
He began building this ever-growing property portfolio 12 years ago, in the autumn of 2006, with the £7.9 million acquisition of Glenfeshie, a 42,000-acre patch of the Cairngorms national Park.
Two years later, he spent another £15.5 million acquiring the 23,000-acre Braeroy estate near Fort William, nearby Tulloch, and Lynaberack in the Cairngorms. Four estates were added between 2011 and 2015, and another three in 2016.
Today his Scottish landholdings, many of which we show on these pages, cover an area half the size of Worcestershire, and recently surpassed the mere 217,000 acres owned by the Duke of Buccleuch.
As a result, the reclusive Dane became Britain’s biggest private landowner, kicking the Dukes of Atholl (144,000 acres), northumberland (100,000) and Westminster ( 133,000) off their aristocratic perches, and making the Prince of Wales, who owns a paltry 130,000 acres, look like a veritable pauper.
Povlsen, 45, owes his ability to scoop up real estate to Bestseller, the vast fashion empire founded by his father, Troels, in 1975. Starting with a single store in the small Danish town of Brande, the company is now behind a sprawling empire that employs 15,000 people and owns brands such as Jack & Jones and Vero Moda, along with almost 30 per cent of ASOS, Britain’s biggest internet fashion retailer. Its success has helped him build a fortune estimated at £5.4 billion.
YeTeven after he began buying up Highland estates, Po v l s e n has managed to remain a relative unknown. Part of that anonymity comes from the fact he enjoys what, by billionaire standards, is a low-key lifestyle.
Though he lives with partner Anne Storm Pedersen, 40, at Constantinsborg, a neoclassical former royal palace near Aarhus, he’s famed for driving a battered VW Golf.
The couple, who met when Anne began working in sales for Bestseller, send their four children to state schools.
In typical Scandinavian style, their Scottish estates are run according to egalitarian principles. They are devoted to ‘re-wilding’ — a trendy ecological practice in which landowners allow their estates to return to a ‘natural state’.
They have duly embarked on Britain’s biggest reforestation project, planting millions of trees and culling thousands of deer which have no natural predator, so have traditionally roamed the mountains in unnaturally large herds.
At Glenfeshie, between 600 and 700 are killed each year, meaning the remainder are no longer forced to graze at forest margins, and indigenous plants can flourish along with the animal life they support.
It’s part of a 200-year project to restore ‘natural balance’ to the landscape, at a cost of roughly £ 10 million a year. Povlsen has also mooted the idea of reintroducing Lynx and wolves to the Highlands.
But his stewardship has not been without critics.
Owners of neighbouring sporting estates have voiced criticism of his deer management, saying it reduces the number of stags for their clients to stalk.
Meanwhile, Left-leaning tubthumpers from both the Labour and ruling SnP parties have voiced chippy complaints about the injustice of a single wealthy foreigner now owning such vast swathes of Scotland.
What no one can deny is the economic boost that Povlsen brings to this under-populated and relatively disadvantaged corner of Britain.
For in addition to ‘re-wilding’, the billionaire has poured millions of pounds into converting lodges, cottages and farmhouses into upmarket holiday retreats.
This has largely been the job of Anne, a willowy brunette with a passion for interior design. In dozens of buildings across the 11 estates, she has torn down the fusty tartan curtains of traditional Highland properties and created fashionable, modern rooms which look like they belong in an IKeA catalogue.
For £300 a night, members of the public can stay in the resulting homes, some of which are run as small hotels by the couple’s firm, Wildland Ltd. In a rare interview with The Times, Anne said the style of her holiday destinations is epitomised by ‘a lack of clutter. You can’t relax if you are surrounded by stuff’.
According to Wildland’s accounts, the estates are worth £115 million combined.
By a quirk of Danish law, they represent a nice earner for the country’s exchequer, since it charges tax on all land owned, anywhere in the world, by its citizens. each year, Povlsen must write a cheque for upwards of £3 million.
That hasn’t been the only downside to his vast wealth, either. In 1998, the Povlsens were targeted by extortionist Kurt Hansen, who threatened to kill family members if he didn’t receive £1 million.
Hansen, then 34, sent the Povlsens letters, scratched his initials into cars and eventually broke into the family home and left a note a few yards from where they slept.
When he was arrested, he had handcuffs, tape, flammable liquids and a handgun in his possession.
In his home, officers found disguises, a book on poisoning and a secret room under the floorboards.
Then, in 2003, a close family friend was kidnapped in India — where Bestseller has factories — by a gang that mistook him for one of the Povlsens, and was rescued only after a car chase. Today, a discreet 24-hour security team keeps the family safe.
But would-be kidnappers have a harder job than they used to: thanks to his spending spree in the Highlands, Denmark’s wealthiest man has plenty of places to lose himself.