CAUDWELL, 69: A BORN ENTREPRENEUR

BORN: Stoke-on-Trent. His father worked for an electric motor rewind company and his mother for a local pottery firm. His father had a stroke when Caudwell was 14 and could no longer work.

FAMILY: Six children: Rebekah, Libby and Rufus by ex-wife Kate McFarlane; Scarlett, by violinist Jane Burgess; Jacobi, by expartner Claire Johnson; and William, by Modesta Vzesniauskaite, a former Olympic cyclist.

LIVES: In Broughton Hall, an Elizabethan manor house in Staffordshire. His second UK home Mayfair House, bought for £87million from Prince Jefri of Brunei in 2012, has a river filled with tropical fish.

FIRST JOB: When Caudwell was four he sold old toys and books to other children in his back yard. He set up his first business after making an £18,000 profit on a house bought in the 1970s.

HOBBIES: Cycling and extreme sports – he has broken almost every bone in his body, including his neck three times.