Master of the new rock and roll
Former chairman of a football club and currently one of the leading entrepreneurs in the UK, Theo Paphitis has an enviable lifestyle
Leaving Cyprus at the age of six to move to England for a better future, not in his wildest dreams did Theo Paphitis imagine that that better future would see him become a multi-millionaire and world famous business entrepreneur.
Worth an estimated £135 million sterling, according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2008, Paphitis’ rags to riches story must have had the Limassol-born 48-year-old pinching himself at times.
Paphitis made his fortune during London’s commercial property boom of the 1980s, later earning a reputation for transforming ailing companies like Movie Media Sports, Ryman the Stationer, Contessa and La Senza lingerie chains into successful, solid and profitable retail businesses.
He is also well known for his eight-year stint as chairman of London football club Millwall FC, taking them out of administration and guiding them to European qualification after an incredible season that included an FA Cup final appearance against Premier League giants Manchester United.
Despite his incredible success, Paphitis has not forgotten where he came from.
“We were a very poor family, my father was an electrician but his real love was the bouzouki. Due to my father and grandfather working for the British, we could get a British passport, something that was very valuable at the time. In those days Cypriots used to think that if you went to England there was so much money on the floor that you would hurt your back picking it up,” Paphitis told seven.
Despite not having the easiest of childhoods, Paphitis has retained fond memories of his time in Cyprus. “I remember a lot about that period of my life. I wasn’t the easiest of children, so most of my memories involve being told off and getting into trouble.
We used to live in Molos in Limassol and the sea was very close, so I used to cross the road and go into the sea wearing my Sunday best. Obviously when I went home, I used to get a clip round the ear in typical Cypriot fashion,” he said.
Once in England, Paphitis had to adjust to the fact that he would struggle to get an education like most of his contemporaries due to his dyslexia. “It was very frustrating for me at first living in England because I found it very hard to get a command of the language. Once I came to terms with my dyslexia, I realised that there was no point in me hanging around school. From age 14 the school had very much given up on me and I wasn’t learning much. Come 16 I knew it was time to go”.
Paphitis began his entrepreneurial activities by running the school tuck shop at the age of 15. Leaving school a year later, he started his career as a tea boy and filing clerk with insurance brokers Lloyds in London before venturing into retail at the age of 18. Two years later he moved into finance – property and corporate – specialising in turnarounds, and by the age of 23 had already set up his own company.
According to Paphitis, who is regarded as one of the top venture capitalists in Britain, the world of business is much easier to get into now than when he was trying to break in. “It is much much easier now, just look at the facilities that are afforded to young people as well as the technology that it involves, which has made information gathering so much easier. In England now you can actually register a company online, get a VAT number and build a website as a window to the world instantly. Before this was not the case, now you can sit in your bedroom and have a shop window into the world of business. It might make things more competitive, but it also allows you to kick off and start. It has also expanded markets which did not exist before, there really is no comparison.”
While he had been well-known in business and footballing circles, the Cypriot entrepreneur gained greater recognition from his role as a panelist on the popular reality TV series Dragon’s Den, a show where contestants present what they regard as a profitable business plan in an attempt to gain financing from five rich entrepreneurial businesspeople, the ‘dragons’ of the programme’s title.
Acquiring a reputation for being outspoken and renowned for his witty one-liners, one of Paphitis’ most famed phrases on the show is: “Why should I part with any of my children’s inheritance investing in this?” (He has five children and two grandchildren).
With the massive popularity of reality television shows based around business, including the BBC’s The Apprentice and ITV’s Tycoon as well as Dragon’s Den, he admitted there has been a dramatic transformation in the last few years in the way the profession is regarded.
“Business has become the new rock and roll nowadays. What is incredible is how it has been popularised and has been accepted so well within schools and among the young. As well as footballer and astronaut, a businessman is one of the options for children when they are asked what they want to be when they grow up,” he said.
But Paphitis does not believe that this creates a distorted image of his profession.
“These programmes create an exact image of reality as they are real. People may say that it gives the impression that making a lot of money is easy, but the people who don’t get the money are the people whose business plan is no good, it is as simple as that.”
When it comes to advice for young upcoming entrepreneurs, Paphitis believes common sense is the way forward, espousing the famous business school motto KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid.
“What does a successful businessman need? First and foremost you need passion, drive, enthusiasm and ambition. If you don’t have this then you should go work for a bank or the civil service,” Paphitis joked.
“Without those you are not going to be successful, no matter how brilliant you are. After those, the most important thing is common sense, common sense is not common, and business is 90 per cent common sense,” he continued.
On the issue of business and entrepreneurship in Cyprus, Paphitis urged Cypriots to ditch their insular mentality, which is proving so damaging for business prospects on the island. “All I hear is that Cyprus is so small and the market is limited. This really makes me angry. There are much worse places to be based than Cyprus. I have begun repatriating my businesses to Cyprus to be honest. There is no better place to be based in Europe when it comes to lifestyle and as far as the tax regime is concerned. Instead of looking inwards, Cypriot businessmen should start looking outwards, their market is not only Cyprus, they can use markets in the whole of Europe,” he said.
Paphitis is remembered among football fans from his time as chairman of Millwall, a period during which the club enjoyed unparalleled success. But being chairman of a football club was entirely different experience than those of an entrepreneur. “During my time at Millwall I broke all the rules of business. It was absolutely unbelievable, like a drug, but it took huge amounts of my energy and time. When you think about it, football should be run like other businesses but it can’t be. Even the top six clubs in the Premiership that can afford to run it like a business don’t always do so. It is dangerous with all the money being splashed about, but it is a free economy and you cannot stop this from happening, this is the nature of the game.”
After quitting Millwall in 2006 to concentrate on his other businesses and having just finished recording the sixth series of Dragon’s Den what does the future hold for Theo Paphitis?
“I don’t see the next stage of my business career being until January or July next year. I will be expanding, but the next stage will be 2009. While I am waiting for that stage, I will visit Cyprus more frequently and also enjoy sailing more often.”
Enter the Dragon
In his autobiography, Enter the Dragon, Paphitis gives an account of how a poor immigrant from Limassol ended up one of the greatest business entrepreneurs in the UK, at the same time giving readers an insight into the methods of a successful businessman.
In the book, Paphitis also recounts his spell as chairman of Millwall FC.
For Paphitis, this revealing memoir is a lesson to everyone that “even a dyslexic unacademic with no resources, doing the right things and taking the right decisions at the right time with a bit of a work ethic can become a multi-millionaire”.
All the proceeds of Enter the Dragon will go to charity.
Theo Paphitis’ book is also available in Cyprus from a number of selected bookstores
