Kathryn McFarlane, Mr Caudwell ex-wife's and the mother to his three oldest children
It is actually two houses linked via a basement tunnel. Caudwell plans to renovate it to create a ‘mega mansion’ with a potential value of £250 million. It does beg the question: how many gigantic rooms does anyone need? But Caudwell is bullish, pointing out that as well as giving half his business profits to charity during his lifetime, the vast bulk of his wealth will also be donated in his will.
‘It should be very documented now that at least half of my wealth goes to my charity Caudwell Children, which raises money for under-privileged children. So I make no apology for wanting to make a profit — the more I make, the bigger percentage will go to charity. So most of the work I do now is motivated by that.’ The company that made Caudwell this vast fortune put him back in the headlines recently, when it emerged that Phones 4U had gone into administration, with the possible loss of nearly 6,000 jobs.
Caudwell sold the company to two private equity firms in 2006, pocketing £1.46 billion — money that propelled him into the wealth stratosphere, freeing him to pursue all kinds of interests, from property development to fashion. It all sounds fabulous fun — on paper at least. Yet it’s now clear that a hidden shadow has been hanging over this gilded world for years. Even before his father sold his company for millions, Rufus was already experiencing panic attacks.
‘Rufus started having them aged ten,’ John recall. ‘We took him to see various people but we could never find a reason for it. What happens then is that it becomes a self-fulfilling illness. Rufus started to panic about the panic attacks.’
His daughter, too, has suffered psychological problems, believing her father’s extraordinary wealth contributed to the bouts of depression that blighted her years growing up.
Libby Caudwell, who admits she was spoilt rotten
as a child but also suffered from anxiety attacks
On the face of it, Libby Caudwell, now 26, enjoyed a blissful childhood, admitting she was spoiled rotten — she had a £3,000-a-month allowance in the sixth form at Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Leona Lewis sang at her 21st birthday party. But from the age of 17 she, too, suffered anxiety attacks. ‘I was neurotic about my studies,’ she said in a recent interview, ‘unable to sleep for fear of failing. ‘Dad became more high profile as his wealth grew and, as a coping mechanism, I developed a false confidence: I told myself that I was interesting and worthy because he was. I lived vicariously through Dad’s success. I began to feel depressed. And, increasingly, guilty.
‘What did I, the daughter of a billionaire, have to feel sorry for? The world really could have been my oyster — but its vastness simply paralysed me.’ Things got so bad that she asked her father to ‘cut her off’ and she rebuilt her life in relative anonymity in Australia, where she helped organise upmarket boat trips, before recently returning to the UK to work as a PA. It is, perhaps, no coincidence that the children endured a period of some emotional uncertainty when growing up.
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