Mr. Caudwell abandoned his A-levels to become apprentice at the local Michelin tyre plant. Even then, a certain business flair was emerging: on the side, Caudwell — still in his teens — was running a mail order business selling motorbike clothing. Assorted low-level jobs followed — shifts in a car factory here, a corner shop there — before, in 1987 at the age of 35, he bought a job lot of gigantic, clunky mobile phone handsets, reasoning that mobile technology was a growing business.
He got that right: it took a while to shift that first consignment but Caudwell had found his niche. Phones 4U was born. A cornerstone of the boom era in mobiles, it became a feature of most British High Streets and, by 2003, was selling 26 phones every minute. Not any more — last month the company collapsed almost overnight after mobile networks Vodafone and EE severed ties with it, joining O2, which did the same six months ago. Being unable to sell phone contracts left the company with effectively no business, and left Caudwell fuming with anger. ‘My issue is the way that it has been killed off with such a ruthless, predatory action. So yes, I’m upset.
‘Not for the business as such — although there is an emotional attachment there — but for the people and their livelihoods. Some of them will be facing very tough times.’
They are not the only ones, it seems. While Caudwell will never have to worry about where the next penny comes from, his anguish over the breakdown of his complex family means few today would be quite so quick as they once were to swap places with him. Just in case you want to get the full story from the beginning, Click here to read Billionaire And The Way He Raised His Kids
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