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Monday 8 September 2008

The entrepreneur’s art: buying, building, selling

Judi Bevan meets David Young, who served in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet before chairing Cable & Wireless and creating his own successful private-equity business

He believes that after a downward adjustment in economies and stock markets there will be new opportunities. ‘I have only ever made money through buying low,’ he says with a mischievous grin, ‘and we have not had a really good opportunity for some while.’

Lord Young has been married to his stylish wife Lita for 52 years and they have two grown-up daughters. Most weekends he, Lita and Toffee, their dachshund, go to their house in Graffham, West Sussex. ‘Someone once told me to have daughters and dogs; that way there’s always a welcome when you get home,’ he chuckles.

Four days a week he drives from his London home near Regent’s Park to Young Associates’ comfortable offices just behind Oxford Street in an electric G-Wiz. His choice of town car is more to do with his distaste for filling Mayor Ken Livingstone’s coffers than any eco-warrior tendencies. Not only does he avoid the congestion charge but he can park for free on any meter or pay-and-display bay for four hours.

A sceptic on global warming and an unreconstructed free marketeer, he believes that instead of restricting people’s activities we should spend money on preparing for more extreme weather. Young spent four years on the science and technology select committee so his is an informed view. ‘What can we in the UK do with our 2 per cent of [global] carbon emissions? Sweet damn all. So if we think sea levels will rise — although there is little sign of it yet — we should start building up the Thames Barrier and other flood defences.’

He is also in tune with the current government’s plans to build a new generation of nuclear power plants. ‘Nuclear power provides energy without pollution, which makes people ill if it is not curbed,’ he says, reflecting that some executives are turning down jobs in Hong Kong and Beijing because of the pollution. ‘The problem is that although nuclear is the obvious answer it does not fit the agenda of the people who are worried about global warming. Unfortunately, the anti-nuclear and the global warming lobby are mainly the same people.’

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