16th April 2006
Grant Imagines a career without Anthea
Let’s be honest. It is very easy not to take Grant Bovey seriously. He is better known as Mr Anthea Turner, so one can’t escape that image of him sharing a chocolate bar with his Blue Peter presenter bride of their wedding day six years ago, both wearing cheesy grins.
That said, we should be taking him very seriously now as he emerges as one of the biggest players in Britain’s residential property scene, buying up great chunks of bricks and mortar across the country.
His three-year-old company, Imagine Homes, is poised to invest £500 million this year alone buying luxury apartments in sought-after locations all over Britain. Already Grant, the chief executive and major shareholder, has conquered most major cities between Cornwall and Scotland from his headquarters in Farnborough, Hampshire.
He puts his success down to an innovative scheme he devised where he buys whole developments for a discount price off the developer before completion, then sells the individual apartments to buy-to-let investors. The deal is that they give the apartments back to Grant for two years to rent.
He is currently offering buyers 7.5 per cent yield or 15 per cent of the purchase price, paid in cash up front on completion of the sale. At the moment he is getting only five per cent yield so is making a loss but he doesn’t really care as he makes his money on sales.
It is a clever way of offering buyers an inducement so that he can sell the apartments quickly.
“I like pushing the envelope,” he says, “and I am a bit of a risk taker, although I am more cautious than I used to be.”
This sounds hard to believe. In just three years the former market stall trader has built up a multi-million pound property portfolio, opened an office in Dubai to tap the Far Eastern investor market, is planning a 13,000 square foot showroom in central London where prospective purchasers can view his apartments remotely via high-tech gadgetry, and is looking at buying land to develop properties himself. The phrase “expanding too quickly” springs to mind – but he believes he us just scratching the surface
His first development cost £13million but now he is looking at purchases of up to £100million each and wants to be turning over £1billion in five years. “That’s when I will feel the company has attained success, even though I think I am already the biggest buyer of residential property in the country at the moment.”
Humble days helping run a market stall
He has just bought 50 plots in Edinburgh but is now looking for new hotspots and areas with growth potential. He has his sights set on Lincoln (which he feels is still very undervalued and poised for a boom), Warrington, Portsmouth, Liverpool and the outskirts of Birmingham and Nottingham, where he plans to offer two-bedroomed apartments for £100,000, which should appeal to the buy-to-let novice.
“I wanted to devise a scheme that took the hassle out of buy-to-let and gave a comfy blanket to the novice. We do that by finding the tenants, checking their credentials, collecting the rent and buying developments in good locations. We can also furnish the apartment and even arrange the mortgage if you wish. This is a scheme where everyone wins.”
Well, he certainly seems to be winning and so is his wife Anthea who, when not flitting about on our TV screens in her marigolds showing us how to be perfect housewives, is designing furniture and interiors for Imagine Furnishings, which organises the décor for her husband’s apartments. “She actually has a very good eye,” says Grant.
One struggles to imagine him as the son of a union official father and seamstress mother from Nottingham. He had what he calls an ordinary childhood and unspectacular education, resulting in him leaving school after O levels and selling ladies’ fashions on a market stall with his sister.
His career as a businessman is somewhat chequered, with two companies collapsing owing creditors money. “I have made mistakes in both my business and personal life,” he admits, but now I am more rounded and cautious.”
He had no knowledge of the property business before setting up his latest venture, except for his own personal success with buying and selling houses.
This started with a £17,000 two-bedroom home in Nottingham which he bought when he was 21 and ends, to date, with a £2million Surrey mansion, he and Anthea’s marital home, set in 60 acres, which is now worth some £6million. He also has a three-bedroom bolthole in London on Chelsea Wharf, which he bought for £1million three years ago and which is now worth almost twice that. “I think it is a strength that I didn’t work in property before. It means I am not blinkered,” he says.
There is a steely determination to Bovey, emphasised perhaps by his sharp suit, slightly over-gelled hair and pristine white shirt which was probably pressed by Anthea. Obviously it is the same steely determination that drove him to pursue the former GMTV presenter nearly 10 years ago and, in the face of fierce criticism from the press, sacrifice his marriage to wife Della, the mother of his three daughters.
He is clearly keen to move forward and shake off the oleagenous Ken and Barbie image that has adhered ever since he met Anthea, and present himself as a serious businessman and acquire a separate image from his wife, who sticks labels to wicker storage baskets and runs around with a feather duster.
“I never like to put off until tomorrow anything I can do today,” he pronounces. “I need to cram everything in. I am very impatient.”
One wonders if this impatience stems from the early deaths of his parents, who died within a year of each other in their early 60s.
“I think so,” he says. “I do wonder that I might not live very long and not have that much time to achieve all I want.”
It clearly hit him hard when his parents died. “I am more like my mother; she was the risk taker in the family and supported me in whatever I did, as long as I really believed it was what I wanted. I do not work 18-hour days but when I work, I work. I try to take the weekends off but leave my mobile on because the Dubai office is open on Saturdays and Sundays.”
He sees his girls – the eldest, Lilly, is 14 - every other weekend and half of the school holidays, and keeps his lean and hungry look by organising football matches on his private pitch in his back garden.
His business backer is the Bank of Scotland, which he approached three years after learning that it had backed Littlewoods tycoon Philip Green. The bank has a 50 per cent share in his investment fund and holding company Veritas (he has a separate one called Veritas One for his private portfolio but has lost count of how many portfolios are in it).
Grant Bovey obviously wants to be bigger and better in business than his rivals, which he will probably achieve. As for shifting his status from lightweight to heavy – the jury is out.
• For more information on Imagine Homes, visit www.imaginehomes.co.uk or call 0800 0194 094. Currently on sale are one bedroomed flats in Bristol from £146,000, two bedroomed flats in Liverpool from £205,000 and one and two-bedroomed flats in London’s Canary Wharf from £276,000.
From £17,000 to £6 million in six easy moves… Grant Bovey’s route to a property fortune.
• First home: aged 21 – two-bedroomed town house in Nottinghamshire. Price £17,000. Sold two years later for £21,000.
• Second home: four-bedroomed house from Dave Barton, lead singer from Showaddywaddy, in Nottingham. Price: £40,000 sold for £47,000.
• Third home: a converted schoolhouse in Hackney, London. Price £45,000. Sold three years later for between £55,000 and £60,000.
• Fourth Home: aged 28 – three-bedroomed terrace in Wandsworth, London. Price £290,000. Made a loss when sold five years later.
• Fifth home: six-bedroomed rural property, 20 acres in West Sussex. Marital home with Anthea Turner. Price: £570,000. Spent £250,000 on renovations and sold seven years ago for £1.8 million after divorce.
• Sixth home: A five-bedroomed manor house in Surrey set in 60 acres with a three-bedroomed cottage in grounds for staff. Price £2.1 million- now worth £6 million. Also bought a three-bedroomed apartment in Chelsea. Price £1 million, now worth £1.8 million.
By Jane Slade.