The Sunday Times - UK (2022-06-05)

16 The Sunday Times June 5, 2022

MONEY

The Mulberry man used to travel the world for his

business and spend a fortune on racing — now he is

happier on his organic farm, he tells Samantha Rea

R

oger Saul, 71, is the founder

of Mulberry, the iconic

British handbag brand

beloved of It girls and

models. After three decades

at the helm he was ousted

in a takeover, and he used

his shares to buy an organic

farm at Sharpham Park in

Somerset, where he grows

spelt and lives with his wife, Monty.

How much is in your wallet?

£170. I always carry cash.

Which cards do you use?

I don’t use credit cards but I have a debit

card with my bank, Hampden & Co.

In today’s disconnected world, it’s good

to have your banker to talk to.

Are you a saver or a spender?

I’m both. Sometimes my spending’s

out of control. Other times, like now,

when the world’s an uncertain place,

I’m conscious that I need to save.

Do you own a property?

Yes, I live in a wonderful old manor

house in Somerset. It goes back

thousands of years and it has been

knocked down and rebuilt over the

centuries. It has an extraordinary

history. Henry Fielding was born here.

We’ve lived here for 45 years. We bought

it as a semi-detached manor house for

£27,000, then over the years we’ve

bought the middle, then the next bit;

then we bought the farm around it.

Now we have a lovely two-acre garden,

with 300 acres of land beyond it.

Contact us Money,

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1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

Reports of loan scams have

skyrocketed more than

90 per cent as fraudsters

appear to be cashing in on the

cost of living crisis.

Lloyds Bank has warned of

a surge in what are known as

advance fee loan scams,

where criminals pose as

genuine firms or create fake

companies offering loans that

come with upfront fees.

Real value of £10,000

Average cash Isa account Average easy access account

Source: AJ Bell analysis of Bank of England data

£11,000

8,000

9,000

10,000

2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022

Forecast

If you had £10,000 in an

easy-access account

paying average rates

over the past decade,

you would now have

£8,580.40 in real terms,

according to the wealth

manager AJ Bell. With

inflation set to hit 10 per

cent this year, £10,000

in the average easy-

access account today

would be worth £9,465

in a year if the Bank of

England’s inflation

forecast is right, losing

you £10.70 a week.

CHART OF THE WEEK HOW INFLATION EATS YOUR SAVINGS

Lloyds Bank warns of surge in loan scams

Victims have lost an average

of £231, the bank said.

Scammers say that

payment is needed as a

verification, processing or

guarantor fee among other

reasons, but a genuine loan

company will never ask for

upfront payments before

releasing funds.

If you are contacted by a

company after having

searched online for loans,

check that the firm is

authorised by the City

regulator, the Financial

Conduct Authority, and

appears on its Financial

Services Register. Call its

consumer helpline on 0800

111 6768, or speak to your

bank if you are concerned

about the legitimacy of a loan.

Victims are usually duped

after responding to online

adverts claiming to offer fast

loans and are accepted no

matter their credit history.

Yasmin Choudhury

Credit card borrowing is

rising at its fastest rate in

almost 17 years, the Bank of

England said on Tuesday.

Some £700 million was

borrowed on credit cards in

April and the annual growth

rate on credit card spending

over the past year was 11.6 per

cent — the highest since

Novermber 2005. Credit card

spending accounted for half

of the £1.4 billion borrowed in

Boom in credit card spending

April, with the other

£700 million coming from

consumer credit such as

personal loans and car

dealership finance.

The annual growth rate for

all consumer credit was

5.7 per cent in April, up from

5.2 per cent in March, and the

highest rate since February

2020, before the pandemic.

This is the third

consecutive month that

borrowing has reached over

£1 billion as people look for

ways to cope with the cost of

living crisis. The increase in

the energy price cap in April

added £693 to the average

yearly energy bill for homes

on a suppliers’ variable tariff,

while council tax rose in

many areas along with the

cost of broadband, phone

tariffs, food and petrol.

Average interest rates on

credit cards rose in April to

18.8 per cent from 18.01 per

cent in March, but are below

the pre-pandemic average.

Yasmin Choudhury

The average pay for chief

executives of FTSE 100

firms, according to Deloitte.

This fell to £2.8 million in

2020 but is now back to

pre-pandemic levels

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enough to pay for costs. During the

Gulf War I made phone calls after 6pm

when it was cheaper. There’ve been

times when I’ve turned the heating off

and used less aftershave because it was

one of the small, everyday things I

couldn’t afford to buy. It’s being prudent

and accepting you can’t have everything.

What was your most lucrative work?

When the Brazilian supermodel Gisele

Bündchen walked off the catwalk

clutching her Mulberry bag in 2001 it

was the beginning of a wonderful eight-

year run for Mulberry. We’d brought in

a young designer, Luella Bartley, and

she’d taken some oversized holdall

handbags I’d done in the 1970s and put

those on her catwalk show in New York.

It became known as the It bag. We made

a massive amount of money out of the

Mulberry planner, which came about

after I found a Filofax in a stationer in

the late 1970s. It was a bit small, so we

took it up to A5. All the Armani staff had

one; it was the product to have.

Do you invest in shares?

I’ve had shares in the miner Rio Tinto

since I was ten. My grandfather bought

them for me. Every now and then, if I

have a crisis or opportunity or I want

a present for my wife, I’ll sell a chunk.

Are you better off than your parents?

Yes. I was born in 1950, an austere time,

so we grew up minding the pennies. My

parents were army officers during the

war. My mother was from a well-off

family. Her father was head of Hillier

Parker May & Rowden, the surveyor in

London that sold the American embassy

and Selfridges.

My father was from a working-class

background, and when I was a child he

was a production manager for Clarks,

in their biggest factory, employing

probably 1,000 people. I was one of four

children, and my parents scraped to get

me to boarding school. They couldn’t

afford to send the next three. I felt as if

I’d been sent away. Then I got used to it.

You learn to be resilient.

How much did you earn last year?

As much as I needed to live. I don’t draw

a salary, so we live off what’s in the

cupboard. All profits go back into

building the business.

When did you first feel wealthy?

I’ve never felt wealthy, but I have

thought that I’m lucky. I’m blessed to be

healthy, and to have a healthy family.

Have you ever worried about making

ends meet?

When you’re an entrepreneur, it’s not

just a question of starting a business —

you’re endlessly pouring whatever

you’ve got in to make it go a stage

further. In the late 1980s Mulberry was

growing fast, like, hundreds of per cent

a year, making massive profits, but we

still weren’t bringing in money fast

mother, who’d been a PA before the war,

was fearsome in chasing anybody who

wasn’t paying.

Your worst business decision?

I brought in Christina Ong as an investor,

and she voted for me to be taken out as

chief executive and chairman. We fought

for maybe two years and in 2003 I lost

that battle. The takeover was ruthless,

and I came out of Mulberry having been

obliterated, apart from my share value.

Then the farm around my house came

up for sale for the first time in 100 years.

As a child I’d loved spending time at my

grandparents’ farm in Suffolk, so it had

always been my dream to buy this

farmland. In Mulberry days I spent my

life charging around the world, doing

ever bigger business deals, but they

weren’t the most joyous days. Now,

with the organic farm, my life is very

different. I work in the garden and on

the farm, and I’m in the best place I

could possibly be. Our main crop is

spelt, and we have a flour mill, so we

grow the spelt, mill it and turn it into

products such as drinks and cereals.

We’ve won lots of Great Taste awards.

What was your worst investment?

Buying and planting 300 walnut trees.

I spent £10,000 planting them 18 years

ago, and they’ve cost a lot of time and

money. We’re the biggest, if not the only,

organic walnut farm in the country, and

last year we got two tonnes of walnuts.

In theory they’ll be worth £20 a kilo, so

when I get to ten tonnes they’ll be a

fantastic investment. It hasn’t worked

out that way yet, but I keep thinking:

“Next year.. .”

What’s your money weakness?

I’ve just planted a hundred tuberose

bulbs, as an anniversary gift to my wife,

Monty. The tuberose fragrance has

always been a favourite of ours. I bought

a Ryobi electric pole saw that will saw

a branch off a tree at 15ft tall for £175, and

I’ve spent £40,000 on an Avant tractor.

It can do such a tight turn, it can almost

go around a tree trunk.

Your most extravagant purchase?

My racing cars. I’ve owned probably

15 historic sports cars. In the mid-1980s

I had a Ferrari 275 GTB 4 that I bought

off an American in Italy. It had just been

completely restored by Ferrari and was

still being run in, so we could do a

maximum of 70 miles an hour, which

was a bit frustrating, driving it all the way

back to England.

The car I loved most, which was

possibly the most expensive, was an

Alfa Romeo P3 single-seater 8C. It was

red, obviously. I bought it in 2003 for

£300,000 and sold it for £500,000 or

£600,000 in 2013. After you add up all

the costs of racing I definitely didn’t

make money on it.

What’s the most important lesson

you have learnt about money?

It’s here today, gone tomorrow. Try and

preserve it when you need to, but be

confident spending it when you have to.

Organic products available from

sharphampark.com

From It bags

and sports

cars to £40k

tractors...

FAME AND FORTUNE ROGER SAUL

Your best business decision?

Most recently it’s creating our farm at

Sharpham Park, but No 1 must be

creating Mulberry in 1971. I’d contacted

John Michael [Ingram], the Carnaby

Street guru and fashion designer, and

said: “Can I be your business

management trainee?” He said:

“What’s that?” I think he was amused

by me. He gave me a job in one of the

boutiques. Hippies would come in and

say: “Hey, man, I’ve got some belts,” I’d

buy them, then sell them for vast profits.

I thought: “This is crazy. I could do

better than that.”

My first product was a snakeskin

choker with a butterfly on it. I sold those

to Biba and that was the beginning of my

career in fashion. My sister Rosemary

designed the Mulberry logo, my father

was the biggest supporter and my

If I want

a special

present

for my

wife,

I’ll sell a

chunk of

my shares

Gisele Bündchen

with the bag

created by

Luella Bartley

CHRISTOPHER JONES/ALAMY

£3.6m