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David A Reuben is heir to a family property fortune but has grand ambitions to be a major property player himself. Darren Lazarus looks at how the son aims to shine in his own right. Portraits by Pål Hansen
David A Reuben is a contradiction. The 26-year-old is the son of David Reuben, the billionaire who, with business partner and brother Simon, was involved in the feud with developer Westfield over the Olympics site.
So Reuben junior does not need to work. Yet while he is one of four heirs, with a brother, sister and cousin, to an estimated £3bn fortune, he travelled from MIPIM by easyJet to "be careful about company expenses".
A major fan of the new Conservative party, with George Osborne's brother a family friend, he has a cocky assuredness that was noticed on that flight - a passenger in front asked him to tone down a loud conversation about his aristocratic acquaintances - yet others find him warm and charming, and he is very keen that his property company, River Investment Group, is taken seriously.
The group started just under two years ago when he left Colliers CRE (his first job was at Nelson Bakewell) and set up in a plush Mayfair office with his father and uncle's heavyweight hacking as sole investors.
"I run a business, so I treat my family like I would treat any other shareholders," insists Reuben. "I have to expect to be dumped in a second if we don't continue to make money for the people who are investing in us. And it's almost worse having family as shareholders: you mess up once and you worry about your whole future."
André James, head of investment at Colliers CRE, who hired Reuben five years ago, says: "I hired him before I knew much about the family. I saw this sparky entrepreneur when he was just 21. In a big corporate environment, his approach didn't go down too well with everybody, as he doesn't conform to the corporate model. But my response was it didn't really matter. He was a good egg and was a 24-hour-a-day businessman.
Reuben has two partners at River Investment to share the responsibility, 33year-old Stephen Benson and 29-year-old Jacob Lyons. Benson,...