Content area
Full Text
Family Married with four children
Lives London and Odstock, Wiltshire
Hero Winston Churchill
Holiday Five days of a test match
Interests Sport,
fine art
HAVE you ever played the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? The premise of the game is simple. Try to connect any actor via his or her film roles to the Hollywood movie star. Translated to the world of business this game might work equally well with Lord Marland of Odstock and Britain's leading investors, although the steps needed to reach the former Tory treasurer and entrepreneur would likely be far fewer.
The upper class financier's black book of contacts reads like a Who's Who of the City and he boasts that rare knack of bringing people together. For a serial investor such as Marland that combination has come in useful.
Hedge fund millionaire Crispin Odey, Icap chief executive Michael Spencer, property magnates the Reuben brothers, JJB Sports founder Dave Whelan and Carphone Warehouse entrepreneur David Ross are just some of those with whom Marland has teamed up in recent years.
When we meet at Marland's town house in London's smart Knightsbridge district the entrepreneur is bemoaning the state of the car industry - an exhaust manufacturer he invested in is facing administration - but he remains upbeat despite the economic gloom.
The reason for his cheer is the performance of Hunter Boots, the upmarket welly brand bought by a Marland-led consortium in April 2006.
Enthusiastically slipping on a pair of Hunter's new "short boots" to pose for photos, Marland, a cricket-lover who recently withdrew from the election for chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), modestly puts the company's recent success down to chance. "The release of the film The Queen coincided with us making a push in America so it boosted our brand recognition there. Then we've benefited from the dreadfully bad summers of the last few years and more recently the weather of the last few weeks," he says. "We've been...