David Gold - Business
Business XL Article: Luck Fear and Fortune
David Gold reckons a mixture of luck and fear is what has propelled him to a £500 million fortune. But a canny ability to exploit opportunities and a singular aversion to debt has also played its part.
It's difficult not to be overawed by David Gold's sprawling mansion in Caterham, Surrey. It has all the trappings of wealth - and then some. As I approach in my car, a pair of peacocks stand gracefully in the early autumnal light. Just beyond rests a gleaming helicopter and beyond that, in the distance, a marvellously maintained eighteen-hole golf course. But, for all the ostentatiousness of these possessions, the man himself proves to be good humoured and modest to a fault. His early life probably instilled in him these most likeable of virtues. As he recalls, his family came from a background of abject poverty in London's East End. Not a good place to be back then, and certainly not a good place to be penniless. But, although they were cash poor, they were very much ideas rich.
He claims his first experience of the retail trade came from selling buttons on a stall set up on the street outside his house. 'Opportunity came from not having a front garden, but instead a concrete slab that my mother, brother and I could trade from. Aside from buttons, we also made Christmas garlands that we would sell for a couple of pennies cheaper than Woolworths,' says Gold.
After leaving school at 15, Gold worked as a bricklayer (a job he despised with a passion) and had serious ambitions of persuing a career as a professional footballer with West Ham. But a few obstacles stood in his way. 'I wanted to sign as a professional but, being under 21 at the time, my father, who spent a lot of time in and out of prison, had to authorise this. For reasons of his own he refused to sign the forms.' He continued to work as a bricklayer until he was 21, before deciding to go into the bookshop business with his brother, Ralph.
'What makes me keep pressing for success is a fear of my previous deprivation'
Exploiting the bookworms
With the help of a £700 overdraft from the bank - the only money he claims to have ever borrowed - Gold bought the lease on a shop in London's Charing Cross Road. Despite the energy he devoted to the project, he realised soon enough that selling generalist books and magazines was not going to pay off. The catalyst for change came one evening when his brother's van broke down, prompting Gold to keep the shop open later than normal - an episode he refers to as another stroke of luck.'By 7pm the shop was full of people - I'd made more money in two hours than I had all week. People were coming and buying the top shelf magazines of the day,' explains Gold. This prompted him to change from being a predominantly science fiction retailer to mainly selling soft pornography. He was forced to leave his original site due to redevelopment plans but, by the time he was 25, Gold had made enough money to purchase the freehold on four new sites. 'I took all the money I had accrued so far and put down deposits on four stores - two on Tottenham Court Road and one each in Wardour Street and Brewer Street.' All the stores were erotica bookshops - 'but not what it is like today,' he is quick to emphasise. A decade later, he sold two of the properties and netted £3 million. The other two original sites he rebranded as Ann Summers shops, following his purchase of that business from playboy Kim Caborn-Waterfield in 1972.
