I heard before the SS expansion the club were exploring building a brand new stadium and then demolishing etihad but Sport England objected saying lottery money and investment from them had been partially used to build etihad stadium. How true I don't know.
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Etihad Campus, Stadium and Collar Site Development Thread
- Thread starter Danamy
- Start date
I heard before the SS expansion the club were exploring building a brand new stadium and then demolishing etihad but Sport England objected saying lottery money and investment from them had been partially used to build etihad stadium. How true I don't know.
Has anyone got access to this article in the Times?
A gist of it was posted on the SSC Etihad Campus thread.
I’ve managed to find it, but it’s behind a pay wall.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...-plan-for-rival-to-manchester-arena-0lqnkqflq
A gist of it was posted on the SSC Etihad Campus thread.
I’ve managed to find it, but it’s behind a pay wall.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...-plan-for-rival-to-manchester-arena-0lqnkqflq
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lancs blue
Well-Known Member
I think the article can be largely summed up as "Nick Leslau doesn't like competition".
TheRemainsOfTheDave
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Yes heard that too. Never fully bought that tbh. At an initial £115M total cost, that amount would be virtually negligible today.I heard before the SS expansion the club were exploring building a brand new stadium and then demolishing etihad but Sport England objected saying lottery money and investment from them had been partially used to build etihad stadium. How true I don't know.
richards30
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I think the article can be largely summed up as "Nick Leslau doesn't like competition".
Agreed!!!
Times article.
Posted by Makram on SSC MCR.
———————————————————
As a young property investor from London in 1985, Nick Leslau struck gold in the form of a Manchester tower block. He snapped up the 30-storey Piccadilly Plaza for £4m from a seller that was so eager to offload the plaza, it even lent Leslau the money to do the deal.
A city still struggling with post-industrial decline made an unlikely hunting ground for an ambitious former public school boy, but Leslau fondly recalls spending half his weeks living in the building, grafting to sign up tenants.
It paid off five years later when he sold the Piccadilly Plaza for £20m shortly before the early 1990s recession. The profit became the foundation of a property empire that includes the freeholds to Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and Warwick Castle. According to The Sunday Times Rich List, Leslau has accrued a £357m fortune along the way.
Yet his love affair with Manchester is turning sour. The city council is entertaining plans for a new 20,000-capacity entertainment arena to be built next to Manchester City’s Etihad stadium — a development that would compete directly with Manchester Arena, the concert venue Leslau acquired for £103m last year — 12 months after it was targeted in a brutal terror attack — through his £1.3bn listed fund, Secure Income Reit.
The new arena is set to be included in an update to the Eastlands Regeneration Framework, a document that guides the development plans for east Manchester.
Leslau and executives at SMG, the entertainment giant that holds a 26-year lease on Manchester Arena, are furious, contending that the consultation process on the competing venue has been inappropriately brief and narrow.
They question the role of Sir Howard Bernstein, the chief architect of Manchester’s revival during a 19-year stint as the council’s chief executive. He stepped down in 2017, but still sits on the board of Eastlands Strategic Development Company, a joint venture between the council and the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi royal family, owners of Manchester City football club. The lifelong City fan also works as a strategic adviser to the club.
“The more you dig into it, the more you see that Abu Dhabi controls Manchester . . . The whole thing stinks,” a well-placed source said. “The competition has been given the green light on a nod and wink by a cabal of Manchester [council] executives and former executives to a point where they are shunning the normal consulting process. It’s simply not fair.”
After a working-class upbringing in Cheetham Hill — Manchester’s old Jewish district — Bernstein joined the council from school in 1971. He started washing teacups and worked his way up to be chief executive by 1998.
Bernstein was acutely conscious that the city had become a victim of globalisation, and from his small office in the bowels of Manchester’s grand, gothic town hall, he harnessed his likeability and insatiable drive to turn the city into a beneficiary, cutting through civil service bureaucracy and chasing global capital.
Bernstein oversaw a vast expansion of the tram network and helped to establish Manchester Airports Group, which became one of the country’s leading airport owners. Growing career opportunities in Manchester mean that more than half its graduates now stay in the city once their studies are over.
Nowhere are Bernstein’s accomplishments more striking than in east Manchester, a depressed area that has gone from strength to strength since the construction of The City of Manchester stadium, which hosted the track and field events at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. The success of the games earned him a knighthood the following year.
“It is incredible what has happened in east Manchester. Ten years ago it was a wasteland and 30 years ago it was a dangerous wasteland,” said David Lathwood, chairman of commercial property agency JLL’s Manchester office.
After the games, Manchester City moved into the stadium, and when the club was bought in 2008 by the Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Mansour, a flood of oil money began pouring in.
Underwhelming players made way for world-class replacements such as Sergio Aguero and David Silva, who have helped the club win four Premier League titles after decades in the shadow of Manchester United. Off the field, Mansour is in the process of investing £1bn in building up to 6,000 affordable homes through Manchester Life Development Company, a joint venture with the council.
The scale of the investment and the close-knit relationships are arousing the suspicions of Leslau and SMG, who were angered that the council’s consultation on the updated regeneration framework, which included soliciting views on the new entertainment venue, lasted less than four weeks, when council guidelines state consultations should ideally be open for six weeks.
Leslau said: “We cannot understand how a project as substantial as a 20,000-seat arena with a potentially huge impact across the whole city, significantly altering traffic, local businesses both big and small, the environment and transport, can be embedded in a strategic planning document without extensive consultation on the arena as a standalone project.”
SMG orchestrated a PR campaign that led to 1,445 responses to the consultation, up from 39 the previous time the regeneration framework was updated. Of the responses this time, 837 people objected, primarily over concerns about traffic congestion and pollution.
The council said the arena was included in the regeneration framework because of interest from multiple international investors and entertainment operators, and its inclusion was no guarantee of development. But to Leslau’s consternation, Los Angeles-based Oak View Group, which promotes itself as a disruptor in the sports and live entertainment industry, listed the new arena as a project for discussion on the website of The Stadium Business Design & Development Summit before the consultation had finished. The listing was removed after a local publication spotted it.
If investors commit to the new entertainment venue and make the vision a reality, it would still need to go through the planning process, but experts say that if the Eastlands regeneration framework is ratified at the next meeting of the council executive on July 24, it will be tough for Leslau and SMG to overturn.
“The objectors will be on the back foot because there would already have been some evidence justifying the need for it,” said Alex Ground, a partner at the law firm Russell-Cooke.
As a tenant on a long-term lease, SMG will be the biggest loser if the arena gets the green light, and sources close to it said it would consider legal options. For Bernstein, who declined to comment for this article, that could prove an unwelcome footnote to a trailblazing career in public service.
Nick Leslau is one of the property industry’s most colourful characters, having built his fortune by buying high-profile assets which he manages from a London townhouse stuffed with sporting memorabilia.
His grandmother’s savings paid for his private education in north London, where he was acutely aware that he was less moneyed than his peers — an insecurity he harnessed to great financial effect.
The perma-tanned 59-year-old has a knack for calling property cycles but endured a very public humiliation after a decision to lease London’s Trocadero to Sega. The computer games company developed the world’s first indoor theme park at the site, but when Leslau saw huge queues for rides on the opening night in 1996 he knew he knew the venue couldn’t cope.
In 2008, he appeared on television show The Secret Millionaire, posing as a social worker in a deprived part of Glasgow. He owns hotels and hospitals, as well as the freehold to Alton Towers. He is co-owner of rugby union club Saracens, and has a 110-ft yacht called Mimi la Sardine.
Sir Howard Bernstein is the principal reason that Manchester’s skyline is dotted with cranes.
After joining the city’s staunchly Labour council fresh out of school, he grew frustrated that his colleagues were obsessed with building council housing, when he felt they should focus on attracting money.
As chief executive he was an unconventional civil servant, jetting around the world. Bernstein and Sir Richard Leese, the council’s leader, turned it into arguably the most business-friendly local authority.
His approachable and genial demeanour won him many friends, often in unlikely places. He enjoyed a mutual respect with George Osborne, describing him as a “great guy” — despite the-then Tory chancellor’s deep cuts to Bernstein’s budget.
Since stepping down from the council, he has not been short of job offers. Bernstein, 66, has advisory roles at Manchester City and the accountant Deloitte.
He is vice-president of the Jewish Leadership Council and honorary professor of politics at Manchester University.
Posted by Makram on SSC MCR.
———————————————————
As a young property investor from London in 1985, Nick Leslau struck gold in the form of a Manchester tower block. He snapped up the 30-storey Piccadilly Plaza for £4m from a seller that was so eager to offload the plaza, it even lent Leslau the money to do the deal.
A city still struggling with post-industrial decline made an unlikely hunting ground for an ambitious former public school boy, but Leslau fondly recalls spending half his weeks living in the building, grafting to sign up tenants.
It paid off five years later when he sold the Piccadilly Plaza for £20m shortly before the early 1990s recession. The profit became the foundation of a property empire that includes the freeholds to Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and Warwick Castle. According to The Sunday Times Rich List, Leslau has accrued a £357m fortune along the way.
Yet his love affair with Manchester is turning sour. The city council is entertaining plans for a new 20,000-capacity entertainment arena to be built next to Manchester City’s Etihad stadium — a development that would compete directly with Manchester Arena, the concert venue Leslau acquired for £103m last year — 12 months after it was targeted in a brutal terror attack — through his £1.3bn listed fund, Secure Income Reit.
The new arena is set to be included in an update to the Eastlands Regeneration Framework, a document that guides the development plans for east Manchester.
Leslau and executives at SMG, the entertainment giant that holds a 26-year lease on Manchester Arena, are furious, contending that the consultation process on the competing venue has been inappropriately brief and narrow.
They question the role of Sir Howard Bernstein, the chief architect of Manchester’s revival during a 19-year stint as the council’s chief executive. He stepped down in 2017, but still sits on the board of Eastlands Strategic Development Company, a joint venture between the council and the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi royal family, owners of Manchester City football club. The lifelong City fan also works as a strategic adviser to the club.
“The more you dig into it, the more you see that Abu Dhabi controls Manchester . . . The whole thing stinks,” a well-placed source said. “The competition has been given the green light on a nod and wink by a cabal of Manchester [council] executives and former executives to a point where they are shunning the normal consulting process. It’s simply not fair.”
After a working-class upbringing in Cheetham Hill — Manchester’s old Jewish district — Bernstein joined the council from school in 1971. He started washing teacups and worked his way up to be chief executive by 1998.
Bernstein was acutely conscious that the city had become a victim of globalisation, and from his small office in the bowels of Manchester’s grand, gothic town hall, he harnessed his likeability and insatiable drive to turn the city into a beneficiary, cutting through civil service bureaucracy and chasing global capital.
Bernstein oversaw a vast expansion of the tram network and helped to establish Manchester Airports Group, which became one of the country’s leading airport owners. Growing career opportunities in Manchester mean that more than half its graduates now stay in the city once their studies are over.
Nowhere are Bernstein’s accomplishments more striking than in east Manchester, a depressed area that has gone from strength to strength since the construction of The City of Manchester stadium, which hosted the track and field events at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. The success of the games earned him a knighthood the following year.
“It is incredible what has happened in east Manchester. Ten years ago it was a wasteland and 30 years ago it was a dangerous wasteland,” said David Lathwood, chairman of commercial property agency JLL’s Manchester office.
After the games, Manchester City moved into the stadium, and when the club was bought in 2008 by the Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Mansour, a flood of oil money began pouring in.
Underwhelming players made way for world-class replacements such as Sergio Aguero and David Silva, who have helped the club win four Premier League titles after decades in the shadow of Manchester United. Off the field, Mansour is in the process of investing £1bn in building up to 6,000 affordable homes through Manchester Life Development Company, a joint venture with the council.
The scale of the investment and the close-knit relationships are arousing the suspicions of Leslau and SMG, who were angered that the council’s consultation on the updated regeneration framework, which included soliciting views on the new entertainment venue, lasted less than four weeks, when council guidelines state consultations should ideally be open for six weeks.
Leslau said: “We cannot understand how a project as substantial as a 20,000-seat arena with a potentially huge impact across the whole city, significantly altering traffic, local businesses both big and small, the environment and transport, can be embedded in a strategic planning document without extensive consultation on the arena as a standalone project.”
SMG orchestrated a PR campaign that led to 1,445 responses to the consultation, up from 39 the previous time the regeneration framework was updated. Of the responses this time, 837 people objected, primarily over concerns about traffic congestion and pollution.
The council said the arena was included in the regeneration framework because of interest from multiple international investors and entertainment operators, and its inclusion was no guarantee of development. But to Leslau’s consternation, Los Angeles-based Oak View Group, which promotes itself as a disruptor in the sports and live entertainment industry, listed the new arena as a project for discussion on the website of The Stadium Business Design & Development Summit before the consultation had finished. The listing was removed after a local publication spotted it.
If investors commit to the new entertainment venue and make the vision a reality, it would still need to go through the planning process, but experts say that if the Eastlands regeneration framework is ratified at the next meeting of the council executive on July 24, it will be tough for Leslau and SMG to overturn.
“The objectors will be on the back foot because there would already have been some evidence justifying the need for it,” said Alex Ground, a partner at the law firm Russell-Cooke.
As a tenant on a long-term lease, SMG will be the biggest loser if the arena gets the green light, and sources close to it said it would consider legal options. For Bernstein, who declined to comment for this article, that could prove an unwelcome footnote to a trailblazing career in public service.
Nick Leslau is one of the property industry’s most colourful characters, having built his fortune by buying high-profile assets which he manages from a London townhouse stuffed with sporting memorabilia.
His grandmother’s savings paid for his private education in north London, where he was acutely aware that he was less moneyed than his peers — an insecurity he harnessed to great financial effect.
The perma-tanned 59-year-old has a knack for calling property cycles but endured a very public humiliation after a decision to lease London’s Trocadero to Sega. The computer games company developed the world’s first indoor theme park at the site, but when Leslau saw huge queues for rides on the opening night in 1996 he knew he knew the venue couldn’t cope.
In 2008, he appeared on television show The Secret Millionaire, posing as a social worker in a deprived part of Glasgow. He owns hotels and hospitals, as well as the freehold to Alton Towers. He is co-owner of rugby union club Saracens, and has a 110-ft yacht called Mimi la Sardine.
Sir Howard Bernstein is the principal reason that Manchester’s skyline is dotted with cranes.
After joining the city’s staunchly Labour council fresh out of school, he grew frustrated that his colleagues were obsessed with building council housing, when he felt they should focus on attracting money.
As chief executive he was an unconventional civil servant, jetting around the world. Bernstein and Sir Richard Leese, the council’s leader, turned it into arguably the most business-friendly local authority.
His approachable and genial demeanour won him many friends, often in unlikely places. He enjoyed a mutual respect with George Osborne, describing him as a “great guy” — despite the-then Tory chancellor’s deep cuts to Bernstein’s budget.
Since stepping down from the council, he has not been short of job offers. Bernstein, 66, has advisory roles at Manchester City and the accountant Deloitte.
He is vice-president of the Jewish Leadership Council and honorary professor of politics at Manchester University.
TheRemainsOfTheDave
Well-Known Member
- Joined
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- Messages
- 6,491
This is as far as I got (no, bothered). No matter how independent these journalists claim to be, there's always something that gives them away.Times article.
Posted by Makram on SSC MCR.
———————————————————
As a young property investor from London in 1985, Nick Leslau struck gold in the form of a Manchester tower block. He snapped up the 30-storey Piccadilly Plaza for £4m from a seller that was so eager to offload the plaza, it even lent Leslau the money to do the deal.
A city still struggling with post-industrial decline made an unlikely hunting ground for an ambitious former public school boy, but Leslau fondly recalls spending half his weeks living in the building, grafting to sign up tenants.
It paid off five years later when he sold the Piccadilly Plaza for £20m shortly before the early 1990s recession. The profit became the foundation of a property empire that includes the freeholds to Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and Warwick Castle. According to The Sunday Times Rich List, Leslau has accrued a £357m fortune along the way.
Yet his love affair with Manchester is turning sour. The city council is entertaining plans for a new 20,000-capacity entertainment arena to be built next to Manchester City’s Etihad stadium — a development that would compete directly with Manchester Arena, the concert venue Leslau acquired for £103m last year — 12 months after it was targeted in a brutal terror attack — through his £1.3bn listed fund, Secure Income Reit.
The new arena is set to be included in an update to the Eastlands Regeneration Framework, a document that guides the development plans for east Manchester.
Leslau and executives at SMG, the entertainment giant that holds a 26-year lease on Manchester Arena, are furious, contending that the consultation process on the competing venue has been inappropriately brief and narrow.
They question the role of Sir Howard Bernstein, the chief architect of Manchester’s revival during a 19-year stint as the council’s chief executive. He stepped down in 2017, but still sits on the board of Eastlands Strategic Development Company, a joint venture between the council and the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi royal family, owners of Manchester City football club. The lifelong City fan also works as a strategic adviser to the club.
“The more you dig into it, the more you see that Abu Dhabi controls Manchester . . . The whole thing stinks,” a well-placed source said. “The competition has been given the green light on a nod and wink by a cabal of Manchester [council] executives and former executives to a point where they are shunning the normal consulting process. It’s simply not fair.”
After a working-class upbringing in Cheetham Hill — Manchester’s old Jewish district — Bernstein joined the council from school in 1971. He started washing teacups and worked his way up to be chief executive by 1998.
Bernstein was acutely conscious that the city had become a victim of globalisation, and from his small office in the bowels of Manchester’s grand, gothic town hall, he harnessed his likeability and insatiable drive to turn the city into a beneficiary, cutting through civil service bureaucracy and chasing global capital.
Bernstein oversaw a vast expansion of the tram network and helped to establish Manchester Airports Group, which became one of the country’s leading airport owners. Growing career opportunities in Manchester mean that more than half its graduates now stay in the city once their studies are over.
Nowhere are Bernstein’s accomplishments more striking than in east Manchester, a depressed area that has gone from strength to strength since the construction of The City of Manchester stadium, which hosted the track and field events at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. The success of the games earned him a knighthood the following year.
“It is incredible what has happened in east Manchester. Ten years ago it was a wasteland and 30 years ago it was a dangerous wasteland,” said David Lathwood, chairman of commercial property agency JLL’s Manchester office.
After the games, Manchester City moved into the stadium, and when the club was bought in 2008 by the Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Mansour, a flood of oil money began pouring in.
...
eastmanc
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How can developing the area around the stadium and building £1 billion worth of housing be a bad thing because the article seems to be saying that. There is a real racist thread running through the article.
aka blue jambo
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I'm sure Leslau came over badly in the BBC doc
Ladybarn Blue .
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Times article.
Posted by Makram on SSC MCR.
———————————————————
As a young property investor from London in 1985, Nick Leslau struck gold in the form of a Manchester tower block. He snapped up the 30-storey Piccadilly Plaza for £4m from a seller that was so eager to offload the plaza, it even lent Leslau the money to do the deal.
A city still struggling with post-industrial decline made an unlikely hunting ground for an ambitious former public school boy, but Leslau fondly recalls spending half his weeks living in the building, grafting to sign up tenants.
It paid off five years later when he sold the Piccadilly Plaza for £20m shortly before the early 1990s recession. The profit became the foundation of a property empire that includes the freeholds to Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and Warwick Castle. According to The Sunday Times Rich List, Leslau has accrued a £357m fortune along the way.
Yet his love affair with Manchester is turning sour. The city council is entertaining plans for a new 20,000-capacity entertainment arena to be built next to Manchester City’s Etihad stadium — a development that would compete directly with Manchester Arena, the concert venue Leslau acquired for £103m last year — 12 months after it was targeted in a brutal terror attack — through his £1.3bn listed fund, Secure Income Reit.
The new arena is set to be included in an update to the Eastlands Regeneration Framework, a document that guides the development plans for east Manchester.
Leslau and executives at SMG, the entertainment giant that holds a 26-year lease on Manchester Arena, are furious, contending that the consultation process on the competing venue has been inappropriately brief and narrow.
They question the role of Sir Howard Bernstein, the chief architect of Manchester’s revival during a 19-year stint as the council’s chief executive. He stepped down in 2017, but still sits on the board of Eastlands Strategic Development Company, a joint venture between the council and the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi royal family, owners of Manchester City football club. The lifelong City fan also works as a strategic adviser to the club.
“The more you dig into it, the more you see that Abu Dhabi controls Manchester . . . The whole thing stinks,” a well-placed source said. “The competition has been given the green light on a nod and wink by a cabal of Manchester [council] executives and former executives to a point where they are shunning the normal consulting process. It’s simply not fair.”
After a working-class upbringing in Cheetham Hill — Manchester’s old Jewish district — Bernstein joined the council from school in 1971. He started washing teacups and worked his way up to be chief executive by 1998.
Bernstein was acutely conscious that the city had become a victim of globalisation, and from his small office in the bowels of Manchester’s grand, gothic town hall, he harnessed his likeability and insatiable drive to turn the city into a beneficiary, cutting through civil service bureaucracy and chasing global capital.
Bernstein oversaw a vast expansion of the tram network and helped to establish Manchester Airports Group, which became one of the country’s leading airport owners. Growing career opportunities in Manchester mean that more than half its graduates now stay in the city once their studies are over.
Nowhere are Bernstein’s accomplishments more striking than in east Manchester, a depressed area that has gone from strength to strength since the construction of The City of Manchester stadium, which hosted the track and field events at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. The success of the games earned him a knighthood the following year.
“It is incredible what has happened in east Manchester. Ten years ago it was a wasteland and 30 years ago it was a dangerous wasteland,” said David Lathwood, chairman of commercial property agency JLL’s Manchester office.
After the games, Manchester City moved into the stadium, and when the club was bought in 2008 by the Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Mansour, a flood of oil money began pouring in.
Underwhelming players made way for world-class replacements such as Sergio Aguero and David Silva, who have helped the club win four Premier League titles after decades in the shadow of Manchester United. Off the field, Mansour is in the process of investing £1bn in building up to 6,000 affordable homes through Manchester Life Development Company, a joint venture with the council.
The scale of the investment and the close-knit relationships are arousing the suspicions of Leslau and SMG, who were angered that the council’s consultation on the updated regeneration framework, which included soliciting views on the new entertainment venue, lasted less than four weeks, when council guidelines state consultations should ideally be open for six weeks.
Leslau said: “We cannot understand how a project as substantial as a 20,000-seat arena with a potentially huge impact across the whole city, significantly altering traffic, local businesses both big and small, the environment and transport, can be embedded in a strategic planning document without extensive consultation on the arena as a standalone project.”
SMG orchestrated a PR campaign that led to 1,445 responses to the consultation, up from 39 the previous time the regeneration framework was updated. Of the responses this time, 837 people objected, primarily over concerns about traffic congestion and pollution.
The council said the arena was included in the regeneration framework because of interest from multiple international investors and entertainment operators, and its inclusion was no guarantee of development. But to Leslau’s consternation, Los Angeles-based Oak View Group, which promotes itself as a disruptor in the sports and live entertainment industry, listed the new arena as a project for discussion on the website of The Stadium Business Design & Development Summit before the consultation had finished. The listing was removed after a local publication spotted it.
If investors commit to the new entertainment venue and make the vision a reality, it would still need to go through the planning process, but experts say that if the Eastlands regeneration framework is ratified at the next meeting of the council executive on July 24, it will be tough for Leslau and SMG to overturn.
“The objectors will be on the back foot because there would already have been some evidence justifying the need for it,” said Alex Ground, a partner at the law firm Russell-Cooke.
As a tenant on a long-term lease, SMG will be the biggest loser if the arena gets the green light, and sources close to it said it would consider legal options. For Bernstein, who declined to comment for this article, that could prove an unwelcome footnote to a trailblazing career in public service.
Nick Leslau is one of the property industry’s most colourful characters, having built his fortune by buying high-profile assets which he manages from a London townhouse stuffed with sporting memorabilia.
His grandmother’s savings paid for his private education in north London, where he was acutely aware that he was less moneyed than his peers — an insecurity he harnessed to great financial effect.
The perma-tanned 59-year-old has a knack for calling property cycles but endured a very public humiliation after a decision to lease London’s Trocadero to Sega. The computer games company developed the world’s first indoor theme park at the site, but when Leslau saw huge queues for rides on the opening night in 1996 he knew he knew the venue couldn’t cope.
In 2008, he appeared on television show The Secret Millionaire, posing as a social worker in a deprived part of Glasgow. He owns hotels and hospitals, as well as the freehold to Alton Towers. He is co-owner of rugby union club Saracens, and has a 110-ft yacht called Mimi la Sardine.
Sir Howard Bernstein is the principal reason that Manchester’s skyline is dotted with cranes.
After joining the city’s staunchly Labour council fresh out of school, he grew frustrated that his colleagues were obsessed with building council housing, when he felt they should focus on attracting money.
As chief executive he was an unconventional civil servant, jetting around the world. Bernstein and Sir Richard Leese, the council’s leader, turned it into arguably the most business-friendly local authority.
His approachable and genial demeanour won him many friends, often in unlikely places. He enjoyed a mutual respect with George Osborne, describing him as a “great guy” — despite the-then Tory chancellor’s deep cuts to Bernstein’s budget.
Since stepping down from the council, he has not been short of job offers. Bernstein, 66, has advisory roles at Manchester City and the accountant Deloitte.
He is vice-president of the Jewish Leadership Council and honorary professor of politics at Manchester University.