Colombo
Three children of the billionaire fashion tycoon behind Asos have been killed in the Sri Lanka terrorist attacks.
Anders Holch Povlsen is Denmark’s wealthiest man with a net worth of $7.9bn (£6.1bn), according to the business magazine Forbes, and is believed to be the largest landowner in Scotland after buying a string of historic estates.
He and his wife, Anne Storm Pedersen, hold an estimated 200,000 acres of the Highlands, and plan to rewild the landscape to preserve it for future generations, according to a Guardian report last month.
Danish billionaires plan to rewild large swath of Scottish Highlands
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The bombings at churches and luxury hotels across Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday killed 290 people and wounded about 500. An investigator said on Monday that seven suicide bombers had taken part in the attacks.
Jesper Stubkier, the communications manager for Holch Povlsen’s wholesale clothing business, Bestseller, told the Press Association on Monday: “I can confirm that three children have been killed. We have no further comment and we ask that the family’s privacy is respected at this time.”
The spokesman declined to comment on which of Holch Povlsen’s four children had died, or whether other members of the family had been visiting Sri Lanka.
Holch Povlsen is best known in the UK for being the largest shareholder in Asos. The 46-year-old’s 26.7% stake in the group, mostly built during a spell of share buying between 2010 and 2012, is worth about £866m.
Though Asos’s stock market value has halved since March 2018, Povlsen has made a substantial profit from the investment, with his holding worth about double of what he paid for it, according to calculations made by the Guardian.
Polvsen’s fortune includes his ownership of the Bestseller fashion business – which was founded by his parents, includes brands such as Vero Moda and Jack & Jones and sold more than £40m of products to Asos last year. He took over the business when he was 28.
He also has a string of investments in land and property and owns swaths of land in Scotland. Along with his wife, the Povlsens have acquired five country sports estates between Ben Loyal and Eriboll, close to the town of Tongue in the Highlands, as well as several stalking estates further south such as Glenfeshie, the couple’s home in the Cairngorms. Many include luxury holiday and hunting lodges for rent. The couple have said they are trying to restore the Highlands for future generations.
Through one of his UK companies, Polvsen also owns Berkertex House, a commercial property on Oxford Street in west London, which he acquired in 2014 for £105m.
He has also been touted as one of the tycoons who could cause the Shard to lose its title as the tallest skyscraper in western Europe. This year Povlsen announced plans for a 320-metre skyscraper, nicknamed the Bestseller Tower, which is expected to be built in Brande, a town of 7,000 people in rural Jutland. |
