Paul Gregg

Paul Gregg (born 1941 in Scarborough, North Yorkshire ) is an English multi-millionaire businessman and entertainment impresario, who built Apollo Leisure Group into the UK's biggest theatre owner and largest privately owned company operating in Western Europe.

After selling Apollo to SFX Group in 1999, and leaving new owners Clear Channel, he was a large stake holder in Everton F.C., before falling out with former friend Bill Kenwright in 2004, and selling his stake in October 2006 to Robert Earl.

In the 2006 Sunday Times Rich List, Gregg and his family were ranked 439th valued at £127m .

Biography

The son of a refrigeration engineer, at school in Scarborough he was: "Hopeless! I was always 30th out of a class of 30."

Gregg left school at 16 and failed in his ambition to work for Odeon Cinemas: "They asked me at the interview what 5 per cent of £100 was and I couldn't give them the answer." He got a job at ABC Cinemas as a trainee manager.

Aged 28, he was a council employee running the Floral Hall at Southport. He successfully attracted to the run down venue the screen icon Marlene Dietrich, as well as Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

Apollo Leisure Group

Gregg made his fortune with Apollo Leisure. A career executive, he gradually worked his way up through Apollo Theatres until he founded Apollo Leisure in 1977, aged 36. After setting up a Social Club for car workers at Cowley, Oxford , he borrowed the then huge sum of £25,000 to buy the New Theatre in Oxford , he immediately renamed it the "Apollo" . After buying the Ardwick Theatre in Manchester, Gregg and his wife Nita went on to build Apollo into the UK's biggest theatre owner and largest privately owned company operating in Western Europe.

The Gregg's built their empire by taking over struggling venues and turning them round. The Liverpool Empire, which was losing £750,000 a year under the Derek Hatton led council, was leased to become be a home to big musicals. Gregg also reopened the Lyceum in London in the 1990's at a cost of £14m, after the theatre had been closed for 10 years. Andrew Lloyd Webber's revival of "Jesus Christ Superstar" ran for two years, followed by Disney's "The Lion King" . On 28 September, 1982 in association with friend Bill Kenwright, Gregg co-produced a production of "The Mikado" .

On 20 November, 1995 Ogden Corporation acquired 25% of Apollo

The eventual portfolio of venues included The Point Theatre in Dublin, the Sheffield Arena and Wales National Ice Rink in Cardiff; as well as 23 theatres nationwide including: Hammersmith Apollo, the Apollo Victoria and the Lyceum in London; the Bristol Hippodrome; the Edinburgh Playhouse; the Old Fire Station and Apollo in Oxford; Royal Theatre in York; the Opera House, Palace and Apollo Ardwick in Manchester; the Liverpool Empire and the Floral Hall in Southport. Apollo also owned Tickets Direct, which sold around £6m theatre and concert tickets in 1999.

On 6 August, 1999 Apollo accepted a takeover offer from the American entertainment corporation SFX for £158m, because: "We were running a family business and suddenly we realised there were 5,000 people in the family." Gregg and his family owned 80% of the company, and received between them £126m worth of shares and loan stock in SFX . SFX also agreed to acquire The Barry Clayman Corporation, 50% owned by the shareholders of Apollo, which promotes concert and entertainment events, and who's European tour artists include: Riverdance, Michael Jackson, Neil Diamond, Barbara Streisand, Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones .

Gregg stayed on, becoming European Chairman of the enlarged SFX group. Gregg approached producer David Ian to head up the theatre division, but Ian refused. After the SFX Entertainment division was acquired by Clear Channel in 2000 , Gregg eventually persuaded Ian to join the group by absorbing Ian's joint venture with actor Paul Nicholls, and made Ian head of the European Theatre group before he left. Ian took over Gregg's role as European Managing Director of Entertainment in a Clear Channel .

Gregg Air

After buying into Everton, Gregg needed a way to quickly access matches around the country. He initially used OxAero, run by a pair of former pilots out of Oxford airport. Gregg bought the company in 2001, rebranded it Gregg Air and invested £6m to buy two jet aircraft, a seven-seater Citation Ultra and a five-seater Cessna CJ . The company now operates seven jets, including a new Raytheon 390 Premier I, and employs 40 people at its headquarters at Oxford Airport in Kidlington, 20 of them pilots. Gregg Air's management service enables clients' planes to be hired out when they do not need them. The company is currently promoting a service allowing wealthy football fans to pay £10,000 to £15,000 a year in return for guaranteed flights to all the away matches of their favoured club. Marginally profitable on sales of £5.5m in 2004, the target is a seven figure profit at end 2005 .

Apollo Cinemas

In 2004, Gregg bought back the Apollo Cinema chain from Clear Channel for £23M, before the European theatres were spun out into sister company Live Nation. Apollo instantly became the largest independently owned UK cinema chain, operating from 13 locations and having a total of 78 screens; and four bingo halls.

Apollo also announced plans to open London's first West End multiplex cinema for a decade, with a new 5 screen complex part of a £70M pound scheme set to enhance lower Regent Street. Four more new regional complexes under development .

Together, cinemas and bingo generated pre-tax profits of about £1.5m on turnover of £12.2m in the year to 25 March, 2004. From this, the Greggs took £240,000 in dividends .

Everton F.C.

Gregg invested £7M in friend Bill Kenwright's vehicle True Blue Holdings Ltd , which took the majority share holding in Everton F.C. in 2000 from former Chairman Peter Johnson . Gregg first came to the attention of Everton fan's, when he became the main driver behind the King's Dock scheme, promising to plough in an additional £30M to get the project moving . After the scheme fell apart, and amid allegations of excessive "consultancy fee's" paid to one of Gregg's companies, he stayed with the club around the Bill Kenwright five year plan, subject to: "having no interest in football, and wishing to make a return on my investment within two years" .

However, in August 2004, Gregg fell out with Kenwright over the £40M debt levels of the club, and offered to cover the cash needs of the club while re-finance was agreed, subject to Kenwright and his supporter Jon Wood resigning . Kenwright refused, while Gregg claimed support from fellow director Lord Grantchester, who later issued a statement saying he only supported dissolution of True Blue Holdings. Gregg's investment never materialised, and Kenwright survived when he presented his own plans for investment via the Fortress Sports Fund Ltd. CEO Trevor Birch resigned after six weeks in the job over the feud, having saved Everton from bankruptcy in December 2003 .

True Blue Holdings was dissolved in December 2004 , to enable new investment to be attracted, but it has also left the club vulnerable to takeover. With the dissolution of True Blue, the individual holdings of the 22,031,351 shares were assumed to convert directly to Everton shares, leaving the bulk of the Blues' shares split between four parties - Kenwright, the Gregg family, Jon Woods and Lord Grantchester. Kenwright owned the largest block of shares, closely followed by Gregg - but with Kenwright and Woods holding of over 50% out voting Gregg's 23%, Kenwright remained firmly in control.

In May 2005, the Liverpool Echo reported that Gregg had been in negotiations with Chester City F.C. chairman Stephen Vaughan over selling his stake . Gregg issued a statement via a PR company, denying contact with Vaughan .

In October 2006, Gregg sold his shares BCR Sports, the vehicle of Kenwright friend and Planet Hollywood founder Robert Earl in a £30M deal. Gregg and his wife immediately resigned from the board .

Personal life

He married his first wife and had two sons, Tony (1965) and Robert (1966). Unfortunately, his first wife committed suicide and the boys were placed in care in 1970, amid allegations that Gregg's new wife Anita (known as Nita) didn't get on with the boys . In 1999 after the purchase of Apollo Leisure by SFX, Gregg fell foul of Oxford City Council and local residents over plans for expanding his home "Yatsden", on Foxcombe Road, Boars Hill Heath with a cinema and garage .

In September 1999, the Gregg's bought five-storey, Grade2 listed "Garden Corner", one of the finest historic homes in London and considered one of the top five percent of listed buildings in the UK. The building on Chelsea embankment was carefully restored, but by the time it was finished Gregg had bought the stake in Everton and was spending more time in the Northwest. Resultantly, the home was placed on the market in early 2002 for £8.5 million but, following September 11th the housing market stalled, and the property was revalued at £6.85 million - with experts saying it would mean virtually no profit .

Gregg has invested time and energy in charitable projects, such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation for chronically ill children. In 1998, Gregg was made a fellow of the University of Central Lancashire

External links

• Apollo Cinemas
• Interview re Everton
• Interview re Everton at time of 2004 dispute with Kenwright