He started making money selling trainers from the back of a van. Now Scotland's first billionaire has cemented his position as the nation's wealthiest property magnate.
Sir Tom Hunter, who takes his inspiration from the Scots-born steel tycoon and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, yesterday strengthened his place as Scotland's most affluent man when a new rich list found the value of his land and property was 35% higher than last year. His holdings are now worth £1.05bn.
The 46-year-old former Strathclyde University economics and marketing graduate, who got his first taste of business by helping out at his father's grocery store, tops the list of Scots with the most valuable collection of properties in the Estates Gazette Rich List 2007.
Although the combined personal holdings of the head of the West Coast Capital investment firm has grown by £270m since last year according to the research, it still only makes Sir Tom the 19th biggest land and property investor in Britain, a drop of one place from last year.
It has been a busy year of deals for Sir Tom, who grew up in New Cumnock, Ayrshire.
In March, he agreed to buy British builder Crest Nicholson in a deal valued at £715m. In May, he was a key member of a consortium that agreed to buy a portfolio of 21 private hospitals worth £686m from European healthcare group Capio.
By contrast, in July Sir Tom pledged to give away more than £1bn to good causes in one of the UK's biggest-ever charitable donations.
Nevertheless, the Scottish philanthropist's property pot remains only a fraction of the £7bn assets credited to the most wealthy British magnate in the survey, the Duke of Westminster, whose holdings were worth £400m more than last year.
Sir Tom's property fortune is worth 30% more than the £810m portfolio amassed by Scotland's second-richest magnate, Keith Miller, the 58-year-old who has spent 13 years as chief executive of the Edinburgh-based Miller Group, the UK's largest privately owned housebuilding, property development and construction business.
Mr Miller's personal land and property fortune is thought to have grown by nearly £100m in the past year but he has dropped from 22 to 30 in the British league table.
Rangers chairman Sir David Murray, who earlier this year bought what at the time was Edinburgh's most expensive home, in affluent Barnton for £4.5m, slots into third place on the Scots property rich list, with a portfolio worth of £750m which is £100m more than last year. His fortune is ranked the 32nd highest in Britain after being placed 23rd in last year's survey.
The new EG Rich List reveals that the 500 wealthiest UK property owners have amassed a combined net worth of £117bn.
The average individual fortune in Britain was just over £230m for each of the 500 Rich List entrants in Britain, an increase of 15% on last year but only six of those on the Rich List exceeded that average in Scotland.
The list includes property veterans like the oldest entrant, 87-year-old Irish entrepreneur John Byrne, who sits on a £78m fortune.
There is a marked increase in the number of self-made success stories - less than a quarter of the wealth in the 2007 list was inherited.
Who's who
SCOTLAND'S TOP FIVE
1 (19 in UK list) Sir Tom Hunter £1.05bn
2 (30) Keith Miller and family £810m
3 (32) Sir David Murray £750m
4 (76) Robert Adair £372m
5 (78) Brian Kennedy £350m
UK AND IRELAND'S TOP FIVE
1 The Duke of Westminster, Grosvenor Group £7bn
2 David and Simon Reuben, Trans-World Metals £3.5bn
3 Sean Quinn and family, Quinn Group £3.05bn
4 Earl Cadogan and family, the Cadogan Group £2.6bn
5 Simon Halabi, Buckingham Securities £2.5bn
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