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£150m payout for the dynasty that owns Marylebone
Jonathan Prynn6 Feb 2009
The family of landowners who drove the revival of Marylebone Village have paid themselves a £150 million “reward”.
The Howard de Walden dynasty ordered the windfall after funding a decade of investment in their 92-acre west London estate.
Once run-down and unfashionable, Marylebone High Street area is now one of the capital's most desirable shopping districts, with a policy of encouraging quirky fashion and food stores and keeping out large national chains.
The strategy, highlighted in the Evening Standard's Save Our Small Shops campaign, is seen as a blueprint for regenerating areas that have lost their character in an invasion of clone stores.
The neighbourhood has also attracted famous residents such as Madonna, Sienna Miller and Liam Gallagher and has property values that have been pushed up despite the recent slump. As well as Marylebone, the estate covers the area around Harley Street and Wimpole Street and includes some of London's finest Georgian architecture.
The money will be divided between the 55 direct descendants of the Ninth Baron Howard de Walden, who died in 1999 and was best known as a racehorse owner.
About £42 million will go directly to his four daughters — Hazel, holder of the 412-year-old barony, Susan, Jessica and Camilla — and their husbands, who are all shareholders in family business The Howard de Walden Estate.
The rest will be held in trusts for their children and grandchildren. These include Baroness Howard De Walden's son and heir, Peter Czernin, a film producer who is one of David Cameron's oldest friends and who donated to his leadership campaign. The family, whose motto is “Not for whom, but in what manner” is said to be worth about £1.3 billion. Their title was awarded to Thomas Howard by Elizabeth I in 1597 for his role in defeating the Spanish Armada.
Their wealth is tied up in the estate, and previous dividends have been “only” some £10 million. The £150 million dividend was revealed in accounts for Howard de Walden Estate Holdings, filed with Companies House this week. The payment was made in April, funded from a loan from Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group.
Toby Shannon, chief executive of the estate, said: “It is the culmination of 10 years of hard work. Profits, rents and values had gone up substantially. It had been the family's idea to grow the value of the estate. They are entitled to take some of the money out as dividend.”
He said that in the past decade £250 million had been invested in refurbishing buildings, and annual profits had risen from £8.5 million to £31 million.
Reader views (5)
You have to ask how these people got this property surely?
I notice they aren't prepared to do the same trick in East Ham or Yorkshire, why not?
- Itsallaboutthemoney, London, UK, 23/03/2010 11:09
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I think they deserve every penny. If you work hard you get what you deserve.
- Cordelia, London, 11/02/2009 12:22
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when will the trial by media style of journalism finally stop? When we british are well and truly extinct perhaps and our country belongs to other nations?
- Neil, London, 07/02/2009 13:19
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Why are we condemning wealth? I'm not rich, I wish I was, but I would never criminalise or demonise wealth. How did this wonderful nation of innovators that toast success suddenly turn more red than Russia? Pathetic.
- Mel, London, 07/02/2009 00:08
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We need land reform.
Its undemocratic for land to be tied up in trusts for perpetuity. That property has been in the family for over 300 years - the question is how.
There are laws passed that is supposed to stop trusts passing on property generation after generation, as it allows wealth to become dramatically concentrated in a few hands.
If the law was enforced then prices in London would be much lower, as there would be less mega-landowners able to manipulate prices.
They have earnt their 'reward' by squeezing money out of hardpressed ordinary Londoners
- John, Twickenham, 06/02/2009 15:31
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