Billionaire John Caudwell likes to play the tough guy. Caudwell suffered a horrific-sounding injury to his right arm while skiing moguls on the Colorado slopes recently. Forced to go under the knife, the founder of mobile giant Phones 4u had a mirror placed by his head to watch the surgeon reattach a ripped tendon. "Fascinating," he smiles to the disbelief of his public relations handlers. Gruesome, more like. The tendon had rolled up to his shoulder, meaning Caudwell watched on as the doctor wriggled his fingers behind the skin covering his biceps to pull the sinew back down.
He was offered a general anaesthetic but accepted only basic pain-killers. "It just felt like a toothache or a severe headache," he grins, clearly enjoying the grimaces of his entourage. The strangest thing, he adds, was that when the doctor drilled through bone in his forearm, there was no pain at all.
Gory arm injury aside, Caudwell is the picture of health and wealth as he kicks back in a sixth-floor suite at the Dorchester. Trim, fit as a butcher's dog, lightly tanned and looking a good decade younger than his 57 years, Caudwell seems to have made good on his promise to enjoy life after selling Phones 4u in a £1.46bn deal four years ago.
Yet Caudwell has been busy on five businesses, including an imminent, startling comeback to the mobile phone industry. "I said I was going to sail around the world, but I barely managed to row across a lake," he joshes, a hint of a Midlands accent betraying his Stoke-on-Trent roots.
Caudwell was one of the country's most famous entrepreneurs, opening his first Phones 4u shop in 1991 and selling out to private equity giants Doughty Hanson and Providence when he sensed an impending recession. At his leaving do, Caudwell dished out £3.5m in cheques to loyal staff.
Since then, he has been more famous for his lavish parties. Leona Lewis, a former winner of The X Factor, sang at his daughter's birthday; Diana Ross wowed the crowd at the 40th birthday of his partner, Claire Johnson, while Whitney Houston and Rod Stewart have sung at the annual ball supporting his children's charity.
However, he scoffs at reports of astronomical appearance fees, such as the £1.7m he supposedly splashed out on Houston's performance. "Elton's doing the ball free of charge this year," says Caudwell, presumably referring to John rather than Ben.
The eagerness with which he speaks about his forthcoming venture suggests he will soon be famous as a businessman again rather than an event organiser. "It's a long shot. It isn't fully proven," he admits, before almost frothing at the mouth with enthusiasm. "But it's exciting, innovative and has the most potential of my businesses [which include wealth management, boat engine and property empires], with real global potential." Caudwell tries to cloud his plans in mystery, but discloses quite a lot. He has ploughed £1m into a mobile phone application that facilitates instantaneous financial transactions with a simple code.
News Source:-http://www.independent.co.uk
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