Reuben Singh · @ReubenSingh
20th Aug 2014 from TwitLonger
Let’s set the record straight
I want to set the record straight on four points that I sometimes still get asked about. As these are from a period of time some 12-15 years ago, long before Facebook or Whatsapp were even launched - even before the iPhone was invented - it will be irrelevant to most people. But it is important to me and I owe it to those who have believed in me and continue to do so today.
I started my first business at 17. I was very young, quite naïve and I made mistakes. But I've always built businesses and grew up in the pre-crash, have-it-now culture of the time. From the beginning I worked hard to build these businesses and I'm incredibly proud of the part I played in creating and building up businesses that were recognised as market leaders; award-winning businesses that collectively provided employment to hundreds, if not thousands, of people and received prestigious awards such as the New Business of the Year award from Microsoft and Orange, innovation accolades from MIT Boston and many more. Businesses that today are still expanding and highly profitable.
In 2001 I appeared on the front cover of Newsweek globally. I was in the national press, on the front page of many of the UK newspapers and on the covers of many more business magazines. I was invited by Ernst & Young to be a judge on their prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year Award National Finals and I was awarded a Global Leader of Tomorrow Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos. I was invited to Buckingham Palace and honoured by Her Majesty the Queen as a Pioneer of the Nation.
I'm also proud of the public service work I undertook as a young man. I was appointed an Ambassador for Entrepreneurship by Chancellor Gordon Brown and Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2000. I served as a government adviser, on committees and taskforces, as well as working with The Prince’s Trust and other charities. I was, in effect, a figurehead of New Labour Entrepreneurial Britain.
For years I’d been wined and dined by the banks, desperate to lend me money. Banks everywhere fought over themselves to lend me and my businesses money. Offers of complimentary trips on private jets; yachts; prime seats at Wimbledon finals; top restaurants; big sporting events; front page features in the banks’ own internal magazines. You name it – I was given it for free by the banks. I was a young man, barely out of my teens - so I never thought twice; I never wondered what the trade-off might be; what the economic future might hold.
Now I'm older and a great deal wiser. Looking back I now see that this hysteria created a level of confidence in me that was way beyond arrogance. It made me stop listening to advice. I did not seek out the best advisers. I believed that I knew best. I listened only to myself, even going so far as to represent myself in court with no legal assistance.
Do I wish I’d done things differently? Yes, of course. I needed the best advice but I didn’t look for it. I needed to step back and wonder why the banks were so keen to lend to me, but I didn’t. I needed to stop believing the hype, but I didn’t. Do I regret that I failed? No. I don’t. Because before I’d failed I didn't appreciate or understand success. I didn't cherish what was important in life or enjoy the journey. Deep down, I know that my failures have been my greatest personal success.
So let’s set the record straight on a few things which have been said and written by others.
Firstly:
In 1999 I sold my retail business, Miss Attitude which I had started whilst at school and had grown into one of the UK’s fastest expanding fashion accessories businesses employing hundreds of people across the country. The business was sold and I was advised by the lawyers at the time that the most efficient way to sell it was to receive the sale price in a number of different ways; one of which was the settling of large debts owed by the company to me and my family and to have valuable assets that were tied in the business released. As the consideration was being paid in several forms I was advised to sell the shares for £1. When the business was sold it was highly profitable and doing well.
Secondly:
My wealth was not, and has never been, ‘bogus’ as some in the media have claimed. In 2002, a bank secured an independent valuation of my wealth. Their auditors independently confirmed my personal net worth at the time and it was reported by them to be over eleven million pounds at the time.
Thirdly:
A bank, desperate to lend money to my business (fighting off competition from other banks, including one who put me on the cover of their internal bank magazine to try and gain our business) lent a company which I owned a loan as part of a larger deal to market the services of the business to its 500,000 or so clients. Banks were falling over themselves to lend money and to get publicity from associating themselves with us. I didn't put a gun to the bank’s head nor would a bank lend money without doing their own independent due diligence, which demonstrated amongst other things the valuation of personal wealth position being significant.
The bank then failed to honour the agreement and pulled back the loan. Like all businesses, mine was asset rich and cash poor. Like all businesses, mine invest their money in creating jobs, new services and expanding their operations. No business has money sitting around doing nothing. We were growing fast and investing all of our cash in our people and our marketing. We offered the bank a repayment plan. They refused. In a further attempt to satisfy them, the business sent the bank highly confidential documents detailing agreements we had signed for investments which valued the business at £30m (much less than the earlier valuation we had but it gave us a way to repay the bank) from American venture capitalists. Prior to receiving this confidential material, the bank director (who was actually not a real director just a title they all used) agreed not to approach the investor. No sooner had they seen the documents they contacted the venture capitalists directly, completely ruining these very important investment deals.
The bank would then not accept a deal to allow the company to repay over a period of time. I hadn't taken the money personally and I had only guaranteed the debt. However to safeguard all the jobs, protect thousands of our clients, protect the business and their monies, the other investors (mainly my family) restructured the business - a move that I tried to stop the bank from strong-arming them into. In the end, all that happened was I lost all my shares and the bank lost its money but the employees and the business were saved.
The bank came after me under the guarantee. I was relying on many meetings I had held with the bank representatives, unfortunately I had naïvely believed their word without asking for every single thing to be confirmed in writing. The bank sued and I defended. The case went on for a long time and eventually I lost. The judge chose to believe the banker. This was a civil case and there was no allegation whatsoever by the bank that I had committed any fraud nor did the judge find this to be the case. It also transpired that the bank had broken the banking code which was evidenced in court and at the time they had tried to cover this up by having me sign another later document to rectify this.
Finally:
Much has been written about me and what went on. Some people have even suggested I committed fraud which is totally untrue. I did not. I hid nothing; I did nothing illegal. At no point did I commit fraud or any other offence. If I had, I would rightly have stood trial on these charges. Why did I not take action against those people who suggested I had committed fraud? I now think I probably should have done. But I'm human. I was sick and tired of litigation; sick of wasting time and money in courts. I wanted to get on with my life and rebuild my career.
Even though I lost my case against the bank, I took some comfort from the fact that a few years later a judge, Timothy Fancourt QC of Falcon Chambers, wrote that the decision given against me was "widely considered to be wrong".
Back in 2007 I had no other choice but to accept bankruptcy solely because the bank did not wish to reach a settlement which was earlier offered to them to repay all the debt over a short period of time. Time has moved on (some 7 years) and like everything else is in business these experiences have taught me much. To all the various Businesses & Enterprises I am involved in today I bring to them each day the essential lessons I have learnt - humility, recognition of your own abilities and those of others and the determination to be sincere to your business, employees, associates, and yourself.
This has only been written to factually set the record straight, to tell the truth and put to rest untrue allegations and untrue facts which have been said and written by others about me.
Reuben Singh
20 August 2014