Paul Kemsley

Paul Zeital Kemsley (born August 1967)^[1] is an English businessman. He is best known as a property developer, and to sports fans as a former Vice-Chairman of Premier League football club Tottenham Hotspur, and as Chairman of the revived New York Cosmos.

Biography

He was educated at Atholl School in Rayners Lane, Harrow. At the age of 15 Kemsley worked on Saturdays at John Paul Menswear, which led him to meeting Mike Ashley, who opened his first Sports World equipment outlet across the road. They would play darts for money on quiet afternoons.^[1]

Kemsley left school in 1984, at the age of 17, and began working at Gross Fine as a junior surveyor. Then, from 1985 to 1992, Kemsley worked as an agent at the commercial real-estate firm Ross Jaye. In 1992, he decided to leave and join his old friend Ashley at Sports Direct^[1] where he helped to expand the group.

By 1995, Kemsley wanted to start his own business and he established a property and securities company with "the £1,800 he had left in his pocket." This was Rock Joint Ventures Ltd, formed with Joe Lewis of ENIC Group, a British investment company, and Spurs chairman Daniel Levy. Rock was an investor and developer of commercial and residential property, but specialised in land trading.^[1] It also had a private hedge fund that specialised in acquiring strategic stakes in public companies, the most well-known being their 28% share in Countryside Properties plc in 2004, which they sold to the chairman for a profit of £12 million.^[2]

Kemsley was a director of Spurs from 2001, and Vice-Chairman of the club at the time of his departure in 2007. He had helped the club to reach a healthy financial position. Levy announced that Kemsley was resigning to focus on his property interests.^[3]

By 2007, Rock's property portfolio was valued at £750 million.^[1] Lewis parted from the company around that time. It set up a joint venture with HBOS to build a £1bn property portfolio. However, in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007–2010, Rock was placed into administration in June 2009, ending Kemsley's involvement.^[4][5] The administrator PwC began selling the major properties of the portfolio, which included the Selhurst Park stadium, in October 2009.^[6] HBOS lost hundreds of millions of pounds, and Peter Cummings, the banker who had promoted the joint investments in Kemsley's portfolio, was fined £500,000 by the FSA in 2012.^[7]

Kemsley is known as a close friend of Mike Ashley, David Pearl, Sir Philip Green and Lord Sugar.^[1][2] It was through his friendship with Sugar that Kemsley played a part in the ENIC/Levy partnership's purchase of a majority share holding in Tottenham Hotspur. Kemsley later appeared as one of Lord Sugar's interviewer/advisors on the UK BBC edition of The Apprentice from 2005 to 2008.^[5][6]

Kemsley was well known as an aggressive player in the property business.^[5] In his most successful property deal he bought 27–35 Poultry, an office block in the City of London, for £40 million in May 2006. He then sold it within five months to a former Russian government minister for £72 million.^[5][8] He has developed successful investments in various online betting operators including Party Gaming, Chinese-licensed Betex, and AIM-quoted FUN Technologies.^[2]

His personal wealth was estimated at £180 million in the Sunday Times Rich List 2008,^[5] and he was noted as actively supporting various charitable causes.^[1] However, in September 2008 he placed a series of large bets that doomed US bank Lehman Brothers would recover, and in May 2009 the spread betting company Spreadex took legal action against him, claiming that he was liable to pay a margin call of £2 million.^[8]

In 2010 he led a relaunch of the New York Cosmos soccer club, on the advice of his friend and associate Jeffrey Akiki^[9] becoming chairman from August 2010^[10] to October 2011. He installed soccer legend and former Cosmos star Pelé as Honorary President,^[11] and in January 2011 appointed former Manchester United player Eric Cantona as Director of Soccer.^[12] Kemsley sold his stake in the Cosmos at a profit, and invested in Pele's commercial rights through his agency Legends 10, jointly owned with Terry Byrne who had also worked on the Cosmos revival.^[13]

In June 2013 Clarion Partners acquired a 17 story, 277,412 square foot Manhattan office building from the Kaufman Organization and Invesco Real estate for $230 million dollars an increase of 60 million dollars more than what Kemsleys firm had paid. Tenants of the midtown south office building include outdoor footwear and apparel company Timberland, Knewton Inc., Firstmark Capital, Apple iAd, and Yelp.^[14]

In September 2014 Tishman Speyer Properties & Cogswell-Lee Development Group purchased a 19 story Art Deco Office building located at 183 Madison Avenue for $185 million from Argentinian investment company IRSA and Peter Armstrong of Rigby Asset Management. The building was designed by Warren & Wetmore in 1925 and Modern furniture store Domus Design occupies 20,000 square feet of the building. Prior to IRSA's and Rigby's ownership it was owned by Kemsley who sold it to Peter Armstrong for $75 million dollars alongside Argentinian fund IRSA in September 2010.^[15]

In March 2012 Kemsley secured his own bankruptcy in the High Court in London, wiping out his debts to creditors including Spreadex, HMRC,and HBOS.^[16] However, Barclays Bank continued legal action in the United States over a £5 million loan to him.^[17] Barclays lost this case having all claims rejected.^[18] In March 2013, the United States Bankruptcy Court found against the trustee who had applied for chapter 15 bankruptcy. Judge Peck denied this application, but later upheld Paul Kemsley's discharge saying Barclay's had effectively mousetrapped themselves.^[19] Two months later in state court, Judge James Peck denied all of Barclay's claims and dismissed the case and all claims against Paul Kemsley.^[18]

In July 2016 it was announced that Lisa Vanderpump's designer Dorit Kemsley will be starring with husband Paul on season seven of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.^[20] Dorit will be filling in the spot of Yolanda Hadid in season 7. Pauls wife is the founder and designer of brand "Dorit", an Italian swim and resort line. Dorit began her career in Italy, where she worked behind design, manufacturing, sales and marketing before returning back to NYC in 2009, where she established Dorit International, an American/Italian based company."^[21]

Personal life

He was married to Loretta (née Gold) from Portsmouth. The couple have three children and were living in Radlett, Hertfordshire in 2007,^[1] before moving to America.^[5] His wife and children returned to London in 2012. In March 2015 Kemlsey married his current wife Dorit at a lavish wedding in New York City.^[22]

References