Friday 05 June 2026 6:00 am
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Thursday 04 June 2026 5:32 pm
John Cauddwell's new project includes a £250k statue of himself
Phones4U founder John Caudwell’s new Riviera development features a £250k statue of himself. Billionares should be proud of their success, he tells Felix Armstrong“If I was trying to purely make money, I would have built student accommodation in Manchester and put another 5,000 Chinese people in there,” billionaire and philanthropist John Caudwell says as he prepares for the opening of his £300m development on the French Riviera.“I only say Chinese because my son went to university in Manchester, and the building that he was in was full of Chinese people,” he clarifies, “our universities are really successful at attracting foreigners from all over the world to come and study, which is great to see.”Upon setting foot in Le Provencal, Caudwell’s ten-storey passion project in the south of France, two facts immediately become apparent: a lot of money went into this development, and it is far from certain that a lot will come back out.The businessman says he is not expecting to make anything out of this project, and wanted only to “create the very, very best in class that was the best in the area, the best in the world”.John Caudwell says Labour has abandoned its pro-growth policiesCaudwell founded Phones4U in 1987 and scaled the business to become the UK’s largest independent mobile phone retailer, operating more than 600 stores before he sold its parent company for just under £1.5bn in 2006.The businessman has since taken on a number of major property projects and is currently developing 1 Mayfair in London, which he claims will be the most valuable apartment complex in the world.Labour wealth policies ‘disastrously unfair’It is the early hours of the morning and 73-year-old Caudwell – a fitness enthusiast – is fresh from a two-hour cycle from Monaco, but these factors do not dim his energetic enthusiasm for Le Provencal.Caudwell jumps up from his seat on the balcony of one of the building’s many luxury apartments to gesture at features of the renovation work he oversaw – details of which he has an impressive memory, given that the project has been decades in the making.Le Provencal was originally built as a hotel 100 years ago, but stood derelict for 20 years before Caudwell spotted the building on a cycle ride along the coast – and for another 20 years after that.
