Peter de Savary

Peter John de Savary (11 July 1944 – 30 October 2022) was a British businessman in shipping, oil and property. He once owned or managed 13 shipyards around the globe and had global oil-trading and refuelling businesses. He was the Chairman of Millwall F.C.

In 1997, The Independent reported his fortune as £24 million, and was educated in Britain at Charterhouse, Godalming, from which he was expelled at the age of 16. He moved to Canada where his mother and stepfather lived; he did gardening, baby-sitting and children's private tuition. he moved back to the UK to work for his father. On a subsequent flight to Nigeria he met the brother of the President of Nigeria with whom he went into business supplying wheat, flour, steel, cement and other goods to Nigeria and other African countries making him a millionaire by the age of 30.

De Savary purchased a part-ownership in a Kuwait-registered oil company called Artoc. With others he also started a bank in Nassau, Bahamas. The bank specialised in investing in property, shipping, oil refineries and coal mining in South America. The bank was not very successful and in 1980 lost $64 million. De Savary negotiated a deal with the Italian financier Roberto Calvi for Calvi to buy a 20% share in Artoc but Calvi was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1984 and de Savary left Artoc.

However, in the early 1990s economic downturn his empire collapsed – he sold both Land's End and John o' Groats in 1991 for an undisclosed sum to the businessman Graham Ferguson Lacey, and his holding company Placeton became insolvent in 1994 with debts of £200 million by one source

In 1997, he bought Vernon Court, a 14,000-square-foot in Newport RI. He planned to develop it into a members-only hotel similar to his Skibo Castle in Scotland. However, due to objection by neighbours the plans were dropped and the mansion was sold the following year.

2000s His business activities since 2000 concentrated on property development and hotels, with a number of major country house hotels incorporating golf courses. De Savary saw a niche for the affluent: leisure properties that were small enough to make guests feel as though they were on their own private estate, but equipped with all the facilities of the world's great hotels. His first such development was The Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle in Scotland, the venue for Madonna and Guy Ritchie's wedding. This was sold in 2003 to Ellis Short. Through his wife Lana's company, Havana West, other similar developments have included: the Cherokee Plantation in South Carolina; Stapleford Park and Bovey Castle, both in England; and Carnegie Abbey in Rhode Island. Each is a private club with golf courses and other amenities — clay pigeon shooting, falconry, horse riding, tennis — depending on what fits with the club's local environment.

Again with Lana's Havana West company

In late 2009, de Savary purchased a former YMCA located in Newport, RI, that had been converted into Vanderbilt Hall hotel. He added a small collection of American Illustration artworks to the property from the American Illustrators Gallery, New York, including a piece by Howard Chandler Christy titled "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair". The painting depicts Stephen Foster composing the song of the same name. Other artists on display included Bradshaw Crandell, Constantin Alajalov, Helen Dryden, John Lagatta, George Hughes, Thomas Webb, Rico Tomaso, Carl Burger and Rolf Armstrong. The property was sold to Grace Hotels in 2010, then to Auberge Resorts Collection in 2018.

Yachting De Savary led the British sailing team in its challenge for the America's Cup in 1983 but his contender, Victory 83, was beaten by Australia II in the final heat. In 1992 de Savary withdrew from the race as he could not raise the £2 million necessary to compete.

De Savary raced for many years in the Bucket Regatta in Newport, Rhode Island, and St Barts in the Caribbean. He was awarded the trophy "Spirit of the Bucket" in 2010. He was a member of the Royal Thames Yacht Club and the New York Yacht Club.

Football In November 2005, he succeeded Theo Paphitis as chairman of Millwall Holdings plc and as chairman of Millwall F.C. Stewart Till succeeded him on 3 May 2006 as the football club chairman, and de Savary remained as chairman of Millwall Holdings plc until October 2006.

In March 2011, de Savary was linked with a deal to purchase the financially stricken League One club Plymouth Argyle F.C. However, de Savary denied any interest in buying the club, which was eventually purchased by Plymouth City Council the following October.

Political activity In 1997 De Savary stood as a Referendum Party candidate for Falmouth and Camborne. He came fourth receiving 3,534 (6.6%) votes.

Personal life and death De Savary was married three times. and who provided him with two grandsons and a granddaughter and Nicola, who studied medicine at King's College London, from Charleston, South Carolina. He had three daughters by Lana (Tara, Amber and Savannah).

De Savary died from a heart attack in London, on 30 October 2022, at the age of 78.