I earned more than Jagger. . . now I’ll raise £100m to help kids succeed

Peter Lampl tells how he rose from a council house to riches – next door to Donald Trump

THE best money decision that philanthropist Peter Lampl ever made was to fund the campaign to ban handguns in the wake of the Dunblane massacre in 1996. Lampl, 74, founder of social mobility charity The Sutton Trust, told DONNA FERGUSON that he has donated more than £50million to charity and hopes to raise twice that amount to support the poorest children hit hardest by the pandemic.

Q What did your parents teach you about money?

A MY parents taught me the value of hard work and how that leads to money. My father was a Jewish refugee who fled from Vienna to escape the Nazis. He arrived in England barely speaking English. He took jobs as a farm labourer and car mechanic. Then he went to night school and qualified as a professional engineer. My mother, a German immigrant, worked as a doctor’s receptionist. She supported the family while my father studied. Money was tight. We lived in a council estate in Yorkshire. We always lived within our means, but there wasn’t much left for luxuries. Eventually, my father got a new job, we moved to Cheltenham and became a middle-class family.

I’ve done well in life. But I had great parents who were hardworking and ambitious for me – and I think that’s important. Probably the key people in anybody’s life is their parents.

Have you ever struggled Q to make ends meet?

A NO, I wouldn’t say that because I have always been able to pay my bills. But in the 1980s, I came close to bankruptcy.

I was living in New York and had founded a business. We would buy underperforming companies, turn them around and then once they were established take them public or sell them on. We had a nice office in Manhattan, but I didn’t manage to achieve anything in the first two years. I didn’t close one deal. It got to the point I couldn’t sleep at night. I was worried my company would end up in tatters. It was scary. I almost went under, but at the last minute I managed to close a deal – and that’s how I made my first million.

Q How did you turn your fortunes around?

A I HEARD about a small company for sale on the west coast. I met the chairman of the large business that owned it. He took me to his house on Lake Washington where the very rich live today: Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. There was a windsurfer on the beach and a thunderstorm was brewing. So I casually said to the chairman: ‘Wouldn’t it be great to go out?’ He replied: ‘You wouldn’t go out in this, would you?’ I said: ‘Sure I would.’

He then gave me some bathing trunks that were three sizes too big, I put them on and got on the board. It was a battle between keeping my shorts on and the sail upright. I had to spread my legs as far as I could to stay upright. When I came back in, the chairman thought what I’d done was great. I got changed, we went into a room and shook hands on a deal. And with that, I was off to the races.

What he didn’t know – and what I kept quiet about – was that I had previously competed in the World Windsurfing Championships.

Q What was the best year of your financial life?

A IT was 1992. I earned £35million that year which would be the equivalent of £75million today. I believe I out-earned Mick Jagger and probably Elton John to boot. In total, between 1987 and 1997, I earned more than £200million – a lot of money.

Q The most expensive thing you bought for fun?

A IN the 1990s, I treated myself to a pair of Chichester Blue Aston Martin convertibles. I had one in London and one in New York. Each cost £130,000, the equivalent of around £275,000 today. I think it is the most self-indulgent thing I’ve ever done. I’ve sold them since. They were beautiful to drive, but they drank so much petrol I had to stop all the time to fill them up.

Q The best money decision you have made?

A AFTER the Dunblane massacre there was a move to ban handguns. Funding that campaign was my best money decision. It had a huge impact. Handguns were banned after Dunblane. I got involved because I’d lived in America for 20 years, so I was sensitive to gun culture, which was moving in the wrong direction in this country.

Q Do you save in a pension or invest in the stock market?

A I DON’T need a pension. I invest through professional managers, but I’d rather not say how much I have invested. It’s fair to say that it’s millions of pounds. Also, I stick to ethical funds.

Q Do you own any property?

A YES, a six-bedroom house in Surrey which I paid several million pounds for nine years ago. I also have a four-bedroom house in Palm Beach, next door to Mar-a-Lago, which is owned by Donald Trump (left). He’s right at the end of our garden. So there goes the neighbourhood.

Q What is the one luxury you treat yourself to?

A MEMBERSHIP of two golf clubs. I don’t pay any attention to how much they cost, but it is several thousand pounds a year.

Q If you were Chancellor, what would you do?

A I WOULD simplify the tax treatment of charitable donations. Gift Aid is too complicated: the charity recipient gets part of the tax break and so does the donor.

In America, it’s straightforward: the donor gets the tax break. So, if you give a thousand dollars, that money is deducted from your income for tax purposes. That incentivises donations and I think that’s one of the reasons why Americans give more money to charity than we do. If I were Chancellor, I would do the same here.

Q Do you donate money to charity?

A YES. I am an entrepreneurial philanthropist. I don’t just give a charity a gift and walk away. I stick around and bring all the skills I can muster to make that money work. So everything I get involved with, I stay on top of, making sure it works well.

I founded Sutton Trust because when I came back from the States, things had changed here. Opportunities for bright kids from low and middle-income backgrounds had got much worse and social mobility had declined. I set up the charity to do something about that. I’ve donated more than £50 million and helped some 50,000 kids. Of course, we can’t help every child, but we help as many as we can.

Q Why is social mobility so important to you?

A I CAME from a council estate, and then went to Oxford and London Business School and made my way in the world. I think everyone deserves the same opportunity to succeed in life.

My philosophy is that people can surprise you – so you’ve got to give them a chance. And that’s what I do. I give kids a chance to surprise us.

Q What is your number one financial priority?

A THE pandemic has been terrible for the poorest. The gap between poor and well-off kids has widened which means there’s more work to do on social mobility.

So my number one financial priority is to raise £100 million as an endowment for Sutton Trust so we can continue the work we’ve been doing.

I will put some money in, but we’re looking to get other philanthropists, trusts, foundations and companies to contribute as well.