David Garrard (property developer)

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Sir David Eardley Garrard (born 1939) is a retired British property developer, who was knighted in the 2003 New Year Honours for his charity work with organizations such as the NSPCC. He founded Minerva PLC, a property investment and development company, whose shares are quoted in the London Stock Exchange FTSE 250 Index, and served as its chairman for many years until his retirement in March 2005.

Founder of the London commercial estate agents Garrard Smith and Partners, Sir David was listed by the Sunday Times Rich List 2005 as the joint 451st richest person in the UK, with a fortune of £102 million. He started as an estate agent and became so successful he bought the property company Land Investors, and recruited the then 23-year-old Andrew Rosenfeld to help run it.

[edit] Political contributions

Garrard has donated money to both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. The Conservatives erected a plaque in his honour after he paid £70,000 to install a call centre at Conservative Central Office while William Hague was party leader, and he subsequently donated £200,000 to the Labour Party.

Before the 2005 General Election he provided Labour with a loan of £2.3 million on commercial terms. He was nominated for a peerage in 2005 but asked for his name to be withdrawn following concerns raised by the House of Lords Appointments Commission. ^[1]

Following the so-called Cash for Peerages revelations in 2006, the Labour Party published a list of 12 individuals who had lent a total of £13.95 million to help fund their general election campaign. Garrard's contribution of £2.3 million was the largest.

John Prescott gave the go-ahead to Minerva to build the Park Place shopping centre in Croydon, which will become one of the country's 10 biggest shopping malls, months after the owners of the company, David Garrard and Andrew Rosenfeld had secretly given Labour a £3.3 million loan.^[2]

Garrard has also sponsored the Bexley Business Academy.

[edit] Allders takeover

Garrard was involved in the takeover of the Allders department store, to be included in Minerva's Park Place shopping centre development, but his attempts to restructure the Allders company failed and it collapsed, ^[3] leaving its "pension fund in tatters" according to The Sunday Times. ^[4] Garrard's own business interests allegedly benefited from the collapse. ^[5]

[edit] References

1. ^ Labour donor removes his name from peers list, The Times, March 16, 2006
2. ^ Deputy PM's £500m deal for Labour's secret lenders, The Telegraph, March 26, 2006
3. ^ The Grizzly Bear, how he helped out Tony, The Evening Standard, Dec 30 2005
4. ^ Watchdog warns Blair off ennobling Labour donors, The Sunday Times, March 5, 2006
5. ^ Minerva profits from Allders' losses, The Times, April 23, 2005