Millionaire on mission to help out

Published on Thursday 3 December 2009 08:59

ROBERT Kilgour is certainly no regular father-of-four. Leaning back in an armchair, he removes his brightly coloured half-moon spectacles and glances out of the window into the dark mid-evening Edinburgh sky, the wind and rain thrashing against the glass.

"I was out on the tennis court last night in my shorts and T-shirt," the 52-year-old multi-millionaire entrepreneur and chief executive of Dow Investments Ltd says. "I did have to have the floodlights on, though."

He's just jetted into the Capital from his home in Monte Carlo, his overnight suitcase sitting by the door, his Blackberry close by.

He'll be returning in a couple of days, giving him enough time to see his four children from his first marriage – two of them students at Loretto school in Musselburgh – and squeeze in a few business meetings before getting back for a pre-arranged tennis match with friends.

Trained by the former coach of Bjorn Borg, tennis forms a key part of Edinburgh-born Kilgour's social life, along with jaunts on his 43ft boat with his wife Jacqueline, dinner engagements with celebrities and royalty across the world, as well as meetings with Conservative politicians he is eager to fund to secure a 2010 general election victory.

But today he is here to talk cancer – he touches a wooden coffee table as he stresses how lucky he has been to have had a lifetime of good health.

He knows it's not the case for everyone though, including many of his friends and colleagues who have been struck with the disease, one of whom is currently receiving treatment at the city's Western General.

So to him it all makes perfect sense – he has money and people need help so he's going to give it to them.

The businessman – with ventures worldwide, including a leading web camera company – is a long-standing supporter of Macmillan Cancer Support, pledging 50,000 to the charity to mark his 50th birthday, and now donating a further 30,000 to allow a drop-in cancer information and support centre to be created at the Western General.

"Macmillan is a professionally-run charity with a team of committed people – I like that about it," he explains.

"It is a lifeline for so many people.

"None of us know what is round the corner do we?"

It was back in early 1990s that Kilgour chaired the Fife Macmillan Cancer Project – a public appeal which raised 1.75 million to build a hospice in Kirkcaldy where his father was a well-known businessman and Kilgour himself spent most of his childhood when not studying at Loretto.

His elderly mother, in her 80s, is also now based in Lower Largo, but regularly heads to Monaco to spend time with her son and her grandchildren when they are on holiday there.

Following the appeal, Kilgour then donated 50,000 to establish the first Macmillan Cancer Information Centre in London in 2007, allowing Edinburgh to now become the 25th such provision, supporting people affected by cancer by providing not only factual information, but emotional help.

The centre is to open next week staffed by professional volunteers who aim to complement existing Macmillan services already available across the city. To be able to donate such a large sum of money with ease to a cause close to his heart was the stuff of dreams for Kilgour.

He laughs as he recalls a recent conversation with his first wife – a Kirkcaldy-based midwife and the mother of his children – whom he was married to from their early 20s until their separation in the late 1990s.

"She told me that I had once said to her that one day I was going to have my own business, make some money, dabble in politics and live abroad," he smiles.

"I managed to do all of that before I was 50. The thing is, she never wanted any of that. She told me she never really believed me when I said it.

"Although we have divorced, we have made a success of that. She is a wonderful girl and she was always my rock. My biggest success story is definitely my four children too – without a doubt."

Kilgour's story is definitely not one of rags to riches. With a successful and inspiring businessman for a father, he enjoyed a privileged education at Loretto before moving on to Stirling University, where he studied with politicians Jack McConnell and John Reid. His own taste for an entrepreneurial life came when he was a student, selling jeans and denim jackets at Edinburgh's Ingliston Market at weekends for more than a year.

"Basically, I was treasurer of the students' union and was friends with the guy who ran the shop. It used to shut on a Saturday evening and not reopen until Monday morning, meaning that he couldn't shift stock as quickly as he wanted," he smiles.

"I offered to sell stuff for a cut, so I would take my estate car to the market on a Saturday, pay my 5 to be there and sell the stock. I thought it was great. Because I didn't really have stock as such, as I could return to him what I didn't sell, I was able to undercut a lot of traders."

He went on to open a hotel in the New Town in the early-1980s, a business often frequented by his former Loretto schoolfriend, journalist and broadcaster Andrew Marr, who was working at the Scotsman at the time.

"He's a really great guy," he says. "At school, although he was brilliant with words, he was also an amazing artist. I remember at his last year at Loretto he actually had an exhibition at the Festival."

From there, Kilgour's story is history – a number of worldwide multi-million-pound companies, including care homes across Edinburgh, shares in a radio station, not to mention the web camera businesses Camvista Global Ltd and Network Webcams Ltd which saw him work with the famous illusionist David Copperfield in New York back in 2000.

"I thought it was a joke actually when he first got in touch with me," he explains. "But he wanted to know if we would go to New York to work with him. He was a real perfectionist, which could often make it difficult to work with him – he couldn't always explain to us what he wanted.

"He was a decent guy, though. I remember walking down the street with him and people would stop and ask for his autograph – he's a huge star over there."

The time with Copperfield also led Kilgour to meet singer Justin Timberlake when he was in the boy-band NSYNC, although he admits he later had to be told by his children who the star actually was.

Although his life is filled with money, lavish surroundings and celebrity encounters – he reels off a long list of famous faces who regularly pass his Monte Carlo door, including Ringo Starr, Shirley Basey and Roger Moore – he insists he is keen to come home, agreeing with his wife, who is also his business partner, to return to Britain early next year.

With many political friends – Kilgour himself also stood, unsuccessfully for Westminster in 1997 – he thinks 2010 is a good year to return home, eager to help fund the Conservative Party for a possible election victory.

"I'm ready for part two of my life," he nods. "I want to come back for my family, business opportunities, to do more charity work and for politics – I want to be a supporter."