John Caudwell

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John Caudwell (born -1953) is an English billionaire who has made most of his money in the mobile phone business.

The Caudwell Group is a mobile communications company, founded by John and his brother Brian Caudwell in 1987 as Midland Mobile Phones, a small local business which took 8 months to sell its first order of 26 phones. The group now sells 26 phones every minute. [1]

Developing from a small dealership to a wholesale distributor, turnover expanded to £13 million in 1991, making it the UK's largest independent distributor of cellular phones.

Turnover increased from £13 million in 1991 to over £1 billion in 2000. In 1996 and 1997, The Caudwell Group was named the UK's fastest growing company for 2 years in succession. The Caudwell Group employs over 8,000 worldwide.

The Caudwell Group owns mobile phone retailer Phones 4U, handset sourcing firm 20:20 Logistics and Dextra Solutions. In 2003 Caudwell sold the mobile phone services operation Singlepoint to Vodafone, for £405m (then $648m).

In 2005 the Sunday Times estimated John Caudwell's wealth at £1,280 million (then around $2.4 billion).

On 26 September 2006, it was announced that the Caudwell Group had been sold for a sum of £1.46 billion to private equity firms Providence Equity Partners and Doughty Hanson. [2]

It is rumored that Caudwell is leading a consortium to purchase the Manchester City Football Club. Caudwell has himself dismissed [3] this according to local newspaper The Sentinel