Theo Paphitis – Who is Theo Paphitis?
- January 28th, 2010
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Theo Paphitis an entrepreneur of Greek Cypriot origin. His main interests are in the retail sector and he is well known for appearing on Dragons Den.
Theo Paphitis
Theo Paphitis
Date of Birth: 24.09.59
Place of Birth: Limassol, Cyprus
Theo Paphitis moved to England with his family when he was young and had his first entrepreneurial experience when at the age of 15 he ran his school tuck shop.
His first employment Theo Paphitis found himself in was as a
filing clerk and tea boy at an Insurance Brokers in the City of London. However the pay was not great and in the pursuit of more money he found he had a flair and love for retail and sales. This saw him become a sales assistant for Watches of Switzerland in Bond Street.
In order to gain more experience Theo Paphitis joined Legal & General at the age of 21 selling commercial mortgages. This taught him how to read other businesses’ balance sheets.
A few years later he decided to set up a property finance company with friend and business associate Mark Moran which saw him make his first money in the 1980s on the rise of the commercial property market. He then noticed an increase in mobile phones and decided to buy into NAG Telecom and become chairman. Theo Paphitis managed to gain concessionary positions in Ryman’s the Stationer and therefore gained a large market share for NAG.
Several years later Ryman’s went into receivership and Paphitis chose to buy the company and successfully turned it around. This has given him a reputation for being able to turn failing companies into successful businesses. Other ventures have since included Contessa and Partners.
Theo Paphitis was asked to join the BBC series Dragons Den in 2005 and has been one of the Dragons ever since. He is seen to be one of the more approachable judges and has made a number of different investments in his time on the show.
He has since gone into partnership with businessman Peter Jones and they now co-own Red Letter Days. In 2006 Paphitis chose to sell his equity stake in the UK and EU part of La Senza for an estimated £100 million.
In the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List Theo Paphitis was ranked 581st with his estimated worth totalling £135 million and in 2009 his wealth increased to an estimated £165 million.
