People think I’m a mug for not moving to Monaco, says Phones 4u billionaire

Pui-Guan ManFri, November 13, 2026 at 7:00 AM UTC

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Who will win John Caudwell’s support at the next election? ‘Definitely not’ Reform - Andrew Fox

Despite spending most of the year in Monaco, John Caudwell continues to pay British taxes – even though he has very little faith in how the Treasury is spending the money.

“People think I’m a bit of a mug,” says the billionaire, who made his money founding Phones 4u. “I’m one of the very few people that live in Monaco and pay tax in the UK. Usually it’s the other way around.

“It would be the most natural thing in the world to move my tax residency there, and people think I’m crazy, not doing it.”

Caudwell, who says he is committed to Britain because of his patriotism, is one of the few onepercenters to speak out in favour of remaining a UK tax resident.

Many of Britain’s super-rich have quit the country since Labour ended the non-dom tax regime and raised inheritance taxes, moving to countries that offer tax breaks to wealthy global trotters such as Italy and Greece.

Caudwell says wealthy friends have been driven out by “hit” after “hit, hit, hit”, he says. “We’ve driven the people out and we’re not sucking the people in.”

The tycoon estimates he has handed the taxman some £400m since selling Phones 4u for £1.5bn in 2006. While he “can’t imagine” changing his tax residency, he warns his patience with Labour is running out.

“There’s only so much tolerance I’ve got,” he says. “I’m not going to ever say never, because I’m not going to sit and be throttled by a government that is not making things better for the people of Britain and then wants to take all my money off me.”

Caudwell, 74, has spent the last 14 years building 1 Mayfair, a £2bn complex he hopes will become the “world’s most prestigious apartment building”. We are speaking as he gives me a tour of the building, where apartments have just been put up for sale.

A lifelong Tory who switched his vote to Labour at the last election, the entrepreneur is betting that the world’s richest people still want a home in London, even as he questions his own decision to stay.

The grand entrance hall has a celestial hand-painted ceiling featuring Zodiac figures, based on the ancient Map of the Heavens on a huge copper plate in the Vatican Library collection in Rome. The design of the domed ceiling required the Vatican’s consent to reproduce. In the vestibule, the busts of four Roman emperors, Marcus Aurelius, Nero, Trajan and Augustus – look on.

“They’re all past caesars,” says Caudwell, who chose them for being “great builders of the Roman Empire”.

There is a fifth empty spot. “So I now become a new caesar of Mayfair,” he says, suggesting a bust of himself could occupy it. He’s only “half-joking”.

“I’m very proud of this building ... To have my brand on it is really quite important, because it is all about me.”

A closer look at the friezes in the grand reception shows his initials in the swirls, while a brass “C” sits on the balcony railings.

As well as a bust, Caudwell is also considering commissioning a marble statue of himself sitting on a wall in Audley Square, architectural plans in hand, and a bronze 15th century cavalier figure leaning over his shoulder to inspect them.

It may sound like the project is a monument to the entrepreneur’s ego. But Caudwell insists this is not about vanity. “I didn’t want to just introduce myself ... purely as an ego trip. I wanted it to be cool.”

Like the entrance hall, the building’s first show flat, priced at £83.7m with five bedrooms, is a study in maximalism. The walls are painted in an ombré fade that took 650 hours of labour, while the coffered ceiling, from Chatsworth House, cost up to 20 times as much as a flat one.

A chandelier is modelled on a diamond necklace worn by the Maharani of Kapurthala, a Hindu princess dubbed the Pearl of India who stayed at the Dorchester. The hotel, which is a two-minute walk away, will deploy its staff to provide residents with five-star services, earning a fee in the process.

The bedroom is apparently a nod to Marlene Dietrich’s pearls, with round lamps, pearls in the carpet, pearlescent wallpaper. The living room’s palette – dusky pinks and purples – is, according to Caudwell, an homage to Elizabeth Taylor. (Both Hollywood stars were also Dorchester guests.)

Caudwell jokes that whoever buys the flat will find its price tag the least of their worries, given the number of diamond necklaces needed to fill the jewellery drawers in the dressing room.

Prices start at £35m and will run up to £200m for the penthouse. When the whole complex is finished in 2027, it will feature a “crystal gallery” evoking the hall of mirrors in Versailles, a “billionaires’ library” and a spa with a 20-metre swimming pool.

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But the timing is brutal. The top of London’s property market has been battered by stamp duty rises, surging borrowing costs and Labour’s looming mansion tax, as well as the end of the non-dom tax regime.

Data from Beauchamp Estates show that sales of new-build luxury flats in London have dropped by 87pc since 2023.

Nonetheless, Caudwell is confident. It’s “not a question of if they’ll sell, it’s only a question of when”, he insists. His team has whittled down 1,500 inquiries to 80 serious buyers, with eight viewings held in the next fortnight.

“There’s 4,000 multi-billionaires in the world,” says Caudwell. “If they want a London base as expensive as a £200m-plus penthouse apartment, a lot of them can afford it without even thinking about it.”

Caudwell estimates the project will be around £200m-£300m above budget, while his asking prices will sit at the level he set a decade ago. He admits there’ll be “not a lot of profit”.

“The profit would have been more, were London booming, and if Labour hadn’t made the decisions it did,” he added.

Does Caudwell regret switching his vote to Labour in 2024? He doesn’t but admits he is annoyed by “the mess Labour have made of the economy”.

He met ministers to discuss policies after Labour made business growth the crux of its manifesto. One suggestion he made was to hire a squad of business “ambassadors” working to woo leading technology companies to set up shop in the UK. “[It] would really change Britain’s prosperity,” he says.

Caudwell offered to do it himself a day a month for free. Sir Keir Starmer called it a “very interesting idea”, according to the Phones 4U founder.

“What did he do about it? After 18 months, nothing, and then he lost his job.” Caudwell adds: “They did ignore everything I said.”

Birmingham-born Caudwell, who left school at 16 to take up an engineering apprenticeship, dislikes Labour’s allusions to helping the “working people”, for overlooking the business owners “slogging their guts out morning, noon and night” to “keep the lights on”. “I know a lot of business people that are really offended by this talk of ‘working people’,” he says.

He is also scathing about Labour’s promise to annihilate red tape, and about John Healey’s Budget – likening it to moving “ashtrays” on the Titanic.

“If I ran my business the way the Government run the country, I would have been bankrupt before I started,” he says.

What the Government lacks, he argues, is the “dynamic and forceful” approach that Margaret Thatcher brought to public services.

Who will win his support at the next election? “Definitely not” Reform, given Nigel Farage’s enthusiasm for Donald Trump and scepticism on net zero. Caudwell, who describes himself as a humanitarian capitalist “slightly Right of centre”, says climate change is pushing the world into a “major catastrophe”.

For him, the Conservatives are the “only potential candidate”. He has met Kemi Badenoch and was “quite impressed”. He’s also “very much on the same page” as Andrew Griffith, the shadow chancellor, on how to fix Britain’s problems.

The only sticking point is net zero, which Caudwell says should be a money-maker for Britain rather than a cost. Donating to the Tories again is a “faint possibility”.

He has donated just once before, giving £500,000 to the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson before the 2019 election. “I’ve only donated once in my life and that was to keep [then Labour leader Jeremy] Corbyn and [former shadow chancellor John] McDonnell out.”

“We’ve got two million unemployed, we’ve got one million Neets [people not in education, employment or training]. The cost to the economy and welfare state is colossal,” he adds.

“We’ve got to change all that, and we can’t change it by driving wealth out of the UK, by driving people away and by not bringing people in.”

Caudwell acknowledges these are views that are easy for a billionaire to express, but emphasises he is not “sitting here fattening my own war chest”, having pledged to give at least 70pc of his fortune to charity.

“I want Britain to be a great society, I want there to be more humanitarianism in the world, but I know how it has to be achieved.”

Surrounded by the opulence of 1 Mayfair, Caudwell insists Britain remains a great country if “somewhat spoiled by politics”. He will keep paying his dues, but it comes with a clear warning. “That’s not to say I’ll sit around and be a mug.”

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Money”