(Bloomberg) — Joe Lewis purchased a significant share in Tottenham Hotspur Football Club in 2000 alongside Daniel Levy, the scion of a UK apparel company and father of a 10-year-old kid named Josh.
More than two decades later, Josh Levy, 34, is sitting atop Lewis’ business, attempting to navigate the ramifications from the billionaire’s guilty plea to insider trading charges in the United States.
Levy was just chosen co-CEO of Lewis’ Tavistock Group, which owns five-star hotels, US restaurants, and enclaves for the world’s wealthy. Along with fellow co-CEO Nick Beucher and Chairman Shehan Dissanayake, he is a front-runner in the succession contest at the investment firm that helped Lewis establish one of the UK’s largest fortunes.
It’s a glaring example of how the world’s ultra-rich maintain a close circle of confidants around their wealth. Lewis’ children, Vivienne, 62, and Charles, 61, are both managing directors at Tavistock. Charles previously worked with Daniel Levy, 62, at another company from 1998 to 2008. Alexandra, one of Lewis’ grandchildren and a physician, has previously worked as the medical director for Tavistock’s real estate development business.
Tavistock’s day-to-day operations have remained unchanged since Lewis’ guilty plea in January, with the company being handled by the present management team, according to a spokeswoman. The Bahamas-based company refuses to make Levy, who joined in 2016, accessible for an interview.
The representative stated that a succession plan had been in the works for years prior to Lewis’ legal difficulties. According to a person familiar with the situation who asked not to be identified because the facts are private, no more changes to the plan are presently being considered.
Lewis, 87, has a net worth of approximately $7.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and is set to be sentenced in federal court in New York in early April.
Tavistock appointed Levy as co-CEO alongside Beucher in September, two months after federal authorities charged Lewis with insider trading.
In December, Levy replaced Dissanayake on the board of Australian Agricultural Co., a Queensland-based beef producer named in Lewis’ insider-trading conviction. The corporation has not been accused of any misconduct. Beucher, Dissanayake, and Levy are also members of Tavistock’s board and executive committees.
Lewis “was part of my family my entire life,” Levy stated in a 2021 interview. “I got to know him from a friend and an advisory perspective.”
Levy’s Tavistock duties go back nearly a decade. He has been a director of UK pub operator Mitchell & Butlers Plc since 2015, when he worked as an investment banker at Investec specialised on UK deals.
The next year, he became Tavistock’s investment director, and in 2019, he was appointed CEO of Ultimate Finance, a Tavistock-backed UK bridge-financing firm. He still holds that position and led the Bristol, England-based firm to record a loan portfolio of more than £310 million ($395 million) at year-end, a 10% increase over the previous year.
However, financing small- to medium-sized British firms accounts for only a minor portion of Tavistock’s operations. That highlights the hurdles Levy confronts as co-CEO of Lewis’ huge enterprise, prompting some observers to question the former banker’s credentials.
“He’s appointed someone who has been the head of a division,” said Christina Wing, founder of Wingspan Legacy Partners, an advising business for ultra-wealthy families. “But that doesn’t mean he knows how to run a multibillion-dollar empire.”
Discretionary trust
Despite its long-standing relationship with Lewis, Tottenham Hotspur has mostly avoided the impact from the billionaire’s insider trading scandal. In 2022, Lewis will transfer his main share in the team he has supported since childhood to a discretionary trust. That put an end to his decades-long ownership of the club, which is currently chaired by Daniel Levy.
After the accusations against Lewis were dropped in July, team representatives quickly distanced themselves from him, frequently characterising the case to media outlets as an unrelated legal matter and highlighting recent changes in the club’s ownership structure.
Tottenham Hotspur, which is still prominently included on Tavistock’s website under major investments, is worth around £2.4 billion, according to Football Benchmark analysis. This compares to a worth of approximately £73 million when Lewis and the elder Levy gained control more than two decades ago.
Daniel Levy and his family’s Tottenham Hotspur interest, which is likewise held in trust, is worth more than £600 million based on the team’s current valuation, demonstrating how their partnership with Lewis has boosted their fortunes since selling their discount clothing store in 2006.
Bahamas Advisers
When assessing Lewis and his family’s net worth, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index still gives them a majority ownership in Tottenham Hotspur because he founded Tavistock and his relatives benefit from the trust that oversees the property. According to the most recent assessments from Football Benchmark, that stake is worth approximately £1.5 billion.
Katie Booth and Bryan Glinton, two Bahamas-based professionals, administer the Lewis family’s Tottenham Hotspur trust and have been identified as having significant control over the club. Booth advises private entrepreneurs on foreign asset structuring, while Glinton is an experienced lawyer who previously advised Tavistock and Albany, a 600-acre gated enclave in the Bahamas that is one of Lewis’ major assets.
A Tottenham Hotspur official declined to comment.
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