Charles Cadogan, the billionaire aristocrat behind one of London’s biggest real estate fortunes, has died. He was 86.
He died on Sunday at home in Chelsea, according to a statement from his family’s namesake investment firm.
“He found enjoyment and amusement readily and was wonderful company, gregarious and voluble,” Cadogan Group said in the statement. “He described himself as a ‘countryman’ and while his family business has been very successful under his stewardship, he felt most comfortable in the role of philanthropist.”
Cadogan, the 8th Earl Cadogan, was the UK’s 14-richest person prior to his death with a net worth of about $6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His family has owned land in the central London areas of Kensington and Chelsea — home to some of the city’s most famous retail districts — since the 18th century and control the assets through a series of trusts.
Cadogan Group’s property portfolio was worth £5.1 billion ($6.4 billion) at the end of 2022, rising 5.4% from 12 months earlier as values rebounded from the pandemic.
While the closely held firm is still focused on London, Cadogan Group said last year it planned to increase deals outside the city to provide an alternative source of income to help fund the tax costs the family’s trusts face once every decade. London-based Cadogan Group has paid more than £300 million over the past 10 years to help cover the tax bill, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
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Cadogan was born in March 1937 and educated at Eton College, a UK boarding school, where he excelled at racquet sports. He completed two years of national service with the British Army before joining the firm that became Schroders Plc.
He left in 1974 to help oversee his family’s estate, which dates to 1717 when a Cadogan ancestor married Elizabeth Sloane, the daughter of Hans Sloane, a physician to the royal family who owned 166 acres of land in Chelsea.
He oversaw several major developments during more than three decades helping run Cadogan Group, including the purchase of the Duke of York’s Headquarters army barracks in 2000. The Chelsea site was redeveloped to include housing, retail outlets and the Saatchi Gallery. Concert venue Cadogan Hall was refurbished and reopened in 2004 and is now the permanent home of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He retired as chairman of Cadogan Group in 2012.
A lifelong supporter and former director of Chelsea Football Club, he married Lady Philippa Wallop in 1963, with whom he had three children. She died in 1984. Five years later, he wed Jennifer Rae, a cook at the London members’ club he frequented. They divorced in 1994, the same year he married a nurse, Dorothy Ann Shipsey.
She survives him along with his children and seven grandchildren.
“He will be fondly remembered by all who knew him,” Cadogan Group said.
--With assistance from Neil Callanan.
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