He is the retail magnet dubbed the ‘Del Boy Billionaire’, who founded discount chain The Range, and is now seemingly on a one-man mission to rescue some of Britain’s top chains from financial oblivion.
Tycoon Chris Dawson – one of the nation’s wealthiest men – has already used his huge fortune to save Wilko after it collapsed into administration.
And on Wednesday, he struck again, swooping in to save troubled DIY firm Homebase in a move that secured 1,600 jobs and 70 stores.
It’s the latest extraordinary business move by the energetic 71-year-old, as he continues to rapidly expand his retail empire.
Dawson, who left school unable to read or write, opened his first The Range shop in Plymouth in 1989.
Fast-forward 35 years and there are now more than 200 outlets nationwide, with its huge success seen the wealth of Chris and his wife, Sarah, ballooning to more than £2billion, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
The ‘Del Boy Billionaire’ Chris Dawson (pictured) founded The Range and has gone onto use his fortune to rescue Wilko and Homebase from collapse. He is pictured with his custom ‘DE11BOY’ number plate on his old Bentley
Retail guru Dawson, who left school at 15 with no qualifications and unable to read and write, as since risen to become one of Britain’s most wealthy men
But when he first became a billionaire, he cried, admitting he felt ‘frightened, lonely and hollow’, telling the Mail in 2014: ‘I thought this is the end, the show is over, what do I do for an encore? It’s nice, but I am no happier being a billionaire.’
Dawson left school at just 15 with no qualifications – but he had a sharp business sense and a knack for hard graft that soon saw him venturing into the world of retail.
He started his working life as a market trader, flogging off cutlery from the backs of lorries in markets across the south-west of England.
It was here that his comparison of David Jason’s famous Only Fools and Horses character ‘Del Boy’ came from.
And it’s a moniker Dawson is proud of; he spent more than £30,000 on a personalised ‘DE11BOY’ numberplate that has adorned his £250,000 Rolls Royce and more recently his luxury £265,000 Lamborghini.
His tale is as truer example of a rags-to-riches story as there can be. He grew up and a council estate and was so poor that he didn’t own a pair of underpants until he was 12.
At school his nickname was ‘Dunce’ or ‘Thicko’ and he left barely able to read or write. ‘I could write Chris, but I couldn’t do Christopher,’ he recalls.
He still can’t write today and has never read a book. When he checks into a hotel, he pretends he has forgotten his spectacles and gets the receptionist to fill in the booking form for him. ‘I’m not embarrassed about it,’ he previously told the Mail.
Dawson left school at just 15 with no qualifications – but he had a sharp business sense and a knack for hard graft that soon saw him venturing into the world of retail.
He is proud of his nickname the ‘Del Boy Billionaire’ and even splashed out more than £30,000 on a custom number plate which now adorns his new Lamborghini (pictured)
He earned his nickname of David Jason’s Only Fools and Horses character ‘Del Boy’, while working as a market trader. The cast of Only Fools and Horses is pictured, with ‘Del Boy’, right
Speaking to The Times earlier this year, the billionaire tycoon added: ‘I can’t do texts and things like that. I got loads of messages and I had to sit all day and phone them up because I can’t bloody spell — almost like ‘cat’ and ‘dog’. You would think I was speaking Chinese if I tried to text.’
His father was a sailor in the Royal Navy, and often drunk when at home. His mother would cry when there was no coal in the bunker and her three sons said they were cold.
As a boy, he had two paper rounds and pinched discarded copper from the metalwork class at school to sell in the scrap yard.
He is the youngest of three brothers, with varying fortunes in the world.
Oldest brother Michael, 66, is a multi-millionaire who lives in South Africa and owns a business repairing ship boilers. Middle brother Terry, 64, was unemployed and lived in the council house they all grew up in.
‘A bit of a contrast, isn’t it?’ Dawson admitted when he spoke to the Mail back in 2014.
‘I don’t give Terry a penny and he does not expect me to. He is not a disappointment to me. I don’t think he is a disappointment to himself, because you can’t put in what God left out. If it is not there, it is not there.
‘Some are not disappointed because they haven’t tried hard and failed: they didn’t try hard in the first place.’
Just like his hero Del Boy, Dawson started as an open-air trader, selling canteens of cutlery and such-like off the backs of lorries in the markets of South-West England. His nickname back then was Dickie Dirt Dawson and he was adept at charming housewives with his patter.
Mr Dawson started life on the market stall in Plymouth (pictured) and used to sell upcycled furniture and scrap metal to punters
Dawson has gone on to make billions and is now one of the most affluent men in Britain
Mr Dawson is now at the helm of 213 chains nationwide and visits ten per day in his personalised helicopter (seen above)
He met his wife Sarah 45 years ago when he was selling watches for £8.99 and she had only a fiver.
He loved his time at the markets, where he was well known across several counties.
‘It was like being on stage. Me being in charge of the show was me expressing myself. When I was a famous market trader, I was like a bloody god.’
In 1989, Dawson used his market profits to open his first Range superstore at Sugar Mill Business Park in Plymouth. Now there are 88 homeware stores across the UK, employing more than 2,500 staff.
He has even picked up a few famous fans, including Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, who was once spotted shopping in The Range in Kings Lynn in December 2018 – possibly for a Christmas present.
His family work for the company; his wife and daughter as buyers, his son on shop refits. He says that they all work excessive hours and ‘only go home to sleep’. No one, however, works quite as hard as Chris.
‘I only sleep for six hours. I can’t wait for night to go, so that I can start the day. I leave when it is dark, I get home when it is dark.
Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, was reportedly seen shopping in her local The Range store in Kings Lynn in December 2018 (file image of Kate, who is seen in 2017)
The Princess of Wales was reportedly spotted shopping in the store, possibly hunting for a Christmas present
‘My paranoia is not maximising every day. I would hate to think there was an inch left in anything, I would hate to think that I had missed 50 pence.’
He was once a keen motocross rider, but an accident has left him with a limp.
And he is not afraid of getting into a scrap; the middle finger on his right hand is missing, following a fight 20 years ago with someone who owed him money. The finger somehow became poisoned, and at one stage doctors thought they might have to amputate his whole arm.
‘Well, I whacked someone, didn’t I? And in hospital I had the cocktail of drugs but my arm came up like an elephant. I had a finger like a Crunchie bar and I had a giant cyst like a mushroom under my arm.’
‘That might make me sound like a violent man, but I am not,’ he adds. ‘A one-off. I am not a gangster, it was just an eye for an eye and I paid the price for it. I take people to court now.’
On Wednesday, Dawson used his company CDS Superstores – which acts as the parent firm for The Range – to rescue Homebase.
But around 2,000 workers and 49 shops still remain at risk.
Homebase has been saved thanks to retail tycoon Mr Dawson. File photo
Mr Dawson is seen at The Range, pictured with son Chris and daughter, Lisa
Mr Dawson pulled a similar move last September after agreeing to buy the Wilko name, website and intellectual property – entitling him to use the Wilko brand as he sees fit – for £5million after the British homeware chain collapsed.
News of the latest deal came just hours after Homebase owners Hilco, who bought the firm for a token £1 in 2018, announced yesterday morning it was appointing insolvency experts after reporting an £84.2 million loss last year.
The threat facing the retail giant came as Britain’s high street continue to suffer after beloved brands including BHS, Wilko, Debenhams, The Body Shop and CarpetRight ran into financial trouble.
Some have been resurrected as online brands, or have drastically slimmed down t just a handful of stores where there was once an empire of hundreds.
Damian McGloughlin, the managing director of Homebase, told suppliers in August it would begin an ‘active sale process’ to seek new investment.
Hilco Capital began looking at ways to cut costs earlier this year, blaming overly cautious consumers not splashing out on DIY projects.
The deal will see Homebase subjected to a ‘pre-pack’ administration sale that sees the firm’s assets bundled up and purchased by another company, which could save some stores and jobs.
Speaking on Wednesday, Mr McGloughlin said the last three years had been ‘incredibly challenging’ for DIY stores, blaming ‘a decline in consumer confidence and spending’ after the pandemic.
‘Against this backdrop, we have taken many and wide-ranging actions to improve trading performance including restructuring the business and seeking fresh investment.
‘These efforts have not been successful and today we have made the difficult decision to appoint administrators.’
For Homebase’s new owner, Dawson, it will mean more work to try and save the fortunes of the British DIY store giant.
But the tycoon barely takes two weeks off a year and has insisted he has no desire of slowing down his effort to expand his business empire.
‘I am well and truly on it. I am flat out. My ambition is to turn one billion into two,’ he told The Times.
‘When people say, “You are greedy”, I am greedy for success. If you are successful then you get paid. You don’t get paid before you are successful.’