Christos Lazari
Billionaire property developer whose extensive real estate portfolio spanned Mayfair, Baker Street and Tottenham Court Road
After arriving in London from Cyprus, he washed dishes to pay his way
From page 49 When Christos Lazari arrived in Britain in 1962, he had only £20 in his pocket; he died a billionaire. He was one of the booming London commercial property market’s greatest successes of the past 50 years, building up a £1.6 billion portfolio of assets in Mayfair, Oxford Street, Tottenham Court Road and Baker Street, Bloomsbury and Euston.
Last year his company bought the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury for £135 million
He had left Dora, the small Cypriot village near Limassol where he was born in 1946, to seek his fortune after discovering that the builder and housewife who brought him up with two brothers and two sisters were his foster parents. “My family was poor, but rich in love,” he said, “and I was taught to be honest and to value the small things in life. I was in my third year at the Lanition Gymnasium of Limassol when I boarded the MV Messapia and sailed to England.”
Aged 16, two years after Cypriot independence, Lazari arrived to study electrical engineering at Hackney Technical College in London. He paid his way by washing dishes and working as a waiter in the White Tower restaurant on Percy Street, where diners included Charlie Chaplin, Elizabeth Taylor and Norman Wisdom. He also worked as a hairdresser to fund his studies.
Yet Lazari, who became a staple of The Sunday Times Rich List, decided early on that the route to financial security lay in owning a business. In one of north London’s Cypriot cafés he became friendly with the owner’s daughter, Mary, and they married in 1965. His marriage, he said, was “the best transaction I have ever made”.
With Mary’s encouragement, he switched from electrical engineering to fashion design and started a women’s clothing label, Drendie Girl, that is still in the family. Lazari followed that in 1969 with a factory exporting women’s dresses under the brand Christy Gowns. Young and ambitious, he travelled constantly in search of new markets, particularly in the Middle East; one year he made more than 40 business trips to Libya.
“I didn’t enjoy the rag trade, but I used to like its cash flow,” he said. In 1978 he started diverting the clothing profits into property, at first buying modest houses in Finsbury Park, near where he lived. “Property has more interesting angles and depends more on management,” he explained. As the business grew, he bought offices and shops, moving into the very expensive but highly lucrative central London market.
Ashy man, he worked long hours and ran his business in a very hands-on style, fingering worry beads to stave off the ever-present urge to smoke. “Hard work,” he said, “involves a clear, analytical and critical mind so that the right decisions are made. The more I want to do something the less I call it hard work.”
In recent years, Lazari bought and sold some of London’s best-known landmarks. His company redeveloped the former Marks & Spencer head office on Baker Street, owns the old Craven “A” cigarette factory in Mornington Crescent and in December last year bought the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury from the Royal Mail Pension Plan for £135 million.
Last year the president of Cyprus thanked Lazari when he stepped in to help amid the Cypriot financial crisis with an offer of an executive jet. “Taking into account the economic situation of my country and wanting to actively express my support to the efforts of my personal friend, President Nicos Anastasiades — who has to travel abroad frequently — I decided to assume the cost for the use of a private aeroplane, when this is necessary,” Lazari said.
He considered floating Lazari Investments on the stock market, but always preferred to keep it in the family so that he had complete control. “It’s run on a simplicity basis with not too many directors and chief executives having lunches and playing golf. With young new blood coming in — my experience and their education — we should have scope to grow.”
While his main preoccupation was the business, he devoted a large amount of time and money to charity, in particular the British Heart Foundation and Radiomarathon, an Enfield organisation that helps children with learning disabilities. He was also involved with the Prince’s Trust.
He liked to relax with a game of backgammon in a north London taverna, a world away from his home in Hampstead Garden Suburb. He became a British citizen but returned to Cyprus twice a year, and his biggest regret was never seeing his homeland reunited. “Unfortunately, when it comes to Cyprus I can only dream, because we are in the hands of the strong and powerful,” he said.
His wife became a director of the company. Their three children — sons Nicholas and Len, and daughter Andrie — have joined the board. They will nowrun the business as joint managing directors, while the chairmanship is left vacant as a mark of respect. “Noone can replace our father,” said Nicholas. “He was hard but fair . . . a good motivator.”
For all his wealth and success, Lazari never lost sight of what he considered to be the most valuable things in his life. “Family for me means a lot more than money. If money is only a token of success in one’s work, then a good happy family is the token of success in one’s life. I am a simple man at heart because simple things in life give me much more pleasure than luxuries.
“Abusiness meal at a top class London restaurant is a business obligation. Having a meze at a local taverna and a zivania with old friends, that is a choice.”
Christos Lazari, property developer, was born on May 20, 1946. He died of a heart attack on July 27, 2015, aged 69.
