Amanda Staveley: Parents told her to marry into money, then she turned down Prince Andrew's marriage proposal

By Steve Bird

PUBLISHED: 19:50 EST, 31 August 2012 | UPDATED: 09:08 EST, 1 September 2012

When Amanda Staveley was a girl, her parents told her that tradition dictated her brother would inherit the family’s considerable wealth, while her role should be to marry into money.

However, the constraints of custom and conformity were not for Amanda. Today, at the age of 39, she is as famous for being a financial fixer to the world’s richest sheiks as she is for turning down a proposal of marriage from Prince Andrew.

As one of the Middle East’s most powerful businesswomen, she is worth more than £100 million, having brokered lucrative deals throughout the Arab world.

This week, her business acumen has again come to the fore amid the latest disaster to strike Barclays. It emerged that the beleaguered bank is the focus of a criminal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) over apparently suspicious payments made in June 2008, when it obtained a bailout from wealthy backers in the Gulf.

In that deal, during the height of the world financial crash (when other banks were being given government bailouts), Barclays raised £4.5 billion from Qatar and other investors.

Shortly afterwards, in a separate transaction, Staveley became the envy of the banking world after pocketing around £30 million for introducing Sheik Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the brother of the ruler of Abu Dhabi, to a second capital-raising deal by the bank worth a staggering £7 billion.

Her role is not part of the SFO investigation, and there is no suggestion she has done anything untoward. Indeed, in many ways she can be seen as the woman who helped save Barclays — for without those Abu Dhabi billions, the bank might have collapsed or been forced into a state takeover.

With a grand Regency townhouse in Park Lane, London, and a home in Dubai, Amanda counts retail tycoon Sir Philip Green and Simon Cowell among her friends. Hers is a life of chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce Phantoms whisking her to top Mayfair restaurants, of private jets and super-yachts.

What is fascinating about this blonde former part-time model and waitress is that she could have followed her parents’ advice and become accustomed to such luxury by dint of marriage rather than the path of sheer hard work that she chose.

Standing 6ft in her high heels, Amanda is as glamorous as she is charming. The daughter of Robert, a wealthy landowner, and Lynne, a former champion horsewoman, her family’s wealth dates back to the 16th century when Henry VIII’s one-time favourite, Cardinal Wolsey, granted them a plot of land at North Stainley in North Yorkshire.

After boarding school, Amanda secured a place at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, to read modern languages, but she abandoned her course after just one year to pursue her passion for business.

When she was 23, she obtained a £180,000 loan to open a restaurant called Stocks in the village of Bottisham, near Newmarket.

There she worked as chef and waitress, sometimes staying until 4am to ensure she was fully prepared for the next day’s trade.

At the same time, despite her long hours, she was studying for City exams to become a financial adviser. Meanwhile, any shortfall in takings was topped up by her occasional work as a model.

Stocks became popular with Newmarket’s flat racing fraternity — in particular, senior figures from the Godolphin stables owned by Dubai’s rulers, the Maktoums, as well as Arab princes. Other customers were dotcom tycoons from Cambridgeshire’s ‘Silicon Fen’. Within a year, Amanda had made her first million.

It was not long before she launched her next money-making venture, Q.ton, a health club, gym, restaurant and conference centre, in Cambridge Science Park. In 2000, aged just 27, she was  named Businesswoman of the Year.

Her success was to lead to two key encounters that helped propel her from successful entrepreneur into the ranks of the super-rich.

First, Abu Dhabi officials took an interest in her business and invited her to the Middle East to discuss her knowledge of Silicon Fen businesses. ‘I flew to the United Arab Emirates, and as I looked out at the desert, I just felt that this place was going to be important to me,’ she said.

Then, in 2001, Prince Andrew, as UK trade ambassador, visited the science park with King Abdullah of Jordan on a fact-finding mission. In the VIP meet-and-greet line-up was Amanda, whose good looks did not go unnoticed by the Prince.

Amanda had just ended a tempestuous two-year relationship with millionaire venture capitalist Mark Horrocks, 39, and was touched by the Prince’s compliments.

Their relationship blossomed quickly and was mutually beneficial in many ways. As trade envoy, Andrew could open doors to the contacts she craved. Meanwhile, he enjoyed introducing people to his new ‘female friend’, whose glamour was equalled by her charm and intelligence — an enviable asset for Andrew, who is often considered socially rather gauche.

Friends noted how she called him ‘Babe’, and he sent her racy jokes in text messages and emails during his travels around the world.

She became a regular visitor to Buckingham Palace, Sandringham and Royal Lodge, Andrew’s home in Windsor Great Park, which she helped him decorate. She was even introduced to Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, who were said to have approved of her.

The Queen and Prince Philip were impressed with Andrew’s new love. Amanda’s parents were equally excited about the prospect she could one day become a princess.

In 2003, the Prince, who was said to be besotted by her, popped the question. But Amanda struggled to envisage herself idling away her hours with official duties and being unable to speak her mind.
‘Andrew’s a lovely man and I still care for him a great deal,’ she told this newspaper a few years ago. ‘But if I’d married him, my independence would have disappeared.’

It was a decision that disappointed her parents, particularly her mother, who Amanda later said took three years to get over it.

Marrying into the Royal Family would have curtailed her commercial ambitions, too. She had considered acquiring a stake in Spearmint Rhino, the lap-dancing club, but declined because such a seedy investment would have been seen as inappropriate for a princess.

And so she turned to the Middle East to use her skills as a negotiator and broker deals to amass a princely sum.

In 2005, she set up the Dubai-based private equity company PCP Capital Partners, which soon secured international deals for clients in Qatar and the UAE.

The company’s role is varied. Sometimes they lobby on political issues; occasionally they simply bring powerful people together or act as intermediaries in complex negotiations. Her contacts book is, without doubt, formidable. She had used her former Mayfair mews house to entertain the fashion designer Amanda Wakeley and the billionaire property-owning Duke of Westminster.

Few such deals were more high-profile or controversial than the £210 million sale of Manchester City Football Club she secured for Sheik Mansour.

Then there was arranging the £250 million sale of Land Securities’ West End development to Qatar’s Barwa Real Estate.

However, the Barclays recapitalisation deal was rumoured to have angered some after she made such tremendous profits for what some critics said was too little work.

Amanda later admitted some were jealous of her success and wanted to knock her off her perch.
Last year, she married Mehrdad Ghodoussi, a handsome Iranian who had worked with her at her company.

Ghodoussi, two years her senior, proposed to her on Valentine’s Day at sunset on the dunes overlooking the Arabian Sea where they live in Dubai, presenting her with a giant ring of three baguette diamonds.

‘It was perfect — a beautiful spot, very romantic,’ she said. ‘I am truly madly in love. It’s a rare thing, and I thought it would never happen to me. He’s a wonderful guy.’

Their lavish wedding was held at West Wycombe Park in Buckinghamshire, where guests included Tracey Emin, Katie Derham and Andrew Neil. Amanda’s dress was by Sarah Burton, who designed Kate Middleton’s wedding dress.

So what is it that drives her dynamism to work in the principally male Middle Eastern business environment?

‘It’s partly my background,’ she has said. ‘I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder about being a girl in a family where the boy inherits. My mother and father always told me that my job was to marry well.’

Her determination to shun such tradition has stood her in remarkable stead as a woman in a man’s world.

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