David and Frederick Barclay

Sir David Rowat Barclay (27 October 1934 – 10 January 2021) and Sir Frederick Hugh Barclay (born 27 October 1934), commonly referred to as the "Barclay Brothers" or "Barclay Twins", were British billionaires.

They were identical twin brothers and, until the death of David in 2021, had joint business interests primarily in media, retail and property.

Frederick Sr. died when the brothers were twelve years old, and they left school four years later in 1950 to work in the accounts department at the General Electric Company before setting up as painters and decorators.

By the end of the 1950s, the brothers were running Candy Corner, tobacconists and confectioners, on the edge of Kensington.

In 1955, David married Zoe Newton, who had trained as a ballet dancer, at St John the Baptist Church, Holland Road, Kensington.

Zoe Barclay pursued a modelling career and became the most photographed and highest paid model in Britain of her time, appearing on the front of popular magazines such as Picturegoer.

She appeared on television and in the Dairy Council advertisements as the "drinka pinta milka day" girl.

However, in November 1960 the business folded when Frederick and Douglas were made bankrupt at the High Court after their landlord seized the shop because they were in breach of the terms of the lease.

A notice in the London Gazette at that time announced the bankruptcies, listing a former business interest of Frederick, then aged 26, and Douglas, two years his junior, as builders and decorators called Barclay Brothers based at the Barclay family home.

From the late 1960s onwards, the Barclay brothers continued to build up stakes in businesses such as breweries and casinos.

Meanwhile, David was registered as a director of Hillgate Estate Agents in 1962, with his wife Zoe as a co-director (she had given up her modelling career to concentrate on her young sons, Aidan, Howard and Duncan).

By 1968, however, Frederick was running the family businesses, replacing Zoe on the Hillgate board.

He had obtained the discharge of his bankruptcy after David paid the creditors.

During this time they redeveloped old boarding houses in London, and made them into hotels.

Between 1968 and 1974, the twins received increasingly large loans from the Crown Agents, a government agency designed to help the colonies and developing countries do business in Britain.

In 1970, they bought Gestplan Hotels, which operated the exclusive Londonderry House Hotel in Park Lane, from a group of Lebanese bankers.

In the mid-1970s, Frederick met and married Hiroko Asada (née Kuzusaka), a familiar figure among Japanese society in London; she had a son from her previous marriage, Ko Asada Barclay, who is married to Sara Love.

In 1975, they bought the Howard Hotel, overlooking the Thames at Temple Place.

In 1983, they bought Ellerman, the brewing and shipping group, for £45m.

They later sold its brewing division for £240m.

In 1983, the brothers purchased brewing and shipping group Ellerman for £45m.

They later sold its brewing division (for £240m), and in late 1985 its shipping business (to its management).

The Ellerman deal helped the Barclays develop the strategy of buying companies, breaking them up and profiting from the real estate.

The technique of approaching an insider to obtain an advantage also set a precedent for later deals: the Barclays approached the Ellerman non-executive chairman, David Scott, at a secret meeting in Monte Carlo.

The Barclay brothers were born within ten minutes of each other in Hammersmith, London, to Scottish parents Beatrice Cecilia (née Taylor; died 1989) and her husband, Frederick Hugh Barclay, a travelling salesman.

The couple had eight other children.

In 1993, the brothers bought the lease of the island of Brecqhou, one of the smallest of the Channel Islands, just off the coast of Sark.

They spent £370 million on Gotaas-Larsen, a Bermuda-based shipping company, and £200 million on the Automotive Financial Group, a motor retail chain in 1994.

They used the proceeds to buy the Ritz Hotel in London's Piccadilly in 1995.

The brothers were involved in philanthropy, and were knighted in 2000 for their support of medical research, to which they have donated an estimated £40 million between 1987 and 2000.

In 2004 they were listed in 42nd place with an estimate of £750 million on The Sunday Times Rich List, and in 2006 they were ranked 24th with a value of £1,800m.

In 2012, they topped the Media Rich List with an estimate of £2.25 billion.

David died on 10 January 2021, after a short illness.

In May 2021, the court ordered Frederick to pay his wife, Hiroko, £100m on a divorce she had initiated; the judge criticised Frederick for selling a yacht contrary to court orders.

The court said he had "completely ignored those orders, sold the yacht, and applied the equity for his own use. I regarded that behaviour as reprehensible" ... "[He] is a public figure who should have been aware of the potential consequences of disobedience of court orders and his behaviour in the proceedings should not be allowed to pass completely under the radar”. On 28 July 2022, a high court judge ruled that Frederick's ex-wife of 34 years had failed to prove he was in contempt of court for not paying her a £100m divorce settlement. However, he was told he faced a potential jail sentence after a judge found him in contempt of court for failing to pay his ex-wife £245,000 in legal fees and monthly maintenance costs.

The Sunday Times Rich List of 2020 estimated their wealth at £7 billion.

They earned a reputation for avoiding publicity and have often been described as reclusive.

David's son, Aidan, manages their UK businesses.

Their businesses have been accused of tax avoidance, by placing assets under ownership of companies registered abroad and controlled through trusts.

Their Press Holdings company owns Apollo and The Spectator magazines and, through a wholly owned subsidiary (Press Acquisitions Limited), they also own Telegraph Group Limited, parent company of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph.