Mark Thatcher

Sir Mark Thatcher, 2nd Baronet (born 15 August 1953) is an English businessman.

Thatcher and his twin sister, Carol, were born six weeks prematurely by caesarean section on 15 August 1953 at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in Hammersmith, London, the same year that their mother qualified as a barrister.

Their early years were spent in Chelsea, London.

Their mother was narrowly defeated in her bid to become the Conservative Party candidate in the 1955 Orpington by-election.

She was first elected to Parliament at the 1959 general election.

The children, aged six at the time, featured in her first television interview.

His sister observed: "All my childhood memories of my mother were just someone who was superwoman before the phrase had been invented. She was always flat out, she never relaxed, household chores were done at breakneck speed in order to get back to the parliamentary correspondence or get on with making up a speech."

Mark was sent to board at Belmont School at the age of eight and then to Harrow School, which he left in 1971 having passed three O Level exams.

He went on to study accountancy but failed his accountancy exams with Touche Ross on three occasions.

Having taken various short-term jobs Thatcher moved to Hong Kong, where he built up a network of business connections, particularly in the Middle East and in motor racing.

In 1977 he set up Mark Thatcher Racing, which ran into financial difficulties.

He is the son of Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, and Sir Denis Thatcher, 1st Baronet; his sister is Carol Thatcher.

His early career in business led to suggestions that he was benefiting from his mother's position, notably in relation to the Al-Yamamah arms deal.

During the mid to late 1980s, concerns were frequently expressed about possible conflicts of interest between his business interests and his mother's political visits.

On 9 January 1982 Thatcher, his French driver, Anny-Charlotte Verney, and their mechanic went missing for six days in the Sahara whilst driving a Peugeot 504 in the Paris-Dakar Rally.

They were declared missing on 12 January.

His father flew to Dakar, where a large-scale search was launched, including six military aircraft from three countries and Algerian ground troops.

On 14 January, the Algerian military spotted Thatcher's party 50 km (31 miles) off course.

The Prime Minister insisted on paying £2,000 personally towards the cost of the search.

Before competing he said:

In 1984 his mother faced questions in the House of Commons about his involvement in representing the bid of Cementation, a British company and a subsidiary of Trafalgar House, to build a university in Oman at a time when the prime minister was urging Omanis to buy British.

He has denied claims that in 1985 he received millions of pounds in commissions in relation to the £45 billion Al-Yamamah arms deal, a controversial arms sale by British Aerospace to Saudi Arabia; he has not denied that a house in Belgravia, London, was purchased for him for £1 million in 1987 by an offshore company controlled by Wafic Saïd, a middleman in the deal.

He left the UK in 1986, and has since lived in the United States, Switzerland, Monaco, South Africa, Gibraltar, Barbados, Guernsey, and Spain.

In 1986 his mother again faced questions in the House of Commons, this time over her son's relationship with the Sultan of Brunei.

Sir Bernard Ingham, the Prime Minister's press secretary, suggested that he could best help the government win the 1987 general election by leaving the country.

Margaret Thatcher's biographer, David Cannadine, stated that Mark Thatcher "traded shamelessly on his mother's name" and that he "continued to attract controversy and investigation from the tax authorities", much to his mother's embarrassment.

Alan Clark mentions the "Mark problem" in his published diaries.

He moved to Texas, where he worked for David Wickins of Lotus Cars and British Car Auctions and met his first wife in 1987.

In the United States he started Monteagle Marketing, a profitable company that sold whisky and clothing.

During this period he spent some time in Switzerland as a tax exile, until he was forced to leave after the Swiss authorities began to question his residency qualifications.

A security alarm business he ran in the United States failed and in 1996 he was prosecuted for tax evasion, at which point he moved to Constantia, South Africa, with his wife and their two children.

In 1998 South African authorities investigated a company owned by Thatcher for allegedly running loan shark operations.

According to the Star of Johannesburg, the company had offered unofficial small loans to hundreds of police officers, military personnel and civil servants, and then pursued them with debt collectors.

He claimed that officers had defrauded him and charges were dropped.

In 2003 The Sunday Times estimated his wealth at £60 million, most of which was suggested to be in offshore accounts.

After his father's death in 2003, he became Sir Mark Thatcher and succeeded to the Thatcher baronetcy, a hereditary title which had unusually been given to his father in 1990 (this being the only baronetcy created since 1964).

In 2004, Thatcher wrote about his experience:

In 2005, he was convicted and given a four-year suspended prison sentence and fined in South Africa for funding the 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup d'état attempt.

He has two children by his first wife, Diane Burgdorf.

He married his second wife, Sarah-Jane Russell (née Clemence), in 2008.