So, they are as rich as the Beckhams (almost), after scopping £161 million in the EuroMillions lottery rollover last week, but where are Colin and Chris Weir now? Reports are that they have had to flee Scotland under a barrage of begging letters and requests from long lost friends and relatives.
Well Euro Millions winner Colin Weir is on record as saying that he would like to buy a luxury box at the Nou Camp in Barcelona with his winnings. No mention of the local club Partick Thistle, then…(you can´t blame him). They are earning interest at a rate of 14 grand a day for that matter. They have also gone on record as saying they won´t change, but we have heard this before from previous lottery winners. We reckon they´ve high tailed it to Barcelona. Of course, they famously funded 80% of Scotland’s pro-independence campaign: £2.5m to the Yes Scotland campaign, and a further £1m in its first year of operation.
Play for the Mega Moolah Multi-Million Jackpot here
Europe’s biggest lottery winners won exactly £161,653,000 up versus the beginning of last week after buying five lucky dips.
The win puts them at 430th in the Sunday Times UK Rich List, just behind Posh and Becks, and nudging ahead of Ringo Starr and the Marquess of Bath. They are the 22nd richest people in Scotland, just behind the Duke of Buccleuch, Britain’s biggest private landowner. The odds on them winning the prize was thought to be about 115 million to one.
But what would you do with £161,653,000? It´s so much money, that it could bring an incredible amount of stress and unhappiness along with it (yes really). Think about it- once you control this kind of money, you´ve actually been given the keys to a very powerful club. And with those keys come responsibility. There´s a lot of good you can do with money like that (and a lot of harm). And if you´ve no experience in managing these kind of funds (not many people have), how do you proceed? And that´s without going into all of the requests and people who are going to start flooding to your door.
Here’s their new pad, by the way. Looks roomy.
For what it´s worth, Chris and Colin, here´s what we´d do.
1. Take our time. If we´d won over £160 million quid, we wouldn´t have gone public. Sure, it´s going to come out eventually, but you need to buy yourself time to actually take stock of what´s happening. But anyway, it´s a bit late for that, so let´s move on to point 2.
2. Move. You have got to face facts. the old life is over- better to make a quick decision, and set up base elsewhere (Barcelona is as good a place as any). You can always visit frequently- you can buy alot of Ryanair tickets with 160 million quid AND you can play the lottery on the plane if you want to (and buy smokeless cigarettes, and buy duty free, and play the lottery, and buy more smokeless cigarettes. Err, on second thought- splash out and go Easy Jet. Go crazy, even, and buy Speedy Boarding).
3. Get into the following mindset. You haven´t won £160 million. You´ve just landed a fantastic job of your dreams in managing a £160 million fund. You´ve been to the interviews, beaten the competition and now it´s time to head to your desk and start work.
4. Get an office. You´ve got to try and separate work from personal life, so one of the first things you need to do is get organised. Get yourself a small office somewhere, where you can think calmly and rationally about what to do, and leave it all behind in the evening. Think about hiring a secretary- someone to help you with the admin.
5. Spend the next 4 weeks, doing the basic financial management of the fund. Make sure the funds are safe and secure, and earning interest. You don´t need to be worried too much about the level of return at this stage, just to make sure that the funds are safe.
6. Get away for 4 weeks. Take a break, get out of the limelight and think about what you want to do. This way, you´won´t make any rash decisions. There are going to be hundreds of things you want to do, and thousands of things that other people want you to do. You need to get them all down on a list and prioritise them.
Would we want to be in this situation? Well, of course, you are not going to turn an opportunity like this down. But it´s got to be a bit like driving around in a good reliable hatchback for 30 years, and then someone pops a set of Red Bull Formula 1 car keys through your letterbox. You´ve got to be able to go from doing 70 miles an hour in a Ford Fiesta down the M8 in Scotland to 220 miles an hour in a Red bull RB7 in La Monza without killing yourself. And you have got to work out who are the nice guys in the pit lane who are going to help you, and who are the weasels in the motorhomes who are going to fleece you.
I tell you one thing- they are lucky that they both won it, as I reckon its a lot easier to cope with 2 of you that with one of you. I´d get that relationship cemented in straight away.
Good luck and good on you!
Now, did I mention that I have a great idea for a business? Very unique…(seeing as I have given you some free advice here). It´s called “The Emergency Biscuit”. Basically, it´s a special type of biscuit that you carry around with you just for emergencies. Because it´s chocolate based, I have invented a special Emergency Biscuit Cooling System that keeps the biscuit at the same ambient temperature of 15.4 degrees celsius. It does require a battery pack, but this pops quite neatly into a medium sized rucksack and can be recharged overnight.
I am pretty sure that this is a unique idea and opportunity. I only need a million to get the project off the ground (the cooling system still needs work). Spare change for you. I reckon we could be selling a million of these a week by Christmas. Any let me know. My email address is ideas@emergencybiscuitwithpowerpack.biz.
Besitos. Mwah Mwah. xx
