“I had a guy come in here a few months back who borrowed £100,000 to buy a building after the banks had let him down. He clearly had money. He brought in a 10-carat diamond ring worth about a quarter of a million quid and said he’d be back in four weeks.”
“He came back in four months and said ‘James, do you realise that was the cheapest hundred thousand pounds I’ve ever borrowed? It cost me £102,900. If I’d wanted to borrow that from the bank they’d have charged me £5,000 just as a set-up fee’.”
I’m still fascinated by that suit of armour.
“That belonged to a client,” says James, “a multi-millionaire who had it made for him in the good times. It’s all hand-made and bespoke to him like a Savile Row suit. It’s probably bomb-proof but it wasn’t recession-proof! He fell on hard times and we ended up buying it from him. It got him out of a jam. We’ve had that quite a while and it’s like part of the furniture.”
James says he was obsessed with flash cars in his twenties, and used to drive past Ferrari showrooms telling himself he needed to own one.
“Luckily for me, I’ve grown out of that now and have a Range Rover I pootle around in which is like a lovely soft old armchair that I feel very comfortable in. Those toys are not as important to me as I get older. It’s a matter of maturity. I get to see them every day and, thanks to the programme, I get to try them out with the clients on film.”
“We do track days and drive submarines – and yes, it would be a James Bond lifestyle if it was every minute of the day, but quite a lot of it is research on the phone. I couldn’t have wished for a more exciting business to go into. I don’t need the Ferraris anymore. I’m not saying I won’t own another one, I probably will, it. I’m very time-poor. If I could exchange some money for some time, I’d definitely buy some of that!”
The only sign of reticence in our hour-long interview is when I ask James about his lifestyle and the luxuries he loves. With three other branches in Richmond, Weybridge and Manchester, I ask if he’s a multi-millionaire.
“The country’s full of multi-million-aires,” he says. “Swathes of London are littered with houses that you can’t get for less than two million quid. I did very well out of the property market prior to this business. I have no complaints. My lifestyle hasn’t changed since I began Prestige Pawnbrokers, as I was fairly successful in my own right prior to that. It’s going in the right direction, let’s put it that way.”
So are there any assets he dreams about someone bringing in one day?
“Anything to do with history for me,” he says. “I kick myself because Winston Churchill’s car was for sale years ago. It was one he used in wartime. The estimate at the time was about 12 grand, something ridiculously low, and I thought just to own it would be fantastic. Then there were the original Thunderbirds puppets – Parker and Penelope. I love all that sort of stuff.”
And while I’m wondering how long he might have to wait for that six-wheeled pink Rolls-Royce to draw up, the phone rings and James talks to another client.
“So what’s it this time?” I ask.
“Another Bentley,” says James, with a smile.
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