Chris Evans - Memoirs of a Fruitcake

‘Because we had some last week,’ I said, trying not to sound too pleased with our revelation.

‘Non Monsieur, ce n’est pas possible. Zee only person known to ‘ave zat wine ees your music man, Andrew Webber Lloyd. You cannot get it anywhere else!’

‘I know,’ I said, this time having to try really hard to avoid the smug zone. ‘We were at his house last week and he gave us some.’

Upon hearing this, our friendly wine merchant took a beat to see if we were joking, then for a brief moment looked as if he might cry, or faint, or both. Thankfully this was only a temporary glitch as he was soon back with us, insisting we tell him all about our experience, whilst offering us a glass each of something ‘he just happened to have open’ as a small bribe.

For the record, thank you Sir David for getting us the invite to the Lloyd Webbers in the first place. Thank you

Maddie Lloyd Webber for following up with the phone call. Thank you Suzi for striking up a wine conversation with Andrew whilst walking down the road with him. Thank you Andrew for being so generous as to share with us your liquid treasure. Thank you Monsieur Sommelier for providing a wonderful and enthusiastic epilogue to the piece. And finally, thank you God for inventing grapes in the first place.

10Meals and booze – hundreds of thousands of pounds worth – fabulous fun all round

9Holidays

8Cars

7Golf membership

6A wheelchair!

5Rolls-Royce and driver

4Christmas bonuses – always (very important this one)

3Share options adding up to millions

2A year’s salary to close colleagues

1Ten per cent of annual salary to every employee in the company

ANOTHER GOOD THING ABOUT THE SOUTH OF FRANCEis that Nice airport is less than two hours away from London by plane, very handy if one has to return at short notice; something that was very much on the cards, as Suzi and I had embarked on this last trip shortly after our Langan’s decision to sell the radio station. In the meantime, DC and I were keeping in touch via telephone.

‘How’s France?’ he asked during one call.

‘Oh, you know – quiet,’ I replied.

‘Yeah, right.’

‘How are things there?’ I enquired. ‘Equally quiet,’ he said, laughing. ‘Ah, I see.’ I realised there was a quid pro quo on offer here. ‘Alright,’ I sighed, ‘will you tell me yours if I tell you mine?’

After a potted version of what Suzi and I had been up to in the last few days, DC wasted no time in getting down to the business of our business.

Having made the decision to sell the Ginger Media Group, the next step was to figure out exactly how we might go about it. This was the main thrust of David’s industry over the last few days. Whilst I’d been off gallivanting with various members of the entertainment industry, DC had been hard at it.

‘We’ve met with the major players from the banks who handle this kind of thing,’ he began, ‘and I’m delighted to say that Goldman Sachs look like they might be willing to take our sale on.’

I had no idea of the significance of this but it sounded like I ought to. I asked David to enlighten me further.

‘Goldman Sachs,’ he explained, ‘like all the big banks, offer many corporate financial services, as long as there’s plenty of fat on the bone left over for them. The thing is, though, at a projected sale price of only £175 million to £300 million, we as a company would not normally be worth their while, let alone the wholehearted attention and focus of one of their hot-shot city-slicker sales teams.’

‘Ah, I see,’ I said, trying not to sound too underwhelmed.

Eventually, after more detailed explanation I got it – sort of – and began to understand why DC did what he did for a living and I talked on the radio.

As the week progressed, my crash course in how to sell a company continued and I couldn’t help feeling that all the stars were once again lining up in our favour. Every phone call seemed to be a step forward, every conversation taking us closer to our goal.

The man from Goldman Sachs was convinced he could pull off the kind of deal we were after, and much sooner rather than later by the sounds of it. In fact, when I arrived back in Britain he already had several very interested parties banging on our door. Three stood out in particular; they were the French company NRG, the American company Clear Channel, and from Scotland, the Scottish Media Group.

It was soon time for me, along with the rest of the board, to attend another series of secret meetings around more of those ghastly, bad-taste mahogany tables.

I was never quite sure during these meetings whether we were courting the buyers or the buyers were courting us. I suppose there was no question they all wanted to sleep with us, but who was going to take their clothes off first?

As the discussions developed, just as when we were buying the radio station ourselves, it appeared that I was the main concern. Although this time it was not because I was seen as a risk – on the contrary, I had almost doubled the radio audience since taking over The Breakfast Show, adding millions of pounds to the bottom line – but rather because, along with my hosting TFI Friday every week, a lot of the value of the company now rested on my shoulders. The big question on everyone’s lips was, if we did sell, would I stick around and carry on and if so, for how long, and how much would I want paying?

Furthermore, when it came to my future salary they wanted to know if I would be prepared to take some of my fee in shares as opposed to having it all in cash, thus providing me with an incentive to carry on performing at the highest level.

The answers to these questions were key to any potential new owner.

I assured anyone who would listen that I had no intention of going anywhere. After all, this was what I loved doing and especially so when it was on my own terms. When it came to the issue of my salary, I had already taken a massive wage cut to increase our profits and therefore our value, and as long as I still had shares in the new company, I said I would be more than willing to continue on the same terms.

This is exactly what the parties concerned wanted to hear and helped bring the best out when it came to bidding. Several firm offers were made for our little outfit, the most attractive of which was £225 million from the Scots.

Were they really going to make us over a £100-million profit on a company that had only existed for just over two years? Yes they bloomin’ well were, and what’s more they did.

In March 2000 the biggest deal of my life was completed and the instant the papers were signed, I was out of debt and my bank manager’s new best friend.

A few weeks later I was handed a ridiculously fat cheque. So fat, in fact, that I was officially, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, the highest paid entertainer in the UK.

There it was for real, an actual cheque with my name on the top line and a figure of twenty odd million pounds underneath it. I remember taking the cheque to the pub with me for the next week. My accountant went spare, not in case I lost it, but because of the amount of interest I was losing out on every day.

Everyone was happy, how could they not be? SMG had got their hands on the media company everyone was talking about, my team and I had all become significantly wealthier – five of them became millionaires overnight – and not only that, we all still had our jobs and were being paid a small fortune to do them.