Chris Evans - Memoirs of a Fruitcake

This, however, was also when I came across my first example of the difference between proper businessmen and a DJ who just got lucky.

‘We must give everyone a slice of the action,’ I announced gleefully.

‘What do you mean?’ asked one of my now former backers.

‘Well, how about every member of staff receives a bonus for, let’s say, ten per cent of their annual salary, except for my immediate on-air team, whom I propose should receive a whole twelve months extra pay,’ I suggested.

‘Good for you,’ said the same guy, ‘but we’ll be returning all of our profit back to our shareholders, every penny I’m afraid. Good luck, though, it sounds like you’re going to need it with ideas like that.’

‘But why?’ I remember thinking at the time. ‘Why would we not want to reward everyone involved in our success?’

Of course his view was that only a handful of us had taken any risk, whereas our staff had taken no risk whatsoever, remaining secure and decently paid throughout.

Even though I had to concede he was perfectly astute in his summing up of the situation, in the end I gave everyone a bonus anyway. It all came out of my share of the pot and I was more than happy to do so. The bill came close to

£800,000 but out of what I had made it was more like a graze than an open wound. In fact, it felt great. For me at the time, new money was like fresh butter; I thought it should be spread around whilst there was still plenty left and it tasted nice. Idiot. Nice idiot, but still an idiot.

Having done my own bit of spreading, a party was declared. A party which I think may also have gone on for several days, I’m not quite sure. But then again, I was about to become unsure about a lot of things.

10Buying 220 acres of land in Portugal for about £7 million with barely any planning permission for anything

9Forming a new production company to make shows in which I had little or no interest

8Producing other people generally

7Agreeing to turn up to the Comedy Awards very much the worse for wear after being ‘found’ in a pub nearby

6Donating £100,000 to Ken Livingstone’s mayoral campaign

5Doubling it to £200,000 after Frank Dobson (Ken’s rival Labour candidate) criticised people for being ginger

4Buying a Chelsea mansion because I was bored waiting for the pub to open

3Withdrawing £300,000 in cash from the bank so I could pretend I had won on the horses, thus getting people to stay and have a drink with me

2Taking the Scottish Media Group to court and losing comprehensively

1Refusing to let a nice man from a big bank give me a cheque for £56 million

AS MY PART OF THE DEALI had accepted forty per cent of the value of my old shares in cash, with the other sixty per cent being held as shares in the new company. These shares were to be released to me in three tranches of equal amounts over the next three years. After that it was up to me whether I sold them, kept them or lit fires with them.

Everyone at the time said I was mad to accept so much paper as opposed to real money, with the other main players in the deal negotiating a much higher percentage of cash payment for their equity.

‘Not so smart now, though,’ I thought a few days later, sitting in DC’s office watching the share price of the new company rocket from our sale price of £2.00 to a high of £3.76.

This meant that where I had been sitting on £30 million pounds’ worth of new equity at the point of sale I was now, just over a month later, sitting on a value of £56 million.

It was time for another conversation with Goldman Sachs, except now it was they who called me, shortly before dispatching a very nice man to come and visit me. He represented one of their investment funds.

‘Chris, we would like to offer you £3.76 per share for all your shares today,’ he said, sitting opposite me in an office I’d borrowed. ‘That, as I’m sure you know is £56 million,’ he went on. ‘What do you say?’

Well, to be honest I didn’t know what to say. I was already richer than I ever imagined I would be and these latest figures being tossed around were plain silly, but before I could even consider a decision, I had something to discuss with the nice gentleman on a point of clarification.

‘Er, I don’t actually have all the shares yet. I only receive them a third at a time over three years.’ Of course this was not news to him.

‘We are aware of that, Chris. What we are suggesting is that we buy them forward – that is to say we buy all your shares off you at an agreed price today, no matter when you get them. The price is firm.’

Now I have done many stupid things in my life but what I was about to do next is right up there at the top of the list. I suddenly convinced myself that there were dastardly goings on here, after all this was Goldman Sachs. Why were they so keen to totally buy me out and at such a premium?

‘Surely they must be up to something,’ I concluded to myself. ‘Why the hard sell?’

I tried to look intelligent for a second, tapping my fingers under my chin in a contemplative manner before declaring with gusto, ‘No thanks very much, I’m fine as I am. My shares are not for sale to you or anyone else.’ Upon hearing this, the nice gentleman from the big bank turned ashen. It was obvious to him I’d just lost my mind.

He tried to help me.

‘But Chris, do you realise how good a deal this is for you? It’s a guaranteed profit of almost one hundred per cent on the huge profit you’ve already made selling your company.’

But I was not to be moved. I was determined to turn down this second ‘offer of a lifetime’, no matter what. In fact the more he tried to reason with me, the more I became suspicious and convinced myself I was right.

By the time the nice man eventually gave up trying to give me £56 million for nothing more than a signature, he was incredulous.

In that one encounter I had become delusional. A fathead of seismic and cataclysmic proportions.

Whereas before I had understood my limitations when it came to business and accepted that thus far I had enjoyed no more than perhaps a highly fortuitous roll of the dice, I had now unwisely entered a state of mind where I presumed to actually know what I might be doing.

Mistakes don’t get much bigger than this.

The nice man from Goldman Sachs left the meeting shaking his head in disbelief. Over ten years later I’m still shaking mine. Excuse me for a moment whilst I just go outside to scream.

10You pass off being scruffy for being eccentric

9You pass off being drunk for being creative

8You pass off being an angry pain in the ass for being misunderstood

7You pass off not eating for being fit and lithe

6You claim contentment is for the unambitious

5You see responsibility as the badge of the dull

4You mistake standing in a bar for hours on end talking shite for having a good time

3You only have relationships with people based around alcohol

2You are genuinely surprised when people disappear to go home

1You think that anyone who goes to the pub all day, every day, may actually have something to offer the world

I MIGHT NOW HAVE UNWITTINGLY EMBARKEDupon the most rudderless stage of my still relatively young life but at least I no longer owned the radio station, which suddenly felt more like a plus than a minus. After just over two years at the helm of a major business, a weight of which I had hitherto been unaware seemed to lift off my shoulders, leaving me instantly feeling lighter.