Every six weeks, it is said, Anders Holch Povlsen (48) flies to his place of longing, the Aldourie Castle on Loch Ness, with battlements and towers. He then looks over a part of his realm that is huge. The Dane already owns around 80,000 hectares. He has invested over 130 million euros. This makes him the largest private landowner in Scotland, even the Queen has fewer.
Whenever an estate is up for sale again, Povlsen is ready. Sometimes he has to brake him, says his right hand, Thomas MacDonell, the Scots are slowly no longer taking the land. Povlsen’s answer is usually: Let’s hope that we continue to sell enough fashion.
In his main job, Povlsen organizes one of the largest hyperventilations on the European Internet; He is the spirit rector and a great beneficiary of web-based fast fashion: the trend to buy as much fashion as possible in short time intervals.
Povlsen has turned his parents’ business in Brande in Jutland into one of the largest fashion groups in Europe
Povlsen holds 10.03 percent of the German fashion retailer Zalando (value of the package: around 2.1 billion euros), 29 percent of its German rival About You, which is soon to be listed on the stock exchange, and 26.41 percent of its British counterpart Asos (value : around 1.3 billion euros). The nucleus is the company’s own fast fashion producer Bestseller with brands such as Vero Moda, Only or Jack & Jones. Povlsen has turned his parents’ business in Brande in Jutland into one of the largest fashion groups in Europe, with a recent turnover of around 3.2 billion euros. At the age of 28, after studying economics in Berlin and Cambridge, he got involved.