April, 22, 2019
The billionaire owner of the Bestseller clothing chain and Scotland's biggest private landowner says three of his children were killed in the Sri Lanka terror attacks.
A spokesperson for dad-of-four Anders Holch Povlsen, 46, confirmed that three of the businessman's children were among the dead as they visited Sri Lanka over the Easter holiday.
Mr Povlsen, who reportedly has a net worth of £4.5bn, is the second-largest individual private landowner in the UK and Scotland's largest private landowner.
Denmark's richest man, who owns the Bestseller clothing chain and is the biggest stakeholder in Asos.com, had recently told how he plans to restore the Scottish Highlands and leave all of his land to his kids when he dies.
The billionaire, who inherited his fortune from his parents, fell in love with the Highlands on a family holiday in the 1980s when he was a young boy, and started snapping up land as an adult.
Denmark's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday that three Danes were killed in the bombings, with a spokesman for Mr Povlsen's empire confirming that the victims were the billionaire's children.
The Easter Sunday blasts at churches and luxury hotels across the Indian Ocean island killed at least 290 people - including at least eight Britons - and wounded about 500.
The attacks were carried out by seven suicide bombers.
Holidaymakers have been warned that "terrorist groups" are plotting more bomb attacks and possible targets include tourist sites, hotels, restaurants, airports and places of worship.
In a letter posted on his Wildland website just days ago, Mr Povlsen said he and his wife Anne, 40, plan to pass on their estates - and their "rewilding" vision for their land in Scotland - to their children when they die.
The wealthy couple own a dozen estates over more than 220,000 acres across Sutherland and the Grampian mountains, amounting to about one per cent of Scotland's land.
They reside at Glenfeshie in the Cairngorms.
The Povlsens wrote of their "rewilding" vision: “That responsibility has evolved to become a labour of love; a project that we are deeply passionate about.
"It is a project that we know cannot be realised in our lifetime, which will bear fruit not just for our own children but also for the generations of visitors who, like us, hold a deep affection the Scottish Highlands.”
The couple are restoring native woodlands, peatlands, wetland and rivers to their natural state, while trying to boost the number of threatened animals including golden eagles, wildcats, red squirrels and capercaillies.
Their plans include making the land more accessible to visitors, restoring abandoned buildings and educating children about conservation.
Their estates include Glenfeshie, Eriboll and Polla, Braegill and Hope, Gaick and Ben Loyal.
The couple wrote: “From our home at Glenfeshie, both Anne and myself – our children and our parents too – have long enjoyed a deep connection with this magnificent landscape.
"As the holdings have grown and our common vision for the work becomes ever clearer, we have incorporated the entirety of the project into a venture we call Wildland.
"It’s a significant and lifelong commitment that we have made - not just for ourselves but for the Scottish people and Scottish nature too - a commitment which we believe in deeply.”
They added: “We wish to restore our parts of the Highlands to their former magnificent natural state and repair the harm that man has inflicted on them.
“There are many vulnerable properties across all of the holdings that we have the wonderful and privileged opportunity to rehabilitate and restore to life; there are also archaeologically important structures that we have the responsibility to protect.”
- www.mirror.co.uk
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