David Rowland

David John Rowland (born 1945) is a British property developer, banker and financier. According to The Sunday Times Rich List in 2019, he is worth £612 million. He is nicknamed 'Spotty'. The Rowland family is an investment adviser to Prince Andrew, Duke of York. Early life David Rowland was born in 1945 to the family of a scrap metal dealer. Business activities Rowland established Fordham Investment Group in 1965. In 1970, he sold his stake in Fordham for £2.4 million, and moved to France. In the 1970s, he took control of the shipping company Williams Hudson and the timber group Venesta International through Argo Caribbean Group Limited, a Bahamian company controlled by the trustees of a Rowland's family settlement. In 1989, Rowland acquired 34% interest in Idaho-based Gulf Resources & Chemical Corporation from the Barclay brothers. A controlling stake was bought through a property company Inoco Plc., which was controlled by a Panama-based company, Monaco Group Fund S.A., an entity which was at that time governed by "trustees of settlements whose beneficiaries are Rowland and his children". Rowland himself became CEO of Gulf Resources. In 1991, Inoco sold its stake to Nycal Corporation. Over the following years, Gulf resorted to the American courts to recover company monies they alleged were spent by David Rowland, firstly via the courts and then via their insurance company. One case was settled (though no financial settlement was deemed necessary), while Gulf lost another.