Robert D. Kilgour - Background
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More pictures.. The Happy Couple At Play The Kids Have Blackberry, will travel... Other Interests UK General Election Campaign 1997 |
Robert Kilgour is a Scottish serial entrepreneur, investor and property developer. Robert is also Chief Executive of Dow Investments Ltd, which is based in London.
Robert was born in Edinburgh, but was brought up in Fife and now lives in London.
His first major project after leaving University (where he ran a market stall selling jeans at the weekends) was the purchase, management and upgrading of a small hotel in the 'New Town' area of Edinburgh where he increased turnover by some 400% before selling it on.
From there he went on to found and build up Four Seasons Health Care (Care Homes and Home Care) and he exited this business after initiating and seeing through the strategy that led to the public/private take-over of Crestacare PLC in the summer of 1999 - a deal which had an Enterprise Value of £127M involving Alchemy Partners.
Four Seasons was then operating 101 Homes throughout the UK (5th largest) and employed nearly 6,000 people. It is now UK No.3 with some 446 Homes and over 22,000 staff and 21,154 beds producing annual revenues of over £400M and it was sold by Alchemy Partners through Goldman Sachs to Allianz Captial Partners for £775M in July 2004.
In September 2006 Four Seasons Health Care was sold by Allianz Captial Partners for £1.47bn to a group of overseas investors.
During his time at Four Seasons, in the early 1990's, he also organised four major Scottish Care of the Elderly Conferences involving the Voluntary, Independent and Public sectors to help improve understanding and co-operation between them.
Yearning for the entrepreneurial again, Robert co-founded Camvista Ltd , a webcam business that led him being a Finalist in the E & Y Scottish Entrepreneur of the Year Competition in 2001 and that counted the world famous illusionist David Copperfield as a client along with many UK 'Blue Chips'.
He has recently co-founded NW Systems Group Ltd, Camvista Global Ltd, Renaissance Care (Scotland) Ltd and Connected FM Ltd and he has recently been involved in the sourcing and completing of over $37m worth of property deals in New York, and over £13M of the same in London.
In the early 1990's, he opened an office in Siberia which arranged a number of sporting and business exchanges between Russia and Scotland including a 10 day tour by the 'Barbarians' Rugby Club.
Robert was Chairman of the Fife Macmillan Appeal (1993-95) a public appeal which raised £1.75M towards improving hospice provision in Fife in Scotland and included the organising of a business lecture from Sir John Harvey-Jones MBE attended by 500 local business men and women. He recently donated £50,000 to help establish a Macmillan Cancer Information & Support Centre at a London hospital to mark his 50th birthday, the first of its kind in the UK.
On the 9th December 2009 Robert opened the Macmillan Cancer Information & Support Centre at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, the 25th such unit in the UK, which was partly funded by a £30,000 personal gift.
Robert is also a Director and founding shareholder in Kingdom FM Radio Ltd a Scottish local radio station franchise holder and he has in the past served as a Non-Exec Director of a leading Scottish Architectural and QS practice.
Dow Investments Ltd is a CBI member and Robert has served on CBI Scottish
Council, CBI UK SME Council and the Scottish Growing Business Forum.
He is a member of the Entrepreneurial Exchange, Institute of Directors, Association of Project Managers and he is also a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute.
Robert was educated at Loretto School and the University of Stirling (where he was Treasurer of the Students Union) and he stood as a Conservative Westminster Parliamentary Candidate against Lord (George) Robertson (recent Secretary-General of Nato) in the 1997 General Election. He has also addressed the IOD Annual Convention at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
In November 2006 he founded and launched ThinkScotland, a political think tank and virtual debating chamber.
His interests include travel, tennis, skiing, politics and Impressionist art.
Robert is married to his second wife, Jacqueline, a financial services lawyer and has four wonderful children from his first marriage - Anya (24), Andrea (22), Russell (18) and Eve (16).