City boss's £10m divorce

Ian Gowrie-Smith is the bigearning and big- spending entrepreneur who had it all

A flamboyant Australian who made his fortune in the City, he knew just how he wanted to spend his money: on a Ferrari, a Bentley, properties on both sides of the globe and, naturally, a yacht in Sydney Harbour.

Now he is the man who does not have nearly so much any more.

He has just had to pay out nearly £10 million to his former wife, hand over the marital home in Chelsea and find somewhere else to live ... albeit a pad in Mayfair.

Not only is the divorce settlement one of the largest seen in the British courts but, to add insult to injury, it involved him handing over the bulk of his share in the company that he created and, incidentally, named after their daughter, Skye.

For a man who has a City reputation as a deal-maker, divorce was the one deal in which he came off worst.

But Mr Gowrie-Smith, 55, is also known for his capacity to survive. He had already bounced back once, when the drugs company he had built, Medeva, suffered a share-price collapse 10 years ago and he was forced to leave. Many said his City career was finished but he was only down, not out.

He has since become involved with a company that supplies tents and turned it into the pharmaceuticals enterprise SkyePharma - a company Mr Gowrie-Smith once promised would rank alongside the billionpound giants of the industry.

Those dreams have now been put on hold. SkyePharma is not doing as well and this year Mr Gowrie-Smith - the executive chairman - has had to sell £3.2 million of shares to fund the settlement and transfer control of another £6.5 million-worth, thereby reducing his stake from

4.1 per cent to 1.38 per cent.

How different it was a few short years ago, back when he and Jan, his wife of more than 20 years, were regulars on the London circuit. The City was rife with tales of how the rugby-loving Aussie would drink until 3am and take a helicopter to his retreat in Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire.

The Sunday Times said he was worth £36 million and he earned £599,000 last year.

A sizeable chunk of that fortune is now in the hands of Mrs Gowrie-Smith, although the divorce has been traumatic for her. She said: "The settlement was for an undisclosed amount but it's generous and I am satisfied with it. It's been very tough and now the least said, the better."

Mr Gowrie-Smith is keeping his own counsel, too, but it is hard not to recall his words of a few years ago, when he was still smarting from what he saw as a thrashing by the public-schooled City Establishment during the Medeva debacle: "They like to give out a good beating and then assess your character... it would appear that I have managed to earn my stripes by virtue of taking the beating ... and getting on with it."