Introducing “Out of Office,” A New Show From Bloomberg Live

their offices. Their childhood aspirations, mentors, first jobs, their education, their high points, setbacks, downtime, what they want for Christmas, family and love. Because these influences make them who they are and define how they lead. This week, what is great actually is when people on the street just come up and say thank you so much. And I get loads of that. Please keep going, keep backling for the country. Lots of hoots and toots from the taxi community, the

black cabs, great group of Brexiteers. You know quite a few of them. Give me free cab raids. Yeah you know, you know your friends are Meet Richard Tis, member of European Parliament and one of the most divisive figures in British politics. He started his career as a businessman, a property developer, but he's always had one foot in politics. From twenty fifteen he became increasingly involved in Brexit and is a founder of the pro Brexit groups Leave Means

Leave and Leave dot Eu. In ten he became chairman of the Brexit Party, which was founded by politician Nigel Ferrad just a year ago. It's a young party, but it's making headlines. It was one of the most remarkable elections this country has ever seen, with both Labor and the Tories having historically abysmal results. In last Thursday's European election, Nigel Forrage's new Brexit Party topped the poll of nearly thirty Richard spoke about all things Brexit at the Bloomberg

invest summit in London. There's nothing worse than a job half done, badly done. So we're gonna leave. We want a clean break Brexit that maximizes our negotiating position, minimizes the uncertainty. Everyone knows where they stand and we can get on with their lives and get on with adjusting to a post Brexit world. That's Richard tis the politician. My colleague gets Staply caught up with him when he

came off stage. They chatted about football, he's a Liverpool fan, his passion for property, his school years, and what Richard Tys wants for Christmas. Your's ed with the so called bad boy of Brexit. So Richard Tye, welcome to this Bloomberg Live podcast. Thanks for joining us, great pleasure, and welcome to Bloomberg's headquarters. Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, I'm a real estate guy and I've never seen a building like it. It's absolutely a first time here. It's just

the first time here. I've been to the previous headquarters a number of times, hopefully when been my last time. I've really enjoyed it. You know, the canteens extraordinary, the architectures extraordinary. Um and I go, that's one of all sorts of awards indeed, And I guess Mike Bloomberg had a decision to make when choosing where to build, as you ban HQ, and that decision predated Cameron's referendum commitment

on Britain's membership of the EU in January. Do you think a company looking to set up a headquarters in Europe today we're still a hundred percent go for London. Oh, definitely. You mean a financial services business for sure. I mean, let's be very clear. The threat to London and you know we will have to live with competition in all our business lives. The threat to London is not Frankfurt or Paris. The threat to London is New York and Asia.

Your family have been involved in property. I think for generation that's right, And so what what made you want to continue in that and that line of work? Now? I think, Look, I grew up steeped in a family of people who are involved in property, my grandfather and my uncle, my cousin, so you know that that was the natural place to go. I love it. I love the attraction of buildings, planning them, designing them, creating them.

And you know, for me the pinnacle was was when I was chief executive of a London listed multinational billion pound company on the edge of the two fifty business called CLS Holdings, and you know, we were designing new buildings and here in London we designed a very large scheme down in Vauxhall which included two fifty story towers and for me that was that was something extraordinary. And

they're now underway being built. Yeah, no, fantastic. And so about thirty years and probably investment um any regrets in that time. Hell, look, we we will make mistakes in life. The key is to learn from them and to try and not make them again, and try and make you know, more good decisions than bad decisions. But but the thing, you know, successful people know that you achieve that success by you make a decision and then you monitor it

and adjust it. And having gone into the world of politics, what I've seen is far too often that actually people in politics and the civil service and too many public services actually not prepared to accept when something's gone wrong and quickly change it and adjust it and be open about it, as opposed to trying to cover it up or pretend that it's not going wrong. And one thing that interests me, and from a finance point of view here, you manage to navigate the two thousand and eight financial

crisis extremely well. I think you sold a significant amount of the property you had by two thousand and seven and then bought again at the bottom of the market in two thousand and nine. Yep, that's absolutely right, you're very well informed. I'm very impressed. So who are you talking to at the time and how did you have that edge that other people clearly hadn't seen to be honest,

just gut instinct, pure gut instinct. Having been involved since, you know, in the markets for the best part of twenty years, I've seen a recession in the early nineties and it just felt wrong. You know, every Tom Dick and Harry amateur was piling into the residential market and the commercial market. In the mid two thousand's, the banks

were doing some extraordinary things. I mean, you know, you could borrow more than a hundred percent on a commercial property loan from the Scottish banks and that you just knew in your heart of hearts that was wrong, and people were just bidding ridiculous sums for property. We had a business, we had a hundred of people, and you know, it was a private business, and we just felt it was wrong, and so we said, let's do the opposite. Let's take a very early view. We went from a

hundred people down to fifteen. We did that, you know, five outsourcing lots of our house building. You know, all those people were able to get jobs because it was

still a booming economy. But we de risked the business and say, by the time the recession hit, basically the business had a parlor cash and no debt, and you know again that's that's long term gut instinct, and yes, I took Essentially, I paused for a couple of years, did some advisory work in the debt world, and then in o nine I got stuck back into corporate bonds which were completely miss priced in the real estate sector,

had a time of distress. And then when I joined CLS in two thousand and ten, again the market was still on the floor, but I could see great buying opportunities and over a three year period we brought over two hundred million quids worth of real estate near the bottom of the market. Okay, I want to talk a bit about your journey to getting where you are now and a bit about you know, your upbringing. You grew up in the Midlands and attended the private boarding school

Upping Him. We're another vice chair. What were your your likes and dislikes at school? What were the likes and dislikes I was. I wasn't great on the academic side. I enjoyed the sporting side, you know. Upping Him was a you know, it was a it was a pretty sort of tough school back in the late seventies. You know, if you need to go to the loo, you had to go outside. So you know, things have changed a lot. But you know, I've always been more of a believe or not. I was actually I'm six ft two now.

In those days that's actually really quite short. Some people used to call me titch, so I was hooker in the scrum. That was always pretty painful. But no, you know, I I got through the school years, went to university to do a very technical degree, but that stood me well in the real estate sector. Now. I don't know if you'll thank me for this, but I I looked into A levels. Yes, you research amazing. I noticed you got two ease yes yeah, one in politics and one

in maths, but an A and economic yes. So there we are. Was that you're waiting your revision m or did you get unlucky with the questions on that? So? No, being candid, Um, I just messed up the revision on politics. Um, so that was just a horlicks. My maths teacher and I didn't get on. And I think with maths, you know, like in any subject, you can hit a glass ceiling in something. And for me, just after what were then called O levels, I discovered a bit later I hit

the glass ceiling. But economics was really you know, I loved it, and in a sense that interest is what sort of driven me ever since. And despite the poor exam results in politics, I've always had an interest in it, always loved it. And here we are. What was it like growing up in in the Tice household? Were you close to your siblings and parents growing up? Yeah, I know, we were pretty close. Two of us went to My brother and I went to the same the same school,

upping him. My sister she was at a day school and then she went to Gordonston, So yeah, we were, you know, pretty close. In the holidays, my parents basically were separated from from the year dot. So you know that comes with with with different sort of challenges. And you know I was you know, I was very lucky in many would say I was born with a silver speed in my mouth. You know, I was very lucky. So I'm very cognizant of of giving something back, playing

my part in society. And I think you've got kids of your own. Yeah, I've got three kids. Do you have political conversations with them around the around the very much? So, very much. So. I've got two boys and a girl, just the girls, the only one still at school in her last year. The politics, obviously is is part of our part of our discussion, and you know, we agree

on some things and we disagree on our things. In fact, it was my my second son who helped educate me when he was on his his gap year in in Asia about you know, the environmental damage caused by plastics, people just discarding plastics, the sort of the plastic mountains he saw on the beaches of Vietnam, talking about the plastic island that is in the Pacific Ocean, and you know, that was really really educational for me. I was very

grateful for that. If you thinking back when you were twenty, and it's one of thing you would wish you knew then that you know now that's a great question. Yeah, a lot sound, lots of things. Networking just keep talking to lots of people. And funny enough, on the one hand, social media is good for networking, but on the other hand, it's actually very bad for talking. And I probably then wasn't wasn't a great talker, more open networking, but even not.

Actually I used to be quite shy and so you know, walk into a room i'd sort of slightly sort of stay at the door. But actually, you know, you you make your own luck. You've got to make your own networking. And you know what, there's nothing like knowing people being able to pick up a phone and build that network of contacts and build connections. It's amazing how that helps you throughout your working life. Yeah. Absolutely, and then he went on to as you said, Sofford University, how do

you enjoy that? And what do you make of Manchester? Um Manchester was a very different city then. I mean, it was really tough and solf was was very much the rough end of it, but it was it was a really diligent technical course. I did look to be honest. They used to call me a bit of a so the Southern PUFTA and I had a Renaer five Turbo at the time, so you know, I was known as Dick Turbot. But it was great. I played I didn't

play rugby there, I played soccer. We played in the local leagues and it was you know, it was really good for me. I'm probably one of the few people that has been to strange Way Prison, not once, but twice. I'm pleased to say that was to play football where we played against the inmates and it went surprised you to learn you'll probably be pleased to learn we always had to play away. Wow, that must have been interesting. Where did you play? I was goalkeeper and so at

strange ways of prison. To this day I never forget. I basically fouled an attacker, gave away a penalty and one of the inmates came up to me and he said, if you know what's good for your son, you'll let this in and did okay. Very interesting, so then you know, fast forwarding to where we are now, you've been involved in campaigning, funding and supporting Braxit for many years. You co founded leave dot e Dean, You've been really successful in business and you know you've got a lot of

chargeable causes. Why is it so important to you to be involved in politics? Now? What? What? What draws you to it? I've always been drawn to it. I've always had an interest in it. I like being involved in well run businesses and I have a simple expression. If the country was one as well as a well managed, lean efficient business, then frankly would all be in a

much better place. And I always said to myself, I'd want to do give will take thirty years in business and then try and give something back to public life. What have you made of former Prime Minister David Cameron's new book On the Record, quite a candid account of his time in office. I haven't actually read it. I'm sort of hoping someone might give it to me for Christmas. Generally I read books on an iPad, but it would be great if someone gives it to me. I've seen

some of the serialization. I think, obviously I have to be grateful to Cameron because he gave us the referendum. What I'm not grateful for was his disgraceful involvement in Project Fear. What he should have done as Prime Minister is he should have basically said, look, this is my view. I'm going to say it a couple of times, and then I'm going to act as a a presidential style referee and call out both sides if they talk a lot of nonsense. If he had done that, he would

still be Prime Minister. He didn't. He got stuck in the weeds. He chose the wrong side. He was heavily involved in Project Fear, which turned out to be a load of complete nonsense, and the rest is history. So Brexit has divided friends and family throughout the country. Boris Johnson has recently found that have your friendships or relationships suffered as a result of Brexit? Are your have your

friends with many remainers at all? Yes, No, I am, And I would say a sizeable chunk of my friends votes that what I would call moderate remain voters, almost all of them now would actually vote leave on the basis of democracy and how the he has behaved since. Where I've actually really lost people on on a much more sort of the base of angst and anger is

actually in the business community. I mean the real estate community in London, you know, I mean some people have been absolutely I mean they've just just gone off the chart. So you know, stuff happens. And when you put your head above the parapet, and you know, most of the business community are not brave enough to do that. But if you put your head about the parapet, you know, the grief, the angst, the victory old comes. It comes over in bucket loads. And yeah I use Twitter, and yeah,

I mean the abuse is is hysterical, It's ridiculous. I didn't look at it. My kids do it upsets them, I'm broad shouldered. It's the nature of what is great actually is when people on the street just come up and say thank you so much, and I get loads of that. Please keep going, keep battling for the country. Lots of hoots and toots from the taxi community, the black cabs, great group of brexiteers. You know, quite a

few of them. Give me free cab rides. Yeah, you know, you know your friends are sounds all right outside of business and politics. What do you do for fun? For fun? So over the years, you know, I've played a fair but golf. Skiing is my big thing. I used to do five side soccer until recently calling it soccer. What was the soccer football? You know? So that, but no, skiing is skis my big thing. I've recently got into

into cycling and spin classes. I would say I'm sort of moderate at its stroke, a stroker, a bit of a clueless amateur, but it's it's great exercise. I love it. And a Liverpool fan as well, yeah, and been a very patient Liberal fan over over many decades, since the mid seventies. But you know, this could be our year. This player well over the years, I mean, you know, Douglas was sort of probably my my hero, but obviously at the moment it has to be Salah, yes, of course.

And finally, how would you describe yourself in three words? Goodness me, I'm an optimist, the glass is always half full, it's never half empty, optimist, optimist, optimist, optimist, optimist, optimist, bridget Tice, thank you very much, great to be here. That was Ed Stapley in conversation with Brexit Party chairman Richard Tys. I hope you enjoyed that chat as much

as I did. Our new podcast series, Out of Office Conversations about Life and Leadership, launches on January sixt and you'll be able to catch all the episodes on the Bloomberg Terminal, on our website bloombug dot com, on Apple podcasts, or on Spotify. We are also on Twitter, where a handle is simply at podcasts. We'd love it if you could take a minute to rate and review our show, so please do that if you can, and I really hope you'll join us again for more candid, informal conversations

with newsmakers. This episode was produced by Laura Carlson. I'm Malika Kapoor. You can find me at This is Malika on Twitter. Thank you for listening.