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PR guru Matthew Freud generated a £40mn dividend from a restructuring of his subsidiaries last year, making him one of the UK marketing industry’s wealthiest bosses.
Freud 3.0, the holding company for the entrepreneur’s businesses, received a dividend payment of £40mn in 2023, according to filings at Companies House.
The accounts, which were filed this week, show that Freud has split his business into three. The filing said that his interests had “diversified from marketing and communications, with operations set up and acquisitions taking place within both the hospitality sector as well as private office investments”.
The demerger of the company took place in July 2023, resulting in three new groups: Freud 4.0, Freud Hospitality and Freud Investments.
As part of this restructuring, the company received dividends of £40mn from its subsidiaries, which it said were partly offset by a loss on disposal of subsidiaries of £8.9mn.
The money was held in the company’s reserves, however, rather than paid out directly to the PR boss. Instead, a dividend of just £137 was paid during 2023. Freud owns 100 per cent of the various holdings companies.
Freud has a reputation as one of the best connected PR troubleshooters in the UK, and was married to Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert Murdoch, until 2014. He is the great grandson of Sigmund Freud.
The British entrepreneur has been diversifying his activities in recent years. In 2023, he opened the Bull hotel in Burford, Oxfordshire, near where he has a Grade I listed Jacobean manor, and a second hotel, The Highway Inn, launched this summer.
He also has acquired a parade of shops in the Cotswolds town of Burford that will be turned into art galleries and retail outlets, according to those familiar with the situation, with plans to continue to grow this hospitality portfolio.
Freud has also invested in a number of start-ups through his private office. These have ranged from London ice-cream maker Hackney Gelato, brandy brand Burnt Faith and darts-based bar chain Flight Club to tech-focused groups such as Clarity AI and British healthcare company Huma, according to a person close to the investment strategy.
Freud last year won an Oscar for producing the short film animation of Charlie Mackesy’s best-selling book, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. In his acceptance speech, he apologised to “my children, my girlfriend and my colleagues at Freuds for basically being absent over the past two years”.
As a result of the dividend payment from its subsidiaries, the filing shows that Freud’s holding company registered a pre-tax profit of £30.7mn in the year, from £472,392 last year. Freud declined to comment on the company accounts.