John Whittaker is a British businessman and property mogul. He is the Chairman of the Peel Group, a property investment enterprise that mainly invests in North West England. Although publicity-shy, he has been named as one of the most influential business leaders for Greater Manchester and the North West by the ManchesterEvening News and was named the most influential northerner by The Big Issue magazine in 2010 thanks to his large investments in North West England and wider afield in Northern England. According to The Sunday TimesRich List in 2019, Whittaker is worth £1.95 billion, a decrease of £300 million from 2018.
In the 1980s he fought a bitter battle to take over the Manchester Ship Canal Company, out of which the Trafford Centre emerged. Whittaker sold the 1.5m sq ft Trafford Centre to Capital Shopping Centres in January 2011. Under the terms of the deal, which valued the Manchester scheme at £1.6 billion, his company, Peel, took shares in CSC worth £636m and he joined its board as deputy chairman. In 2010, his wealth doubled from £1.01 billion to £2.07 billion, mainly thanks to the £1.65 billion sale of the Trafford Centre. In 2011, Peel bid to increase its approximately 30% stake in the Pinewood Studios Group to 100% through a bid against fellow billionaire, Mohamed Al Fayed. After increasing the bid to £96.1 million, it appeared the bid would be successful. The group also bought MediaCityUK, a development in the northern English city ofSalford, Greater Manchester, that will serve as the BBC’s new headquarters. In 2013, Peel Group started an Ocean Gateway project, aiming to transform 50 miles of industrial land between the Port of Liverpool and Salford Docks into a £50 billion redevelopment called “Ocean Gateway”. Whittaker hoped the Manchester development would become a Chinese business hub. He accompanied the Prime Minister on his trade mission to Beijing in 2010. According to The Sunday Times Rich List in 2019, Whittaker is worth £1.95 billion, a decrease of £300 million from 2018. In June 2019, The Sunday Times reported that Peel was liquidating stakes in Peel Ports and Liverpool airport to cover losses at Intu Properties where Peel Group owned 27.3%.
Business reputation
Whittaker has been regarded as a publicity-shy businessman who rarely gives interviews. In 2010 when Simon Property Group attempted to purchase the Trafford Centre, insiders saw Whittaker as "formidable opposition" and a "very astute, very clever and a very good businessman". One such example of his astute business mind was convincing the BBC to reject three other sites across Manchester to move to MediaCityUK in Salford Quays. The presence of the BBC would then act as a magnet to attract indie production companies to Salford and the Peel Group would make money from the rent and lease agreements on the development.
